Mommy time didn't work out like I wanted it

Way back in April when I got my official job offer, my boss was kind enough to give me a gift certificate to a local spa for an herbal facial. The spa had been rated as having the best facials in the city for 3 years running and touted themselves as being one of the few places in the area to offer 100% natural ingredients for all of their spa products. I did a bit of reading up on the owner/founder and she has a degree in biochemistry and trained in Russian as an aesthetician. The write ups all claim that if you are looking for a facial, she is the woman to see.

I was excited about the prospect of a couple of hours of "me" time. The boys were back at home, both napping and not missing me in the least. The initial plan was to park the car, get the facial, and then walk the block down the street to do a bit of bead shopping for a project I have in the works. As usual, parking was an issue. There were a shortage of spaces and all the ones I saw open had 2 hour limits. I hadn't a clue how long this whole process would take, plus I had gotten there a bit early to avoid a harried rush right before my relaxation time. So I sucked it up and parked in the garage below the Marriott and ended up paying $8 for under 3 hours of parking (and no time for bead shopping mind you). I got to the spa, after a great deal of aimless walking around trying to find the right place, with about 15 minutes to spare. About 40 minutes later I finally got taken back to my little room. I got myself situated and comfy and the woman comes in and asks what I hope to get out of this facial. I said I would love some relaxation time and an exfoliation. Her remark back was that "facials here are not time to relax, we will get you clean, but you may not like it!" DEAR LORD, what did I get myself into???

No one warned me, or perhaps I should have asked first before scheduling, but facials are not all that they are cut out to be. I was under the movie screen false impression that you got to lay down with cucumbers over your eyes while some lovely individual gently rubbed your face and neck. I thought I would be walking out glowing and feeling like a million bucks. Not.So.Much. I got something akin to the cucumbers, I got a bit of the cleaning and some pathetic attempt at the exfoliation, and then I got the pain, lots of the pain. The lovely woman turned into a sadistic freak and proceeded to squeeze every offensive looking pore until my shoulders shook and a solitary tear escaped from one of my eyes from the shear volume of pain she was inflicting. Not fun, not relaxing, where did I go wrong? After my pores met with her approval, she proceeded to lecture me that all of the facial cleaning products that I use are terrible for my skin, that I eat too much dairy, and should seriously thing about going 100% organic for all of my foods. Well, thank you for the life lessons, but can I go now? I got my deep cleaning mask and a bit of a massage and walked out the door with white crusty dots of 100% organic skin healer on my face because she had inflicted so much damage. I had a headache for the rest of the day and half of the next and I am still working on (and will be for a few more days) healing up some of leftover spots where she was particularly aggressive. Now, don't get me wrong, my face is clean, my pores are spotless, and I haven't felt this smooth in years, but was it worth the pain? Good thing it was a gift certificate!

It has hit the fan people

All of it, every last bit. I am so overwhelmed with the practicals and hypotheticals of this whole move that I am not even sure where to begin expressing myself. I just know that today was NOT a good day. I have listed a small portion of my issues with this day below, feel free to tranquilizer dart me and wake me up when this whole thing has blown over.

• Noah was in an offensive and foul mood this morning and it all began over a banana. Yes, a piece of fruit ruined an otherwise lovely morning. He wanted it NOW! I kindly requested that he wait until we get to Nannie Lou's house so that I wouldn't have to clean up smooshed banana in the carpet, off the couch, in my car, etc. Noah's world ended at that moment and I was made VERY aware of that fact. I had given him a small bag of Kix cereal to tide him over since I had kindly asked to delay the banana 20 minutes. To protest the injustices in his life, Noah calmly took the bag of cereal into his bedroom and when I went in to try and get him dressed for the day he opened the top of the bag, looked right at me and then violently shook the bag creating something akin of a mushroom cloud of Kix spraying through the air and peppering his entire bedroom. I don't know how I managed to prevent my head from exploding clear off my neck, but I kept it together long enough to get him in the time out chair for a chill out break.
• It was just at that moment that I heard the unmistakable sound of the garbage truck that wasn't supposed to come until tomorrow (July 5th was a holiday, no???). With a half dressed screaming toddler still fuming in the time out chair, I ran out of the house with stringy wet hair and threw the trash bins by the curb with about 30 seconds to spare.
• After much wailing and protest, an abrupt end to his Curious George episode (as his behavior had not earned him any privileges), I was ready to get out the door. Unfortunately, Noah had a different idea and pulled the ever popular limp noodle routine. When it was clear I was winning, he decided to switch things up and go stiff as a board. We left the house with Noah over my shoulder kicking and screaming, it was a lovely sight to behold. Keep in mind, I had tried reasoning with him, I had tried speaking calmly, reasoning with him. There was no peace to be had this morning, none.
• The work plan is to try and finish up writing 2 manuscripts before I pack up my office and leave the lab at the end of the first week of August. It will probably happen, but my sanity may or may not suffer significant impairments as a result. Just today, I sat at my desk and ran analysis after analysis on 3 different data sets that are supposed to all be published together. After 10 hours, no lunch, and the clock indicating that it was almost 7pm, all of the numbers started looking wrong and I decided to head home to the boys. I had been working all day, but still hadn't managed to finish my section and pass it off.
• Tim met with a moving company rep today to work on a quote. Nothing official has been passed on, but it was made unclear that our belongings may or may not fit into the largest sized moving truck that will fit down our excessively narrow road. They were willing to charge us twice as much to go with 2 smaller trucks, or to use a smaller truck to transport things to a larger truck (not able to fit down our ridiculously small street). The parting option from the ever helpful man we will most certainly not be hiring was that we could always gamble on one smaller truck and then decide as they were loading it what we would be leaving behind...um, does he actually succeed in making a living with that technique?? If so, I am underwhelmed and we will be finding another option thank you very much.

