The Great Adventure, 2012....

So yeah, haven't posted anything in a couple of months, but I have a really, really good excuse, I promise. The excuse is as follows: I changed careers and I moved earlier this month. For most people (including me, in some respects) that looked like a really sudden thing. So now I'm going to take you back in time to late February and explain what led up to this turn of events.

Sometime around the last week of February, I was cruising the job listings on Craigslist, because I was in the habit of doing that just about every night. Not that I so much hated working where I was working, but that I felt I had completely stagnated, had no potential for advancement, didn't feel like I was being challenged, didn't feel like my full potential was being realized, yadda yadda. On this particular evening I saw a post titled "Office Assistant/Leasing Agent", and after reading it I decided to send in my resume. Worst thing that can happen is that nothing happens... that's one idea I've gotten used to lately.

Imagine my surprise, then, when something happened. They called me, did a brief phone interview, and said that if I was chosen to interview in person I would hear from them again. A few days later I was called in for an interview. I went in, not really sure what to expect, and ended up actually having a quite pleasant conversation with the interviewer. We established over the course of this interview that I basically had no property management experience, very little office experience, and would have to be trained pretty much from the ground up if I were to be offered the position. She helpfully suggested some changes I might like to make to my resume and asked questions that were actually relevant rather than the standard "Where do you see yourself in five years?" (I hate that question, by the way... I don't know where I see myself next week, much less in five years.) We parted ways on very good terms that day, and I told my mom on the phone that night that I thought it was a very good experience but that I really doubted I would be hearing from them again.

Thus, imagine my shock when I was called back sometime in the second week of March. I was told on the phone that the nature of the position had switched a bit. Instead of being "Office Assistant/Leasing Agent" it was now "Leasing Agent/Office Assistant", with the emphasis on Leasing Agent, and if I was still interested in the position knowing that, they would be interested in having me in for a second interview. I was sort of like, okay, sure. If you're interested enough to talk to me again, I'll be interested in the position. Why not? And I went in for a second interview late in the second week of March (I think we had a snow day that day, so I wasn't working anyway).

I had an interview with a man and a different woman that was a lot more difficult than the first one had been, and they also made me take a test on Microsoft Word and Excel. I'm far more comfortable with the former than the latter, having done nearly all of my six years of translation work in Word. I took one semester of Excel class in college and never used the thing again. So I wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, but I gave it my best shot. And once again I figured I probably wouldn't hear from them again.

Now we get into the timeline... I know these dates precisely. Monday, March 19th, I had a call on my voicemail when I got home from work. It was from this place I had interviewed at, and merely requested that I call them back. So I did. The nice lady on the phone (from the second interview, not the first) said that they had decided to offer me the position and that there were two options. The first option was to take the job at a wage of $13 an hour (slightly more than I was making). The second, and the one that she strongly hinted that they preferred, was that we move to Gresham and manage the apartment complex on-site, where I would get a free apartment plus $10 an hour.

Talk about mind-boggling decisions that have to be made really quickly. I asked her a few questions, jotted down some notes, and asked her for 24 hours to think it over. She agreed and we hung up. I then called my mom. And over the course of that conversation and thinking out loud, doing the math, and talking through the pros and cons of each choice, I realized that the Gresham option was actually looking pretty good aside from the whole moving to someplace I've never been part. Seriously, I had no idea where the place even was, but I had gotten the address on the phone and I Googled it.

I talked to the Chamaco about it some that night. He was uncertain on the idea. So was I, honestly. But I decided that this was a decision that needed to be made as a family and needed to be an informed decision. So the next morning I called in *cough cough* sick to work and called the Chamaco's school and told them he wouldn't be in that day "for family reasons". And we got our MapQuest guide and set out.

First off, the area was not what I was expecting. I was expecting big city urban... buildings and traffic, etc. The area is actually pretty calm. Yes, it's right on a major street, but not nearly as noisy and busy and urban looking as I was expecting. We played stupid and went into the apartment office like we were just off the street looking for an apartment. The guy in the office said the manager had stepped out and he didn't have access to the keys to show me an actual apartment at that time, but he did walk us through the furnished "model" apartment that was adjoining the office. He took my name and phone number and said he'd have the manager call us when she got back (she was taking longer than expected) and he was generally so nice that I felt like I was lying to him. So I finally told him that I had been offered a job with the property management company and that we'd been invited to move there. He said, "Oh, you're the one we got told to hold an apartment for!" I told him that was probably so. He said he still didn't have keys and the manager would call me when she got back.

So the Chamaco and I decided to go investigate the other important thing - school. I had deduced in my online investigating which school he would probably be attending should we make the move, so he and I went to check it out. We went into the office, and the secretaries were very friendly. We told them we were considering a move to the area and wanted to check out the school. We gave them the address and they confirmed it was indeed the right school and offered us a tour. We got to walk the school, which the Chamaco told me he gave "8 and 3/4 out of 10 stars". And as we were getting in the car my phone rang. It was the apartment manager, who was now back on site.

We went back to the apartments, not far at all from the school, and when I explained to her who I was and what the situation was, she offered to show me the apartment they were holding, which was being worked on that day... it wasn't quite ready for move-in, but almost. The workers were in there all right... it was an upstairs apartment, and I liked that there wasn't carpet. Vacuuming is not one of my favorite things. The walls were freshly painted (we were warned not to touch them, in fact), there was a nice balcony, and it was on the back side of the complex where there were trees and a nice fence in between the complex and the retirement community that is behind it. It seemed like a pretty quiet area, and again far less urban than I'd been expecting.

