Relationship Wisdom of the Ages

Yesterday when I said that there would be no posts this weekend, well...I lied. Boo hoo. You get one today (but none tomorrow and I doubt that I will get the chance to approve comments, so sit tight:-))

We are leaving for the weekend in a little bit, but I wanted to check in with a funny story. After work last night me and the twerp went out for Mexican food (it was the Quatro de Mayo, after all;-)) and met up with The Boy, Smoking Hot Roommate, The Rocket Scientist and then eventually a handful of other friends.

The weather was beautiful and it was clear that there were going to be a ton of people out, which means that eventually we would have trouble finding a place that would let Munchkin in. I guess maybe that is a sign that I should not take her to so many bars...whatever, you raise your kids and I will raise mine. Well, my Mother's kid, but you get the point...

So, we decided to have a little party of our own. About 15 people came over to hang out on the deck and drink a giant bucket of margaritas. It was a lot of fun, and was sort of an early night (for us at least: a bunch of our friends were going out afterwards). When The Boy has a couple of drinks, he gets super cute and gets really frisky, too...lol. The sex gets a little more aggressive, and he talks a lot more, too, all of which I am a big fan of (I love dirty talking...is this TMI?)

There is a downside, though...which is that he snores more...lol. He tends to snore whenever he sleeps on his back, and it is worse if he has had a couple of drinks (and also harder to get him to roll over and stay rolled over.) By about 3:00, I had been woken up for the last time, so I left him in my bed and went in to sleep with Munchkin.

She may not put out, but she also doesn't snore!!!

I climbed into her bed, and she immediately woke up entirely, leading to the following conversation:

Munchkin: Are you OK?
Me: Yea, go back to sleep.
Munchkin: You're sure everything is OK?
Me: Yup, I couldn't sleep.
Munchkin: Did you guys have a fight?
Me: No, not at all, I just couldn't sleep.
Munchkin: If you had a fight you should make up before you go to bed.
Me: We didn't have a fight, he is snoring and I can't sleep
Munchkin: Oh, OK.

And then she was sleeping again before I even finished thinking "How on earth does she know 'Never go to bed angry'?"

Routine, Ritual and Tradition

Dog is man's best friend. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. The post is the goalie's best friend (thanks to Smoking Hot Roommate for the sports analogy;-))

Routine is a parent's best friend.

This is one of the (many) lessons I have learned in my 18 months of "parenthood". Kids need structure, and they work best when they have a regular schedule with regular routines. Up at the same time, breakfast at the same time, to school at the same time, etc. When they get out of their routine and out of their comfort zone, they get cranky, irritable and annoying (well, except for my sister, who is perfect;-)).

Routines quickly turn into rituals. You do the same thing every day, and then pretty soon you don't feel right if you don't do it. If Munchkin weren't sitting on my bed and chatting while I got dressed in the morning, I would really miss her. And who would dress me everyday and help me pick out shoes?:-)

Rituals eventually turn into traditions, and become the things you look back on fondly and look forward to with great anticipation. When Munchkin first moved here, I really didn't know what to do with her...like on a daily basis. I mean, I knew the big stuff...find her a school, look into activities, etc...but on a day to day basis, it is really hard to think of things to do all the time. On a regular Sunday when nothing else is planned and it is raining, what do you do all day? Kids get bored VERY fast...

Munchkin has loved the Chicago Cubs forever. I think she may have gotten it from her father, but to be honest, I don't really know. Regardless, I found out that any time the Cubs were on TV, if I could find a place that showed the game, I could keep her entertained for three hours. Smoking Hot Roommate suggested a sports bar in town once, and we all went over, asked them to put on the game for her and had dinner while we watched the game. And with that, a tradition was born.

To begin with, it was something to do with her, and we usually did it on weekend afternoons when I needed to keep her occupied. Chicken fingers and french fries became a central part of the experience, as did sitting at the same table, having the bartenders greet her by ringing the bell, and drinking fancy drinks out of martini glasses (like Shirley temples, or cranberry juice and 7up).

And at some point, it went from being an activity to being a routine to being a ritual to being a tradition. And it went from being a time-wasting weekend activity to being a Thursday night tradition (which means less baseball, since the games start too late to really be out and watch them for her on weekdays). Now, we have a lot of routines so I don't have any trouble keeping her busy. But there is very little that I look forward to more than chicken finger and french fry Thursdays. Almost every Thursday, I really start looking forward to dinner about mid-morning.

If she is home, Smoking Hot Roommate joins us, and Big Sis, Papa Bear, The Rocket Scientist, The Brain Surgeon, The Boy, The Boy's Sister and her wife, and some other friends come sometimes too. Boss Foxy and her son came once. Sometimes it is just me and Munchkin:-)

Last night SHR and The Boy were both with us and Munchkin was in her element. She folds her legs under her and sits in the booth and chats away about everything she can possibly think of. And she always gets ketchup on her sleeves somehow:-) The chicken fingers were as delicious as always, as were the french fries. And the beer was as cold as ever (I don't usually drink if it is just the two of us...but I do if I have drinking buddies;-)). And it was the ordinariness of it all that I liked so much. And now I can start to look forward to next Thursday.

God's in His heaven, all's right with the world.

(Special note: kind of random, last-minute weekend plans, so I don't think I will be around at all this weekend. Which means you may need to wait until Monday morning for your fill of me:-))

Bigger is Better!

Sorry to any IM buddies who have been looking for me this week...work has been busy as a motherfucker and I haven't had time. I was going at 100mph all day yesterday, and still had a couple of hours of work to do when I finally got home. Today should be better, though... hopefully.

