Crazybananas

I started a new job this week. You probably already knew this, but it needs to be reiterated before I tell the following story. I started a new job that is basically 3 steps above the job I was at previously in terms of responsiblity. On top of all of the extra responsibility, it’s a small office, so I don’t really have anyone to help me. Now, there are most definitely perks to this setup, as I would much rather just work instead of having someone breathing down my neck constantly, but it is absolutely more stressful than my last job. So when I’ve been getting home at night, I’ve been so exhausted that I just make a quick microwave Gerber meal for Lu and we plop down on the couch and stare mindlessly at the TV until bedtime. Of course, there is simultaneous coloring, reading, singing and dancing by the child, but I’m mostly a vegetable.

So what happened this morning shouldn’t be a big surprise. But man, it made me feel like total crap.

I’m sitting at my office when my cell rings. It’s Trent.

“Hello”

“Hi, what’s up.”

“Nothing, just working”

“Well, I have two things. First, Lucy has no socks in her sock drawer.”

“I know, they’re all downstairs by the dryer. They’re clean though.”

“OK, and also, when I went in to get Lucy this morning she was all wet and the bed was soaked.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so I took off her PJs…and…honey, she didn’t have a diaper on.”

“Shit. Really?”

“Yup.”

“You’re never going to let me forget this, are you?”

“Nope. Never”

Lucy loves to read. In fact, she will usually leave a room with a TV in it to go read a book. That is, if said TV does not contain Elmo, because then all bets are off. She’ll go into her room, climb into her rocking chair, grab a book and sit there for 20 minutes at a time, reading to herself. And when I say reading, I actually mean babbling incoherently and violently turning pages. But it counts. And I love that she likes reading. I always loved to read as a kid, and was pretty good at it. I was three grades ahead in reading for my age, and all I remember was that meant I had to go sit in a room with giant 12 year olds when I was only 9 and it was the scariest thing ever. It makes me happy that this trait may have been passed on to Lu, and that someday she’ll spend hours in her room reading the Boxcar Children or the Babysitter’s Club books, or whatever is popular these days (are there Hannah Montana books?).

For her first Christmas, Trent informed me that he had bought a special present for Lu. Since he doesn’t do ANY of the Christmas shopping, I was surprised. But he was so proud of his purchase. A huge, Dr. Suess pop-up book. A little much for a six month old, but still, a wonderful gift. We kept it on a shelf and he would read it to her at bedtime every once and a while. But lately it is the ONLY book she wants to read at night. And let me tell you, this book is freaking annoying to read to a toddler. Because she wants to pull all the tabs and screw with every, single part and I just want to be like, “and the sneeches are sneeches, and no kind of sneech is the best on the beaches. The. End.”

One rule of the Dr. Suess book is that it must be put away after each reading, or else the child may try to read it alone, leading to the destruction of the beloved book. Well, someone (ahem, Trent, cough, cough) left the book out the other night, and after I realized I hadn’t heard anything from the child’s room in a good 20 minutes (a telltale sign of trouble), I went in to check on her. And found this…

Before:

After:

OK, dude, what are you smiling at?!

Is anyone else obsessed with the song “Anyone Else But You” from the movie Juno? I’ve had it on repeat on my iPod for, like, a week, and I just can’t get sick of it. I have an office at my new job (yes, an adult office, not a cubicle, finally) and after 5+ years in the cubes it’s hard for me to get used to the quiet of my own space. I almost miss the constant barrage of other people’s private phone calls (I said, almost). So I’ve had my iPod blaring from my speakers for the past two days straight. Much better than 3 simultaneous conference calls, all on speakerphone.

This is what happens when you give a girl a week off and a gift certificate. Well, this an a couple of martinis.