To lighten the mood

I didn't want to end my evening, nor posting with all those unsettled feelings. So instead, I'll share a dream I had. If you know me at all, you know I love to tell people about random dreams I had that they don't care a bit about, but I can't help myself from a sharing anyway.

So, did you watch The Voice last night? I did. Right before bed. So obviously I was auditioning in my dream. 3 judges turned around wanting me to be on their team. I said I was so shocked and honored, because I had really just come for fun, and support of a friend, and that I really couldn't actually sing at all. I told Adam Levine he was way too hot to work with, because it would just be way too distracting. Cee-lo didn't vote for me; I told Christina it would be too intimidating to work with her, because she could actually really, really sing, so that would be awkward (I left out the part that she's supposedly drunk all the time now, so probably wasn't my best career move anyway), so then I told Blake Shelton I'd be honored to be on his team, as I had the right mix of little crush on him, and respect for his voice and talent, and I was a country girl at heart- so it'd be a good fit.

So there you have it.

I have a pool party I'm supposed to go to on Sunday (this is no longer a dream, btw). Do you think if I work out every day until then (except maybe tonight because I'm tired) that I'll be bikini-ready by then? Ok, good.

Random musings you won't understand

Sigh. I have a lot on my mind, but haven't yet processed enough to be able to condense it all into meaningful, logical sentences.

I feel like I'm in the middle of my quarter -life crisis that is perhaps hitting me a few years late. My recent work woes are starting to create a feeling within me that perhaps I'm not the do-no-wrong, fiercely and independently intelligent and strong woman that I've been imaging myself to be. I feel like I've been perpetuating this notion that I know everything, so I shouldn't ask for help, because that would demonstrate weakness and acknowledgement that someone knows more than I do. And as egotistical and immature as it sounds, I'm still not sure I'm ready to admit that. It was relatively easy to admit in grad school, and in my fellowship year immediately following. But I was working at great, amazing places, and had undisputed incredible supervisors and professors to learn from. But now it's hard to reconcile the fact that maybe everyone else doesn't see me in this same fashion. And while I no doubt have an incredible amount to learn, but I'm just not able to wrap my head around the fact that people aren't immediately believing, respecting or even acknowledging that I actually do know a thing or two.

I'm sure that doesn't make a bit of sense, and I've probably contradicted myself somewhere in there, but I think it would hurt my head too much to try to reread and edit that, so it is what it is. The bottom line is I'm not happy or comfortable just swimming with the fishes. I want to be someone and do something. I don't just want to be an average, run of the mill clinician. I want some ooooof. Some Uuummmph. Some something. I don't know exactly what that something is yet, or how I'll get there, but I'm afraid I'm not yet on the right path of getting there yet. But maybe I just have to succumb to the fact that I have to wait before I achieve my something, and I have to put in my time and grunt work before achieving it, or even knowing what *it* is. Maybe this is the road I have to take in order to get where I'm going.

Ugh. If you read all of that and understood half, A+ for you.

Uh oh.....

Sooo... One of my worst fears has been realized today. A little boy at daycare started wearing Crocs, aka the bane of my pseudo-fashionista existence. Yesterday, Solomon was entranced with them. He was carrying them around when I came to pick him up. He was carrying them, biting them, fighting over them. It was quite the fight to get him to release the shoes, and he re-stole them at least once. But we eventually left, croc-less.

Today, however, I came inside and Solly was coloring at a table. Everything looked fine. Until he stood up and came to me. And he was wearing the shoes. Yes, the Crocs. And he was sooooo happy about them, you have no idea. Shoes!! He exclaimed, as if I had always deprived him of this luxury. I asked Leila how long he'd been wearing them. All day... All day. He found them and put them on himself, and has been wearing them all day. He about hyperventilated when we made him take them off.

What am I supposed to do now??

Have I mentioned how cute Solomon is???

Weekends like this make me wonder why the hell do I work so much?? It was so fantastic, you have no idea. I don't post enough photos on this blog anymore, so I'm making up for it- all in today's post. Quick recap of the weekend: awesome Easter Egg hunt (captured below), toy swap with Sue (trading each other's ignored toys), an awesome time in our pool that Solomon actually loved (the pool was pure torture for him last summer- this was our first attempt since then), beautiful weather, came to the city this morning and ate at my favorite breakfast place in my old neighborhood, met up with my old mothers group/play group (the girls I've known since Solly was 4 weeks old), ran into my old neighborhood running buddy who had a new baby in tow, more friends announced their pregnancy... I think that was the most of it. Was just an awesome weekend. So sad to see it end. One new idea to make my weekends a little longer (very potentially...) ( I mean very long shot potential not very strong potential) is below the pictures. So you'll have to scroll through them ALL!

I just like this photo because you can actually see the little candy dropping

Showing off his eggs. He was very proud of them.

