Birthday Fail

I made my daughter cry on her birthday (the actual birthday date was yesterday). I feel like such a schmuck. She was not out-of-line to be hurt and upset. She could have used her words a little better, which would have curtailed some of the events that hurt her feelings, but some of it was undeniably mea culpa. The twist of the knife is that instead of serving as an advocate for her, I trivialized her feelings, then I started talking to somebody and truthfully kinda forgot about Q for a span of 5-10 minutes. Not a big deal under non-birthday circumstances, one might argue. She spent those 5-10 minutes alone, huddled on the floor of the backseat of our car, sobbing. The car was parked in the parking lot. We were with friends. We had just left a restaurant. Another, much littler girl, had been chasing and pestering Q as they ran around the parked car and wouldn't stop when Q told her to stop, so Q sought refuge inside our parked car. The littler girl kept trying to get into the car to continue the game, but Q had locked the door. I had the remote entry clicky thing and I kept unlocking the door, because I (mistakenly) thought they were both having fun with this. Until, when I opened the door to let the little one "get" Q, Q shouted "STOP, MOM!" at me with utter frustration and anger and pulled the door shut again. The little girl (almost 4) then started mimicking Q, yelling at the top of her lungs into the nearly empty parking lot "Stop Mom!" over and over again, and the other mother and I laughed because it sounded funny to have a little 4-year-old saying that. (Reading this after the fact, I don't understand why we thought that was funny, and why we didn't tell the little girl to stop.) And of course, the more we laughed, the more the 4-year-old said it, with a big ol' grin, looking cute and so pleased with herself. I was totally focused on her. Q? Q who?

Boy I feel so stupid now. Because of course Q heard it as the little girl mocking Q, and maybe she was, and why I was not tuned into that, I don't understand. If anybody present were to have acted as Q's advocate, it should have been me. Instead, I contributed to the actions that hurt her feelings, and then, I walked over to the other person's car and talked to her for those 5-10 minutes, totally not tuned into the fact that Q was still inside the car, alone, ignored, dismissed. I was sharing something personal with the other mom and totally focused on myself. When I walked back over to my car, that's when I saw Q huddled on the floor, and I knew instantly that she was upset and probably crying about something. I still didn't know what or why. I finally cajoled her into opening the door, and she was all hot and sweaty and tearful and her face was red and puffy from crying. It wasn't until we were alone together on the drive home that she fully explained the many things that upset her. Plus she said she'd been waiting to hear me say "Happy Birthday!" like I had when I woke her up that morning, and I never said it again, apparently. Plus she was super-tired, but of course, she didn't want to hear that.

I balance these facts against the just-worked-my-tail-off-to-throw-her-a-party fact. My conclusion is: forget the party next year, especially if it doesn't fall on the date of her birthday. Focus on the day itself. Start preparing her for what birthdays are like as a grown-up: on the actual day, you get maybe a free cupcake and a smile from restaurant staff, at best. I call my newly adopted birthday policy: The Unspoiling of Q. Is such a thing possible?

I Know It's Not Me

It's not me who turned lunch into yet another wtf-fest. It's not me who started melodramatically shuffling papers and stamping them together loudly on the table and sat back in the chair with arms folded across my chest with a wounded pride sniff.

This guy has some serious issues. Even my placid, well-meaning boss told him, "There's no need to emotionally react to this." It's not me who feigned innocence, who feigned nonchalance while pulling off one elephant-sized pouty-pout extravaganza. Where is this coming from?!

Try as I might to distance myself from what's going on across from me, the repercussions are acute. Everyone at the table is affected. My boss and I are both still trying to shed the wtf-ness of it from off our shoulders. But it stays with you, like a dark cloud. I sorta want a stiff drink right now. Or some emergency yoga, some deep-breathing exercises.

We're all left feeling like we just watched something very upsetting, like we took part in some very upsetting episode, but it's unclear exactly who did what to warrant such behavior. Where did that come from? Was it me? Am I such a bitch, is my bitchiness so deeply ingrained in me that I am unable to recognize it anymore? What did I do to upset him so? Am I that bad??!

No, by gawd. No. It's not me. I know it's not me!

Party Over Heeyah

I have survived another birthday party for Q. I am exhausted. It was fun. It was hectic. It was a slumber party. Keeping the number of guests to a minimum helped. My proudest moment was when she burped "Mary Had A Little Lamb" for the enjoyment of her guests. Such class.

