Grandparents Rock...why do I feel so guilty?

My parents called last night to check dates with me so they can take the toddler to see Elmo Live! That is very exciting as she loves Elmo and will surely enjoy the performance (especially since I cautioned them against tickets that would put her too close to the scary people in costumes). My parents are always doing stuff like this - I swear, they scour the newspaper and community newsletters, listen to commercials, and crawl the internet looking for awesome things to do with the kids. They rock like that!

Why, then, do I feel so guilty? I am proud of myself if I take them to the mall play place. We've gone to the zoo once with the toddler, when the baby was still in my womb. We went to the beach a couple times, but really, we do so little of these fun, awesome, kid activities it is embarrassing! We live next to DC, there is TONS to do around here, and yet we are always too busy or too tired or too something. I need to step up my game. Otherwise, in 20 years, my kids will look back through pictures and ask why all the pictures of really cool activities only have my parents in them. I'll just tell them it is because we were taking the pictures. duh!

Fairness and Equality

When we were kids, every Christmas we each got the same number of gifts in our stacks that added up to the same dollar amount (obviously something we learned later in life). Once we hit middle school, my mom relaxed her requirements and got us the same dollar amount, but didn't care how many gifts we got. This allowed my parents to get us some "cooler" (aka, more expensive) stuff. I like this idea and plan to do the same with my kids. I don't know that I'll pick out a set amount every year to spend on their birthdays and whatnot, but I will try to keep track to keep it equal. That's fine. The problem is, I take it too far! My profile picture for starters...at first I had one of the whole family, it was far away and you couldn't see my face, but since I don't have one of just my face or me with both girls, I put up a picture of the whole family. I eventually changed it, but at first I struggled.  PIN numbers at work - I want to use a birthday, but can't decide whose! Why does that get to me? It's not like the toddler is going to know if I use the baby's name for a password but not hers. But, it bothers me. Literally, eats at me every time I type in the PIN number favoring one instead of the other. It's crazy! I know!

I'm worried that if this little crap eats at me now, I'm going to be some sort of freak when they get older and can do more/go more places!

Mama

My daughter calls me "mama".  Not "mom" or "mommy", but "mama".  I like that a lot!  I think at school they mostly say "mommies" and my in-laws frequently forget and say "mommy", but for the most part my daughter never wavers.  I think it is cute, and sweet, and apparently it is what I called my mom for ages, which makes it sentimental too.

What is bothering me is that I think of it as "mama" not "momma".  My sister once pointed that difference out to me - when she saw me sign a card or something.  Since then, I've noticed almost everyone spells it "momma".  I hate misspellings.  I also hate bad punctuation, but really really hate when people misspell things, especially when mixing up words, such as their, there, and they're, or bare and bear, here and hear, etc.  I prefer "mama", so I will stick with that spelling, but it really bothers me and I felt the need to acknowledge that I know I am being different! 

Now, why am I so bothered by this?  My need for acceptance?  Add this to the list of things I will talk to a therapist about when I finally get around to fixing my oddities!

the garage

My garage is crippling.  I do not understand how people live without a garage.  I really don't.  I have two friends without garages and it blows my mind that they can live without this space.  Yet, I hate our garage and sometimes wish we did not have one, because then maybe we would not keep so much crap.  It fills up faster than our kitchen trash can! 

A year or so ago, a friend offered to come build some shelves in our garage.  We have hanging shelves and three store bought shelf/rack things, but it was not enough.  He and my husband built a workbench and four HUGE - deep and tall - shelves.  This was awesome!  The shelves are incredibly useful.  But, when they were done building, they took all the boxes and crap and piled them up on the shelves.  So, it was not long before we cluttered the floor of the garage once again. 

In May, I switched jobs.  On my last day, I had an early morning exit interview.  Instead of going to daycare to pick my kids up early, I used the nice weather as motivation to clean out the garage.  And I did amazing.  I went through every box, organized all the shelves, the workbench, etc.  I even swept the floor!  The only things left were a couple boxes of my husband's stuff for him to sort through and all his crap that I piled on his workbench.  He was never a big fan of this project and never bothered to go through his stuff.  Now, those few things are buried under a work table, all the tools required to put in the hardwood floors (project:  complete) and do the baseboards (project:  not even started/can't afford), a couch, and who knows what else!  We will probably find quite a few trash bags hidden in random spaces when we get around to cleaning out the garage again. 

