Pink slip day at my office

I knew it was coming. But really wanted it to end on my own terms. My terms were that after I was done with my maternity leave, I would move to my next company, whatever company that would be.

As some of you know, the CFO and I are expecting. She's due a month before I am. We were supposed to hire a temp for the duration of both of our maternity leaves, however, that choice has been taken away from us. The parent company is taking the entire Finance dept of my former company and absorbing the duties there. I don't know how someone who is off site can understand the intricacies of a business, from another state, even when one explains it to them on a daily basis. But alas, it is not my decision or choice. The entire finance dept which consisted of me and the collections person and the AP/office manager were let go of today. The CFO will stay on until December, before she is also gone. She's been with the company for 5-7 years. That's how a company repays you I guess. Most of the senior level staff have also been eliminated....except of course for the GM.

So I find myself in a quandary. What will I do with myself? I have no idea. I called Oliver's daycare asking that they allow him to go part time for November and December so that I can put him into daycare full time in January, however they were not very receptive to the idea of working it out with me. Who knows, perhaps they'll sing a different tune on Monday when they call me to discuss this with me. We've paid on time, every month without fail. We never complain, unless we see them give Oliver juice. But the way I see it, the economy is going to crap in a hand basket, the least they can do is work something out with me. I am unemployable in my current state, and therefore am forced to take time off. I think this is fate, somehow telling me that life is precious and to spend time with Oliver so that he will have quality time with me before he has to share me and Crazy with another. But I know how much Oliver loves the interaction he gets at daycare and so I just wasn't willing to give up daycare for him.

I hate having plans and then having to change them as I go along. We were planning on buying a house and having our family enjoy it. But now I have to put those plans on hold. Its not like there was anything interesting in the market anyhow. But I asked Crazy to make the call to our realtor and tell him the circumstances. We still want to buy badly, however, there is literally no inventory that we want. Which just SUCKS!!!! But I digress, mentally I'm a bit numb. Unlike other mothers out there, I do not thrive being home with my children. I thrive when I'm using my education and forwarding my career. I thrive when I know I can with the aide of Crazy afford the lifestyle we want our family to be accustomed to. I know I am employable, that's not an issue. What is an issue is that in my current state, no business in their right mind will hire me, knowing full well that I will be taking 3 months of maternity leave shortly after they hire me. I just need to slow down and stop looking at employment ads. Crazy thinks that I should start studying for my CPA exam and spend my time without Oliver at the library studying for it. I know I can study for it and pass it, however, I don't have the crazy hours to work after #2 is born so I am a little reluctant to do it.

Crazy filled out my unemployment form today. It just feels so weird. One of the questions was "are you willing and able to work?" which to me seems a bit ironic, especially since I am willing and able to work, however no company in their right mind will hire me in my state. It sucks that there is this double standard for women. It is either career or family. Is there really an acceptable balance? I would be looked upon as a bad employee if I chose my family, but I would be looked upon as a bad mother if I chose my work. Babies get sick, ALOT, and a lot of the times Crazy and I found ourselves juggling work/home issues and it was really tough Oliver's first year of life. I am luckier than a lot of women I know though. Crazy helps every chance he gets. He dutifully does our laundry, does everything for our dogs, cleans the house, packs our lunches, warms up our leftover dinners and he sees to it that we are all taken care of. Even with all this help, I find myself struggling for a better work/life balance. I would love a job that had me so engrossed that I found myself challenged everyday, however the truth of the matter is, when I came home, it only made me mad at myself because it seemed as though I was choosing work over my family. Part of the reasons why I left my last company, I suppose. It was sad to see those photos of Crazy taking care of Oliver at night while I was still stuck in the office. I guess these are just things they don't tell you about in books about child rearing.

Anyhow, I'm bumming myself out. I'm on a forced vacation of sorts. I should enjoy it. Oliver was still home today, his butt is going to daycare tomorrow.

"I don't want it!"

Sorry for not blogging the past week. My family came this weekend and so we were all busy entertaining them.

Sunday night we noticed that Oliver felt slightly warm and was a bit croupy. He slept terribly and started to cry in the middle of the night. He refused to be comforted by either of us, and so after giving him some "candy" (aka baby tylenol), he went to bed with us and slept unpeacefully. No one slept well Sunday night. We were all exhausted by Monday. I took the day off and bribed him to take some more "candy" as he was still feeling a bit feverish. Crazy went to work in the afternoon because he had some meetings to attend.

