Portraits

I have to confess that I have gone to Sears Portrait Studio a couple of times in the last year and have tried to get them to take a good picture of me and Boo Boo together. We have a couple of cute pictures, but they are usually so posed. So I was really happy to see how natural this picture of us laughing in a pumpkin patch came out. No fakey-lights and "picture smiles." (Of course, there is a double chin, but its relevance is outweighed by the giggling boy). And the cool thing is, we even kind of match. Although that part was accidental.

And as long as we are sharing pictures, here's the fam dressed up at a Halloween party this weekend. R scared little children, several people asked me who I was supposed to be (Harry Potter, DUH!) and Boo Boo was cute as Elmo.

Life was all smiles until Daylight Savings Time entered our worlds. Sunday and Monday Boo Boo woke up around 4:30 am, and was ready for breakfast. As in half a banana, cantaloupe, Eggo mini waffles, and half a NutriGrain bar. Not a little cup of milk and then another 2 hour nap. He would not go back to sleep, no matter how much we begged. And then you saw this:

Just kidding, of course. But we have been starting our days rather early. As a girlfriend of mine said, whoever invented Daylight Savings Time surely must not have had kids. Here's hoping we all adjust soon.

Thursday Thirteen

I've been starting little drafts of blog entries that I haven't been able to turn into full entries because they just aren't all that interesting--nobody cares what I had for lunch, right? But maybe if I make into a list of 13 things that I've been thinking about lately, you will get a sense of what's been going on with me.

1. If you were going to make a snap judgment about someone with only the following information, what would you conclude about the person? Here's the 411: first time mother, lawyer, 4 pediatricians in 13 months. Would you say demanding? Pushy? Annoying? I swear I'm not any of those things. I just want an able, experienced, competent doctor who will answer my questions without a God-complex. I don't think that's too much to ask. With that goal in mind, I'm switching pediatricians again. I fired my first pediatrician when Boo Boo was 2 weeks old--she didn't believe me about a problem I identified with Boo Boo's breathing, and blew me off as a nervous new mom. But a little trip to the pediatric ENT (always go with your gut!) confirmed there really was an issue that is all resolved now, but it was REAL and a BIG DEAL at the time. I stuck with my second pediatrician through 8 ear infections. So see, I am loyal. But I fired pedi #2 because I got frustrated that he would prescribe antibiotics and send me on my way. In retrospect, maybe that's all he could have done. But he never told me if one infection was more severe than the last, why he was changing the medication, and never sympathesized with how they were totally screwing up our household's sleep and sanity. And when I asked these questions and more, he was always in a rush. Once I asked him about getting our baby to sleep through the night and he told me to read to Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution. I told him I had read it while pregnant, thought it was good, but in post-partum reality, it was too touchy feely for us. He then told me he'd never use it himself, he was planning to use Ferber. So why give advice you won't follow yourself? Plus he was very young, and his only son was younger than ours, so if I wasn't sleeping, I knew he wasn't. My third pediatrician was recommended to me by 2 different moms at Boo Boo's school. But last week when I took him in for his coughing, pedi #3 told me it was a virus and recommended I take him out of that "germ fest" (daycare) that I had him in and that I should get a nanny. When I tried to explain my reasons for my choice, she was adamant that a nanny was the way to go. She made me cry because she said if I didn't take him out of his montessori school, I was knowingly putting my child at risk for more illnesses. So now we are going back to the practice of pedi #2, but will see a different doctor. This is a compromise position between R and me. I wanted to go to a different practice in the Medical Center, but since R has to take him to the doctor, R gets a say too. But if we are unhappy, we'll just switch again.

2. Document review is boring. I'd rather be blogging.

3. I'm a little obsessive about making sure Boo Boo has balanced meals. For dinner he always gets some sort of veggie, a fruit, a rice/bread/pasta, and turkey or chicken and milk. R laughs at me because I don't even give him the same vegetable at night that he had for lunch at school. Usually I like to buy organic stuff (within reason) or things without a lot of additives and sodium and whole wheat pasta. But the other night I made Hamburger Helper, the Cheeseburger Macaroni flavor, which broke all my personal food guidelines. Hey, there are some nights you cannot be too elaborate. I make it with cut up chicken breast cooked with a little garlic and chilli powder instead of meat. I figured that the Chicken Helper they have at the store can't be that different from the Hamburger Helper and that it would work fine. It did not. The meal did not taste good at all. I don't know if the grease from the ground meat was missing, or if the little pieces of hamburger absorb the cheese sauce in a way that chicken does not, but it was really, really bad. Don't try it. Trust me.

