Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Wishing all of you a very lovely holiday. Eat, drink, be merry...

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When I was decorating the Christmas tree while Comcast set us up with a phone line, Internet, cable, all that grand stuff that keeps us, uh, connected, I was in Christmas-mode, decorating the tree, wrapping presents...Bub was upstairs doing some unpacking and was okay with not decorating our tree. It made for some quiet time to reflect on memories of decorating our tree when I was growing up. My family would go out together, pick a grand tree, go home, put on carols, and then my sister and I would go to town with the ornaments after Mom and Dad put on the lights and put it in the spot in the house where they wanted it to be shown off.

So as I decorated my little tree, I thought, something's missing...That little person, whether it be a boy or girl, or some day both, with a sparkle in their eyes and a silent smile on their faces, they'd hang Santa or an angel on the tree branches with pride.

Someday soon I hope to create those memories. Memories of a family. The reality of that life comes alive in this house.

Merry Christmas. And without further ado, our tree! Our camera needed to be charged, so you get the blurry phone pic. But you get the gist.

Tired

I survived the 3:45am wakeup call yesterday, the meetings, the presentation, the boss.

I am still tired.

I prepare now for the 40+ meetings in Germany in less than 2 weeks.

I returned to the office to learn that the one dead mouse they found in a closet adjacent to my office had friends; additional mice carcasses were discovered.

I'm glad I wasn't here for that. I am here, however, for a lingering smell...

We finally painted our kitchen this weekend. It's not quite finished. It's almost done and then there's laundry and cleaning and switching and switching back summer to fall to summer clothes. What is up with the temps?

There has been mulling over of babies, reading of articles about how women are forced to decide between career or baby or both or what? And then there's the whole when you're 27, your fertility decreases. I'm officially old and almost 27 1/2.

Some of you Internets make me feel old in your 24 and earlier ages. What happened to the time?

I know I'm being slightly melodramatic and I know that I'm not old...yet...but I feel it. Planning out things like having babies is serious. I take it seriously. I don't understand how one plunges into this. How does one plunge?

Sex, I can understand, plunging, I cannot.

How Do You Know???

So this past weekend, although a relaxing one filled with yummy eating, running and hiking, shopping and napping, it also consisted of vocalizing the results of my soul searching.

On Friday, before being let out of work early (yay!), I opened a fresh word doc to pour all my career options if I were to become prego or if I were to wait. Here's the list in no particular order:

Prego/Have Child NOW:

Freelancing
Going back to work at current job part or full time
Finding a new full/part time job here
Finding a new full/part time job there—move (London?)
Going to school—MFA—teaching?
Applying to law school again?
Opening a business
Staying at home full time; screw work
Moving with family and stay at home

WAIT (do not get prego):

Continuing working at current job
Finding a new job here
Moving, finding a new job there
Freelancing
Opening a business
Applying to school—MFA—teaching?
Applying to law school again

My gut reactions are that I don't want to go to law school. I don't know what my business would be and therefore could not open it, but the bakery idea sounds like it could be it.

I like the idea of writing at home while taking care of little Nora or Curtis...

Part of me just wants to see how it goes--why should I know 100% what I'm going to do? That would just jinx it, right?

So...I took out a pad of paper and started making a list of lifetime goals with Bub on Saturday morning. The list looked sort of like this but had a Courtney/Bub column. And we didn't stop at career, we put down how many kids we think we want, where we think we want our vacation house to be, and yes, at what ages we hope to conceive so as plan out our parenting life.

Parenting life.

Last week I talked to my old college roommate who is due to give birth any day now. When I asked her if she was ready and how she knew she said that she wanted to get her masters, yes, that she wanted to work full time even. But that holding her son in her arms was so much more exciting and fantastic an idea when it came down to comparing that to a cold degree sitting in a frame over her desk.

I understood.

Ladies and gentlemen (or invisible readers anywhere). I think I have successfully planned out how things will look in the future. Though I'm not a mother today, I have heard the words that have been spoken several times to me now: No matter how much you plan for things, things are never quite as they seem and go according to plan. Be open minded.

Now that I've peeled away the anxiety of being in a small condo, being five years out of school, wanting to do so much in life and how and if and when I'll do those things as a parent, too, I'm left with the feelings of concrete and raw "How do you know?" How do you know when you're ready to be a parent, ready to start seriously trying? Ready. Ready. Ready. Should you have read a book about it? Had an epiphany? What?

I get the ovaries humming sensation when I see an adorable baby, wave back at the little girl across the street, say goodbye to the cute little boy I just met at a get together with friends, but I do not get this feeling with every baby and toddler.

I'm terrified. And that's what I'm most anxious about.

So for anyone who's a parent who ever sees this post, please share with me how you know.

Despite my anxiety about this subject in earlier posts, I am truly doing better and feeling like I'm close to knowing how I feel. The terrified part remains...what if I'm not smart enough? Know enough? What if I'm too young, too immature? What if I'm not fun enough? What if? What if?