After that experience, the Chamaco and I decided it was lunch time. We found a Taco Bell not two minutes from the apartment complex, which we thought was neato considering that Molalla doesn't even have a Taco Bell, and sat down to eat and discuss. I asked him what he thought we should do, and he said he thought we should probably move. I asked him if he had any concerns about that or anything that would bother him if he moved. The first thing he said was that he didn't want to leave his friends. I expected that one. We negotiated a bit, and I agreed to allow him to get an e-mail address so that he could e-mail friends from Molalla, and he already has a phone so he could stay in touch that way. His second thing, and this was the one that almost had him in tears, was that he didn't think he would get to spend Friday nights with Grandma anymore since she would be farther away. Yes, 32 miles is a little farther than 7, but Grandma and I agreed that we could probably work it out. Only after addressing those two concerns did he even ask about his dad. I admitted that it would probably be tricky to work out those visits since his dad doesn't drive or pay gas money either one, but I told him we could probably figure it out... it just might take a week or two to get the details sorted. He deemed that acceptable. And I asked him one final time, "Do you think we should move?"

"Yes. I think we should."

That was pretty much what I was thinking at that point too, so we sat in the parking lot at Taco Bell, I dialed the phone and formally accepted the job offer. We swung by the office on the way home and I filled out some paperwork (I still had to be background checked before they could officially hire me), and hammered out the details of when I would start. I managed to wrangle a full two weeks at my old job out of them so I could give two weeks notice, but that was all... I would end my old job on Friday the 6th and start the new one on Monday, April 9th. And we would be moving Saturday, April 7th. This was all decided on Tuesday, March 20th, and we'd been planning to leave town on March 24th to visit my grandparents over spring break. Yikes.

I almost cancelled that trip, in fact, but I decided that I would need the de-stress time if there was any way at all I was going to survive the move. But I did put out the word on Facebook that very night that I would be moving and I was looking for boxes. The next night at church, Jacob and Amy brought me boxes, and I started putting some non-essential items into them. I had four boxes packed by the time we left for Gold Beach on the 24th, most of them from my bedroom... I'm not hardly in there except to sleep anyway.

We made the drive home from Gold Beach on the 28th of March, and then the real fun started. I spent the last few days of spring break packing and planning.

The work-week that started April 2nd and would be my last at my old job was pure hell. I got up at six, was at work by 7:45, got home around 5, helped the Chamaco with his homework, got dinner done, spent some time with the kid and put him to bed by 8:30, and then I spent the time from 8:30 to about midnight packing, then collapsed into bed. Wake up at 6 a.m. Repeat. For five days. I wasn't sleeping well in the few hours that I did sleep, and I was stressed out and emotional... I was crying at everything, which is nowhere near normal for me. Thursday was my last day with the kiddos and both classes had small parties for me because it was my last day. I managed to keep it together for them, even as I said goodbye to kids I knew I would probably never see again. Friday I did center meeting and managed to hold it together for a few hours, even when my coworkers took me out to lunch.

Friday night at about 10 o'clock, when I was still packing, hadn't even started on the kitchen yet, and knew there was no way on earth that I was going to have everything packed and ready to go by 10 the next morning when the U-haul got there, that was when I lost it. I called my mom almost crying on the phone and explained that it still wasn't even close to done and I was completely and totally exhausted and I was going to have to stay up all night packing, I was going to be dead the next day, and I had no idea how I was going to get everything moved and get the new place set up enough to be functional by Monday morning... I just didn't think I had it in me. She told me to go to bed (she and Dad were both pretty appalled that I was still awake at that point) and promised that she would come down early in the morning to help finish the packing before everyone got there to help move. 

Speaking of everyone, I should probably mention here that I have the best church family ever. I had put out the word that I would be moving on Saturday the 7th at 10 a.m. and would appreciate the help of anyone who might show up to put things in the truck. I expected maybe four people plus my parents, and I figured if I got four to six people it would probably only take an hour and a half or so to load everything in the truck. What I got was five men (at least a couple of which were capable of lifting large pieces of furniture unassisted) and three boys, plus my parents and the Chamaco. The truck was loaded in less than an hour. And the entire crew actually followed me to Gresham and helped unload the truck and carry everything up to the apartment and get it sort of in the right rooms. And when we got to Gresham we were met by some of my aunts and uncles, a couple of cousins, plus a couple of guys from the church in Portland that I had never met before but they'd come to help anyway since they were friends of my aunt and uncle. Despite the fact that the new apartment was a considerable distance from the parking lot and was also upstairs, that truck was empty in no time. By 1:30 we were on our way back to the U-Haul place with an empty truck. I was completely exhausted, yes, but I was also so grateful that I wasn't sure whether I should sleep or cry. (The Chamaco chose sleep... he slept with his head in my lap in the U-Haul on the way back. Fortunately my dad was driving.)

I should also mention here that I have awesome parents. My mom did come down early as promised (a bit after 7 a.m., if I recall correctly) and she pretty much packed my entire kitchen herself while I busied myself putting in boxes those last things that I hadn't been able to pack because they were things we used every day... toothbrushes, contact lens case, etc. Dad helped load/unload and drove the truck. And once we had the empty truck back to the U-Haul place, Mom stayed with me at the old apartment and helped me clean for several hours. She cleaned the kitchen pretty much by herself, I did the rest of the house, minus the bathtub which my brother showed up and did for me. When we were done, that apartment pretty much looked like we were never there, which was my goal all along.

