Pet Peeves

I wrote this list for no other reason than it was satisfying to write all these things down. 

1. My Husband is very energy conscious and almost never leaves a room without turning off the lights. The problem is that he’s too good at turning lights off and will turn off the garage light. As he installed the lights himself, he knows that California codes require these lights to be motion activated and will also automatically turn off. It’s not so much an issue now during Day Light Savings time, but it really pisses me off in the winter when I’m driving into a dark garage. 

2. Kate clings to my leg. I know this is just a thing that kids do, but I really hate it. I’m not sure why it pisses me off so much, but it does. Last time she tried, I made a fake kicking motion to her and sent her away crying to her daddy

3. “I want Daddy!” I should be much more understanding here, but sometimes I feel that she doesn’t appreciate how much I do for her and it feels like he gets so much credit for doing less work than me. She also tends to throw the “I want Daddy!” If I’m trying to discipline her, which really works the mom guilt

4. Husband sometimes chooses the worst times to do the “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. We were running late on one of my early days as Kate was stalling having her breakfast. I needed to get her dressed ASAP so we could head out the door. She started crying and fighting as soon as I put a shirt on her. Husband decided to be the smooth talking sensitive caring one at this moment. “Okay, honey. Why don’t you pick what you want to wear?” I went ballistic. “No! She lost her right to choose by taking so long during her breakfast! Furthermore, do you think she really gives a shit what she’s wearing? She’s just trying to stall some more!” (Of note, I do recognize that there is value in giving kids choices. Myrtle actually came up with a good idea to have Kate pick her clothes out the night before. That way she chooses as we save time. It was just killing me that Husband was so oblivious to the fact that I was running late)

5. I know I shouldn’t complain about a Husband who is good at cleaning up, but sometimes mine is just too efficient. Like when he unpacks the unused items out of her snack bag. Gee, thanks now I get to pack her bag all over again, when you could have just placed the bag in the pantry…

6. We’ve flown at least 7 or 8 times with Kate and every time, Husband asks which stroller I want to take. I get so annoyed that he doesn’t know after flying 7 or 8 times, but more so, that he can’t figure out, would I want to take the smaller, lighter, Britax stroller, or the larger, heavier, clunkier jogging stroller? Really, someone with a PhD should be able to figure this shit out on his own. I also find it annoying that he asks if I’m checking a bag when we have a connecting flight. This tells me he has not done enough solo flights to understand how the $25 bag fee is money well spent when it’s one less thing to schlep across the airport with your kid in tow.

7. Speaking of strollers, my mom keeps asking when we are going to get an umbrella style stroller. I recall from my Baby Gizmo book, the authors describe that you probably will use many different strollers over your kids lifetimes, but I haven’t seen the need to change from the two that we have. My mom borrowed an umbrella stroller from her neighbors during our visit and I know have an answer as to why we don’t use an umbrella stroller. I hate it. It’s flimsy. Kate got her feet stuck under the flexible foot rest and nearly had a bad fall. The handles are too low, there is no place for storage, especially no holder for your coffee cup. No thank you. 

8. Our washer and dryer are about 10 years old and the dryer is starting to slow down, which is odd, because we hang dry almost all of our clothes and only tumble dry bed linens, towels and Kate’s clothes. You have to use the ‘High’ temperature setting to get it to dry anything, which takes twice as long. So it really kills me when Husband overloads the dryer and nothing gets dry…

9. I cut Kate off from breastfeeding before it could ever get socially awkward with her lifting up my shirt in public. It didn’t matter. When she drinks her milk, she likes to stick her hand down my shirt and touch my chest. I get felt up every night during her bed time routine. 

10. The Blue Light. Yes, we have a Kuri.g as we’re horrible people and hate the environment. Actually, I am environmentally conscientious, but I happen to enjoy the ease and convenience of having the Kur.ig make a perfect cup every time with no messy coffee grounds. No stained pouring cup. No horrid smell of burnt coffee that dripped on the heater… Anyway… One morning, after a rough night of Kate not sleeping, Husband snapped at me for ignoring the blue -needs more water-light. I was in just as bad a mood and pointed out (probably mentioning that I was up more times than he was) that we was capable of filling the Kur.ig. I added that if the worst part of your day is that you have to fill the water reservoir of the Kur.ig when you didn’t empty it; well guess what? You’re still having a pretty good day. However… now I’m finding that I’m always the one getting stuck with the blue light. He probably has two or three cups of coffee to my one, and yet I seem to be the one filling up the water. It’s really irritating me. “If that’s the worst part of your day… then you’re still having a good day…” he recently reminded me. I could add having my own words used against me on this list of pet peeves, but as I look back… if this is what I have to complain about, then I’m enjoying a pretty good life. 