Someone please tell me something. Tell me anything, even if it's that I'll miss red wine too much while carrying my unborn child or that I shouldn't think I'm too young because hello? I've known my husband 6 years, been married for over 1, and he's ready and I want to be, too.

Please don't judge me. I'm just trying to figure this out.

More Stroller Talk

I think the most terrifying thing I can think of happening if we were to have a baby now as opposed to a few years from now is that certain doors will close and when I look back and see that I made that choice, the option will be gone. Or will it?

I'm pretty sure I explained in an earlier post that someone told me that it's about putting off a certain path (school and anything else), and not thinking that the path is not possible after I become a mother.

I have learned that I can look past the issue of having a bigger space in that we've been searching for a new home for a while now, albeit in some form: looking online, somewhat actively looking (driving by houses), very actively looking (attending open houses), and I know that when the right place comes along on the right tree-lined street in the calm, country suburb or within walking distance to the city, we'll be better for it. But for now, redoing some of our kitchen with fresh paint and countertops and assessing what projects we want to do next for the new tenants or for the time being, is okay. I can feel good about that.

Bub and I have known each other six years. I've come to this comfortable lull of work where my my routine, it exists. Is it the perfect, mind-blowing dream job? No, but I don't know what that job is, so if I were to search for it, I'm not sure I could. There are so many ways to go when it comes to life. I always talk about opening up that bakery, and just two short years ago I thought I would be planning for law school. Now? i'm thinking MFA's, freelance, moving to another place, and the list goes on and on.

For others, their 20's are for them. They want to travel. They feel like babies are aliens and they don't get it. I don't get it.

I don't easily let my dreams die. And whether they come true before or after I have children, they'll still thrive in my core.

Being a parent is a path to choose and it opens doors and doesn't necessarily close them. School, tuition bills, opening my own business and the stresses of wondering if it will survive can all exist, so can relocation to another part of the world, but for now, as a 27-year-old woman, what is right? What is selfish? What is next? And what am I waiting for, exaclty? I'm excited to find out.

So to the little boy we met yesterday at Bub's birthday BBQ (no German chocolate cake was made; more on that later), I could take you home and love you as if you were my own because you loved life more than everyone else there. And we'll remember your smile when we think about that night and how the future holds so much for the parents that Bub and I hope to be.

My Chihuahua* Bites!

Bub's birthday is tomorrow and I'm excited because I've finally decided what I'll be making him. No pineapple upside down cakes like last year (although tasty). Bub weighs in on what he wants. It came down to German Chocolate Cake and some Chocolate Chip Sour Cream cake number. Although he hasn't outright said it, I think he's more interested in the German Chocolate Cake. And since it's not my birthday, I haven't said either way what I'd prefer to make, but I vote for German Chocolate Cake, too. The thing is, the recipe I'm using is from Magnolia's Bakery cookbook, a gift from a long-lost friend (who again is now lost) who gave it to me at my bridal shower. So far, other recipes in the book haven't let me down aside from weighing me down with the fat and fat and fat that the recipes often call for (buttermilk, butter, etc.). Anywho.

I went to the grocery store in hopes of getting what I needed for said cake, but should have planned ahead because I couldn't recall what we already had in the house. That on top of the fact that we're in desperate need of regular non-cake related items had me thinking that it's not to be avoided; I'll need to go to the grocery store in the early a.m., hopefully after or before a trip to the gym since hi, I haven't been in almost three weeks. EEEEEEK. Feeling guilty? Scarily, no. I'm making up for it by not eating much and having wine for dinner.

I digress.

Since my lunch plan to go get groceries failed, I hit Starbucks for a piece of reduced-fat coffee cake and an iced non-fat latte (can't they just say "skim latte"?) for lunch. Then I fit in a trip to a nail place literally 2 seconds from my office to get a polish change for my toes.

I had heard good things about the place or mostly non-bad things about it from my co-workers. I just wanted the quick change because my French pedi had gone to hell and I was wearing sandals (because it's a bazillion degrees out) and would be tomorrow and my toes were scary. I have this thing about wearing sandals when toes are not in at least "good" condition, if not freshly painted and in excellent shape. I know, I'm a high-maintenance nails person or H-MNP. So I went and picked out my color and marveled at how I'm so great to fit this into my lunch hour and was not paying a ton for fancy shmancy pedi (if I had more time, I probably would have just had the whole kit and caboodle).

I digress.

So Mr. Polish takes me down to a chair to change my French into My Chihuahua Bites! when I saw three little girls sitting in chairs all having just finished with their pedis.

By the time I got done and went to dry my toes, the three girls had migrated over to the drying area too, and I came to sit across one of the blonde girls. They couldn't have been more than 10. Not triplets, but maybe. Their mother was getting a French manicure. She was very good with them, keeping her eye on things while chatting up another Mr. Polish.