Anyway, we spent Sunday afternoon after church getting situated. The Chamaco unpacked and set up his own room. I told him he could make it however he wanted so long as it didn't pose any sort of safety hazard. I did the rest of the house, starting with the kitchen, then the bathroom, the living room, and finally my own bedroom. Sunday night as I started packing the Chamaco's lunch for his first day at his new school, I realized I didn't have any drinks to put in it... this was at about 11 p.m. after he was already in bed and I was exhausted. I learned that night that it takes me exactly 9 minutes to drive to Safeway, buy drinks and get home.

I took him to school that first day, met his teacher briefly, and then did one of the hardest things I've ever done. I left him there. I turned around, walked out the door, and left him there in a place where neither of us knew anyone. I realize that most moms probably get over this right around the first day of Kindergarten, but I didn't do that because I was actually working at his school when he started kindergarten. Not only had I hand-picked every teacher he'd had up until that point because I knew them all, but also I would see him at various points during the day while he was in kindergarten... I always knew where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing. This held true even in first, second, third, and fourth grade because even though I no longer worked in his school I still knew the staff and knew the routines... I even knew most of the students. Here neither of us knew anybody, and the friends he'd been in class with since Kindergarten were miles away. All I knew about his teacher was her name, and I told him goodbye, told him I'd see him after school, and then left him there. I got out of the room okay, but before I got halfway down the hall I had tears in my eyes. By the time I got to my car I was crying like a baby, and it was only 8 a.m. And I had to go to my own new job. I was still mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted and the week was just starting. (Interesting fact: My mom later confessed that she cried when she dropped me off for my first day at Molalla Middle School too. I was in sixth grade, and she had not been employed at the school I attended K-5. Also by that point we'd been living in Molalla for pretty much all of summer vacation. Hmm.)

That first week was interesting. Damian's school called around lunchtime on the second day and told me that he was in the office with a 101.3 fever and needed to go home. Normally I would have asked my mom to go get him, but she was kinda far. Also if he was that sick, I figured limiting exposure was in order. So I asked my aunt to go get him and see how he seemed, and if he seemed bad I would see about coming home. Because remember, it was only my second day at my new job too, and I wasn't sure how it would go over if I left early, especially since it was my boss's birthday and we were out to lunch to celebrate it. So toward the end of lunch I called my aunt to ask how my kid was doing. She said he'd thrown up in her car. Crap. Fortunately everyone, even the birthday girl, was very understanding. Even when I pointed out that Damian would not be allowed to go to school the next day no matter how well he felt by that point, and if I couldn't find someplace for him to go I wouldn't be able to go to work. They said to let them know. So I went home with a sick boy and worrying that I was already starting to look like a flake to my new employer, on whom I depended for my housing. (By the way, if I'm ever fired or otherwise decide to leave my job, I have 24 hours to vacate my apartment. It's in my contract.) The good news was that I found someone who was willing to keep the sickie the next day. The bad news was that she was in Molalla. So we got up extra early the next morning and drove to Molalla and I left Damian with my sister, who is also awesome. Then I drove all the way back to Clackamas where our corporate office is. Damian was fine that day, by the way, and my sister reported that he was eating everything in sight. So that evening I drove back to Molalla to get him, then to Woodburn to pick up my contact lens order that was in, then back to Molalla to drop off my sister who had gone to Woodburn with us, then back home to Gresham.

Now that we're beginning our fourth week here, things are starting to level out. I'm working on-site now, having gotten the basic training at the corporate office, which means that my commute is a three-minute walk from our apartment to the office. Damian's getting the school thing figured out and is doing awesome with his new set of responsibilities here... seriously, I could not be more proud of the kid. When he gets off the bus at 2:30, I take a break (either a 10 or my lunch, depending on how the day's been) and walk him to our apartment and let him in. I don't get off work until six, so he stays home by himself and does his homework, any other little chores I might ask him to do, and entertains himself until I get home and make dinner. He's got a phone so he can call or text me if he needs to, and if he really needed to he could come to the office or I could run home, so it's not like he's cut off, but he's handling it very well. He's even starting to make friends with some of the kids in our apartment complex. Pretty much the only driving I'm doing now is to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, plus a trip to Molalla once a week to pick Damian up from his dad's (my mom is getting him there after he does his overnight at her house, and she's been meeting me in Oregon City to get him). Also I drive to the store sometimes (less than a mile) and a couple of times I've taken Damian to school (just over a mile). We've also begun to explore the area and have found a couple of decent parks that aren't too far away, as well as the local library. I'm still teaching English on Saturdays, and in fact the move has put us close enough to one of my earliest English students (who stopped coming to class when she moved to Gresham because she didn't have transportation) that I was able to pick her up and take her to class yesterday and then take her to church today.

April has been a pretty hectic month and one that we won't soon forget. I think overall this move will be good for us in the long run, though. Damian's learning to adapt to new environments and make new friends, and I'm working at a more challenging job where I will gain (and am already gaining) new skills that I could potentially take a lot of other places in the future. Once I get a full paycheck (my first check was a partial one because of when I started working), we should be doing better financially as well since I won't be dedicating a large chunk of my income to rent and I'm dodging the current high price of gasoline by pretty much not needing to drive anywhere. It's been an adjustment, for sure, but I think both of us are going to come through this as better, stronger people.