You can tell this is a very determined walk.

Trying to eat one of his candies. Foil and all.

So shocked to find yet another.

I maybe have a tendency to come up with hair-brained ideas of what I want to do with the rest of my life that fizzle out after 2 days. Who remembers when I was convinced my calling was to be a midwife?? Anyway, so I have the opportunity to own a Stroller Strides franchise in a very affluent neighborhood in San Jose. That's a total exaggeration. I saw a posting from a franchise owner saying she needs to sell her franchise, and I emailed her. But you have to admit it sounds like a good idea. I love pregnant people. I love babies. I love working with and talking to/about pregnant people and babies. I love being with Solomon, and (at my best) I love working out and encouraging exercise in others. The neighborhood is very rich (as in my good friends that live there are shopping for house in the $1M range are having a difficult time finding anything that "cheap,") and has no shortage of SAHMs with extra cash to spend. It's a quick drive from where we live, and covers the area that we hope to send Solomon to preschool next year... so all in all a good neighborhood to market. She's already had the franchise up and running, so it would seemingly be easy to just keep the ball rolling, rather than trying to start something up from scratch. I don't have formal education, but have always been a runner, have coached middle and high school track, so I think I have a few tricks up my sleeve. And it would presumably allow me to have more time with Solomon. So to me, this definitely seems like an avenue to pursue... at least to find out more information. Am I crazy for getting a little excited about the idea?

** Speaking of preggos working out: Good luck to Sister at Boston tomorrow!!!!! And maybe I should go do a workout myself.

I think my job will be the death of me

I've been putting off writing this post because it seems too overwhelming to give it adequate background and justice to the myriad of emotions I have with my job. I've also toyed with the fact that I could not write this post tactfully enough that I would not be fired if the wrong pair of eyes somehow came across it. I've toyed with the fact that I'd like to get fired if the right pair of eyes somehow came across it.

I used to be putting up with this job until I got pregnant again, so I had somewhat of an end in sight. But now, this trajectory is seeming more and more indefinite, making the openendedness (that is totally a word, btw) of my job a little too overwhelming.

I could nitpick detail over detail of what makes my skin crawl about my job (keep in mind I mean my current placement, not necessarily my career choice)- but it boils down to the fact that while I love (some of) my clients and (some of) my parents, all of the other bullshit I have to put up with eats away at my soul. My soul.

The 1-hr commute in traffic each way doesn't help. The fact that my preferred client population is all but ignored is not sustainable for me. The fact that I'm put in borderline unethical predicaments with clients I don't feel trained in seeing, but I can't turn down because of billable hours- is almost a dealbreaker. The fact that I'm being pushed and pressured to come in earlier, stay later, and do events in the evenings and on weekends- my time with Solomon that I'd have to pay even more money on a sitter to be away from to go to work and not get paid-- is maddening. But the fact that my new(ish) supervisor for some reason has it out for me and harps on me for every little mistake- even when a mistake has not been made- is what is going to drive me out. I drive too far and make too little to not be doing what I want to do, and to be criticized unjustly in the process.

Part of the problem is my own ego. I think I'm too good at what I do to be wasting my time doing this grunt work and seeing these clients that I'm not trained to see. I feel like my clinical skills and training are being wasted, and even deteriorating from lack of practice. My ego also prevents me from taking my supervisor seriously, because I just don't feel I have anything to learn from him. I blame my grad school for this. It totally made me a snob. I worked with and learned from the top researchers and clinicians in my field, so it's hard to hold many others to the same esteem, especially when they aren't giving me due respect in return (FWIW he's not even in my discipline, he has a different type of clinical training).

There have been numerous occasions in the past few months where I went for a walk or did yoga poses in my office to center- not for exercise purposes, but to calm myself down when I'm on the brink of making a big commotion and quitting publicly, loudly and abruptly. Most of me wants to quit at all costs, but the more rational side knows my family depends on my salary, so I need to stick it out for the time being. I'm torn between taking the first decent job that roles around, and waiting for something great to appear, so I don't keep in this same pattern of holding jobs for a year then leaving.

Only time will tell. But anytime I hear of clinicians leaving, I think one word: lucky.

I'm a good mom

Did you know? I'm sure you did. But I got reaffirmed not once, but twice (!) today for seemingly no reason, so I have a recent bout of confidence.

