Invisible car.

I have a general joke that I'm the invisible girl. Which means: People don't see me. And no, I'm not kidding. I get ignored in public a lot. I get ran into, ignored when drinks are being refilled, or when orders are being taken, or when I'm in line, or whatever. I just get ignored. I'm invisible.

Unfortunately, I'm now the invisible girl in the invisible car. Remember my Momma Bear post? Well, at the same intersection where I was in the double left turn lanes and the lady decided she wanted to move into the space I was occupying, it happened again. And what really kills me is that I was sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green, when I glanced over at the lady next to me, and I thought, it's obvious I'm right next to you, so wouldn't it be odd if you decided to move into my lane after we turned, just like that one lady did and then who started honking at me?

Ah yes, you can see where this is going.

The light changed, we both began to turn left, and all of a sudden, she was moving into my lane and almost hit me. While I've been feeling sick and have a slight case of PMS, I wasn't having much road rage today. So instead of honking the horn like a manic rabid monkey and screaming every swear word I could think of (this usually consists of "lady, poophead, jerkball," and yes, that is admittedly sad but very good for my son's ears), I just said in disgust, "Oh. my. god. lady. what. the. hey," while slowing down so we wouldn't collide. After she moved into my lane, she immediately turned into the shopping center on our right. Sorta like what that other lady wanted to do and eventually did after she honked at me repeatedly.

Being invisible is bad enough, but being invisible while driving a small SUV-type car (that's bright red, by the way -- really difficult to notice) and transporting my most precious cargo in the backseat is really bad. Perhaps we should paint our car a garish color like bright orange or yellow or two-toned of both colors so people will at least notice the car. Me? I know there's no hope.

The coffeemaker hates me.

I make coffee every morning when I work from home. I do this after I make Mateo's bottles for the day. We bought a new coffee maker a couple of months ago, and it requires a paper filter, which is different from our old coffee maker and the one at work. So I got the coffee going, went into our room to continue getting myself ready for the day, and that was when Mateo decided he wanted to wake up. It was about an hour to an hour and a half earlier than his normal wake up time.

While I was trying to get him to go back to sleep (ha, ha), I heard the beeper from the coffee machine going off, indicating it was done. Ah, good. Fresh coffee! A working parent's joy.

My plan was to let Mateo loose on the living room floor while I had my first cup of java and started working. His plan was to eat before his belly shrunk to the size of a raisin.

I dropped him off in the living room with his toys, walked into the kitchen, looked at the coffee maker, which was now sitting in a flood of brown liquid.

My brain, at 5am, well, no, anytime at this point in my life, really can't adjust quickly to things that don't seem correct. Like our coffee maker sitting in a flood of brown liquid. Brown liquid with specks of dark brown bits. That sorta look like coffee grounds.

My first thought was, man, our coffee maker is new! What the hey! Why's there coffee leaking from it? How'd that happen? Did I overfill it? Did I put water in the pot after pouring water into the machine? So then it leaked? Does it just hate me and want to complicate my morning more? Because Mateo wants to eat and doesn't want to sleep like he should be doing? And because of those reasons, I didn't wander into the kitchen earlier to notice the brown sludge all over?

And hey, the cord, that's plugged in, is sitting in the water. That creates some morning fun. What do I do? What do I do?

What I did was pull the plug. And I lived to tell this tale. Go figure. Although I did have a fleeting thought that my husband would come home from the gym, to find Mateo lying next to me on the kitchen floor, with big tears streaming from his eyes cause he was so hungry and mommy wasn't doing her job anymore.

Well, it turns out I'm a complete idiot who didn't put a simple paper filter into the filter holder thing and therefor, coffee grinds and water went everywhere. Who knew one simple paper filter did so much?

Drunk babies are no laughing matter.

Mateo is crawling.

While I love that he can now move around, I have to wonder why he's immediately attracted to any and all wires. And laptops. And laptop wires. And the TV. And the TV stand. If we didn't have these things in our house, what would he be attracted to?

To add to the husband / TV post.

So there we were last night, trying to catch up on some of our favorite shows while Mateo was asleep. We ended our evening with watching Top Chef. Towards the end, and this is after a few hours of random questions while I was typing on my laptop, he asks, "If one of the losers went into a bank to get a loan, do you think if the loan officer knew the show and them being on the show, they'd more likely get a loan for a restaurant or business?"

????

This is what I have to contend with. He should write one of those random question books that I used to love so much as a kid/teenager.

By this time I was dead tired, sick of the questions, but still didn't want to be mean to him because he did give me the gift of sleep that same day. So I went the "I dunno" route. Just cause we work for a bank doesn't mean I want to ponder borrowing possibilities. I don't even do anything with banking for gosh darn sakes!

