I'm working at Gymboree part time and I love it! I get to be around the retail environment (which I love) without the responsibility of running the whole shebang! I get to go to work for three or four hours a coupla times a week, enjoy my customers and coworkers, and come home and cook for my babies and snuggle with my wife. NO STRESS! I am in heaven. At the store I am immersed in color and brightness and sweet sweet little cherub babies who smile and gurgle at me. The six and seven year olds like my sparkly star earings and my Silly Bands have upped my street cred with the eight year olds. I'm cool again. :)

At first I hemmed and hawed about wanting a baby dress in bright pink and lime green matching outfits. My baby is 12 after all, and too big for gymboree. I started to whine to Tina about another baby...then it hit me, I didn't want another baby, I wanted my babies to be babies again. So I decided to pull out all their baby pics and savor the memories, and then say a prayer of gratitude for the amazing kids they are today.

Then I realized that I respond to the color palette of kids clothes, and I decided to bring that joy, that exuberance, that sparkle to our home and how we live our lives! And so birthed Operation Happiness.

More on that tomorrow..

PS Prayers for Jasmine. God, thank you for keeping her in Your Arms.

I heart tiny baby kitties, clothes that comes in size 2T, my wife's breath, saying the word orange, Frida Kahlo prints, Goodwill furniture finds, scary storms, mexican corn dogs, watching annah read, Stargate SG-1 marathons, fudgy brownies, working it all out, abundance, relaxing in comfortable chaos, Petville, discovering a new author, lunches packed in ice chests, affirmations, funny friends, finding your pants now fit, hello kitty bracelets, watching the moon...

Gratitude

So Tina and I have decided that I will be "Work In The Home Mommy" and Tina will be "Work Outside the Home Mommy". While this is exactly where I want to be, I realized today I wasnt giving myself the time to adjust from corporate life to home life. I no longer work a zillion hours a day, but I also no longer have the gratification that my position granted.

I have decided to give myself a break and allow myself to transition. I will start with gratitude.

Today I am grateful for:
God's unconditional love
Rent paid.
Fridge filled.
Nar-anon
Darryl's 87 year old dad's birthday
Micah's cooking
Surprise visits
Annah's skating
Long talks with 'Grosa
Knowing the words to Karma Chameleon
Kisses from Tina

I'ma

One Small Victory in the Ugly War for Equal Rights...

Yesterday, we were at the hospital with one of the children. We were surprisingly pleased when the staff addressed us both be as "Mom", referred to as The Moms, and actually looked both of us in the eye when discussing care for our child.

Too often this is what happens:
We fill out paperwork, one of our names goes in the Mom line, as there is not a space for two names in the Mom line...then the staff calls the one name and both of us get up. Then comes The Look..where they look at the other one with the "Who are you and why are you here". Sometimes we will get a particularly vocal staff member who comes right out and asks "Who are you and why are you here", ok really they usually say 'Who is the mom" and we both chime "We both are" and then there is the moment where the reaction of the staff determines the way the appointment will go. If the staff member is uncomfortable, s/he will only look at one of us when talking and ignore the other.

Yesterday, however, our co-mothering was not even an issue one way or the other. It was implied and assumed that we were both the mothers. At one time the intake counselor, after we had been chatting awhile, joked that I was the nice mom and Tina was the mean one. (NO THATS NOT WHAT SHE SAID, JUST KIDDING!) She really said that I was the more lax mom and Tina was the more structured mom. Which is so totally true. Sigh.

Perhaps a small victory in the ongoing war for equal rights...

My Wife Thinks She is Funny

Tina: Hey baby, what do you call an orange who has gotten too much sun?
Me: What?
Tina: A Tan-gerine.

Sigh.

Or this one:

Me: Tina, what should I name my pet on Petsville?
Tina: (without missing a beat) Petsy Cline

Double Sigh.

I Heart my Funny Girl.

Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle With You

In the early nineties I was an english major. I don't remember much from that time because I was spending all my time in my dorm room creating Facebook...really...that was me. Ok my lawyer told me to take that out lest I be sued by the real Facebook creators. My lawyer's name is Lilly. She is also my dog, which makes her my therapist, personal trainer, and bodyguard most days...

Ok back to the whole english major thing, (should english major be capitalized?) What I do remember from my studies is the term in medias res, which simply means that a narrative can begin in the middle of the action, or at it's conclusion, with character, plot, setting etc told through flashback and dialogue. Since I haven't reached the conclusion of this story I call me, the logical place to begin is in the middle of it all... And when it is time to flashback I will use a music cue like on Lost. Grin.