Post-party, Leo's cleanliness habit kicked into full swing. He "guided" the three of us through an exhaustive - and exhausting - purge of all of her toys, gadgets, gizmos and accessories. We filled a trash bag with...um...trash, basically. We have two piles of things for Good Will and a LOT more closet space now. Leo is very disciplined about getting Q into the habit of purging at Christmas and birthdays. If she gets a present, she must make a home for it, which usually involves removing an older object.

Pre-party, I cleaned the back porch, which never ended up being used or really even seen by most of the guests. But I worked up a fantastic sweat cleaning it, had to take a couple of breaks, used about an entire roll of paper towels and vanquished mold and mildew and cat hair, at least until the next rain comes.

We are now enjoying our house even more, post-purge. Again, it's about the discipline. For me, discipline is something intentionally conjured forth into existence. A new person on the scene is the catalyst required to get me to move. Nothing motivates me as feverishly as when I'm dreading the sound of the doorbell.

I'm too tired to make this post interesting or funny. And tomorrow is going to be a challenge. Work Husband is in town. I gotta get some rest, 'cause having him in town is never very pleasant after the first hour. And nobody at work is gonna give an iota of empathy about the fact that I cleaned and cooked and hosted and sweated and fretted at an intense level all weekend long. This is where it really truly feels like I'm working two jobs and wonder how a day off might ever be possible. I just thank god that Leo is here to help me. Without him, I'd suffer a constant state of domestic chaos. Without at least one other person's help, chaos will always win. 

Stalked By My Own Blog Post

So I post that picture (which I think is totally cute and fairly haunting and am now a bit hurt that nobody made a single comment about the picture itself...I thought people always commented about pictures...?) (not to take away from the thoughtful, funny and very much welcomed and appreciated comments that I did get prior to my whining here - thank you Hyphen Mama and CatrinkaS!) and I'm thinking about my childhood and what it meant to be a doctor's daughter, the pros and the cons, both then and now.

Well, then, Leo calls me just before 5pm today to say we got our carpets cleaned and they were still wet and let's just go out to dinner since all of our furniture is in one massive pile in the kitchen, leaving us with no where to sit until the carpets dry.

Okay, fine, so I meet Leo and Q in the parking lot of where we're going for dinner, and hey, there are my parents, too. Leo likes to invite people along on such outings, and that's fine with me. And I'm feeling all nostalgic about my parents, because of yesterday's post and also because of the comment I left over on Bea's blog about growing up as a doctor's daughter. I'm feeling especially nostalgic about my dad, and I give him a big kiss on the cheek as we walk into the place and I tell him I'm proud of him and he is both tickled by the show of affection and the flattery and also kinda wondering if maybe I've been drinking before dinner.

There were a whole bunch of people there, at this place we were eating. We ate in the back room, because the big front room was occupied by An Event. With a lot of little girls, like mostly between 4-10 years old, and their parents, and the girls are in party dresses and looking semi-formal and very pleased to be there. Guess what was going on, y'all?

It was the Doctor/Daughter Dinner for the local medical society! How freaky is that?!!!

And I don't talk about my blog to my folks, so I had to keep my astonishment on the down-low until I could sneak away tonight and tell you guys about it.

Seriously, that is kind of a funny coincidence. I mean, I have really not talked about that part of my life on here ever before, and then the day after I finally post about it, BAM! there's a whole room full of people living out the post I had just written, experiencing what it's like to be a doctor's daughter. Celebrating that very thing, no less.

And who else but my fellow bloggers would appreciate how much that would affect a person who had just written about being a doctor's daughter on her blog the day before?

Of course, I had to say something about how they never had one of those in that little town we lived in back in the day when I was the cute little doctor's daughter. But Dad said, yes we did, and I took you, and he wasn't even upset, he just said it very matter-of-factly. Well, Mom didn't recall it at all either. Then Dad said, "Yes, I took you and you wore a mu mu." At which point I was certain he was pulling my leg. But no, Mom backed him up on the mu mu thing...told me it was yellow and orange and I looked cute in it. Said she was surprised I liked those colors.

I was only 7 or 8, or thereabout. I WAS NOT FAT (that came later, with puberty). So why a mu mu?