My husband has...

running conversations about what's on TV with me while I'm typing away on my laptop and obviously not watching TV with him. Does yours?

Gifts are nice.

My husband gave me the gift of sleep today.

Mateo was sick Monday and Tuesday, and because of that, I didn't get any sleep. I was up at 2am Monday morning and then 1am on Tuesday morning. I didn't follow my rule of "sleep when the baby sleeps," during the days I was home with him, mostly because I got hooked on some interesting mom blogs (Playgroups are no place for children, 5 Minutes for Mom, some various others), and since I get up between 4am and 4:30am all other days (except for the weekends, and that's usually 5am - 6am), I was pretty darn tuckered out and running on 'E' yesterday. I also caught a bit of Mateo's bug, and it's mostly affecting my head by making it feel like a giant cotton ball and making me feel rather lethargic in general.

Mateo decided he wanted to get up at 4:30am this morning, and since I didn't wake up during the night when Mateo woke up crying and my husband got up and took care of him, I thought I should at least be nice and get up to take care of Mateo in the wee hours of the morning. I got probably a half hour snooze with him before my husband got up and told me to go sleep. I told him to go to the gym and I would sleep when he came home, so off he went like the good little "I love to exercise" husband that he is.

Then I took NyQuil.

And then I slowly removed myself from the living room and went to bed. This was at 12:30pm. The next time I made an appearance was at 6pm.

While I needed the sleep, I don't really feel any better. And since my husband spent his whole day with Mateo and he doesn't really know how to spend a day with Mateo while living a normal life (the "I have a VIP visitor and must attend to his needs every second of the day" syndrome), he now needs a day for himself and I shall be attending to Mr. Mateo all day Sunday. Fair is fair.

Surprise gifts are nice. Especially when I don't end up feeling guilty for taking them willingly.

Momma bear is getting pissed.

I'm having a serious case of road rage lately. And lately, it seems like everyone wants to ride my butt while I'm driving. Or just meander into my lane. Or decide while in the straight through lane to turn right while I'm turning right and almost running into me. Or right after turning left in the inner most lane (and I'm in the outer most turning lane), decide they want to be in my lane and start moving into my lane, and when they realize I'm there (although I'm not sure how they couldn't because we were just sitting right next to each other while in the turn lane), they keep trying, and when my car doesn't miraculously dissipate so they can move into the space I'm occupying, they get behind me and start honking at me. AT ME. And I'm thinking the whole time this is happening, "why didn't you just get into the turn lane I was in so you'd be in the lane you need to be in?????"

And usually these things happen while I'm driving with my most precious cargo in the backseat of the car. And while this should make me less angry because I should just let it role off my back, take it with a grain of salt, all those fun sayings, I want to kill the person who is almost trying to kill us. Which, I know, will do no one a bit of good.

Okay. I've thrown my road rage out into the universe, and from this point on, no one will do anything stupid around me with their vehicle. Right? Isn't that how it works? Or have I just cursed myself more.

"Baby on board!"

Am I differently-abled?

Toys R Us may think so.

And to think there are advertising firms hired to come up with these new PC terms.

Sick. Sleep. Sick. Sleep???

If Mateo didn't look an awful lot like me, I'd have to question if he was really the baby that was yanked so ungraciously from my womb back in February. There are two major differences between he and I:

1. I like to sleep.

From what my mom has told me, I was a baby who slept. I know I slept a lot when I was a kid -- slept in, that is, since I can't remember naps at all. I remember sleeping in forever during the summer. There was a stretch of years where I didn't sleep much and caught up on my lack of sleep on Sundays. This time was during my early 20's. Then at some point I got old and decided I loved naps. So I would nap. I would coerce my husband into napping with me, but usually he didn't want to nap. He definitely doesn't like to sleep in, and thinks that sleeping past 8 o'clock in the morning means the whole day is shot. I, on the other hand, and more now since Mateo has graced us with his adorable presence, would sleep the day away, waking up at 2 or 3pm and doing whatever I need to do before going back to sleep. Oh, that was a funny statement, wasn't it? I would do that, but do I? No. Why? Cause my little bugger doesn't like to sleep and gets us up between 5-6 am on the weekends.

Mateo, on the other hand, is not one for sleeping. This seems to be getting increasingly worse as he gets older instead of better. Oh, yes, we had a few good weeks of 10+ hours of sleeping through the night, but now that he's more mobile and is a bit of a restless sleeper, he tends to wander around his crib while sleeping, usually getting himself stuck in some weird position he's too tired to figure out how to get out of, and then proceeds to cry and cry until one of us rescues him. He's also become more of a light sleeper, so he's not going back to sleep easily anymore. He got that from me, as I'm a light sleeper as well. Poor him. Poor me.