I think I mentioned back in January that I had a sense this was going to be a year of change, didn't I? ;-)

Our new living room, back when it was still in a state of empty.

Chores...

By now it's not news to anyone who knows us that the Chamaco occasionally has moments of startling maturity. The one that stands out most clearly in my mind happened when he was 4. We were in the car (as we usually are when these moments occur) and he was weighing out loud the pros and cons of living at my house versus living at his dad's house. His closing statement to his own argument was this: "I think I like living at your house better, because you have rules. Daddy doesn't have any rules, really, and that just doesn't seem safe to me."

It helps that he's the sort of kid you can talk to with explanations like, "When I make rules, I'm not just trying to spoil your fun. I make rules to keep you safe, to keep you healthy, and to help you grow up to be a good person." And he accepts this. We'll see if he still believes me when he's a teenager...

But as it stands now he's eight years old. Most of the time he's content to run around making machine gun noises, play video games, and spout trivia about things that I have no knowledge of or interest in either one. But every now and then we get in a car and drive a long way, and the Chamaco has inherited his father's non-comprehension of the term "comfortable silence" - any silence occurring when there is at least one other person present must immediately be filled. So Saturday night we were driving home from la casa de mis tíos in the dark and he started talking. I'm pretty sure he thinks out loud.

"I think it's time I had some chores," he announced.

We had touched on this topic before, but I could tell from his tone of voice that this time he meant business. "That's a good idea," I said. "What sort of chores would you like to have?"

"I'm not sure. What are some things I could do?"

He's been helping me fold laundry and receiving basic folding training for a while now, so I said, "You could fold laundry... you could sweep the floor... you could pick up in your room every day..."

"And I could take out the garbage! Probably. If it's not too heavy."

"Yes, you could do that. Anything else?"

"No, I think four is good to start. And you should pay me allowance for doing chores."

I was not at all shocked by this progression in his train of thought, because only the day previous he had spent the last of his birthday/Christmas money and was now down to only $4. Fortunately I was prepared. "How much do you think you should get for doing those chores?"

"A dollar a week. Or maybe two. I don't know. What do you think?"

Much as I love the concept of cheap labor, I am a member of the so-called "Justice Generation" (as Barney puts it) and my sense of fair play won out. Also, because I know the kid, I took a gamble on the notion that after an initial gung-ho period, he'll get tired of doing the chores and opt out or complain about having to do them. Which led me to suggest, "How about we make a chart, and every day when you do a chore you can check the box. At the end of the week we'll add it up, and you can get 25 cents for every check."

My little math whiz was all over this. "Wow, Mom! That's seven dollars a week!"

I'm still older and (hopefully) smarter, though not as fast at crunching the numbers. "Not really, because two of those chores won't need to be done every day. We usually only do laundry once a week, and the garbage only needs to be taken out two or three times a week. So it'll be less than seven dollars, but definitely more than two. You're probably looking at around $4 or $4.50 most weeks."

"Sounds good. Can we start tomorrow?"

So we got home and made the chart and the details were hammered out. Sweeping and picking up his room he can do every day if he chooses to, taking out trash and folding laundry are done when necessary or when I ask. I'm not going to sit on him to pick up his room and sweep every day... I'll give him the option. He can choose not to do it, and thus choose not to earn the money. (Non-Head Start employees have no idea how very Head Start this system sounds... six months ago it probably would not have occurred to me.) 

Today was Day One, and of course he very enthusiastically swept the floor. He got to the picking up his room part, worked for about five minutes, then came down and said, "I think I'm going to do that one a little bit at a time because it's a big job."

"Well yeah. It's a big job right now because your room is trashed. But if you get it picked up nice and then you make sure you pick up every day, it'll take you like two minutes."

"Yeah, I know. But I mostly cleared off the table. Does that count?"

I let him count it. Meanwhile, I was fixing dinner. He asked if he could take out the trash, which was almost full. I asked him to wait until after dinner, because I was going to be throwing some more things in there. Seeing he was a little disappointed, I told him he could go in my room and fold the laundry if he wanted. He ran upstairs, excited once more. It took him pretty much the entire time it took me to make dinner, but he folded the entire load of laundry completely without assistance, divvying things out into piles as I have shown him. He asked where he should put away my clothes and I said I'd put them away if he just left the piles in the floor, so he went and put away his own clothes in his dresser.

We ate dinner at the table together. This is a rarity... usually I sort of work through dinner. But I had tidied the kitchen up while cooking, and had finished my translating while he swept and picked up his room (though admittedly I didn't have much today), so we had dinner together. While we were eating, the lightbulb in the fixture at the bottom of the stairs exploded in a blaze of glory. So after we ate, he took out the trash and then we went to buy more lightbulbs, because I was out. And we still had half an hour before bedtime, which is completely unprecedented and largely attributable to the Chamaco doing some of the stuff I normally do so I dídn't have to. So we played Uno. And then Guess Who. Then it was time for him to go to bed.

Now this isn't a perfect system... he's not exactly a professional-level floor sweeper. The floor could probably still stand to be swept in some areas. Also he can't fold towels to my exacting standards. Enter Head Start...