Because, I have the great misfortune of having grown up in the '70's. When things like mu mus were in fashion. That's why. And it sucks. Because wonderful memories like that one get ruined by words like "mu mu". Ugh. The shame.

But anyway, see? I totally love my Dad (and Mom) and I'm still totally impressed with his incredibly sharp memory and no one, NO ONE, can beat that man at Trivial Pursuit and at 75 he still remembers what I wore to the Doctor/Daughter Dinner and he has earned every bit of goodness that he has gotten in this life. And more. I just wish, as I've made painfully obvious to anyone reading this blog, that I were one-quarter the person he is.

Doctor's Children

That's my oldest brother with the stethoscope, checking out my my other brother. I wasn't born yet.

I had forgotten this picture. It's hanging in the hallway at my eldest brother's house. I happened to be over there on Sunday and snapped a picture of it with my phone. You can see me taking a picture of the picture.

My father was a physician. He first went to dental school, graduated, then went to medical school. My mother was a Registered Nurse, which "in those days" as she likes to point out, often, "that required a four-year degree." Not one of my parents' three children grew up to be doctors. Or lawyers. Or stock brokers, accountants, professors (ahem) or dentists. Or any other well-known white-collar category. All three of us are in the IT field in one way or another. Well, both brothers are business owners, with varying success. I'm sure I don't give either of them the credit they deserve.

I struggle sometimes, with who Q is, with what Q is capable of, compared to what I project onto her, what I think she is capable of, what I think she should be capable of, who I think she should be or could be or might be. Like, I think she might be a smaller version of my mother-in-law, sometimes. I see parts of myself in there, too. And her patience...that's Leo, for sure.

What were my parents thinking of their eldest when they took this picture? And how does it feel now, at 75 years of age, with that little guy nowadays pushing 50 years of age, to reconcile today's reality with yesteryear's unknown potential?

They would say, we are happy, we are healthy, we have our own families now, that's all they ever wanted for us. I'm not sure I believe them. But I understand. I look at Q, and I love her, and I accept her (most days).

Somebody recently said, kids (families, in fact) are a crap shoot. That is so true.

So...discipline...yeah...

June 1, I was all gangbusters. But my gangbusters busted me. I stayed at work doing real work things until 3am. Things I coulda shoulda woulda been doing last week, last month, if I weren't blogging all the dang time. So I finish something that I had promised would be done by Tuesday, with quite a few other projects thrown in (and a wee bit of hulu watching, while I wait for updates to download, to install, for servers to reboot...good lord, the wasted minutes! this is my life I'm watching slide by on the 63%-complete-status-bar...hulu made it tolerable)...anyway, I finish just before 3am and walk my lonely self to the parking garage, looking over my shoulder every so often.

Then of course, because I promised him I would, I had to stop at the store on the way home and buy Leo something for his morning workout/bike ride...at 3:30AM!!! I am too nice, really...I mean, really, c'mon, that goes in the above-and-beyond category, don't you think?

So I'm shopping because once I'm in a store, the shopping/hunting gene thing must be fed by at least 30 minutes of browsing the warehouse-size aisles, dodging anyone I might make eye contact with, certain my car is being vandalized as I seek out quality onion bagels (there were none).

So I get home around 4am. Finally get to sleep around 4:30am. Don't ask me how this is possible, but my feet are the first ones on the floor, at 8:30, this morning. Leo is still asleep, and so is Q, as I make my coffee. I have to go wake up Q, who is all smiles and hugs and absolutely a little smitten kitten about seeing me again (since I didn't come home last night until after she was asleep), so that part was super nice.

But now it is June 2, I'm still at work (finally got here mid-morning), and I have yet to exercise even once this month (or read my $%^$*@ book!).

Well, there are about three hours of daylight left. Where there is light, there is hope. I am visualizing me walking around our neighborhood, at the very least, after dinner, or maybe before. And if you can dream it, you can do it, right?

Hello, June!

I did it, people. The first words I uttered on the first day of the month (at around 1am last night) were "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit". Does anybody else do that? It's something I learned in high school: if the first thing you say is "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" on the first day of the month, then you're supposed to have good luck all month long. I haven't managed to do that in years. Hmmmpf. We'll see if June turns out to be a good month or not. Lord knows I have plenty on my plate and I could certainly use some good luck in the next three to four weeks!