Is It Worth It?

Today was absolutely exhausting. I made plans to meet the moms in my mommy group at this playground that's nestled in the middle of an outdoor shopping center which has one of those fountains that shoots water up from the ground and the kids run through it like a sprinkler. Sounds great!! right? So, the meeting time is 10am and the fountain shoots water at 11am. Usually Bubu is napping at 10am but today he woke up late and I thought, perfect, we'll skip that morning nap and just sleep in the afternoon. So, we get in the car at 9:45am and Bubu falls asleep on the way to the playground. Okay, no big deal, we'll deal with it. He woke up after just a short nap, which I knew wasn't quite long enough, but whatever, we went to go play.

He seemed to have fun throughout the time we spent there, even though he got stuck in a tunnel and I had to climb up in a toddler size tunnel to rescue him. Remember this is a 9 month pregnant mom climbing up into a plastic yellow tunnel. But you do what you gotta do. He got shot in the face by the fountain but after he recovered from that trauma he seemed to have fun. He kept running toward the street and I had to run and almost tackle him about 4-6 times but after those tantrums subsided he seemed to be having fun. Finally, I had enough and it was getting to be lunch time so as Bubu screamed I strapped him into the stroller and packed us up to leave. All with a big fake sweet smile on my face so the other moms in my group wouldn't think I was going to go home and slit my wrists.

We made it through the remainder of the day. The afternoon was a little "off" due to the weird napping scenario, the eating was off, the poopies were off, everything was a little more difficult. So here's my question: Was it worth it to break our happy little routine to go to the playground?

I know that on occasion we will break routine, and it's okay. We all survive and make it to live another day, but let's simplify the question. Was today worth it?

The Grocery Store Dilemma

I am a member of this mommy group and we have these playdates at each others house every so often. One of the reasons I like to go to these things is to get ideas for toys, decor, and of course to make friends. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, and for Bubu to play with some other little kids. So, one of the more organized moms had a calendar up with what their family was going to have for dinner EVERY night for the whole month! Wow. I mean, I gotta admit, it was impressive. I personally did not go so far as to do that myself but I thought it might work for me to have a weekly chart for dinners in order to help with my full time job as CEO of the Thornton household: the Roseville location.

So I pulled out a whiteboard from behind the washing machine, dug up some dry erase markers, and went to town! I am also CFO of the company and so I thought this idea would help staying within my grocery store budget too. I make my list and every Monday, Bubu and I head to the grocery store to get the 14 items we need. Here's the issue, I end up with approximately 38 to 50 items. I always wonder, how does this happen? Why do I even bother making a list? Is the problem that I'm sporadically on the phone throughout the store? Or is it because I'm prying pudding boxes out of Bubu's hands 25% of the time? Or maybe it's the playing peekaboo around the corner of each aisle that's too much of a distraction for me?

Regardless, I'm consistently over budget.

Babies R Us: A Necessary Evil

Let me just start by saying I hate this store. I remember the first time I ever set foot inside one of these stores with my girlfriend who didn't have any kids either, I was pregnant with Bubu and had to register there so we decided to try and tackle the task together. I think she was crying at the end of it all. Maybe we were both crying. Anyways, that was probably 2 years ago and ever since then, I have had to go to this store in multiple cities for a wide variety of baby items and it is somehow always a very poor experience.

So yesterday, I needed an umbrella stroller, sensitive skin baby wipes, shoes for Bubu, and maybe an outfit for my unborn daughter. I could have gone to Target, my favorite store, but then I still would have to get the stroller at Babies R us so I thought, fine. I'll suck it up and go to the dreaded locale. We get there, find the umbrella stroller on clearance, yay! So how much is the clearance price? Not posted. And with Bubu in tow, there's a limited amount of time to dilly dally before a meltdown. Okay fine, I got over it and moved on to find a stroller with a price tag and picked that up instead. Then I go to the shoe section. None in his size. I mean not one pair of size 7 baby shoes. Seriously. Okay fine, moving along. I skip the outfit because I hate this store. I go to the checkout area and get in line where a seemingly harmless Hispanic grandma is wandering around. She must think I'm Hispanic also (a common misconception) and she takes a strange liking to Bubu. She proceeds to come over and actually touch his face while making goo goo ga ga sounds in Mexican. It's totally odd and I can tell Bubu is getting freaked out by her but what do you do? Tell her to F*** off and quit touching my kid in Mexican? I thought that might be inappropriate nor do I know how to say that in Mexican so I just stared at her and tried to console Bubu as much as possible until the checkout girl called me up.

I get to the checkout girl, everything normal here and we've escaped from the weird Hispanic grandma. Whew! I grab the stroller and put it in the cart and the other items are in a stack on the counter and I'm waiting for the girl to put it all in a bag for me because we're not at Costco, right? Bag up my stuff so I can get out of this hellish nightmare of a store please. The girl walks away, comes back, calls the next customer...okay I'm confused, why isn't she bagging up my stuff for me? Then the bitch asks me to move aside so the next customer can checkout. Just for some insight as to who I am, let me just tell you what I normally would have done if my child wasn't in front of me and I wasn't trying to set some kind of good example for him; I would have said, "Are you F***ing kidding me right now? Put my s*** in a bag you stupid whore. Why do you think I'm standing here in your s***** store, you loser?" BUT of course, I couldn't go that route in front of Bubu so instead I said, "Can I have a bag please?"

She didn't give me a bag by the way. She gave me a lame excuse that my baby wipe box would break through any bag she had, which was a false statement. I'm an engineer. I know these things. But so I left, with my extremely poor experience once again at Babies R Us.