One of the things they're sort of making me do is read a book called "Positive Discipline for Preschoolers". They're very pro-Positive Discipline, and the concept was totally foreign to me when I started working there. Admittedly the Chamaco is not a preschooler, but I have picked up some things from this book that do make sense regardless of his age. There's an example in the book from a child's perspective - a little girl's mother asks her to make her own bed to save Mommy some time in the morning. So the little girl tugs and smoothes and pats the sheets into place and thinks she has done a pretty good job and is well-pleased. Later Mommy comes in and fixes it. Little Girl comes away with the impression that her work was not good enough and is discouraged from even trying it again.

I had this firmly in mind as I watched the Chamaco sweep the floor. Action plan now in place.
Will I re-sweep the floor? No. He'll do it again tomorrow. Maybe he'll hit those places.
Will I criticize his work? No. This is a behavior I want to encourage, not discourage.
Will I praise him for a job well done even though it is somewhat lacking by my adult standards? Yes, definitely.
Will I ask next time as he's sweeping, "Hey, could you make sure you sweep right here? It looks like that place really needs it."? Yes, probably. And if it's still not up to my standards, hey, the kid tried. No one will die if there are a few stray crumbs on the floor for a day.

Same theory applies for folding clothes. Does it, in the long run, even matter if things are folded in a different manner than I would have folded them? No. Do I want him to continue in this behavior? Yes. Will I praise him and thank him for his help? Heck yes... I hate folding laundry. Strangely folded towels are a small price to pay for not having to fold the laundry myself, and he can fold his own clothes however he likes. No, what is more important in this situation is that the job is done and that he feels accomplished, like he contributed something.

So it's the end of Day One of the great chores/allowance experiment. He earned a full dollar today. And hopefully he's in the process of learning something about responsibility and about working for what he wants, and also feeling like a valuable, contributing member of our little broken family. I'll try to remember to update as this project progresses if anything happens that seems relevant.

Song o' the Day: "Better Sorry than Safe" - Halestorm

New Year's "Suggestions"...

I don't like New Year's Resolutions. They seem to me like a really good way to set yourself up to feel like a failure come December... as if the holidays weren't stressful enough! In fact, I have never before made a list of New Year's Resolutions. I can't be bothered to write a list of stuff I should do that I probably won't do so I can feel bad about myself later.

This year, however, I feel moved to write myself a list of "ideas" or "suggestions" for things that I might work on in 2010 if I feel like it/get around to it. Stuff that I should do because it would be good for me or for those around me. Things that I should change, because probably my life would change for the better if I changed them. And if I don't change them... well, stuff stays the same I guess. In the words of the great philosopher Tyler, "If you do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got." (That would be Steven Tyler in the song "Get a Grip", in case anyone wondered.)

So brace yourself, people... I'm about to have one of my rare introspective moments! Here are some of my suggestions for myself in the order in which they occur to me.

1.) Spend less time on the computer. I am blind enough as it is. And hand in hand with that...

2.) Encourage "Wong" to either take things offline or give it up already.

3.) Find an outlet for my creativity besides writing short stories that I never let anyone read. Blogging is more narrative than creative most of the time. I'm not sure if I should start trying to write a novel or just start playing guitar more (bet the neighbors would love that), but I think the constantly rotating cast of characters in my head is detrimental to what, for lack of a better term, we shall call "my sanity". It seems to me I also used to do some halfway decent pictures with pastels and colored pencils many moons ago in the far-flung times of, oh, about 1999...

4.) Try to start saving some money. You know, now that I actually have an income. And not far behind that...

5.) Never buy anything on credit ever again if I can possibly avoid it. I would like to pay off the two credit cards I have and then quite possibly get rid of them altogether. They are evil.

6.) Exercise more, blah blah blah... (everyone says this one, I think)

7.) Date someone. Could be Wong (if he were to get himself over here), could be someone I haven't met yet, but seven years of singleness is bloody long enough.

8.) Spend more time out doing things with friends. I think I tend to hold myself back with the "I can't do that, I have a kid" excuse. Perhaps some of that money I might put aside each month could be used for a babysitter one night a month... I think all parents, but maybe full-time single parents in particular, need some regularly scheduled down time. Also it's really hard to meet people to date when I never go anywhere except to work and to church.

9.) Reduce the size of my mean streak. Currently it's at about three miles wide. I'd like to reduce it to a mile or less. I'm pretty sure I used to be a nice person once, but high school screwed me up and I never recovered.

10.) Broaden my musical tastes. Much as I complain about the music snobbery of certain people (who will stop listening to a band if they think too many people like said band), I'm guilty of my own flavor of it... I have convinced myself that if it's not rock of some description, I probably don't care. Don't expect me to start listening to rap, though... I stand firm on my requirement for actual singing talent!

