I was that girl.  Granted, I was not the worst of my friends but I still jostled for mirror space with the best of them.

When I was 8, I used to take my $1 allowance down to the drugstore on the corner and buy cheap .99 eyeliners and nail polishes.  I coveted Dr. Scholls clogs and all the makeup that was out of my budget – the Cover Girl and Maybelline and Revlon.  I can still picture the aisle of that store, I loved to just sit in the makeup aisle and drool over all the sparkly, shiny colors.

I still do that, except now I stare at the Sephora catalog and I covet higher end eyeshadow palettes from Urban Decay, liquid eyeliners from Boujois, airy foundations from Smashbox, lipsticks, lip balms, lip glosses – any brand thankyouverymuch.  Skincare from philosophy and Bliss and Aveda; hair products from Bumble and Bumble – I love them ALL.

Unfortunately for me, the painstakingly developed step-by-step daily routine has become somewhat…over-developed.  It is no surprise to anyone that knows me that I am most definitely the highest of high-maintenance.  I require 5 products in the shower alone (shampoo, conditioner, 2 kinds of soap, and facewash) and that’s not counting the deep conditioning or shaving days.  I step out of the shower and layer on face serum, face lotion, eye cream, body lotion, deodorant, tinted sunscreen, and two kinds of hair products.  That’s before I get to makeup, hair dryer, velcro rollers, hairspray, and on and on.

If I’m being honest, I don’t particularly care about becoming lower maintenance or streamlining my routine.  I love these girly things, and when there aren’t kids hanging off my legs I can go from bed to out the door in 35 minutes.

The problem is, it sure is a bitch when I have to get ready away from home.  For one thing trying to remember all this stuff is next to impossible and I’m guaranteed to forget the critical basics, like deodorant or a bra, in my haste to remember three kinds of moisturizer.  It’s also somewhat embarrassing to unpack, repack, and cart all this stuff around in the locker room or at a friend’s house.

This problem has manifested itself, along with all the other emotional and physical stuff that comes up, in my yoga teacher training.  We practice a hot yoga class each morning, then have lecture or posture clinic the rest of the day.  I have to shower after the class.

I can easily reduce the skincare stuff and not wear makeup, but I am not and have never been a wash-and-go-hair kind of girl.  For my professional life, I have a shoulder length cut that requires…something.  I can’t wear a hat because my hair is too short and my ears stick out.  I could try a headband, or bandanna I guess.  Or what about those buff things that Survivor contestants wear?  Could I pull that off?

Suggestions are welcome.  My hair thanks you.

I can’t control the situation, only how I react to it. 

The problem is as soon as Halloween is over, I start to feel the familiar holiday aversion creep over me.  The transition from warmth and joyousness of all things fall to cold and dark winter settles like a blanket over my psyche and usually manifests as foot-dragging everything holiday related.

Never feeling like I’ve done enough, decorated enough, not having found the exact perfect present for someone, the crush of commercials and glitter - all of it overwhelms me.  I used to feel an obligation to make sure that we spent equal amounts of time with both families and that resulted in driving all over the great frozen north, calculating down to the minute who what and where we’d be and pleasing no one, especially not myself.

In my mind, I am still 19 (aren’t we all?) so it seems unbelievable that I now have a responsibility to start our own holiday traditions for our children.  I want to do it, but in some backward sense starting your own traditions is hard – it almost feels disloyal to what you did as a child.  And by the time I think of something, I’ve usually waited too long and it’s too late.

By February, all of the above combined with the weather and self-inflicted pressure culminates every year in a semi-breakdown.  I’m not sure what it is about that time of the year, but I’m much more likely to have days where I can’t get out of bed, heart racing anxiety, panic attacks, random irrational crying, and even physical symptoms like migraines and unbearable shoulder and back pain.

For a lot of reasons, finally this year I’ve lost most of the guilt.  I’m trying so hard not to fall down, get spun up, or feel like I’ve failed before I even start.

This year I want to change how I react.

I’ve gotten so many great ideas on so many things from blogging so I ask, please share with me some ideas for new traditions.  Tell me what you do with your kids or spouse that you look forward to every year.  Or even what you’re planning to do and maybe didn’t get to last year but definitely will this year.  I’m already doing better by the mere fact that I still have plenty of time to implement and we have no travel plans after Thanksgiving.

(As a preemptive note, I will be without Internet for FOUR DAYS.  Moment of silence…  So if I don’t respond to your comment right away, that’s why – it will be read and responded to when I get back, likely with shaky typing fingers and hallucinations from blog withdrawal.)