I understand why we have all the crap we have, and am not complaining (my sister will get the couch soon, and the tools will go back after we have time to do the baseboards).  But, it has not even been six months and the garage is as bad, if not worse, than it was before!  This is crazy!!!  I need a day off to clean and organize...luckily Veteran's day is next week.  I think I'll use that daycare we pay so much for and focus on organizing my house!

how hard is it to do your damn job

Where I work, conference rooms are scarce and we have to use other organizations for audio bridges.  It is ridiculous.  Everything about the process frustrates me beyond belief.  If you schedule a room in advance, you are likely to be bumped because a more senior person needs a meeting or someone has a VTC requirement and you only have an audio bridge requirement.  That is fine - being moved to a different room is annoying, but manageable.  Although, I have a WEEKLY recurring meeting that has been moved the last 4 weeks in a row and it is really freaking irritating to have to e-mail everyone who attends from my office every week with a different room, or no room at all because sometimes rooms just plain are not available!  How productive is that?!

Today we have a call with people all over the WORLD in many different time zones, some who call on their way in to work, some on their way home, and others first thing in the morning.  The people who schedule this crap - because, you know, we aren't allowed to book our own - have changed the room and the number.  The call starts in 30 minutes.  How are we going to tell everyone the number changed?  My guess, we aren't.  It's going to be a big clusterfuck and we are going to look like morons. 

Unfortunately, this happens all too often (though not usually with calls that involve every time zone).  Just yesterday I tried to change the name of a meeting that was already set up, get a new audio bridge, and make it recurring.  Instead of cancelling the old meeting, they tried changing everything about the new meeting and I got no less than (and I am not exaggerating) 10 calendar requests.  I am not even sure it is correct.  And, because the usual audio people were not answering their phone, we had to get a bridge from a different organization, and they don't do recurring meetings, so I have to call weekly to get a number.  WTF?!

This is not rocket science.  But, because these people don't attend meetings or don't get how confusing it can be, or just don't care (not sure which because they are all very nice), nothing ever changes.  I almost never set up meetings because it is such a hassle.  This is NOT efficient.  And I am PISSED. 

rant over.

Potty Trained?

The toddler is potty trained.  She was pretty much completely potty trained by her second birthday, which is just awesome.  But, she still has accidents, mostly when she is too lazy to tell us she has to go.  And because we are so used to her telling us, we forget to ask. 

Last night she had an accident, her second (or third?) in a few days and  I was really irritated.  So, I marched her upstairs to take off her wet clothes and put her on the toilet.  Then I left to go change out of my work clothes.  I came back in, got her off the potty and was helping her get redressed...

Toddler:  Your shirt is wet
Me:  No, it's not. 
T:  It is. 
Me:  (feeling shirt) No, it's not
T:  It is wet, mama, because I put my hand in the toilet. 

Pure Awesomeness!  At least it pulled me out of my funk!

Decluttering

Thanks to Cleaning up the Clutter, I've realized that - once again - my house is becoming very cluttered.  I think clutter is the real problem behind my house being so messy, dirty, not as spotless as I would like!  Because if I have to pick up before I can clean up, the cleaning is never going to happen, and that kind of failure looming ahead makes the picking up nearly impossible.  So, tonight, despite the disgusting bathrooms and dusty furniture, I think I'll focus on a few decluttering projects. 

I plan to clean out the toy box - switching toys from the toy box to the storage bin, and hopefully getting the toy box to stop overflowing.
I also am going to reorganize the - not one, but - two junk drawers in the kitchen. 
Lastly, I will take all the mail to be filed downstairs, and file all the papers that have accumulated in the handy box sitting on top of the file cabinet. 

I kind of also want to go to the gym.  We'll see what wins...