Category Archives: Working Mom

>Work Dummening

>I blame all my work dummening this week on the fact that I absolutely had to solve a problem before I went to sleep on Tuesday night. Did I say Tuesday night? Because I guess I meant Wednesday morning at 2:30 am. That pretty much threw off the rest of my week.

Then today, I needed to create a database link, but I didn’t know the password and the person who knows the password was at physical therapy, so instead of connect to user identified by password, I used connect to user identified by values ‘ ‘. And that apparently can trigger a bug that causes ORA-0600 errors. (ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kzdlk_zt2 err] to be specific.)

Oh, the hilarious and wacky adventures that I get into at work. I bet you are all wishing I talked about it more often. The reason I am evening talking about work at all, is that I was one dummening story short for the work week, and I am saving a good one for tomorrow. But really, if I start getting hits from people searching on kzdlk_zt2 err I am totally turning this into a DBA blog and I am going to get rich off the add revenue.

Until tomorrow…

(Oh – to you DBA suckers, you need to get rid of the quotes and use the real password. See metalink note 456320.1)

>Leaves

>Note the time. I had already been up for 2 hours when I took this picture. I started to shut down databases and applications, and I watched the scripts run on part of my screen, while on the other part, I watched Weeds while I pedaled my exercise bike. I had the pancake mix almost totally ready to go on the griddle before the boys woke up at 6:45. I was feeling pretty good about things until my big stack of pancakes fell over and I realized it was going to be a really long day.

Dave was not yet awake when I took this picture, but I can’t complain because he did some serious yard work today.

>Comment Contest Winner

>Hello long suffering MetaMegan fans. The comment contest winner will be announced this evening and the prize will be a souvenir from Yellowstone. I have been thinking about the contest a lot, but I don’t want to be the one to pick the winning name, I want a child to draw the name out of a hat. And fortunately, there are no children around at 1am, when I have time to work on my blog, at the end of my work day. That also explain the lack of posts since all I have to say at that time of day/night is, “blaaaaaah.” As opposed to Friday, at 4:30, when I am in a meeting waiting for a bunch of people to come back from a break so we can finish our tasks. At that time of the day, I am freaking hilarious! By “hilarious”, I mean “hostile”.

>You Might Be A Mom If…

>If I were to rip off Jeff Foxworthy and start a comedy act about being a mom, I might use a lame line like this one:

If the highlight of your week is finding Tension Tamer tea on sale (buy one get one) at the grocery… You might be a mom.

Of course, that isn’t really true. Luke has had some major milestones in the fine motor department. He’s learning to tie his shoes and how to buckle a belt. It’s big. See, he has holes in almost every pair of pants and I couldn’t bring myself to buy a bunch more size 5 pants when he’ll grow out of them immediately. But 6 is way too big. I almost cracked and bought some pants at Target, but then that same week the snap broke on a practically new pair. So Dave picked up 5 pairs of pants for a $12.00 total at Savers. Unfortunately they don’t all have the adjustable waist so they are too big. At first I thought, “great, what a waste.” Then I realized that there are things that could be done about this problem! I could sew elastic into the waste! In these hard economic times, I could salvage the $2.00 pants with a little seamstressing. Good, old fashioned do-it-yourselfedness. I was sharing this revelation to Dave and he said, “Or he could just wear a belt.” Apparently that is how men keep their pants up.

Also big! His picture was in the paper. So cute. I rarely have time for the paper in the morning, but this must have been the one day this week where everyone’s alarm went off on time. So I glanced at the paper and there he was!

Jack has an ear infection, poor little guy. He’s been pretty uncomfortable. And I stayed home with him Wednesday and a half day today. I am so lucky I can work from home. Otherwise, I would have used 4.5 out of my 6 sick days for the year this month already. Good times!

On the bright side, Jack has gotten really good with signs since he has been in the toddler room and his vocabulary seems to be exploding. He can sign more, please, thank you. And he sort of says more please and thank you. And basketball. It sounds like “boy-guh-ball”. And he says, “Eh uh. Eh uh. Eh uh.” Which means, “may I please have that?”

So that is all the rambling for now. Time for some tension tamer.

