And due to my deep admiration for each of you is the exact reason why I decided to take this sabbatical. Do you know how unfair it is for you to come and expect a post and all you find is last week's post all stale and rotting. This poor site just sits like a cast away toy covered in dust looking pathetically at all the other sites who's owners actually make time for them.
So very sad.
As were your emails, damn, you guys love me, you really love me but your emails just made me feel horrible and then I thought about how I would feel if you or you or you would have said bye bye until Fall and I would have at least asked if you could just check in once and a while for goodness sakes.
Fine.
FINE.
I won't shut down shop completely, okay? I'll check in once and a while.
I'm busy though.
The sun started shining in Antarctica and I find myself letting the wee one out of her crib early after naps and going for nice long walks.
And now apparently I got roped into volunteering for two, count them, TWO different things.
But, tomorrow, as a added bonus, I will give you the site you are to indulge yourself in until my next post. So see, already, 2 post in 1 week on a site that was supposed to be on sabbatical. That my friends is love, deep deep love.
You know what's worse than playing all by yourself?
Playing all by yourself and looking like an idiot while doing it.
I feel like I'm in a game of Marco Polo but I'm yelling "Marco" and no one is playing along yelling "Polo" back at me.
I guess that's when you know it's time to take a sabbatical of sorts.
In the meantime, you can still keep up with our lives via Camille's person website. But there's a catch, if you want the address to the site you'll have to email me for it. I keep it under tight wraps and only want approved readers viewing it. Of course there won't be much to view until I can find my damn digital camera. It's not lost, it's just in a place that is unknown to me.
I'm not going to say this goodbye forever, it's just a see ya' in the Fall hopefully pregnant, that's the plan anyway and we all know what kind of support I need during that.
I don't want any of you to get the wrong idea based on my post from last week....there really is no drama between me and the old employer. Just a lot of hurt feelings on my part, which is normal for a sensitive person like myself. It should also be noted that there is no drama in my life whatsoever. You are treading on drama free territory at the moment and I plan for it stay that way for a while.
Last weeks post was just all about me needing to vent, to get that small weight off my shoulders. There is something to be said about working through emotions via writing. I've been so afraid to admit publicly my frustration with the old employer because I am well aware that people with ties to them read this site. I won't say I don't care anymore, because deep down inside I'll always care. I think saying I'm no longer concerned is a better way to describe my feeling on things. I am not concerned if people find out that I'm upset with them. I am not concerned who reads this site anymore. It just doesn't bother me. As I've noted before, and here I go beating that dead point again, my abrupt end to checking statcounter has improved my blogging by leaps and bounds, not maybe in your eyes though. I know my postings are sporadic. Some weeks I post several times, some weeks I post once. But there is no longer a stress to post just to post. I post when I am feeling like there is something worth while to share. I post when I need to unload things that are weighing me down.
Today I feel happy. I feel on top of the world but am well aware that these winter blues that have been nagging at me can creep back up at any time. I feel at peace with relationships both good and bad and have a sense of freedom in the ones which are, not so good, I actually don't like referring to them as bad. I'd prefer to think as them on pause for a undecided amount of time.
I feel inspired today to write. I'm might not feel that way tomorrow. Tomorrow I might feel bitey and not post at all until next week. But whatever that mood will be, you can rest assured that I will turn here to share it not based on some blog popularity contest or fear of judgement from readers. I'll be who I need to be and post as I see fit.
Due to my lack of posting in the past week, or over the past week for those of you keeping score, I think now would be a good time for the airing of grievances. I mean sure, why not. I'm certain there have had to have been somethings in the past 10 days since I've been on hiatus that you're just itching to bitch about, because I sure as heck know that I do.
How about I go first, and then you all can just follow my lead, okay?
I am frustrated and slightly feeling a hint of betrayal towards my ex-coworkers.