11.) (this one is going to make me sound horrid, maybe you shouldn't read it) Love my kid while I have him. Most of you still reading probably just went, "What's horrid about that?" Well, the awful truth is that I did not want to be a parent. I was dragged into it kicking and screaming, and for several years after he was born I still did not want to be a parent. I did not gaze upon my newborn son's face and instantly fall in love... oh no. For years I regarded him as an intrusion... a time-consuming burden draining my energy and resources that I never wanted or asked for. (Planned pregnancy he wasn't, as you may have guessed). I was bound to him only by a fierce sense of responsibility (Flake, I am not in the slightest, and I firmly believe in the "you make it, you take care of it" principle), and later by the knowledge that of his two parents I was the one less likely to screw him up, which I thought was really sad since I was already so screwed up myself on the subject of parenting. Loving him crept up on me gradually, without me realizing it. Probably he was four before I could say "I love you" to him and mean it at all. And even then an occasional mother would observe me with him and say something like, "You'd just throw yourself in front of a train to save your kid, wouldn't you?" (someone actually did say that very thing to me once) and I would look at them blankly... No I would not! Are you completely out of your gourd?! I would scream internally. Or they'd say, "He's just your entire world, isn't he?" and I would rail internally against that too... No! There is a heck of a lot more to my world than this kid! I am a complex and multi-faceted individual, darn it! But I guess even the most emotionless of us can't help but be eventually won over by a kid who loves you unconditionally and tends to shout things like "Best mom ever!" when you tell him that he can have two packs of fruit snacks if he wants. Fast forward to 2009, when the realization finally sets in that the Chamaco and I are our own broken little family and often we're all each other has. In November during our monthly meeting, I am telling my boss about something he said/did and she comments, "I can tell he's just your whole world." For the first time I do not mentally protest. Conversion from "reluctant mom" to just plain "mom" finally complete... only took 7 years and 11 months. I read in one of those "What to Expect..." books when he was a baby that actually many new mothers don't instantly bond with their child, and in some cases the process can take months. I don't know if anyone has ever taken very nearly 8 years before. Probably I needed/need therapy. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a baby because I want to, but I still don't want to. I really doubt I ever will. I still like kids much better when they're someone else's in general, but I have finally managed to become rather attached to the one I have. I don't think I'll ever be a "mommy mom" (as Tyha so accurately describes herself), but at least I'm a "mom" now instead of an "I'll take care of you because legally I'm responsible to do so". Only in hindsight have I been able to see God's wisdom in this whole situation... had I not suddenly become responsible for a small, helpless person at the time I did, I likely would have continued on the self-destructive path I was just getting started down at the time and I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that my life could have ended (badly) several years prior to now. Also before he was born I thought I preferred a girl and I was going to name him Natalie Renee. Eight years later I often thank God I did not have a girl... girls are too much drama! (Especially from about the age of 8 onward, I'm learning from watching other people's kids.) Anyway, back to the original thought, I may have sort of wasted the first eight years, but theoretically I've got about ten more to try and get things right.

Wow, that was a digression and a half, but maybe now you understand why I laugh and shake my head everytime someone tells me what a good mom I am (which happens surprisingly often... maybe people don't pay attention?).

Anyway, here's to 2010... may it be a fabulous year for all my friends and loved ones (and maybe some of the people I don't like too!).

The changes a year can bring...

Comparing Christmas season '08 and Christmas season '09...

LAST YEAR: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
THIS YEAR: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.

LAST YEAR: I was unemployed.
THIS YEAR: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.

LAST YEAR: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
THIS YEAR: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!

LAST YEAR: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
THIS YEAR: An organization called to offer me a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needs it worse than I do. After I hung up I realized what I had just been able to say and I almost cried.

LAST YEAR: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
THIS YEAR: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.

LAST YEAR: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
THIS YEAR: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.

LAST YEAR: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
THIS YEAR: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.

LAST YEAR: I was single.
THIS YEAR: Still single... no change there. : )

Thank you God for filling 2009 with so many positive changes!

Song o' the Day: "Blessed" by Martina McBride. It fits. Listen to it here.

Chuckling evilly to myself...

This morning I took the Chamaco to school along with 30 cupcakes. His birthday was yesterday, you see, but he wasn't in school yesterday because he went to Seaside with his dad. His teacher said it would be okay for him to bring in a treat today though. So I sent him to school with loads of sugar for his little friends and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving that I have a class of 17 3, 4 and 5 year olds who will not have sugar today as opposed to a class of 26 second graders who will be quite hopped up.

Why 30 cupcakes for 26 kids, you ask? Because the cupcakes come in boxes of 12 or 6. Two boxes of 12 would not have been enough for everyone, so I got 2 12s and a 6.

Know what the Chamaco got for his birthday from his other grandpa? $75. But here's the fun part... $50 of it is in $1 bills. The other $25 is in quarters.

Gotta love relatives with a weird sense of humor. His dad gave him a dictionary.

This morning....

I staggered out into the hallway toward the bathroom, still rubbing at my eyes and trying to get my brain to engage, and I happened to glance at the stairs. The Chamaco was sitting there on the stairs, playing his DS.

"What are you doing?" I asked him. (Though at that stage of morning it probably sounded more like "Whuttreyadooin?")

He looked me in the eye and said, "I decided I didn't want you to boss me around this morning, so I got up and got dressed and got my coat and shoes on. I didn't brush my teeth yet, though... you can tell me to do that."

I tried to make sense of this for a moment, then I asked, "Did you remember to get your snack for school?"

"Yep," he said. "I already told you... the only thing I didn't do is brush my teeth."

So I left him there on the stairs and went about my morning routine, issuing exactly zero orders for small people to get their shoes on or whatever. It was sort of oddly silent. Then came the point when I went downstairs and opened the blinds on the kitchen window to let some light in, and realized that everything was white out there (frost, not snow). A glance at the thermometer (33!) made me decide I wanted to go back to bed. Unfortunately that's a no-go on Wednesdays (and pretty much every other day of the week too). And then the Chamaco came downstairs ready to go out to the bus, and I looked at him and said, "Get a warmer coat. It's all icy out there."