>Wednesday

>And tomorrow is Wednesday. {Redacted long boring section about how I work all the time at night and on weekends and if I don’t get a lot done on a Wednesday I more than make up for it except sometimes people need me to get things done, right then! and I need to do things, right then! regardless of Jack’s mood/temper. End redaction. Seriously, it was longer and more boring before I edited this section out.} Jack will often play for a while with his upstairs toys while I sit at the breakfast bar and work. But downstairs is a totally different story. Downstairs is where we keep the real toys. But I can’t sit at the desk in the office, or else Jack will want to chew through all the computer wires. And I can’t sit on the couch with the laptop on my lap. But if I put the laptop on the landing and stick my arms through the banister, I can work while Jack happily plays. Yeah, so, that is what I do. Last Wednesday, I thought, “This is really crazy. He is so busy playing, why don’t I just sit on the couch?” And two seconds later, I heard the rebel yell and Jack was running across the floor and pushing the laptop out of the way to get into my lap. All this time, I have thought that he just wanted to push buttons on my laptop, but if that were the case, why isn’t he climbing the stairs to get to it when it’s on the banister? I’ll tell you why! Because Jack thinks my lap is his lap. So I headed back to the stocks to continue my work day.

Jack can’t go to the toddler room until there is space and he can survive on one nap a day. And that means I need to survive on one Jack nap a day. And wouldn’t you know it, I need to dial into a meeting tomorrow during morning nap time. Don’t worry, as long as I take the call standing up, and let Jack get whatever he wants out of the lazy susan, and allow him to make prank calls on my cell phone then it should be just fine!

Expect a call from a baby tomorrow.

>Where in the World is MetaMegan?

>Where have I been? Le Sigh. I have been very busy trying to incorporate more cardio into my life and then recovering on the couch for days in front of Six Feet Under marathons. Also I have a bit of a cold.

Dave found coupons to Breckenridge for $10, so we decided to see if there was room for Jack at the daycare this past Wednesday so we could go together. There wasn’t room. Cue panic. See, I worked half time from home with Luke until he was about 10 months old. Perfect little Luke who slept until 8 am everyday and took a 2 hour nap every morning. But at 10 months I thought, wow, he really needs more attention and stimulation then I can give him while simultaneously working. So somewhere in the back of my head I have been pondering the fact that Jack is ready for a little more daycare. I ponder this when Jack is hanging from the top rung of the dishwasher, or surfing on his rocking chair. But I have really enjoyed being home with him. I love the time we have had together. I haven’t loved that my work day often starts again at 8pm and goes until midnight, or that I have to go into a complete panic if a work problem comes up when Jack doesn’t feel like entertaining himself. So when I heard the infant room was full on Wednesdays, I got really worried. I always thought I had Wednesday in my back pocket, ready when I needed it. So, I asked if Jack could start going on Wednesdays when he transitions to the toddler room. Answer: Yes! Hoorah! As much as I love Jack, I felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted. I currently spend every Wednesday working through his naps, and working whenever he feels the desire to play independantly for 3 minutes, and checking email every 5 minutes when he needs more attention, and then working after bedtime every night. So then I said, “Wait, when is Jack moving to the toddler room?” And the answer was, February.” And then I was back to, “Wah! My baby! He can’t be a toddler yet. Wah wah wah. I’m not ready for him to go to daycare on Wednesdays.”

And then yesterday happened. And yes, at one point he was hanging from the top rung of the dishwasher. I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

“Poor me, I have to read to myself while my mommy works”:

“I’ll have this expression on my face later when I climb to the tallest point in every room in the house”:

“I can now grab the camera off the kitchen counter and this is how I feel when you take it from me”:

“Hey, you turned your back on me to wash a dish. This is what you get. You think I’m kidding? I’ll show you!”:

>In Some Ways, Bean is Still With Us: Part 2

>This morning I was groggily preparing breakfast for Jack after quite a night. (I went to bed late, and then was paged at 12:45, and 3:45, and Jack was up to be nursed at 5am and then up for the day at 7:30.) I was starting my work day, and cooking something for Jack and I left the cabinet open, and Jack helped himself to a tube of graham crackers. I didn’t think he could open them, and he was having a great time walking around crinkling. With all the crinkling, I knew where he was without having to watch him, so it seemed like a great way to keep him occupied for 3 minutes. Then for some reason, I walked down the hallway and back. When I got back, Jack had half a graham cracker in each hand and the balance in his mouth. He was smiling and saying, “Nom! Nom nom nom!” Cracker crumbs were tumbling down his pjs and all over the floor.

