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CommuterGirl’s vocabulary is growing every day…but it isn’t all English. I think she has picked up a combination of Pig Latin, Spanish, French, and Parseltongue.
She’s 18 months, and like any toddler, knows what she wants, when she wants it, but not always how to ask for it. This morning she had a minor meltdown because we couldn’t understand that she was asking for a waffle. “Wa wa.” I should have known! Her grandfather is Gramps…but somehow for CommuterGirl he is called Pete. (His real name isn’t anything close!)
I am so glad that we do a lot of sign language at home and at school. I can’t imagine raising a toddler without it. CommuterGirl can sign for water, milk, cookies (her favorite), eat, drink, more, and even say please and thank you. She has between 15 – 20 signs in her vocabulary. It has saved us when she is looking for the butterfly toy…it sounds a lot like she is saying “bye bye.”
A lot of people have asked us if we think her language has been delayed because of the signing…I think it has helped by limiting her frustration related to communicating with us as she learns more words. And, she is learning the words as she learns the signs. Are any of you using signs with your children?
Our workplace is fairly casual. You’ll almost never see anyone in a suit, and most folks are in jeans on Fridays. In fact, I’d say that — all in a good way — many probably tend to push the lower limits of “business casual” on a regular basis. Personally, I try to strike a balance between sufficiently professional and comfortable most of the time.
I will never be accused of being a fashionista — quite far from it. But despite all the flexibility we have in the style department, I still am having my own internal debate. Can I wear sneakers — even hip ones — on a day when I’m meeting with our executive team, a client, or vendor? I’ve had a relatively comfortable pregnancy, but I think all the abuse my body is taking has settled itself right in my feet. I can’t even fit into my least fashionable and most comfortable pre-pregnancy shoes without wincing anymore. I also can’t bring myself to spend hundreds of dollars on comfortable, more professional, yet super-ugly shoes.
What do you think? Do I break down and shell out the dough, or can I wear cute and comfortable sneaks?
There’s one question I struggle with each and every day. It’s not “what should I wear,” though it was for many years. It’s not which route will have the least traffic or did I remember to turn off the stove, or why is my computer so slow. The question that constantly plagues me is what can I put together for dinner? Yes, that’s right, “put together.” I’m past worrying about what I can “cook,” as anything that involves oven time is reserved for holidays, birthdays, and the occasional dinner party.
When I get home from work, my kids are famished, I’m exhausted, and the last thing I want to do is spend time fussing in the kitchen. I prefer to use my last burst of energy for playing. Friends have suggested that I cook several meals on Sunday to use throughout the week. Every six months or so I get motivated and cook a lasagna that gets lost in the freezer until the next time I get motivated. The kids would be perfectly happy to have micro waved mac-n-cheese every night – and frankly so would I. But no matter how I dress it up, the June Cleaver in me tells me that mac-n-cheese for the fourth night in a row simply won’t do.
So I wonder: Can we can have breakfast for dinner, is tomato sauce a vegetable, and will my kids be permanently scarred if they come to believe that dinner comes from the pizza delivery man?
What “they” don’t tell you about baby brain is that your brain doesn’t necessarily bounce back to normal once the baby is born.
Lists have become a necessity in my life, rather than just a nice organizational tool. After being back at work for three weeks, I realized I had to create a list of what to pack each morning before I left; with such a long commute I don’t have the luxury of turning around for a forgotten item. I came to that realization after leaving CommuterGirl’s change of clothes at home, often forgetting a clean sheet for her crib, leaving my wallet in the diaper bag at school for the third time. Yes, the third time. The first two times I realized my wallet was at school after spending 30 minutes of my lunch break filling up the cart at the grocery store. You’d think I’d have learned after the first abandoned shopping cart. The third wallet-less incident was a little worse. I was driving to work and realized I needed gas…really needed gas. CommuterDad had to leave work at 8:45, drive 15 minutes and meet me so he could buy my gas.
The first thing on my “going to work” list…mommy’s wallet.
I’ve read about baby brain — that women get forgetful, lose focus, and even become emotionally unpredictable during their pregnancies. I think I’ve bypassed all those trouble spots, but now I’m quite certain the baby brain has migrated into my fingers. All of a sudden, I can no longer type like a normal person — or at least my normal self. And this is quite a problem, as my work not only requires me to type almost all day long, but I’m also partly responsible for making sure all our communications, mine and others’, are error-free, meeting the high-quality standards we expect in our organization.
If it weren’t for the auto-correct feature in Word, you’d be seeing all my foibles in Technicolor. I even thought of deliberately leaving in my errors (kind of like that new book deliberately written entirely in text message language), but I can’t bear for you to see me exposed like that. So I’m proofreading, and proofreading, over and over again. Some people can’t wait to get their figure back once they have their baby. My figure was nothing to envy before I got pregnant. I just want my old nimble fingers, thank you very much.
I’ve never been one to particularly enjoy social team-building events. It’s not that I’m not social or, for that matter, that I’m not interested in building community in the workplace, but social work events can feel a bit forced (I’ve just been in meetings with you all day but now that we’re all dolled up let’s talk American Idol). At the risk of sounding like a nerd, I’ll admit that I prefer team-building activities that pose challenges to be overcome, puzzles to be solved, or ideas to be brainstormed.
Now that I’m a mother, these feelings have only intensified. The thought of spending an evening kibitzing with colleagues rather than playing with my children feels somewhat invasive. So when I recently was invited to a work bowling party, I thought of every reason in the book why I couldn’t make it. Unfortunately, I’d already used all of the obvious excuses and reluctantly agreed to attend. I did, however, promise my 4-year-old that I’d be home in time to read him a bedtime story. Well, who knew that the appetizers would be so tasty? And who would have thought that I’d actually enjoy bowling? And you know what? I do like talking about American Idol! At 7:00 when I had to leave in order to fulfill my bedtime story promise, the party was still in full swing and I have to admit, I was sad to go. Next time I’ll be careful about making promises I might not want to keep.
Whose body is this anyway? Nobody told me that all of the rumors about how much your body changes after having a baby are really true. It took me 8 months to finally find pants that would fit for more than one week. And we won’t even discuss how many times I’ve had to go to the intimates department to be “re-measured.”
What am I dreading most? Warm weather. I don’t really like to wear shorts a lot, but now I don’t know if I can even wear a short skirt…I have calluses on my knees. CommuterGirl is crawling everywhere, “running” on all fours, I find myself crawling all over the house — playing peek-a-boo, climbing the stairs after her, trying to get the ball she threw “to” me. Look for the mother that wears nothing but capris even when it is 115 degrees outside, and you’ll know it’s me.
Here it is, the hard and fast truth about the most exciting news of your life. Telling people you’re pregnant just ain’t what you thought it would be. I waited those 12 critical weeks in great anticipation of the parade I’d throw to finally announce to the world that I was pregnant. Everyone would be so excited. Well wishes would fall like confetti from the hallways and conference rooms that line the office. Hugs would crowd the cafeteria, and squeals of excitement would play over the PA system.
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