"What?!" he demanded in that tone of derision that he has mastered so perfectly. This is his standard response anytime I tell him to do anything he doesn't want to do. He likes the flimsy little gray jacket, and he argued with me about whether or not he should have to put on a different coat for a few minutes. But I prevailed, got him into a warmer coat and gloves, and we headed out to the bus stop. As soon as we stepped out the door, he exclaimed, "Brr! It's cold out here!"

"Like I said," I reminded him. "See? Sometimes I still know stuff."

I don't know why, but it seems especially lately I'm on a quest to prove that I'm still relevant as a parent. Aside from cooking meals and washing clothes, he can now do pretty much everything else for himself. I even left him home by himself for 10 minutes the other night while I ran to the store to get some milk after I discovered that ours was more of a chewy solid than it was a liquid. He didn't die or burn the house down. In fact, when I got home he said, "I didn't even move the whole time you were gone." And indeed, he was sitting on the couch playing Wii right where I had left him ten minutes previous.

With his 8th birthday now a mere week away, I'm struggling to get my mind around the concept that the part of parenting where he is completely dependent on me for his every physical need is over. Now comes the hard part... it falls to me to try to guide him as he develops mentally, emotionally and socially, and to help him make good choices for himself until his brain matures. Yeah, he'll still grow, but his physical development is pretty much going to take care of itself from here on out provided I remember to feed him occasionally. I'm a whole 10 years away from being the parent of a legal adult (don't get me started on whether or not 18 year olds are mentally adult).

And no, that thought does not make me want to have another one, thank you for asking.

The first freeze of winter 09-10 this morning prompted deep ponderings of how much I despise Oregon weather. At one point in the planet's orbit you have to wrap yourself in multiple layers just to keep warm, and a mere six months later you find that your skin is bubbling. I am firmly opposed to all things cold and wet, and this includes rain, snow, and animal noses (especially dogs), which means I live in entirely the wrong state, and especially the wrong part of it. Every time I look out my window in the morning and see the ground is white, it prompts thoughts of hibernation... I could totally see crawling into bed and emerging sometime in late May or early June. I mentioned that this morning to the CTG and how ill-suited for Oregon life I consider myself to be. He shrugged and said, "Lots of animals here hibernate." Well fabulous... all I gotta do is get someone to pay my bills and excuse me from work for the next six months so I can crawl into a hole until the weather is nicer.

Or alternatively, I could move back to Cuernavaca where the weather is fabulous year-round and they have way more thunderstorms. (Did I mention that even the rain in Cuernavaca is generally warm? I had never experienced warm rain until living there.)

This was the view from our bedroom window in Cuernavaca. More of this, please!

Much too young to feel this old...

That red-headed chick was working the self-checkout at Safeway again today. The Chamaco and I were going through the line, he was buying something with the $2 I had just given him for helping me return cans, and I was teaching him how to use the self-checkout machine thingie. And that girl came up to me again (she has spoken to me before) and this time she asked, "Is he your kid?"

"Yep." The Chamaco replied for me. Which I guess gives me some credibility.

The look of surprise on her face was one I have seen before, and she said in awe, "You don't look old enough to have a kid!"

Shrugging and going about my checkout, I said, "I'm twenty-seven and he'll be eight in a bit over a week."

"But you don't look twenty-seven!" she protested. "And I think I've told you that before."

"Yes you have, lady, but you telling me that doesn't magically make me the nineteen you think I look," I thought but did not say.

There are two times of year when I get a little cranky about my age. One of them is when my birthday is approaching. The other is when the Chamaco's birthday is approaching. Unfortunately the two events are only about three months apart, so just when I get over feeling old because of my birthday, it's time for his.

If you want to be technical, no, I'm not old enough to have a kid who is eight. Because that would mean I had him when I was 19, and that would just be... oh, wait a minute. I did have him when I was 19. And technically I could have had him much sooner... I mean, a friend of mine in high school gave birth when she'd been 15 for a week or two. So really, speaking in the strictest of biological senses, I am more than old enough to have a child who is on the verge of turning eight. But every time I have to add a year to his age in my head, I feel about two years older myself.

It doesn't help that he's now old enough to be capable of reminding me verbally how young I'm not. One day while we were driving in the car, a Seether song came on the radio and the Chamaco asked me, "How old is this band?"

"Well, they started in 1999, so about ten years old," I said. Because this is the sort of trivia I know about Seether.

"How about Nirvana? How old is that band?"

I thought a moment. "I'm not sure when they started, but I think they ended in 1993 when Kurt Cobain died. So at least 16 years." (And boy did that make me feel old.)

With an air of frustration, the Chamaco asked, "Do you know any bands that I'm older than?" Having to admit that I couldn't think of one off the top of my head (that both of us would know) was kind of sad for me. I felt ancient.

That being said, I know I don't look my age. People I meet and ask to guess my age usually guess somewhere around 19. The good folks down at Bi-Mart card me to buy fireworks every July (for my non-Oregon friends, you have to be 16 to buy fireworks here). And most people, upon meeting me and my sister together, assume she is older (she is eight years younger). Still, sometimes I feel like a real dinosaur. I'm sure it's something psychological. But the good news is that I'll be 37 when the Chamaco graduates high school. If I avoid having any more children maybe I'll get to have another go at that being a teenager thing that I never really did the first time around.