4. One of Boo Boo's favorite things at his school (other than the blue circle wooden puzzle piece--he's not into the green triangle or the yellow square, apparently, blue circles are his fave) is the toy kitchen that they have. He loves opening the cabinets and the dishwasher and banging the pots around. My mother in law asked me if he would like it if she bought him this kitchen. R overheard me say yes and started to say that he didn't think it was a good idea. I was tired, and I interrupted him and said it would be great, and basically went off on gender stereotyping, and how if a boy wanted to play with a kitchen it was no big deal, besides, there were boys in the picture, it was blue, and R quietly puts his hand on my back and says, "Sweetie. I meant that we don't have the space for it. The kitchen should be smaller or stay at grandma's." Oh! Riled up for nothing. I'm so lucky to have my understanding R.

5. I've decided to spend my Eid money for new monogrammed nightgowns. I think I will get one knee length and one mid-calf length. Mine are all worn out. They seem to have gotten more use in the last year with waking up night, being on maternity leave, having leaky boobs, and also having a kid who likes to wipe his nose on you. (see 10 below.) And love my name and/or initials on things. Remember that trend about 2 years ago where girls were wearing initial tee-shirts and sweaters? Did you know they only came in popular letters, like J and R and S and T? Try finding an F anywhere. It was hard. So I bought 2 tees at Old Navy for $8, and had F's put on them at one of those little stands in the mall.

6. When I get back from lunch and have a voicemail waiting, I always get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, especially if it's Friday afternoon. I call this "Red Light Syndrome." You never know if it's going to be a partner giving you more work, or a buddy saying Hi, give me a call when you get a chance so we can catch up. I've started telling R to just email me and not leave me a voicemail so I don't freak out each time that red message light comes on.

7. I was interviewed by a legal periodical last week about alternative career paths for attorneys at lawfirms. I didn't want the reporter to twist my words so I wrote out all my points ahead of time. I hope the story is positive.

8. I've been enjoying the train-wreck that is the Bachelor again this season. I do wish, however, that there were two things girls were absoultely not allowed to say: 1) "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to win XYZ's heart" or some such variation; and 2) "She's not here for the right reasons." This drives me crazy. First, how hard is it to be nice, even if your goal is to catch the Batchelor's eye? And what exactly are the "right reasons"? This season, Erica, the princess from Houston that got booted cracked me up. She was actually kind of real when she said she'd been judged her whole life for having money and thought Lorenzo would understand. And I liked her exit line which was something like: "Rich, smart boy rescues poor, dumb girl and they live happily ever after. I'm so over that fairy tale. What about a man wanting an equal?" Also, why don't they ever have new seasons of The Batchelorette?

9. Halloween is coming up! Whee! R and I are big nerds. He is dressing up as Darth Vader, and I'm going to be Harry Potter. Seriously. He even has a light saber that makes the cool noises and I have a stuffed plush owl. Boo Boo is going to be the afore-mentioned Elmo. We have a Fall Festival at his school to go to, and I don't think most parents will be dressed up in suburban Houston, but we will be. We'll either be the cool parents, or the weird ones. I'm going with weird, because like I said, our costumes give away our nerdiness. But I'm fine with that! Pictures to come.

10. My pants had a bad day yesterday. First, Boo Boo decided to wipe his nose on them after breakfast. Why is that he hates me wiping his nose, but doesn't mind rubbing his snot all over my shirts or pants? They were khaki. I figured it would dry clear and wouldn't change color too much, so I didn't change my clothes before leaving the house. But it was bad pant karma day. I spilled coke, which I rarely drink at work, on them when I was putting a binder away on a shelf and it fell, knocking sticky cola on to my thighs. And then, the air conditioning above my seat on the Metro bus on the way home leaked some dirty black water on me on the way home. My day was fine. My pants have been better.

11. R and I are building a house. We signed the contract with our builer in May. We finally have our preconstruction meeting on Monday and then they will break ground, almost 6 months later. So I am sure you will be getting little updates from me about tile, leveling tools, inspections, and blue taping soon. Fun, fun, fun!