Ahhh...I finally said it and admitted it. In my mind, I've extended the olive branch. I've emailed, and they've even been the nice kind of emails inviting them to lunch and all sorts of stuff and all I get back in return is snooty snooty responses. I knew it was going to be a downhill battle when I had only been gone for a few months and the job they had promised me they gave to someone else and then proceeded to twist the truth about the exact position they may or may have not given to that someone else. I had a huge debate with myself about how to handle it but I just let it go because in the long run I was not sure if I could have even left Camille for more than an hour without a breakdown. So, in my mind, it was all divine intervention.
But then it got worse. I used to see a few of them for coffee and what not's. They used to email and say how much they wanted to be in my life. We used to meet places. Oh, it was grand. But then, it stopped. And strangely it stop when D lost his job and I in holy shit mode decided to look for work because we all knew that the severance pay would end and there was no guarantee he would have work by then. They all turned on me. I asked for help (ie: side work), and the jerks turned on me.
How's that for being grown up.
Today it is crawling under my skin and it's most likely pestering me because I once again was asked which place of employment type* I would recommend to a woman in the playgroup today. The one I worked for or the competition and I, with a smile of dignity and grace, constantly, constantly defend them and play devil's advocate when deep down inside I want sweet sweet revenge. I don't do what my inner monologue beckons me to do. Instead I give a neutral, educated opinion and help them weigh the facts based on the type of service they need and can afford. I have knives sticking out of my back but yet I am still buttering the bread that feeds them.
What's that saying? And you learn to accept defeat with the grace of a woman not the grief of a child. To me, they have acted like nothing but spoiled little children. I will only respond with the dignity that they constantly lack.
Okay, I've worked through that, who's next?
*See that, still, although airing my grievance, don't disclose the exact place I worked. How's that for dignity!
P.S. I'm so so sorry I left so abruptly. Please go ahead and blame Mother Nature and her insistence on sending snow storms around the same time I'm to drive to PA through the damn Pocono's. I left early and returned late and shopped so much I was to exhausted to land my little fingers on the keyboard to tell anyone. Now go list your grievances before I leave again!
I have felt lucky that during the first year of Camille's life I feel as if I had this motherhood thing down pretty good. Sure I hit a few bumps along the road, but it was nothing that a quick call to a supportive sister now and then couldn't help clear up.
But since Camille turned one, I have myself questioning everything because Camille refused to do anything a one year old was supposed to do. Now here I was searching and asking for answers to problems that no one around me had ever run into with their own children. The only consolation that helped was all the shoot from the hip approaches that the expert say to try, I had tried, although they all failed, at least I knew to try them.
I have been worried.
I knew she was "alright", there was nothing developmentally wrong with her. I just didn't know how to make her do the things she was supposed to do and just when I thought we were on the right track with one thing, she would refuse another.
She didn't want to walk. She didn't want to drink out of anything but her bottle. Then she didn't want to drink anything from her bottle. She only wanted to drink from one particular cup but would only drink water and refused to drink milk.
Two weeks ago she decided, on her own, apart from any encouragement from D or myself, that walking was fun. She just got up one night and started walking from the couch to the kitchen. Each day she just went further and further.
Friday she asked for her baba (aka: cup). I put milk in it, deciding it was worth a try. She drank the cup. And not only did she drink the milk out of her particular cup, she decided to drink milk out of every cup she turned away just 6 days earlier.
She has taught me a valuable lesson in parenting her. She will catch on in her own time, in her own way and that the rule of thumb I had during her infant days will have to apply in these toddler days: Stop reading, stop analyzing and just let her be who she is and love and cherish her through it. I've realized that if I'm going to worry like this now, I can only imagine how I will feel 10 years down the road. This parenting things will not get easier, each stage comes with it's challenges. Just when you think you're on top of things, another curve ball will be thrown your way and the best you can do and be relaxed enough that when you have to go chase after it, you've saved up all your energy!
I know, I know...you mothers of 2 or 3 or 4 are shaking your heads at me laughing that I'm just now catching on. But you first time Mom's? Learn your lesson from me.