1) ours decided that self could not possibly be expected to keep up with the laundry generated by one very spitty baby, one dirt/sand/ketchup loving toddler, one mama who is newly obsessed with hot yoga and in the past week has sweated through 5 sets of workout clothes and an equal number of towels, and one daddy whose laundry lurks in all corners of the house so we can’t really be sure how much there is but it’s a lot and I never find it all until I’m on the final load

2) in a fit of misplaced confidence, I let our home warranty expire (you know the one where they replace your stuff if they can’t fix it and has paid for itself many times over with the timely death of the A/C, shortly followed by the water heater, and miscellaneous other applicances).  Because see, once I actually gave in and admitted that our oven (made by General Motors in 1962) would never die of it’s own accord and under duress purchased a new one, why on earth would I need to continue coverage, ha ha ha!  I think once the mighty oven was gone, the weaker appliances that were afraid of being laughed at are just throwing in the towel. 

Now, I’m faced with either

a) finding and paying a repairman to scratch his neck and tell me the washer has kicked it and then purchasing a new washer

b) sucking it up and buying a new one, but always wondering if ours was really fixable because of something dumb, like say the plug falling out.  (We are not total idiots and did check that…)

c) renewing the home warranty and waiting a reasonable amount of time to call in the brokea$$ washer

Remembering that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE here because people, we cannot go longer than a few days without washing spit cloths, what would you do?

The last time this happened (Isabelle – 5 years ago) we were totally not prepared.  We also did not have kids so it really wasn’t a big deal, except for not having power for two solid weeks, which meant no air conditioning which sucked because it was like camping and I really, really hate camping.

Brett called to tell me that we need to get prepared and I should make a list.  Which normally I’d be turning backflips over getting to make a list, but right now I’m consumed with one ALL CONSUMING worry…

From 2008_09_04

HOW WILL I SAVE THE MILK???????????????????

In case you are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the little milk storage bags that you fill with pumped leftover breast milk, this is my freezer filled with approximately TWO HUNDRED 6 ounce bags. 

Did you get that?  OVER TWO HUNDRED.

To say I have a bit of an oversupply problem would be putting it mildly.  In case you’re wondering why I never post or comment anymore, this is why.  There is a hell of a lot of time and effort and tears in this freezer – these boob cubes are supposed to allow me to pump for 3 months, feed for 6. 

If we lose power, these will melt and then will have to be consumed or tossed within 4 days.  And I will slowly DIE inside, as I recall all the HOURS hooked up to the milking machine and the soreness and pumping every night at 3am.

Because when in times of peril I turn to the internet to tell me what to do, instead of doing helpful things like making lists as Brett instructed I need someone to tell me…

HOW WILL I SAVE THE MILK?????????????????

The other day I got to thinking that for an impatient control freak like me, what better way to bring on labor than by NOT doing certain things.  For example:

• Not packing a suitcase to go to the hospital and in fact having every item of clothing that I would conceivably take with me sitting dirty in the laundry.
• Not getting the car seat installed, or even out of the attic.
• Not putting the crib together, evn though it arrived !gasp! as scheduled, last week.
• Not having the bottles and pump supplies washed and organized, ready to go.
• Continuing to avoid discussions about names and insisting on referring to her as “Freelove” (a name that is actually on my family tree).
• Refusing to meet with the guy who is replacing me at work to do turnover.

I’ve become convinced, much to Brett’s annoyance, that doing any of these things will mean that I’ll never go into labor. 

With each to-do that gets done, I’ve decided I need to counteract the effects of preparedness.  So far the only thing I’ve come up with is online shopping for more maternity clothes, which are sure to arrive AFTER the baby is born.  Or planning an out-of-town vacation.

So what else is there? 

I’m not looking for the twiddle-yourself-and-drink-weird-herbal-tea suggestions.  Give me good, laughing in the face of fate, I-dare-you suggestions.  Expensive?  Inconvenient?  Dumb?  All the better.

Nope, not the anti-depressants.  That stopped being a secret long ago.

I have a maid.

I know.  But come on!  It’s not like I have a hot French chick flitting around my house with a feather duster and ruffled bloomers – even if I could afford that I wouldn’t be that dumb.  I’d get the old English lady with a bun like a bagel on the back of her head who would also cook for me and brush my hair.

It’s a maid service, and they only come once a month.  I hired them mainly because I need to know amidst remembering everything else when the bathrooms were last cleaned.

I was out to dinner with a group of friends – all full-time working moms – a few weeks ago and one girl muttered something about forgetting that her maid was coming the next day and having to clean up when she got home.  I remembered that mine was coming later in the week and then another friend confessed to having just hired one who was starting the next week. 

None of us had ever talked about it before, for fear of I don’t know what exactly.  Like maybe if you have that much money to throw around, then what are you doing working you selfish bitch – you should be home raising your child?

To satisfy my working mother guilt, I should note that the once monthly cleaning is less than I spend on groceries in a week.  Not that I feel like I have to defend this, because I looooovve coming home to a clean house.  Not only clean, but clutter free, too.

Because we all know that the day before the maid comes, you have to run around and gather up all the crap that clutters your living space and stash it. 