Grass is Greener Disease

I've got this disease called Grassisgreener. There is no known cure for it and I believe it affects about 3 out of 4 individuals. The first major sign of it was when I got an Industrial engineering degree in college and then due to my disease I thought I should test out a different industry. Then after a few years in that I went back to engineering and I am trying to find a job in that field again. Needless to say my fractured experience was probably not the best idea I have ever had, but it wasn't my fault...I have a disease!

So now, I've interviewed for a couple jobs up here in my very pregnant state and if I had taped those interviews, we could have an episode of the Office ready to air on TBS. Of course, I didn't get either of those jobs but regardless, I feel my disease creeping into my bloodstream again. For as long as I can remember, I have said that I want to be a working mom. Get daycare, get a nanny, get someone else to brush the kid's teeth for them, and I would continue to pursue my career. Because I am a career woman. I even went so far as to go on an interview for a job 8 months pregnant, seriously, I'll give you a moment to imagine what that looks like. It's ridiculous. But my disease is telling me that anything would be better than cleaning poopy diapers or scraping leftover mac and cheese off the kitchen floor.

Then this past Sunday afternoon, something happened. My husband and I decided to go see a movie. We went to drop off Bubu to a little daytime drop off hourly daycare spot (don't worry, it's a clean, nice place) and for the first time he totally started crying when we were leaving. I'm talking bawling, screaming, with tears. I realize it's a normal case of separation anxiety, but it was absolutely heartbreaking. I don't know what movie we saw or what it was about, all I could think of was getting Bubu out of there for the entire 90 minutes we were gone.

Now I'm wondering, is the grass is really greener in the working mom world?

Five More Weeks...

It's dawned on me that I only have about 5 more weeks till the new baby's due date. So basically I could go into labor at any moment from this point forward. Have I packed my hospital bag? No. Do I have her first outfit picked out to wear home from the hospital? No. What am I doing? I'm actually looking up stuff online I need for Bubu. It's the weirdest thing, I can't seem to focus on the whole "two-kid" scenario yet. I'm still a "one-kid-mom" now and so I'm getting summertime jammies for him, shoes for him, toys for him, baby pool for him.

I think splitting my focus will prove difficult for me. Will it just automatically happen the moment she's born? In the meantime, I'll get her an outfit today to wear home from the hospital at least. It's a start, right?

The American Idol Critique

I started watching American Idol about 4 seasons ago. I love it. There's something magical about someone singing a song so well, that it moves you to tears. And, of course, the first elimination trials are pretty funny and a necessary reminder of how many crazy people there are out there. So anyways, this season, with the new judges, has disappointed me. Not one judge gives any real criticism. Why are they even there anymore?? They're worthless. And don't get me wrong, I really love Steven Tyler and J Lo but I truly believe at least one of the judges needs to be the "Simon" and just deal with getting booed. Someone needs to tell the truth for entertainment value as well as maintaining the integrity of the show. How did James get kicked off before the others? He should have made it to the final two, if not win outright And I love Scotty for being from Garner, NC which is 10 min from my parents house back home, but there are two country singers in the final 3? really?

I'll watch the last of this season regardless though, BUT I'm not sure about watching another season of lame judges.

Love Hate Relationships

   Today is housekeeper day. I have a love-hate relationship with housekeeper day. This is because I will spend my entire morning cleaning prior to her arrival. It seems silly, right? Well, to every guy out there like my husband, it doesn't make sense, but I'm sure every woman out there knows what I mean. I love the result of my clean house, yet there's something really super annoying about cleaning for the housekeeper.

   Since my son was born, I have a love-hate relationship with my dog too. I love him when he entertains Bubu (that's my son's nickname) for a few minutes here and there. I hate him all other times. When I feed him, Bubu tries to eat his dog food. When I give him water, Bubu dumps the bowl and spills water everywhere. When I tear Bubu away, he has a meltdown. I can't leave the dog in the house when we leave because he gets upset and pees on the carpet so there's always an added step to getting ready to leave the house to run to the store for 5 minutes. And to top it all off, our dog needs Cesar Milan. He goes absolutely nuts if we see another dog outside, like vicious, I'm going to kill you, type of barking. Oh, did I mention he's a little 12 lb Havanese? But at night when he's sleeping on the couch next to me, I love him.

Attack of the Orange Teeth

So, as I was getting my little boy ready for bed tonight, I caught a disturbing glimpse of his front teeth right next to the gums and they were orange. Yes, I said orange. Not because he had been chewing on an orange crayon either. And yes, I have him brush his teeth every day but just a note to all you first time moms who might not know exactly what you're doing all the time, don't let your 1 year old brush his own teeth.

The Explanation of Curry

"Curry not casino" is one of my variations of  the phrase "dot not feather" used to explain what "kind" of Indian I am. I guess it's actually kind of sad that I have to use these phrases, but you'd be surprised. I'd say 95% of the time I am asked the question about what my ethnic background is, I have to follow my answer of "Indian" with either "slurpee not casino" or "curry not casino" or if that's inappropriate I just say "Indian, like from India."

As an experiment, on occasion, I have refrained from offering my clarification and the 2nd question I receive is "oh, that's what I thought! So are you Cherokee?" Sometimes I wonder what's worse: A) me making fun of the fact that people still refer to Native Americans as Indians, even though it's derogatory? or B) that most Americans don't even realize that you shouldn't call Native American people "Indians".

Definitely option B.

Introducing Curry

So, this is my first blogging attempt. Very exciting!! I have the time it takes my 16 month old son to eat about 8 more blueberries to write so this may be a short intro. Granted, I have Curious George babysitting so I might have time for a few extra sentences. I haven't decided if I actually want anyone to read this, it's just cathartic for me as of right now. Currently, I am 8 months pregnant, have a toddler, am a wife, and live in California. I try to keep life in a mild state of chaos just for entertainment purposes so that's what I plan to write about. Just for fun...so don't take me too seriously.