My Life as an ABC Afterschool Special..

It was a sleepy Monday morning. I trudged into the kitchen. I needed coffee. I hadn’t slept very well. Either Tyler or Kate had woken me up multiple times, I can’t remember who it was. Maybe it was combined effort to sabotage my slumber. As I was waiting for my Kur.ig to warm up, I saw Kate’s snack bag was sitting on the counter. I peeked inside to see if there was anything left in the bag. I saw something that looked like a rolled up wrapper. Kate sometimes peels the sticker off her Sarg.ento snacks, which are a small little round tray of cheese and dried fruits. Except I hadn’t given her a Sarg.ento snack over the weekend and when I looked closer, I discovered that it was not a rolled up wrapper. It was a joint. A freshly rolled marijuana joint.

As a wave of panic hit, I started to retrace my steps. I packed her bag on Friday night. No drugs included. We did a 5K run on Saturday morning and I kept the bag strapped to the back of her jogging stroller and then zipped in the underneath compartment. I don’t think I left it unattended long enough for anyone to stash the hash. We went to Safe.way in the afternoon and Kate rode in the blue car cart and I gave her the snack bag while we shopped. I usually check the car before she gets in, but the joint was small enough that I could have easily missed it. Then I remembered that during the chaos of unloading the cart, checking out and bagging up the groceries, I saw Kate’s snack bag on the ground and I admonished her to pick up her bag and I’m guessing she picked up something else. At least I’m hoping that she found it on the floor, rather than someone left it on a car cart. I left the snack bag in the car on Saturday night and just added the snacks we picked up from our race goodie bag. Then on Sunday, as we were driving to the Farmer’s Market, I handed her the snack bag full of drugs.

I was freaking out big time, for many reasons; but firstly because I am very drug naïve. This was my first encounter being this close to an actual joint. I am totally drug and disease free. I often joke that I am the only person living in California who has never tried pot. I have no idea how a bong works, let alone figure out how you can make one out of an apple. (Now I’m curiously paying close attention to the lyrics of The Bing Bong song on Pep.pa Pig) I would probably still miss most of the drug references on Scooby Doo.  When I watched Dazed and Confused, I was dazed and confused. (Although I did go around repeating the line “hey man, do you have a joint?... Sure’d be a lot cooler if you did…” BTW: I now have a joint; IT’S NOT COOLER!) It’s not that I had some sort of moral stance against it; it was mostly a lack of opportunity. I wasn’t cool enough for anyone to offer it to me when I was in my impressionable years. Then I just became older and comfortable in my life to realize that I probably wasn’t missing out of anything.

It’s not that I’m against it either. I’m in favor of legalization. I believe there is inherent racism within our justice system that has lead to the unfair incarceration of blacks and other minorities for possession and distribution. (While I’m not sure if I support her candidacy, I do applaud Cynthia Nixon for calling attention for the fact that minorities get jail time for marijuana use, it’s effectively legal for white people. She should have added ‘rich’ white people, but if this country can elect Trump after all the shit her said, then they can listen to a woman who speaks some truth) I believe in the benefits of medical marijuana and I think medicinal marijuana may play a role in solving the opioid epidemic. I’m down with Mary Jane. I just don’t want it in my daughter’s lunch bag!

Seriously, I was so not expecting to find drugs in my two year old’s lunchbox. This may be the reality of #bayareaparenting. Hey, if we were across the bay, I’d be worried about her finding dirty syringes and needles. What is mostly freaking me out is anticipating that one day I may open the lunch box and find a joint that actually belongs to her. We need to have the DATS talk. (DATS was the acronym from my gymnastics coach who gave us the pre-prom talk warning about the dangers of Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco and Sex) It’s just coming a lot sooner than I ever thought it would. We went to watch Husband umpire a hockey match at UC Berk.eley on 4/20 day and as soon as we stepped out of the car, I noted that ‘a skunk had sprayed’ (I shared my story with a fellow day care mom, who described that her son must think that our city is infested with skunks as she blames a skunk whenever they smell weed). We walked into town to get some dinner and I saw a guy selling bongs outside a store and we saw two guys rolling a fattie (I do know some of the lingo). I applied the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ She didn’t ask any questions, so I didn’t offer any explanations. Now, I’m questioning, was that a ‘missed opportunity’? I would have laughed at the idea of discussing drugs with my two year old, but that was before I found a joint in her lunchbox. If I don’t have the talk with her, someone else will. I just didn’t think it would be so soon and I’m not ready.