The reasons for this are many, primarily for me it’s because I’ve learned from experience that my maid service will vacuum AROUND a shoe, rather than pick it up and move it.  So if I want a majority of the dust to be gotten, I’d best spend some time clearing every surface of every last book, hair clip, or remote control. 

The other reason is of course the maid being judgemental about your stuff.  (Holy credit card bill!  Look at these tacky shoes!) 

Which brings me to my current dilemma, and the reason I’ve outed myself to the Internet about my inability to clean my own house.  Our service comes with a guarantee that if we’re not happy with a cleaning they’ll come back and re-do the area.  They did a shitty job this time, most notably in leaving obvious cat hair tumbleweeds in the corner of the master bedroom and not dusting the top of the TV armoire. 

But the guarantee has a catch… Who is really comfortable complaining about the job someone you don’t know is doing when they are alone in your house??

Do I call in the guarantee and risk getting spit in my milk or my toothbrush rubbed around the rim of the toilet? 

Or do I suck it up and finish the dusting myself? 

I will freely admit the main reason I hired them is so the kitchen floor, which usually looks like a Picasso painting of thrown food, would get mopped.  Doing this one thing myself does not compare to having to mop a months worth of sticky off the kitchen floor.

Brett’s vote is to not complain.  I think the maid franchise RELIES on the fear that if the maid gets a complaint and has to come back she’s going to mess with your shit. 

I’ve thought about just chickening out and switching companies instead of complaining but these services make it so expensive with “pre-cleanings” to get started that once you’re in it’ll COST YOU to switch.   And let’s be honest here, getting rid of maid service as long as I’m a) working b) pregnant and c) lazy is not an option.

What an industry to be in – you can do a crappy job but few people will complain and most won’t fire you because on some level they need you.  It’s almost like being a drug dealer isn’t it?

So what should I do Internet?  Complain and then hesitate before I brush my teeth?  Deal with it and do it myself?  Or just pretend I don’t see the dust and hope they get it next month?

Saturday I saw 27 Dresses. As movies go, you really can’t get much more girly than that, unless you include a mama, grandmama, and a lengthy illness along with all the weddings and unrequited love so really Brett should be THANKING me for not making him go see it.

I was astonished to discover that since the last time I saw a movie the price has gone up to NINE DOLLARS. Wasn’t it like $7.50 last time I checked? And that’s just here in the armpit of Virginia, how much is it in big cities?

After the movie, we went back to my friend KO’s house to play the Wii. I got a little carried away creating my Wii character and gave her short, spiky mama-in-a-mid-life-crisis hair and large intellectual glasses. Let’s call my alter ego Holly. KO’s boyfriend thought it was hilarious when I argued that Holly also needed gigantic pregnancy boobs and couldn’t understand why the Wii didn’t give me the option.

“It’s a family game”, he argued.

Whatever. I think I want a Wii. I don’t believe Best Buy, Circuit City, Game Stop, Target, Walmart and every other store I’ve checked that tells me they are out of stock. Christmas is over for pete’s sake. All the upper middle class children who were promised a Wii under the tree (hee hee, rhyming) have been disappointed and are over it by now so there should be plenty of these stupid things. Right?

Saturday girl’s night culminated in staying up too late (holy geez I made it to midnight! mostly because I couldn’t figure out a way to Wii bowl without getting off the couch) and a big IHOP blueberry pancake breakfast on Sunday morning.

Monday night girl’s night was BIG eating. Good. But heavy. We did a good job being moms out on the town without talking about only mom stuff and baby stuff. I wore my glasses so I could feel a little like Holly. And since I went to bed 3 hours late, Alex was obligated this morning to wake up 2 hours early but only 15 minutes before Brett was getting up, which required me to do something about it. See how it all equals out?

Before I left last night, I got a text from my friend Stacey to see if I wanted to go for a traditional Tuesday night post-yoga-workout beer and pizza fest. You didn’t know that was traditional after-yoga fare? I would have said no because of all the other girl’s nights, but Brett saw who the text was from first and seemed happy, encouraging even, to have me go.

The end result of all these girl’s nights (besides racking up fun and calories) is that I’ve racked up quite a debt. A debt that will be extracted in the form of golfing and poker nights, i.e guy’s nights.

Oh yes, I realize it even as I’m eating my way through another stack of something and giggling about nothing. And in some corner of Brett’s mind, he realizes it too. Mental scorecards, my friends…we all have them.

Now for the big question, and I don’t think I can ask my investment advisor and so I shall turn to the internet.

How many girl’s nights does it take to equal a weekend of fantasy football draft 3 weeks after the birth of your second child? Especially if wife’s mother will be there to help?

Is there accrual or compounding rates if Alex refused to nap the entire day or was up three times the night that one person was out?

I say we just take the dry erase board on the fridge that we used to use for tracking feedings and diaper changes and get the scoreboard up on the fridge and out of our heads. Otherwise, payback could be a bitch.