Munchkin had a baseball game last night, which is always fun. The Boy came over to watch and brought me dinner at the same time:-) What a guy:-D

Note: NOT softball, and don't ever ask her if she plays softball, or she is likely to bite your head off. I don't ever remember girls playing little league when I was little, but I think about a third of the kids are girls now. Which is really super cute...they do pretty well. The very best players are still boys, but most of the girls hold their own pretty well.

There was a woman at the park that amazed me with her pet ambition. I'd say she was 28, maybe about 5'6", thinnish build...and she was walking two of the biggest dogs I have ever seen. One of them was a 140 pound Newfoundland, and that was the little one!!! The other was a 196 pound English Mastiff. Yes, that dog is almost exactly twice my size...and he was really sweet, too:-) He did drool a lot, though...

She had them both on leashes (which is the law, I think) but all I could really think was "Why?". If that Mastiff sees a squirrel and wants to go chase it...is a leash gonna stop him? She would be lucky not to get her arm ripped off...

This is the latest in what has become and interesting phenomenon around here: giant dogs. During our Sunday morning walk a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a growing preponderance of absolutely mammoth dogs on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. A couple Burmese Mountain Dogs, a Great Dane, a Neapolitan Mastiff and some others. How do people keep dogs like that in the city? I love big dogs as much as anyone (refer to my constant wishes for a Swiss Mountain Dog) but I can't imagine having a 150+ pound animal living with you in a tiny apartment.

Maybe these people are all absurdly wealthy and have massive apartments (and a staff to walk the dog three times a day all year long...not so much fun in February...) I dunno. Is this a local phenomenon? Has there been a rash of massive dog breeding across the whole country recently? I am not sure, but I think the Dog Whisperer is to blame...

Low heat means LOW heat...

I spent about 10 minutes at work yesterday absolutely bawling like I was watching Beaches, but I will get to that in a minute. First, my disastrous attempt at making ribs...

My Mom used to make these ribs where she would take a bunch of country style pork spare ribs and really slowly pot-roast them in ketchup, onions, peppers and a bunch of other stuff. Always seemed so easy...you put the stuff in a pot, turn the heat on super low and then you let it cook for a while and the meat gets incredibly tender. Usually you can eat them with a fork.

So, me and the little one decided that were were gonna try and make them yesterday. Turns out it is maybe a little harder than I had anticipated. I should have know something was wrong because they really seemed to be completely cooked like five minutes after I put them all in the pot. Intuitively, I felt like it should take kind of a long time, but since I had never done it before, I figured that maybe I needed to wait.

After a little while, it became clear that no...I just had the heat turned up way too high (I had it on as low as it could go without flickering out, I thought!) About a half an hour in, they were basically the texture and consistency and flavor of hockey pucks. Hmm...and I was starting to think that I had some skills in the kitchen, too...

So that's why we split a turkey sub for dinner last night:-P And it was delicious!

OK, the crying. Yesterday was kind of a stressful morning at work. I was doing something for one of the VP's, and I could tell he was getting frustrated because I just couldn't figure out what I was doing and no matter how hard he tried to explain it to me, it just wasn't working. It's not like he was at all mean or condescending, I could just tell that he was getting really frustrated. There are still a lot of times that I am reminded that I am WAY less experienced than everyone else here, and that there are lots of things where my technical skills are miles and miles and miles behind everyone else's. Generally, people are very helpful (you know, because I am so cute!) but there are still times that it gets frustrating.

So I was in kind of a bad mood and feeling a bit frazzled...and at about 11:00, one of the admins came over to my desk with a big bouquet of flowers and said "These just came for you."

My first thought was..."Aww...isn't he a sweetie? What perfect timing!" And then I read the card, and they weren't from The Boy. The card said:

"Thanks for being such a good big sister all the time. I love you! Love, Munchkin"

And that was it...I just started bawling. On Sunday night after the incident with the new boyfriend, she asked Smoking Hot Roommate if she could send me flowers at work. So they ordered them then and they got delivered yesterday. And it made me cry...A LOT!

And look, I am crying again...what a sap:-)

When the cat's away

I had this discussion with Ella W yesterday...about how much fun it is when the boss (or bosses) are away from work. It has nothing to do with my job...I literally love my job and all of the people I work with, and don't believe there is any job that I would (realistically) trade this one for.

I even like my bosses. And not just as bosses...they are good friends. There are five partners here, so there are five "big bosses". The biggest of the big bosses is Papa Bear, one of my very favorite people on Earth. (Sometimes I forget that I have people who just started reading recently...Papa Bear is NOT actually my Father, we just kinda pretend that he is:-)...it is all spelled out in this post.) Another of the big bosses is Boss Foxy, who is a mentor and a very close friend.

So, I like my bosses so much that I choose to spend time with them outside of work. But...it is still really nice when they are out of the office! Yesterday there were a handful of related meetings in the afternoon, so we were busy as all get out in the morning, but then everyone that mattered was gone after lunch. Just me, the admins (yes, Billy...THAT admin...) and two other people on the investment staff were in the office.

So what did we do? Well...kinda nothing:-D I did a lot of IM'ing, and some shopping (well, browsing) and some chatting on the phone. And I think that is true of every office, no matter how dedicated people are and how hard they work. I work with a ton of people who qualify as "achievers" and extremely hard workers, but we still get excited when the bosses leave the office!

I think it is just a natural reaction...even if your boss is nice and fair, you still feel a certain sense of freedom when they are gone. If I had anything that really needed to get done, I would have happily done it...but it is just a really liberating feeling to be boss-free.

They are, however, all back this morning, which means I need to get to work...phooey!