12. I got a letter the other day that said Dear M. FFF. Sometimes I get letters that say Dear Mr. F instead of Dear Ms. FFF. Is M. FFF a new way of letting the recepient know you care enough to give them a title, but can't tell if they are a boy or a girl, and so to be safe, M. is used instead of risking Mr. or Ms. being wrong? I've never seen that before. Maybe the typist just forgot the second letter between the M and the period?

13. Last night I had to but some Nyquil so I ran in to Target (with my dirty pants on, see 10 above) with a $10 bill while R and Boo Boo stayed in the car. Did you know that because of the homemade cough syrup meth problem, Target requires you to show your id when buying certain over the counter medications? It's not that I mind so much that some Target mainframe knows I bought Nyquil last night, its just that I had to go back out to the car to get it and stand in line AGAIN. Yuck.

This and that

Boo Boo now drinks organic whole milk. We usually buy Horizon or Borden’s half gallon containers. Have you noticed that regular milk expires in about a week, but organic milk, regardless of brand, always has an expiration date of at least six weeks away? I’m not sure why that is. Is it because there are no hormones in it to break it down? Is it ultra-pasteurized? The web links I got when googling “organic milk expiration date” were to articles that suggest organic milk is pasteurized at very high temperatures and then the carton is sealed differently. Has anyone heard about this?

Also, a little anecdote to share one more way R and I know we’re parents. Boo Boo has this Elmo book that shows all the things Elmo can do: drink from a cup, say Mama, touch his toes, etc. Then the last page of the book asks how big Elmo is, and a giant pop up Elmo comes out of the page with the words SO BIG! We have read that book to Boo Boo at least 300 times. The pop-up Elmo has received a lot of love, so he’s taped and scraggly. SO BIG, said with the SOOO stretched out and said in the high-pitched talking-to-the-baby voice has now officially entered our lexicon. The other day, R was complaining about how long receipts are getting. Target attaches gift receipts to your regular receipt, which is fine, but grocery stores have sweepstakes, survey and gas price information at the end of your total, as well as the extra coupons they print. When R puts them in his wallet, he has to fold them over, or rip off the bottom, and his wallet gets full. To vent he said “I can’t believe these receipts are getting SOOO BIG, I’m tired of all the extra paper” and just kept on talking without even realizing he had used his Elmo book voice for those two words.

Age

Actual email exchange between me and a girlfriend I was setting up a lunch date with yesterday--

FFF: Salad place at 11:45 today?
Friend: Si si...senora
FFF: Hey now. I'm a senorita.
Friend: Did you get rid of R while I wasn't looking?...you only get to be a senorita if you don't have a wedding ring...So...we're both in the senora class. :)
FFF: Don't get all technical on me. Senora sounds old. Seriously, whenever I'm trying to get a group of my friends together, and I'm writing an email to them, I start it with "you guys" or "girls." It makes me cringe when someone includes me in an email that starts "ladies." Unless Madonna is talking to me and my friends in Vogue when she says "Ladies with an attitude." Then its okay.

~I'm 30. I'm very comfortable with where I am in my life. Sometimes I feel younger than what 30 implies in my mind. My little sister's best friend, P, just had her second child. I grew up with this girl. I helped my sister and P skip school for the first time. They were two giddy with glee middle-schoolers that spent the day on the University of Houston campus and had a blast. And now P has two kiddos. She's 27, not 15, so I don't know why it makes me feel weepy. I think it's because I sort of mostly think of myself in my late-twenties.

Other times I think of myself as this wise, together Working Mother (hey, I have a magazine named after my demographic, just like Seventeen or CosmoGirl), but after I've been in that place for about 5 seconds, something alway happens to make me realize I haven't got a clue.

Ah well, it's all about how you feel. I'm going to make up some additional lyrics to the Martina McBride song. She skips from 25 to 42, and there is so much good stuff in between. How about this:

This one's for all you girls about thirty-two,
reading Freakanomics and Winnie the Pooh
With work and baby, you've got a lot on your plate,
but if you stop to think, you'll see life is pretty great.

Cheesy, I know. Hey, I said I was content, I didn't say I was a brilliant lyricist.