Tuesday I went to work in the morning while Crazy took the morning shift, we then quickly went to the grocery store and picked up ingredients for chinese chicken soup. I cooked it while Crazy went to work for the afternoon shift. Oliver slept poorly and ate very little. He still has a temperature, so we bribed him with some more candy and this candy included half a Flintstones chewables vitamin. He barely ate any dinner. :-(

We weren't able to go to the grocery store during the weekend, because we did not want to take Oliver out because it was a bit chilly. So it was take out city here, which I HATE. I just found out that our hospital now carries the H1N1 vaccine and unfortunately because of Oliver's elevated temperatures, he can't take the first part of the vaccine just yet. If he was able to, I would have sent both him and Crazy to the hospital for theirs. Crazy will be going to the grocery store after Oliver goes down tonight so that he can pick up some pedialyte because Oliver isn't really producing as many wet diapers as he normally produces. He isn't really drinking his water with gusto either.

"I don't want it" is his new phrase. He says this to EVERYTHING. When I ask him if he wants candy, he says "I don't want it", and then holds his hand out for it. I feel really bad he's feeling so terrible. His temper is extremely short, and he gets more frustrated if he can't do what he normally does.

Is there a resemblance?

Oliver's momma just pointed something out that she's noticed a while back that I hadn't noticed before.

Do YOU see a resemblance?

yeah.

but we're not naming #2 Hobbes and that's final.

-Crazy

Who is this kid?

As we sat down for dinner tonight, that's what I was thinking. Who is this kid? Crazy made chicken noodle soup tonight for dinner. It was a two day process...and LOTS of chicken fat was discarded. Oliver really took to his soup and ate all his egg noodles and chicken pieces. After wards he demanded Crazy give him some cheerios. After he ate his cheerios, he wanted some of the yogurt we were eating. Brown Cow low fat vanilla yogurt. Oliver saw us eating it, and Crazy told him that it was ice cream. Oliver then had 2 scoops of vanilla yogurt...and after dinner, he's trying to convince Crazy he needs more food. He's eating water crackers now.

At school one of the teachers came up to me and told me that she thought Oliver was really smart. Also that he was a neat freak. While all the kids ate, Oliver never gets his shirt dirty unlike all the other kids there. Crazy says he doesn't really care if gets dirty while eating, but getting dirty puts Oliver in distress while he's eating. We have to make a huge deal of cleaning up the mess, so that Oliver will return back to eating. I have no idea why this kid is so high maintenance.

The other night, Oliver and I were enjoying a piece of chocolate. I held the chocolate up to him and all he did was lick it. I said, "bite down", to which he looked me sternly in the eyes and said, "don't bite!" Yes, I'm sorry, what was I thinking?! I'm glad someone got the lesson down, even if his dumb mom didn't.

I don't understand why he thinks that when he's around other kids he's allowed to tell them what to do. We were at TJ's one day and as we're slowly meandering down the aisle, there were 2 kids that were a bit loud and rowdy walking down the aisle. Oliver started immediately to correct them. "HEY!" he shouted as I picked up my pace down the aisle and when he wasn't getting their attention, he just got louder and louder. This is exactly how it is when we go to school in the morning. Oliver refuses to sit in a table with kids. He sits down at an empty table and then starts yelling at the kids to be quiet. He'll call scold them each by name, "Able, Timothy, Rolla, Beckett, etc.," he'll point to his mouth and shush them. He cracks me up.

Some photos to lighten up the heavy mood of last week

Tonight was a late night here. I didn't leave the office until after 6 pm, and at that Chinese food. Oliver LOVES beef chow fun. Yes, I know he needs a haircut. That's the plan for this weekend. Both boys need haircuts.



I'm guessing that Crazy took these photos a week or so ago.



I feel like Oliver has had a brain boost this past week. When he gets up in the morning he calls out to his "papa" to come grab him. Crazy then slinks out of bed with his eyes shut, then crawls over to Oliver's room. Oliver then shows Crazy a HUGE smile and says "Good morning Papa!" to which Crazy then can't resist but join into the moment. Crazy is the "lonely guy" from the TV shows scrubs. The gist of the "lonely guy" is that any type of affection he gets from passerby's is appreciated.

Oliver's been talking up a storm. Every night he brings his books to me and we both sit and point at things and he tells me what they are. He's also is starting to get really affectionate with us. He will give us lots and lots of kisses, ask for hugs and isn't shy to ask for kisses. I hope we can move past the whole biting of last week.

Oliver's been a bit easier to put down the past 2 weeks. We are still discussing when we should change his crib to a toddler bed. I still have no idea. We are talking about getting a booster chair for him, getting swinging baby gates, and getting a infant car seat. Lots of things to do and plan out.

Is it time to guess again?

Okay, imagine the baby is sitting on a chair and you are the chair...what would you see while looking up?

Perhaps a side profile to give you more of a clue? This is a side profile. One side is the cheek and by "cheek" I don't mean what's on your face...while the other side is what everyone is trying to find out.