In unrelated news, I talked to Smiley Dick today, which is something I try to avoid. I couldn't help but notice two things... he has shaved off all his hair, and he was smoking a cigarette. I was surprised by both, because he is fond of his hair and he had led me to believe that he quit smoking. So I asked him, "When did you start that up again?"

"This?" he asked me, waving the cigarette about. "You're presuming that I actually stopped."

"Well, yes, because you told me you had quit," I pointed out.

"No more so than you'd quit eating chocolate," he said.

I refrained from pointing out how retarded of a statement that was for a few reasons. First, I didn't want to continue the conversation. Second, I don't actually eat chocolate hardly at all. And third, most people aren't addicted to chocolate, thus they don't need to "quit" chocolate, and nobody notices if they don't have chocolate for a month or two and then they start back up again... and as excited as he was when he "quit" smoking, you could tell it was a big deal to him. I don't expect to get a text from him telling me that he's "quit" eating chocolate. Also nobody thinks it odd if a kid starts eating chocolate when he's 11 (other than maybe it's weird he didn't do it sooner). But one of the things I'm getting really good at with Smiley Dick is learning when to just smile and walk away so I don't have to have these arguments which will make him shake his head at me in that despairing fashion of his, as though I am just so unbelievably stupid because I cannot grasp his higher-level wisdom.

There's a reason we're divorced.

Song o' the Day: "Bitter Taste" by Three Days Grace. (In honor of S.D. Go look up the lyrics.)

Quote o' the Day: "Something awkward just happened in my kitchen!"
-and-
"Just so you know, Damian and Mindy are in bed. He's showing her how to use the force."

Really I should have switched those two around, because the latter quote was what led to the former. :-)

Bragging on my kid....

Tonight was "Family Math Night" at the Chamaco's school, which I wrangled to get out of having to go to work tonight so we could go to. Turned out to be a very positive thing.

Aside from getting free pizza for dinner, the Chamaco played a lot of math games and won raffle tickets. Then he participated in the second grade math competition and kicked serious butt!

Okay, yeah, I know... they're kids, it's all in fun. But let me say this: Given a sheet with 100 addition facts to do in 3 minutes or less, my kid can do them all in about a minute and a half and only missed one problem (probably carelessness from going so fast). He was pretty excited, though, and he won a $5 gift card to Blockbuster. And then later one of his raffle tickets got drawn and he was given a $5 gift card to Safeway as well. So he had a fantastically thrilling night and he's already plotting what he's going to buy.

As for me, I had agreed about a month ago over email to participate in something called a "Quiz of the Obvious", which I was told was something where they asked you questions that seemed like the answers were obvious but they really weren't. Among the other adults competing were the school principal, a few teachers, and a handful of parents. There were 10 questions. I got 9 of them right, and that was enough to win. Second place got 8 (go you, Bjorn!). So I'm supposed to be getting some sort of prize too (probably a gift card) but silly math specialist guy sort of forgot and gave my prize away as a raffle prize, so he said he'd get it to me later. Fortunately the school knows where to find me. The questions were things like, "Which of these sentences is correct: 'The yolk of an egg is white' or 'The yolk of an egg are white'." The answer of course being "neither, egg yolks are yellow." Stuff like that. Two of the parents accused me of being "a teacher or something", and after the quiz kept calling me over to explain to them the correct answers of the questions. It was fabulously Molalla.

So anyway, thank you Lisa for letting me wriggle out of doing childcare at Sandy Ridge/Estacada's Family Night tonight and go do something meaningful with my kid instead. :-)

An absence of profundity...

Yeah, that's right... I've nothing at all meaningful to say today. Woo hoo! So here is a brief summary of my accomplishments today.

1.) Was not late for church. Either time.

2.) Ran into my high school principal/English teacher at O.C. McDonald's. Invited her to eat with me and Damian. Damian lost interest quickly, finished his food and went to play in the PlayPlace while she and I spent a long time catching up. She has 3 kids now, who are actually her step-kids. I find that ironic, since she was very militantly single 10 years ago. (And she was the one who taught me that if a guy is attractive, that means he's either gay, married, or too old/young. I reminded her of that, and she laughed. She is also the one who taught me the proper way to kill someone with scissors.)

3.) Found purple flowerpots at Bi-Mart for my polka-dot plants that not only survived in my care, but bloomed like crazy all summer long and have outgrown their original containers. I shall see if I can kill them by attempting to re-pot them. That usually works.

4.) Bought a 2010 calendar. Before January. Usually I buy them after January 5th when they go on sale, but I found one I liked and it was only $6.99 anyway.

5.) Made good on my bad-cop-parent threat (I've told him repeatedly that if he didn't clean the room, I was going to do it and stuff was going to disappear) and gutted Damian's room while he wasn't home. Got rid of many toys that have been lurking in the bottom of his toybox since he was two that he's probably never even seen and will never miss, and rearranged his furniture. I thought he was going to be upset ('cause I would be if someone went through my stuff and threw a bunch of it away), but he seemed rather pleased, came into my room and hugged me and told me I did a good job. Strange child. But that clears the way for new stuff from his birthday and Christmas, both of which are next month. (groan!) (Note to relatives: Buy him small things. Or give him money or something.)

6.) Played Aztec Tribe for a while. That game reminds me very much of the original Warcraft game (back before it was World of...) with the little orcs or trolls or whatever they were that would enthusiastically reply, "Zug zug!" to any command you gave them and then work industriously to build... whatever it was they built. Pig farms or something. Wow, that was a long time ago.