More Cheese, Please

Everyone has bizarre talents. My husband can pick up all kinds of objects that are on the floor with just his toes. He can assemble Ikea furniture without looking at the instructions. He can remember phone numbers after having dialed them once. These are generally useful skills. As for me, my talents are not quite so practical. I can eat almost anything without smudging my lipstick. I can pop a grape in my mouth and peel it with just my teeth and tongue—no fingers.

Today, I discovered one of Boo Boo’s useless talents. I made him some macaroni and cheese for dinner, and I threw in some mixed vegetables. After every bite, he spit out the peas, carrots, corn and lima beans. Not even a thin layer of cheese remained on the veggies. None of the veggies had even the small indentation of a little tooth. Folks, my kid ate all the cheese, all the pasta, licked each veggie and then spit it out. All without using his hands. I’m so proud.

What can you do that's weird? Or what can't you do? Confession: I cannot snap my fingers. Many people have tried to teach me. Apparently, it's just not possible.

Questions for today

Play along in the comments if you have an opinion on any of these--

1. What do you think about re-gifting?

If someone give you a gift that is perfectly nice, and either the wrong size, or just not your taste, can you pass it on to someone else as a gift? I think if you know it will be the right size for the person you are re-gifting too, or if it will be their taste, its fine to do, as long as it looks new. But there are some exceptions. If the gift came from someone special, I'd keep it any way. If the gift wasn't nice, I wouldn't pass on. If the person I was giving the gift to was special or important to me, I'd get them something myself and not pass on a re-gift.

2. Do you keep your peanut butter/ Nutella/ bread/ bananas in the fridge, or on the counter / in the pantry?

I keep bread in the fridge so it lasts longer. I keep Nutella and peanut butter in the pantry so its easier to spread. If I just have a couple of bananas, and I'll eat them fast, I keep them out. Otherwise I'll put them in the fridge so they'll keep longer.

3. Why don't Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh wear pants?

They get cold on top but not on the bottom. On cool day, you will often see me in sweat pants and a t-shirt, while R is in a sweatshirt and shorts. The top and bottom halves of bodies can be different temperatures, I tell you!

4. Why is that with all of today's medical advances, doctors have not found a more comfortable way for babies to cut teeth?

No idea. Seriously, we can do heart transplants and map the human genome but can only offer an infant Tylenol and a cold teething ring to ease the pain?

Boo Boo

I've come to the conclusion that a thirteen month old acts quite a bit like a drunken midget that has attention deficit disorder. Boo Boo is this short little person that teeters when he walks, giggle uncontrollably if I sneeze or say "no", runs into things, knocks over an entire pile of books just to get to the one he wants, and can't sit still. But he does look cute in a baseball cap.

Last night, we tried on his Elmo costume so that he could get used to the idea of a furry head on top of his own. There's a Fall Festival at his montessori school with booths, games, and a costume parade that he gets to dress up for at the end of the month, and I want him to be comfortable in the costume. (I don't think it's PC to call such events Halloween parties anymore. Because you know, Halloween is pagan). He did pretty well. Gratuitous baby pictures follow!

Too Soon

This weekend at the grocery store, there was a giant snow globe bubble with a dancing, singing Snowman. Like this:



It's not Halloween yet. I probably like singing Christmas carols more than the average person, but it's just too soon. I'm looking forward to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown coming on T.V. before I can think of Frosty.*

* Unless its the chocolaty dessert from Wendy's. That I can do now.

Lessons from Working

Right before I turned 16, I started working to save money for college. My very first job was at a fabric store after school. I worked at Cloth World, cutting fabric for our customers by the yard, organizing the patterns, and doing basic stocking and cashiering. Minimum wage was $3.85. Mr. Barnes, the manager smoked in the back room where we punched in and out, and he let me start working even though I was not quite 16. After my first four hour shift, I was exhausted. Carrying those bolts of cloth back and forth and squatting on the floor to organize the patterns made my arms sore. Some customers had not been happy with my jagged, uneven cutting, and when my mom came to pick me up, I flopped down on the back seat and told her about my day. She sympathized, and then suggested that I treat the family to pizza that evening since I had made enough money to order a large 2 topping. "That's crazy!" I remember saying. There was no way that the $15 or so that I had earned that day was going to one pizza that would get consumed and leave me with nothing to show for it after that long 4 hour shift. My mom grinned, and said that dinner was ready at home, and that she had just wanted to see what I would say. My dad used to always tell my sister and I that just because something was on sale or a good deal didn't mean we had to buy it. We listened, but there is nothing like actually experiencing your first lesson in the value of money and hard work.

