Barely Blogging

I started to blog as an educational venture.  I’d been hired to set up and moderate several blogs.  Of course, I’d been hired to do this and yet hadn’t heard the word blog until I was told that’s what I was hired to do.  I figured it was worth my while to try my hand at it so I could claim I was worth the hiring.

I got hooked.

And then I got addicted.

But, suddenly, I’m not.

Like I left my blogginess behind in Barcelona.

It’s truly bizarre.

Bet you I can fit a few more brazenly beautiful b words into this blog before I’m done.  Just kidding.  I won’t.  But it was a brilliant idea wasn’t it?

I’ll be back.

Soon.

I bromise promise.

Barcelona can wait…

…because I need to post about this instead:

My child really likes to use the F word.

Seriously.

I blame her dad.  He blames himself too.  So at least we’re all clear on that one.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she just randomly shouted it out every once and a while.  It does sound an awful lot like ‘truck’ after all.  But she only says it in a sentence, with her own name in it.  And she only says it in somewhat appropriate situations.

Yesterday, she was getting on to her little plastic horse with wheels and lost her balance a little.  She started chanting, “Oh, f**k, Avi.  Oh, f**k, Avi.  Oh, f**k, Avi.”

I convinced her to replace f**k with “drat” and hoped it would stick.

It didn’t.

Today, I was strapping her into her f-ing car seat and was a little frustrated.  I didn’t swear.  I didn’t have to.  She swore for me. “Oh, f**k, Avi.”

I reminded her to say “drat.”  She just stared at me blankly.

I can’t wait to be at a playgroup and have her bust out with this one in ear shot of all the other parroting toddlers.  I’m sure all their moms will just adore me for that one.

Attached to the Boob in Barcelona

Bloggy Break

I’m going on a bloggy break.  Well, actually, I’m going to Spain.  Nice.

For 10 days.

So I’m signing off early to make sure I don’t waste the next two days of baby-free time on line.

I’m going to waste it doing laundry and cleaning my house instead.

I’m one of those slightly neurotic people that don’t normally have very clean homes but when I leave for a month or a week or a weekend away, I need everything spotless so I can come home to a clean house.

It turns out my mom is the same way.  So I blame her.

See you in May.

At My Most Selfish

I want to be wanted, not needed.

I want to be needed, because no other will do.

I want life to lay its bare limbs before me and glow.

I want answers beyond the questions I have asked.

I want someone else to think of all the right questions.

I want the answers to actually mean something.

I want it all.

I want to not care.

Housework Challenge Round-Up

One week ago, I told you I was going to time my clean-ups for the week: house work, that is.  My least favorite waste of time.  And then, I asked you to do the same, just to see what sort of numbers would come back, if any.

Did anyone make it for seven whole days?  Because I didn’t.

I found myself resenting having to go write everything down.  It’s not easy.  I multi-task like a fiend, pick up faster than you can sneeze and literally have 30-second rounds of clean-up scattered throughout the day.  It’s a defense technique so I don’t find myself at the end of an exhausted day with a filthy house to clean.  It’s so much easier if it’s just done in tiny snippets.

After two days of record keeping, I stopped doing my habitual tiny snippets of cleaning and let it build up so I wouldn’t have to write things down as frequently.  The sessions got longer.  And I got more resentful.

Now, today, a week later, my kitchen is disgusting because I revolted and refused to clean it for two days.

Somehow, rebelling against yourself really isn’t as satisfying as rebelling against someone else.  Sigh.  Guess what who gets to suffer for my rebellion and clean up the kitchen after I write this post?  Erg.

So, with my trusty friend the calculator and a little simple arithmetic, here’s what I got:

7 days.

6 of them at home.

1 of them without a child.

12 hours and 43 minutes of house work.

I do at least 1 hour of house work every day and no more than 2 and a half.  And, for the curious, if I go over two it’s because I included a “special project” like baking bread or deep cleaning my bedroom.

On a typical day, no more than 1.5 hours.

I discovered that I naturally exchange one chore for another to keep the time from building up.  For example, if I spend an hour catching up on laundry, I pick a ten minute dinner to cook.  Apparently I do have some sort of internal clock when it comes to stuff I hate.

For the record my living situation (which totally affects all this):

• I work from home.
• I’m single and have no adult roommates.
• I have one toddler and one indoor cat.
• My apartment is approximately 700 square feet, if that.  All one floor.  No carpets.
• I have my own washer and dryer but I wash all my dishes by hand (which completely sucketh).

If you care to play along, leave a comment about how your week went.  Please include some stats like number of kids, whether you work or not, live with another grown-up, etc…

Mr. Australia, where are you?

In an effort to procrastinate, I went over to one of my favorite blogs, which led me to another, and another, and so on down the line.  For some reason, they’re all in Australia.  And they all have pictures of beautiful places and talk about beautiful vegetables and describe beautiful events.  So, of course, the entire country must be made up of equally brilliant minds and beautiful people, right?

With this in mind, I’m just going to hypocritically amend my last post with the following statement:

P.S. - If you happen to be a millionaire but still like things like Juno, This American Life, and vaguely Bohemian single moms, and just happen to live in Australia, feel free to ask me out on a date.

Farewell Match.com

Yep, you guessed it from the title: I’m giving up on match.  Actually, dating.  For a while.

I’m not ready.

So not ready.

I tried.

I had several nice dates.

But when faced with the prospect of actually dating someone.  Like, spending quality time with him and getting to know him and making enough eye contact that I got a nice tingle up my spine and trying to figure out how to initiate hand-holding….I balked.  Seriously balked.

I’m not ready to devote my precious time to someone other than me or my child.

It’s my time.  All mine.

When he was sweet and called to see how my expectedly crappy meeting went, instead of feeling immediately grateful that he was sweet and called, I just felt like “Oh, crap.  There’s goes my night.  Now I have to talk to this guy for a couple of hours.”  Which was unfair to him because I actually really enjoyed all of our conversations, I just don’t have the time for them right now.  I barely have time for me.

I need to be utterly selfish and be a single girl for much longer than just this one year.

So…In conclusion…

To Mr. Dad of Two, whenever you find this blog.  Sorry.  You’re lovely.  I have no doubt you’ll find someone else without a problem.

To my single mom readers who were hoping to get the inside scoop.  Sorry.  I’m not your girl.  Keep reading for another ten years and then maybe I’ll be able to help you out.

To my Jedi Dating Masters.  Sorry.  The dark side was just too tempting.

Hop Scotch

A Career Break from our regular Child-Centered programming

A word from the newly wise:

#1 - If you’re a stage director, get video tapes of ALL of your work, no matter the quality.

#2 - Learn how to edit your videos and make sure you have the right software for this.

#3 - Do this more than one week before your fellowship application is due.