The little girl who sat across from me made eye contact so I smiled. I couldn't see her mouth because she was so short, but she smiled back at least with her eyes. After they were done drying, they were wandering around, waiting for mom. The girl who had sat across from me looked like she might be a cheerleader when she was older. Cute little yellow skirt with matching tank top. Long straight blonde hair and bangs. She loved to have fun; it was apparent.

Another girl had the curly-crazy blonde hair. She might be the tom-boy, sporty girl. She had on her cute little girl clothes and big girl sandals. They really were big girl because they looked like hand-me-downs that had been worn a little but ones which she had not yet grown into. Being a little wild-child (I'm not sure she was, but from appearance, I think she could be), I don't think she cared what she looked like.

Then there was the third girl. AKA the girl who resembled me. Short bob 'do. A bit haute couture for a girl that age (not that I was haute couture, but I was the girl who had short hair at that age out of my friends and sister, although brunette) and then she turns and yes, the glasses. She was the only one of the three with the glasses. She was wearing what I would have worn: Birkenstock sandals just like Mom bought me and jean shorts. From what I witnessed, she was quieter and more withdrawn.

I wondered at what age the woman had her kids. She seemed happy, not that old, and really with it as a parent. She was already figuring out with one of her kids what her daughter would wear on Halloween and telling her not to stress; she had a couple of months! It was still August!

And I was jealous of this mom who could go get her nails done with her girls. Another summer Friday, another day carrying on. Being a parent. No cares about MFA's, work, not going to the gym...

I finished first. My toes were done and I had to be back to work (so that I could write this post) and that family could be left to their own devices. Swimming pools, sunshine, growing up together.


*No, I don't have a chihuahua.

Stuff

While getting ready for work, or simply sulking in bed that ick, it's not Friday or a day off from work and what the fuck?, I think about all the stuff I want to get done at work. Then I get here and, of course, I just have to see who wrote me who's not from work. And then I have to see who posted last night. So here I am now. Here's my post. My stuff.

While we were at the christening, Bub's 25-year-old cousin blurted out: So are you planning on having kids in the future? The room went silent. I was like oh, my, god. What the f? I managed to mumble something like: Yeah, we're going to have a family, we just don't know when.

Can you say pressure? The woman who does my nails, the receptionist at the dentist, and a random woman I met while I was away for work all asked me, Any babies yet? Is it really your business?

I have a to-do list before I go using a stroller. I want to be in a bigger home (a house) since our 1-bed isn't exactly the most ideal place to put things like a crib, changing area, baby clothes (where we'd put those, I don't know--under the bed is already taken), baby stroller/carrier, toys, and so on. I want to paint a nursery, hang a mobile, pick out our rocker and place it just so in the baby's room.

However, a few people, including one friend who has two kids, told me it can be done in our space, our 1-bed condo. Solicited advice? No. Another friend says that the year of the pig (2007) is better than next year (year of the mouse) to conceive and so we should think about trying later this year.

That discussion took place in a public bathroom. Again, advice not solicited.

My other to-do item is to figure out school. What does that mean? Figure. Out. School. Figure out what??

Someone told me that I'm thinking as if I cannot do anything once the baby is born. Instead, I've learned that I'm really feeling that I don't want to do such and such after I have a baby because I won't want to. The motivation will die. The baby will be my universe. Normal, right? Well, in that case, I want to prepare and do all I can now. Pre-baby belly.

I really feel that it's time to assess what the next step is for my career/education/future. As much as I can see myself enjoying staying home and being with a kid, I'd like to stay connected with a world where I feel that I know something, can be good at it, and perhaps do it from my home so as to have both. I think I sound selfish, I know. Bub, I'm sorry!

It's a lot of money, grad school. But I feel like if I put it off, I won't do it. But it's taken me 5 years to get to this point of knowing I want to do something. To be challenged. (Hello and goodbye law school!)

Words and books and reading and writing. Those things I have a connection to in some way. I was the English major, the girl who wrote on random pieces of paper and napkins to get stuff out. The girl who had journals and diaries. The girl who loved to feel moved by words and to be gripped late into the night and (not recently) early in the morning, before brushing my teeth. It was a friend, the story, you went inside and felt what the characters felt.

But can I do it? One program I'm looking at taunts me with the long papers, longer bibliographies, and endless reading. I got my degree in English; why is scaring me? It does.

And then there's part of me that says, why wait to start trying? Bub is older and we don't have to wait for anything. Things will fall as they may and work themselves out. But I don't want regret. I fear it. And I fear I'll be upset if I don't have these items planned out in advance...which begs the question: How do you know when you're ready? Do you feel it? I see strangers' children and I feel all tingly. I held little James Patrick and yes, he's cute, but I was even more confused about what to want and when.

So this is the debate I have. And sure, if we had a baby today, I'd be OK. We'd be OK. But after seeing Bub's cousins (not the one who has the baby), but the young ones who are just starting to figure out what they want to major in in college, where they want to work now that they've graduated college, and what schools they'll apply to once they've finished senior year, I sort of want to go back only to have time to decide all over again.