Right Now -May 2018

Reading: Nothing non-work related. Determined to make some progress in Lena Dunham’s Not that Kind of Girl while we’re in Hawaii

Watching: Game Two of the Western Conference SemiFinals. This game is a lot closer than Game One, despite having Steph back on the court.

Listening: A new radio station! A few weeks and I pulled my car into the garage and noted that it smelled like an iron-transfer. The smell lingered for a few weeks and was odd enough that I thought it was prudent to pay a few hundred dollars for the men at the dealership to tell me ‘we can’t find out why your car smells like an iron transfer, but we can’t find anything wrong’ (the smell dissipated a few days later). The guys changed my radio station, which usually really annoys me, except I really like this new station. Although I didn’t want to admit it, I was growing tired of the 80s all.the.time. The new station is classic rock, so still a lot of 80s, but also some hits from the 70s and a few from the 90s. Plus they play two songs in a row from the same artist.

Drinking: Propel Fitness water. I’m getting addicted to this stuff. I bought (2) 24 bottle cases from Costco and I just bought 8 more plus sized bottles from the reduced-to-clear section at Safe.way.

Eating: Doing better. I was within my calorie goal 5 of 7 days last week

Wearing: I’m still wearing my workout clothes as I didn’t make it to the gym; nor do any work in my garage. I don’t think I can be bothered to take off my sports bra and I’m likely going to be sleeping in it.

Loving: I’m really happy with my skin after using Rod.an and Fields skin care products. Don’t worry! I’m not a consultant and I don’t plan to be one! Actually I was turned off from R+F when a woman who used to work in my practice, friended me (we’ve never met in real life) just to get me to become a client. However, another friend posted photos of her amazing eyelashes, I became intrigued. She then showed before and after photos as she had her Husband use the Lash.Boost on one of his eyes and the difference was striking (although, yes men do have amazing eyelashes to begin with). Then I realized these were the same dermatologist who created the Proactiv system. It feels so full circle, Proactiv helped me with my adult acne in my twenties, now I need their old-lady product line in my forties. I was informed that it would take about two months to appreciate a difference, but my skin felt softer after only a few days of use and after using it for six weeks, Husband asked ‘did you get a beauty treatment? Your skin looks good’ which is pretty remarkable as he is generally oblivious.

Anticipating: Although there is still a lot that needs to be done, we’ll finally be able to enjoy our new back garden! (If only the weather would get a bit warmer) Pictures coming soon!

Hoping: I can maintain the friendships with the moms and kids from Kate’s current Day Care. I know it’s going to take a lot of work and I’ll obviously be out of the loop for a lot of things, but I’m committing myself to making the effort.

Following: The NBA playoffs. I don’t watch too many games in the regular season, but make sure to catch every playoff game. Oh, yeah and following the news to know the latest shit show in the Drumph administration

Trying: To improve my push-ups. Almost every CrossFit gym in the United States features the WOD “Murph” over Memorial Day weekend. It honors a solder killed in Afghanistan with 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 air squats followed by another mile run. The Rx way to do it is to so the reps straight through while wearing a weighted vest. Most regular people break the work into 20 sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats. This year my goals are to complete the WOD in under an hour, and I want to break into sets of 10. I feel confident that I can go at least 6-7 sets doing the pull-ups unbroken in 10s, but my push-ups need work to do sets of 10.

Fretting: Still about taking Kate away from her friends in her current Day Care. They really are a great group of kids. One boy in her class fractured his femur and has been out since March. His mom recently sent all the parents an email to let us know how positive all the kids have been to him since he has come to visit on a few occasions. She concluded, “thank you all for raising such amazing little humans” I keep reminding myself that the kids are her new school will be awesome too.

Planning: My strategery to get Kate night time trained. I was planning to do it after her third birthday, but as her diapers keeps leaking and she’s soaking the bed almost every night, I figure we should take a stab at it sooner rather than later, so I may do over Memorial Day weekend, since Husband is away and I have a very long weekend. It’s also the anniversary of when we started potty training, so once again, full circle. Dream pee, keeping a potty in the room, give me all your tips and tricks…

Contemplating: Using a local meal service.  Myrtle gave me a referral for a free week of Blue Apron, and I was a bit disappointed in the sense that it’s really a shopping delivery service, as you still have to do all the prep and cooking, which doesn’t make it worth the $13 per person per meal fee. There are a few businesses that offer already made meals from $8-12 per person and I can avoid the delivery fee as they drop off the food at our gym. That way I have to make it to the gym to pick up dinner...