I lasted at Cloth World about 2 months, and then, it was the summer time so I was free all day and I got two jobs--a lunch shift at Wyatt's Cafeteria, and an evening shift at Drug Emporium. Minimum wage had gone up to $4.25, but at my Wyatt's interview, the manager said they would pay me $4.75 because I spoke English well, and could push the cart after I learned how the cafeteria worked. I really didn't understand the remark--I was so grateful for the exta fifty cents an hour because no one paid highschool kids above minimum wage. After I started working there, I realized that a large part of the workforce spoke only Spanish or just a very little bit of English. And it was sad to see that some of the women who had been working at Wyatts for three or four years as cooks, dishwashers, or bussing tables only made $4.35 or $4.50 an hour because of the language issue.

Soon I graduated from working the vegetable line (I can still scoop a mean helping of mashed potatoes with an icecream scoop) to pushing the iced tea cart at Wyatt's. Bringing people extra silverware or lemons wasn't hard. But I also had to refill iced tea. My parents are from South Asia and they always drank hot tea at home, so I'd never actually made or tasted iced tea before. I knew how to brew tea, of course, so I dumped tea bags in hot water, waited for the water to turn the appropriate shade of brown, removed the tea bags, dumped in some ice, and poured the mixture into my refill pitcher. A sweaty mailman asked for an iced tea refill and was disgusted by what I poured in his glass. There was still steam rising from the hot tea water, and my poor little icecubes had melted. In fairness, someone should have told me that iced tea has to be very cold, because I just didn't know. I quickly learned how seriously Texans take their tea. (They don't even have to say "iced." Tea means Iced Tea, Hot Tea means the other kind. It's a good thing Wyatt's didn't have the additional complicating option of Sweet Tea and Unsweetened Tea).

One Christmas break between my sophomore and junior year of college, I cashiered at a grocery store for about 3 weeks. A boy from my highschool debate class that I had kind of had a crush a few years back came in to the store. He had graduated a year or two ahead of me and we had gone to different colleges but he recognized me, and I guess he assumed I worked as a cashier full time. I was really embarassed at the time when he said, "FFF! I expected more from you!" Looking back though, it was pretty rude. What if I hadn't saved enough money to go to college?

I've also been a substitute teacher, a tutor, a receptionist, and a research assistant. Working in college is good for kids, I think. It teaches them how to juggle a schedule, the value of a dollar, how to save, and how sometimes, bosses aren't fair. If nothing else, it teaches that you better finish school and get the degree so you don't have to keep scooping mashed potatoes. I hope I can afford to pay for my son's college education so he can to the best school he gets in to without worrying about the expense. But even if I can, I think he should have a part-time job. There are some things you just can't learn out of a text book.

ISO Romance

When I was in lawschool, I worked at the Houston Press in the Personal Ads section to make some extra money. The Houston Press is a free, alternative newspaper, and I had the best title ever: "Assistant Romance Director." It was great job title to put on my resume because every potential employer was interested in what I did as an Assitant Romance Director. My job was mainly to type in ads, pick the ad of the week, and help with the happy hour/mixer parties.

While working there, I was amazed at the number of married folks who look around on the side. We got some crazy ads while I worked there. My favorite was a Men Seeking Women ad in which the man was seeking a "Victoria's Secret model look-alike that owned a bar and needed some loving." Yah right.

Sometimes I glance through the personals to see what they are doing differently, and Houstonians never disappoint. If you want to help a man claim his inheritance, or if you are a midget interested in a one night stand, the Houston Press personals can help you out.

Tomorrow I will tell you about my less glamorous jobs, which include scooping mashed potatoes at Wyatt's cafeteria (like Luby's). What has been the most interesting job you've had?

Annoyance of the Day

Does anyone know how to stop computer speakers from going beserk and static-y if you have your cell phone or blackberry charging near them, other than turning them off? If my computer speakers are on, and I get a call on my cell phone, or if my blackberry searches for new messages, or if either of those devices are plugged in and charging, my speakers go crazy. It's a radio frequency thing. When a call comes in or the device checks for updates, the electronic pulse triggers the speakers. But I swear, it's worse than nails on a chalkboard in terms of the cringe-factor.