He's horrible at naps while at daycare, does okay when someone is holding him at home, but not so good in his crib at home.

He's simply not my child. At least in the sleep department.

2. When I'm sick, I want to be sick to the fullest extent.

I want attention and pity and back rubs and, oh yeah, SLEEP, and I want to complain and have a pity party that anyone can come to. As long as you're going to feel sorry for me. I want to eat junky food and read trashy magazines and take NyQuil until I pass out.

Mateo likes to party when he's sick. He parties in his crib, he parties on the floor, he parties on our bed. He parties in his high chair, he parties in my arms, he parties in the stroller. He parties while the snot is rolling out of his nose and while he's hacking away. He's been sick four times now, and only one day during one of his illnesses did he show he didn't feel good. And that was by staring off into space while in Old Navy. Normally he'd be looking around with his big, ol' "please let me cheese you" eyes.

My husband is the same way. He'll pop pill after pill after pill to combat whatever illness is creeping into his system, but he will rarely just stop and rest. Now that he has a job where he can call in sick and the world won't crumble down upon some one's head, he will take a day off to recover, but I know he's really running around our condo, trying to clean or straighten or squirrel away things so his universe is more in control.

So what does this mean? Oh, well, to just put it out there: We need to have another kid so he/she can look like my husband but be more like me! Someone tell my husband that. And while you're at it, whisper to Mateo that he needs to sleep so mommy can sleep....

I fell off the wagon.

Poor planning on my part, being tired and lazy...and being able to talk my husband into almost anything makes me a Tracy Turnblad doll.

However, to save face, I did count everything I ate and now only have 7 extra points left for the week, which I will use tomorrow.

Willpower where are you when I need you most???

Evil lady on BART train.

Why is it that when I start my diet, that's when an evil person, such as the lady this morning, decides to sit next to me with their sack of smelly appley muffins sitting on the floor next to them?

And if I wasn't on a diet, I would have easily stopped at Specialty's on the way to work to buy myself a little something-something.

Ah, but those days are over. It's been 2.5 days since I began my diet, and so far, so good. I have clothes in a wide range of sizes waiting for my body to shrink so they can be worn again.

I need to lose weight. Like yesterday.

Pregnancy has done me no wonders and I still have yet to lose any weight after the intial Mateo minus placenta minus water minus blood minus whatever else needed to vacate my body after birth. I was told over and over and over that breastfeeding would help me lose weight. I'm not sure how that was going to happen cause I breastfed for 7 months, and will continue until I dry out (almost there...), and so far, nothing.

And, well, the final straw was when I was nursing Mateo, who, after a point, was just sucking for comfort, decided he wasn't quite finished, so as he was laying on my lap while I was trying to close up shop, he lifted up his head cecause he still wanted to comfort himself, and he latched onto my belly chub.

So.

I think that's a good indication that I need to lose weight. Like, now. Like, pronto. Like, no more sweets, chocolate, fried foods, ice cream, etc..

Perhaps a bout of public shame will encourage me to stick to my diet.

Elevator doors do close.

We needed to buy some rechargeable batteries and soda yesterday. After it took 5 minutes to get from one side of the Walmart parking lot to the other, we decided to forgo Walmart and the tons of idiotic people seeking cheap deals and head over to Target where the clientele is a smidge better.

We had to go downstairs for the batteries, and so after spending some time looking around and pondering whether Mateo needed a new toy or not (the answer to that was: no), we headed over to the elevator to go back upstairs. This is one thing I never really thought about before having Mateo - that elevators and ramps are the only way to get around when you have a baby -- all of a sudden I saw the world quite differently when Mateo arrived.

There was a lady at the elevators with a shopping cart; one of her kids was in the cart, the other was walking. As the doors opened up, the walking kid trotted inside right as the shopping cart kid kicked off his shoe, which the shopping cart jammed on and wouldn't move any further. The lady, who I will loosely call a 'mom,' exclaimed "OH!" and reached down to remove the shoe from under the cart...as the doors started to close.

Right after my husband and I got to the elevators, some annoying old man showed up and acted like no one was there except him, and if the lady wasn't blocking the elevator doors, he would have easily bypassed us all and stepped into the elevator. So, when the doors started to close, he panicked because that meant he wasn't getting on the elevator, and so he told her the doors were closing. My husband and I said the same thing.

Instead of acting quickly, while her child was screaming as the doors closed, by sticking her leg or arm into the opening so the safety laser on the elevator would detect her limb and reopen the doors, she stood there and said, "My boy! My boy!!" which made the kid start wailing even more loudly. She somehow thought he would pop out on the other side (the elevators at Target open on one side to let people off and then close, then the other side opens to let people on), so she went over to the other side to see. My husband, who is naturally helpful, went as well. I stood there with Mateo and the old man, wondering how long this was going to go on.