I had spent all of naptime cleaning, and out apartment was looking better than it has in weeks. So I was loathe to dirty it up by cooking and eating dinner. And I keep hearing and thinking about Panera, which I haven't eaten at in ages, so Solly and I made a trek out. It was a typical enough experience, nothing unusual. Solly and I shared a sandwich and some soup, although he was mostly just eating bread and drinking his milk, which annoyed me. Solomon was flirting with some of the other diners, demanding more bread, dropping things then yelling 'uhoh!!' and refusing every food I offered, claiming 'hot!' One man who kept turning around to look at him was very impressed with his vocabulary. After I finished eating I still wanting a little something extra, so I opened up a bag of chips. As soon as I picked up the bag, he was yelling 'chip!' which I don't even understand why or how, because he didn't even see what was inside. And, we never have potato chips anyway. Anyway, I explained that I had finished my sandwich and soup, so I got to eat some chips. He hadn't eaten his meat or soup, so he could not have chips. Against all odds, this actually quietened him. I then asked him to clean up the food items he had thrown on the floor, and he helped me walk the trash over to the trash can.

Nothing special or extraordinary. But one woman stopped me and said, "I just wanted to say I think you are just a great mother." I was tempted to be offended that it was somehow surprising that I would be a good mom, but I decided against it and take it as a compliment. We then went to Trader Joes and he wanted every. single. item that I put in the cart. Nana! Nana! Open! Grape! Grape! Want grape! Yogurt! Open! Cold! Waffle! Waffle! Waffle! Milk! Bottle! Waffle! Waffle! (it had been a while since he had had a waffle, so was very excited about this!). He also has this fun new trick where he wants to help push the cart. So he expects me to hold him forward facing at about hip level and kinda kick the cart every so often (I mean, every 3 seconds) to avoid crashing into people. Please try this at home. I highly recommend it. On the drive home I had put the grocery bag too close to the car seat, so he managed to get into both the zuchini and the grapes during the drive. This did not make me feel like a good mom.

But then out of the blue I get a text from Gerard saying thank for being such a great wife and mom. No clue why he felt inclined to write it, but I'll take it.

In other news, Solomon got his first big boy undies this weekend, and big boy pjs. He's always worn the one-piece footsies but I just got him a pj set of a shirt and those really tight pants that look like long johns. I don't know why I find them irresistibly adorable. He liked them because of the 'caca.' But don't worry, that means a helicopter, not poop.

Marriage Dynamics

So, last weekend I got a minute to myself to go run errands. I had gone to my favorite kids consignment store looking for summer clothes, and actually walked away with clothes and not more toys like i normally do. But that's not what's surprising. I'm walking back to my car, and see another car pull up and park next to mine, on the driver's side.

I'm walking towards my door from the front side of the car. I see a woman in the passenger seat wave me on, to motion that I should get in my car first, instead of me waiting for her to get out of her car. No biggie. I walk past her and prepare to open my door. The parking spots are slanted, so now that I've walked past her, she has plenty of room to get out, even if I open my driver's side door. You follow, right? I'm fumbling for my keys when I see the husband walk around from the back of the car. He smiles and waits for me. Now I understand that a baby is in the back seat. It's taking me a while to actually get my keys, get settled in the car and close the door. I was trying to hurry, but it took so long I made a jokingly self-deprecating comment about how slow I was being. Anyway, so now I'm finally in the car with the door closed, and I look up to see the husband was opening the door for the wife, and then they walked off together. There was no baby in the car. He waited that whole time, and so did she (in a hot car I might add) so he could open her door...

My world was just rocked by this. I'm just really struggling to put myself in that frame of mind. It's so interesting. I brought up the incident to Gerard, who said that actually a couple we knew from Nashville did that also (I don't know them well enough to confirm or deny this). You agree with me that this is a little bit crazy right? I can't decide if I think it's sweet or really odd. It racks my brain with so many questions: What if she's driving? What if he's dropping her off somewhere but he will continue driving? If/when they have a baby, who will get the baby out? Will the dad get the wife or baby out first? You see where I'm going with this.

The incident happened to have coincided with some recent discussions on a parenting forum I'm on, discussing decision making power and financial set-ups between married couples. I think Gerard and I did a good job of discussing these things before getting married to make sure we were on the same page. And the fact that we had lived together also helped us get real-life experience. It was simultaneously fascinating and scary to see how different the dynamics are in some relationships. Scary because, although these moms seemed happy in their relationships, they described dynamics that I would never ever be okay with. They described setups where they seemed to discuss every single decision and purchase together, setups where if there was a conflict the husband had final say as the "leader," or lopsided finances where one spouse had to get an allowance from the husband, or even ask permission to buy a shirt or get a haircut. Some were SAHMs who dismissed their role with ignorance 'I have no idea how much money is in the bank account- so I'm not asking permission, I'm asking if we have enough money to cover it.' It just seems to odd. I sometimes envy SAHMs for how much time they get to spend with their child(ren), but I could never do it full time, if alone for freedom I have with my own separate spending account I can do with what I please. Not that I'm doing anything crazy, or that Gerard would withhold money from me if we had a different setup (I tend to be more stingy with money than him anyway). It'[s just the principle, to me.

Anyway, there's no real point or conclusion to this post, just some interesting philosophies that have been on my mind recently.