So, in sum I could use a few more hours added to the day, more than a few more feet added to the width of our street, a few less tantrums on the part of the short statured person that lives here, and that tranquilizer dart would be nice too! Help anyone?

Happy early 4th, on the 1st!

As much as we would love to go party with the rest of the city and celebrate the 4th of July at the Hatch Shell with the Pops and quite possibly some of the nation's best fireworks, I just can't see dragging out a toddler in the middle of the HUGE crowds to wait for fireworks to start at 10:30 at night and then fight the same crowds to make our way home. Just not practical these days unfortunately. So as not to miss the celebration, we headed up the street to Somerville's block party and fireworks display last night, on the 1st.

The block party was hopping, a little too hopping for the little man. But, let's face it, there were all kinds of emergency vehicles to check out, and even a few to sit in, so Noah was good to go!! He got to check out the big fire truck, twice, and a police SUV with its lights flashing, a couple of ambulances, lots of police men on their bikes, and the paddy wagon in case things got out of hand I guess!

Some how the little man let the fire man pick him up and put him in the front seat (probably because he was so excited about getting to sit in the front seat while most of the other kids were stuck in the back!). He was very impressed...

He did manage to give the fire man the stick eye though. Apparently, it is totally okay to metaphorically bite the hand that feeds you" when you are of a toddler persuasion. Can't you just hear him in his little head telepathically telling the nice fire fighter to to "back the crap up."

Once the fire man got the hint that he was a little to far into Noah's personal space (which has a WIDE berth for many people at the moment), he was back to checking the place out and asking what all the buttons did. This would have been a good moment to make friends with the fire man since Mommy hadn't a clue what the buttons did, but perhaps that lesson will be learned another day.

After all of the emergency vehicles had been properly checked out, it was time to wait around for the fireworks to start. Noah managed to get himself his first obnoxious light up toy, which, in reality is a plastic magic wand with LED lights, but since he is a boy, he decided to make it a poker of all things "innocent and minding their own business" (mainly Mommy & Daddy, but occasionally a small patch of weeds).

Once the fireworks actually started, Noah ceased with the violence and was transfixed. I was a bit worried that he wouldn't really appreciate the loud noise, but he loved the whole thing and we ended up staying through the VERY loud and impressive finale. He was a bit exhausted by the end, but we made it home and ready for bed without much trauma.

I'm sure Noah will be long asleep when the real Boston fireworks go off this weekend, but at least he got a taste of the holiday celebrations and enjoyed the party!

My first tagging!

Hey there, will you look at that...I have been tagged! This is a small feat I must say since my blog is not listed in google. You can only get to it if I have given you the address or if you are linked here from a friend's blog. Beth from Ted, Beth, Kate, & Teddy has tagged me and I am "it!" Here are the rules as I was handed them (so to speak).

• Go to the 8th folder in which you store your photos
• Select the 8th photo
• Post it to your blog and tell the story behind it.
• After following the above instructions, you are ‘supposed’ to tag 8 other bloggers

Okay, well I have had to "adjust" to the rules a bit since I store my photos in a slightly over organized fashion. I have level 1 folders for the year_month, then within each of those, I have level 2 folders for the day the photos were taken, and within each of these are the actual folders. So I just extrapolated a bit and went into the 8th folder, and the 8th folder within that folder, and the 8th photo in there! Make sense, it doesn't really to me either!! Anyway, here is the picture:



This is from April 15, 2008 (see my over organization pays off sometimes!!). I had been back to work for about a month and a half at that point and was doing my pumping at work each day and bringing home the results to send with the little man at the sitter's house the next day. Noah got ahold of one of the bottles before I had a chance to store and label it and was desperately trying to bust into it and have a little snack on the contents. He kept looking at me very confused as to why I wasn't willing to fork the good stuff over. Poor little guy, he was so tiny....and SO BALD!!!

I am going to have to gracefully bow out of most of the passing along the tag to others, since the bloggers I would be comfortable with tagging have already been tagged and the other blogs I read aren't written by people I know well enough to tag, but I will tag 1 soul who I would love to see more pictures from.

Nicole from Nicole's Weekly takes gorgeous pictures, so hopefully she will be willing to keep this going for at least another day or so! Have fun, and thanks Beth for the tag!