My husband came back and I informed him that I could hear the kid upstairs screaming. The lady came back with her kid and the cart. The other set of elevators came down, and we all piled on, including 4 more people who just showed up.

As soon as the doors opened, the lady said over and over, "are we up or down? are we up or down? are we up or down?"

Finally someone told her up.

Then she started saying loudly, "WHERE'S MY BOOOOOOOOOOOOOY! JOHANNNEEEEE!!!!"
We didn't stick around to see what happened. I know I should feel bad for her or the kids or both because I'm now a mom, and I'm sure the first time Mateo ups and runs off, I will freak out as well. But. Come on. Elevator doors do close. You only have so much time before they close. She never once looked at the doors or her kid inside the elevator, not until we told her the doors were closing. She's stupid. Her stupidity makes me feel bad for her kids, but not her.

For mom.

Trying to find that balance.

I got the luxury of spending one week and a day with Mateo. Most of those days his daddy was home as well. I quickly realized that I have dissatisfaction with two things:

1. Being a stay at home mom (that's if I were one)
2. Working full time and hardly seeing Mateo (this is the case)

There was a point when I was on leave that I started losing my mind and myself because everything centered around Mateo and his needs. I joyfully looked forward to my husband coming home and the weekends because then I had help, but I soon realized that even then, everything was put on me unless I asked for time alone. I come from the land of "never ask for help, just assume the person you need help from will figure it out and offer the help, although that never really happens, so then get really mad and blow up over a sock on the ground."

So then I started looking forward to going back to work because at least I was going to get 11 hours a day of not having to worry about someone else. That too became a bother because yes, I got 11 hours a day to worry only about myself and my job, but 9 of those hours were at work, so it wasn't like I could get anything done. And I wasn't taking care of my child. Miss Joanne was. And well, that would get to anyone after a point. So then I thought I needed one day off a week from work and from Mateo to get stuff done, but monetarily, we can't afford it. Okay, so two days off a month. Again, we can't afford it. So then I decided to give up on trying to do stuff I wanted to do and just enjoy what time I had with Mateo. Although this is stressful and rather annoying at times, it seems like the best fix for my mental state.

Then I get a week off with my little guy, and I realized again how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. Especially when your child is incapable of taking care of him/herself. I thought for sure when Mateo was able to sit up and play with toys, my life would get that much easier. Nope. Now we're moving into the separation anxiety and the "you need to be right here, with me, at all times, or I shall cry like a banshee!!!" stage. He doesn't do it all the time, but he does it often enough that I can't get much done unless he's asleep. And now I'm fondly remembering those days when he barely moved unless it was involuntarily and would sleep in the swing or vibrating chair for an hour at time before waking up. And usually when he did wake up, he would just sit quietly, taking the time to look around at things before he started crying. Now he wants to be in the action at all times, he wants Mommy to be there at all times, even if Daddy is there, and when he's not happy, he lets me know.

I give women kudos for having children and taking care of their house at the same time. I simply cannot do that nor can I barely do work, child, home. I'm sure if I was home all the time I would have a good routine down, so just taking one week off really isn't a clear representation of how things would be otherwise.

So here I am, still trying to figure it all out and how to do all that I want to do without feeling frustrated and with putting Mateo first in all cases, which he always has been and always will be. And when I get home tonight and he starts flaying his little arms around because Mommy is home and he wants me to hold him, I'll probably forget about everything I think about daily and just succumb to the Mateo love. And if he sticks his tongue out at me, that'll make it all even better.

And we wonder how our roles in life are defined?

My husband and I took Mateo to the park on Friday morning. We headed to a small playground so Mateo could experience his first swing fun. The playground was overfilled with tons of children, probably about ages 4-6, from some school or daycare. Many of the kids were in the sandbox with blue plastic picnic cups, although I'm not sure why except for the fact that they could easily use the cups to throw sand at each other. Well, at least, that's what my adult brain would think they'd be doing.

When the big yellow school bus arrived to whisk them all back to where they came from, the adults told all the kids to line up by class. Most of the kids ran to the adults; about five boys stayed in the sandbox to kick up sand and create a massive sand storm. This was probably something they wanted to do since they got there.

Finally the boys ran to the adults. The next time I glanced up, about 5 girls were running back to the sandbox. When they got there, they started picking up the blue cups all the kids left behind. Just like dutiful little girls should.

So the boys that were just in there, kicking up the sand, couldn't pick up the cups, but the girls, who were already in line (another proper thing girls do), had to go back and get them all.

And people wonder how gender differences start?

I, for one, wouldn't have ran back to pick up the cups. And if I was told to, I would have done so with a very bad attitude. An internal bad attitude, but a bad attitude nonetheless.