Cute, funny, not all that harmful. I plopped him into his highchair and gave him the rest of his breakfast. But where were the rest of the graham crackers? Where was the bag? I walked around looking to no avail. Then Luke woke up and asked what I was doing. I said, “I think Jack hid a bag of graham crackers somewhere so he could snack whenever he wanted.” In their short time together, Bean really did some serious knowledge transfer.

Ten minutes later Luke was yelling, “I hear crinkling! Jack is feeding himself a snack!” And Jack was indeed, behind the curtains in the dining room, helping himself to a cracker.

>Momtrepreneur

>Jack has a booger situation. Just lots of boogers. And he doesn’t like to have his nose wiped. If he sees you coming with any form of washcloth, tissue, or even napkin he hides his face and it’s all over. The best method is usually to hold him in one arm, and sort of trap his hands and wrestle him to the ground with the other arm wielding a wet washcloth. But if I miss, which I do about 80% of the time, then I get a shoulder full of mucus. My latest invention idea (said as if I have ever before come up with an invention) is a terry cloth shoulder/arm band that could act as a secondary mucus receptacle. Or could at least protect my clothing.

In fact, the other day at work someone was talking about which of their kids had the highest fever, and how bad they felt, when I moved as far away as I could in a tiny conference room and then refused to use their pen. I tried to make light of my germaphobia by saying, “No seriously, I just decided I didn’t really need a pen after all! I have a little Howard Hughes thing going on. And I probably even have boogers on my shirt, ha ha.” Hair toss, non-crazy smile.

“Yeah, you do. I can see it from here.”

Eww.

So today I put a warm wet washcloth over my shoulder and went after Jack with a kleenex. He nuzzled right into the washcloth, yanked his head back and then burrowed into another, unwashclothed covered part of my arm, spreading the wealth all over the place. And I had a wet shoulder. So now I just have to go for plan C: wear t-shirts and do a lot of laundry, and brace myself for a long winter.

>Technical Difficulties!

>I was in a(nother) panic this evening when I got into my PJs and sat down in front of the Broncos/Browns game after putting the kids to bed and got ready for day 6 of my posting streak.

Dun dun dun! No internet!

Should I drive around the neighborhood in my pjs trying to borrow wireless? Go to the coffee shop? Give up on posting once a day? So tragic. I called comcast and they had me reboot everything, then stand on one foot, chant an incantation, reboot again, and then he said, “Oh, there’s an outage in your area.” Dave mentioned that he thought I would be more concernd about working tomorrow than blogging. But I figured I would solve that problem by just going in at 5am and working there until the comcast office opened and then exchanging my modem. Sure, sounds totally doable.

I made Dave hand over his fancy new phone and I started trying to write a post from there, but while I was getting a cramp in my finger from the tiny stylus, the internet came back up. Hoorah!

Now I can share this photo of a hotel that was recently trashed by a rockstar you all know and love. And by hotel, I mean crib/bedroom. And by rockstar, I mean baby.

Mobile: Ripped out of mobile holder
Picture One: Nearly knocked off wall
Picture Two: Knocked off wall, slipped out of mat, and stomped on
Pacifiers: Tossed randomly about

Needless to say, Jack’s room has now been undecorated. The pictures are in the closet and the mobile is on the changing table.

>Toast, It’s What’s For Dinner

>I seem to go through phases where everything seems to be under control, and then I have phases where two nights in a row I am serving toast as a dinner side dish because there isn’t anything else.

I think we are coming out of a toast eating phase because I ended my grocery store boycott (the remodel is finished) and I totally stocked up for the winter. We have grains! Vegetables! Snack options! And so on. I also cleaned off the kitchen counter and the top of the book shelf for the first time since Luke started school. That school is a paper and art project factory.

And I am even finished with my blog post early! Next up, I will figure out how I am going to vote on the 97 issues on the Colorado ballot so I can attempt to vote tomorrow. Because of a past issue with our mailman, I decided not to get a mail in ballot, even though Dave’s arrived just fine. We also got confirmation that our next door neighbor was registered to vote at her address. (See? See!)

In other mailman related news, the October Parents magazine that I read cover to cover (against my better judgment) in the lactation room a MONTH ago arrived in the mail today. I started to feel irate again and then I remembered, I don’t even have a subscription to Parents magazine!