My 7 year-old is mad at me. Why? (Better question: Why do I care?, cause there is no way I could have convinced my mother or grandmother to care one iota about me being upset with them when I was 7.) I "made" her miss her last girl scout meeting of the school year (I remembered her meeting just as I was exiting the freeway on the way to the daycare (the meeting was in progress for 30 minutes at that point)). She's thoroughly convinced that I did it on purpose--and I am beyond explaining grown-up stuff to a child (although I did apologize)--especially when the child is spilling crocodile tears and I am crying and cursing myself on the inside.
Of course I did not allow her to miss her meeting on purpose, it just completely slipped my mind. I guess I could let myself off the hook if I hadn't completely forgotten a few other meetings this year already. However comma--in my defense her Girl Scout troop normally meets every other Thursday and although this was their normal Thursday, they had a camp out last Friday which threw my internal Girl Scout meeting GPS into "completely slipped my mind" mode. Tonight's meeting would have been 3 weeks in a row. As an aside, I should mention that I had to sleep on the cold hard ground at the camp out, in a 2-man tent by myself. Okay, (you got me) this is Texas, and it is May, so the ground was not 'cold' but it was the ground nevertheless, so one would think I had a few points to spare. Unfortunately not--my child is not that forgiving. So, I banished her to her room because I could not listen to her crying as if the world had ended and I didn't have the heart to tell her to shut-up.
At the missed meeting, the troop was putting a time capsule together and my daughter was suppose to bring the front page of the newspaper. Well, I picked up the paper--but it has not made it into the capsule (yet). Hopefully the troop leaders did not dig a hole and put the thing into the ground (aww man, I really hope they didn't because if they did, I'm in for another round of crocodile tears).
I know you want to know why I missed the Girl Scout finale. Work of course!! I was attempting to put the finishing touches on a motion and could not pull myself away from my desk. If I had remembered her meeting (in the first place) I definitely would have logged out and made my way home in a timely fashion.
I guess while I'm in full confession mode, I should mention that I was also 10 minutes late getting the girls from after-school care today. I have an excuse (you knew it was coming)--some discourteous person had the nerve to have an accident on the freeway I take to get home. I know, right! How inconsiderate!! I pride myself on cutting my 45 minute commute down to 36 1/2 minutes. Well today it took a full 50 minutes. On most days, Husband gets the girls and of course he's never late. I know this because my extra-observant 9 year-old thinks its her job to tell/ask me: "Why when daddy gets us he's never late, but when you're supposed to pick us up, we're always the last ones here?" I've started to ignore her.
So, I called the daycare to let them know I would be a bit late. Another confession: Until today I had no clue of the amount of the late penalty, yes, penalty. The fine print on the "you are picking your children up late from daycare" form I had to sign today read: "If you do not call before 6:30 to let the staff know you are going to be late, add an additional $15 (per child) to the $20 (per child) late fee." Needless to say, I will NOT be late again. $40 for 10 minutes! Yikers!! That's $4 a minute! I think I am in the wrong profession.
After dinner I believe she started to like me again and I think after this therapeutic blog entry I will get over "making" her miss her last Girl Scout meeting. I may even feel compelled to start adding their extra-curricular activities to my calendar with reminders. Almost every minute of my work day is calendared and it gets on my nerve to have to calendar my 'real' life too. Husband's contribution to my sanity is to tell me, every time I forget an event, "you should have put that on the calendar." (I'm sure all you tech savvy wamas know that every smart phone can tap into your outlook calendar or gmail calendar and you can share the calendar entries or invite people). I guess Husband is right, I need to calendar EVERYTHING.
SIGH. . . my face has formed itself into a scowl just thinking about calendaring everything (and I just started typing extra-hard too!). If I can just remember the 9 year-old's Girl Scout meeting tomorrow I will feel redeemed (however short-lived the feeling). Such is life. . . .
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Welcome to My World!
Greetings all!! I am taking on the fantabulous task of blogging. I hear it's a lot of fun, albeit time-consuming. I feel I must write about what it takes to "make it happen" as a professional black "wama" if only to help someone else know and understand that they are not the only person who needs 4 additional hours to everyday. (Sidenote: "wama" means wife and mama.) I hope you enjoy my ramblings (most likely rants), pick up some helpful advice, and learn from me as I learn from my mistakes and/or journeys.
I don't profess to know everything, in fact, most days I think I know less than I did the day before. (The good thing is) I learn something new about myself everyday, which for me is weird because before I marched into the corporate zone, I thought I pretty much knew most of what I needed to know about myself. HA! Geez was I misguided. Whatever. I guess I will live and learn as my mother always says. Just these past two weeks I have learned that I am super indecisive when it comes to my hair. If you are interested in this blog, you most probably know--and have dove head first (pun intended) into the age-old female debate: creamy crack (perm) or natural hair. I should say, upfront, that I don't give a hoot about how people decide to wear their hair. "As long as you like it--I love it!," is my mantra. However, I don't think people should be guilted into wearing one form over the other, for whatever reason the opposition gives.
I have worn my hair in many different styles and lengths over the years. For the first 9 years of my life my hair was natural. And most of my memories of that time consist of either being popped in the head with a comb or brush for not sitting still, crying because it hurt, or my grandmother standing over me on Easter Sunday morning with a straightening comb, screaming "child be still, that was just the grease rolling on yo' scalp." Really?
Then it was the ever famous "Jerry Curl," because "Michael Jackson had one." Then cornrow braids, because my mama worked and didn't have time to comb my "head" everyday. Then back to the Jerry Curl for a few years. However, in the 7th grade I begged for a perm because everybody was getting rid of their Jerry Curls (especially after that scene in "Coming to America" where the whole family had Jerry Curls and they sat on the sofa and left Jerry Curl "juice" spots all over the headrests). My mother allowed me to get a perm and so it has been since then--with periods of extensions, weaves, cornrows--long, short, and in-between.
Well, 2-weeks ago, I decided I was going to go natural. My reasoning? I was sick of going to the salon every week. Every week without fail I HAVE to go to the salon. I have super bad dandruff and if my hair is not washed every 7 days--day 8 is the very reason why dandruff shampoos exist. Sooo, I figured if I cut it all off I could skip the salon and be free. Right? Wrong. So needless to say, after 2-weeks of protesting the perm, I am too tied to my hair to chop it all off at once (I went to the salon and got the creamy crack applied today). After all, I actually just completed my, "I'm going to grow it all out so I can have a ponytail on bad hair days" stage. Which was working fine until I decided I wanted to teach my daughters how to swim. Who thinks swimming (multiple times a week) with permed hair is a good idea (raise your hands)? I thought not, which brings me to the ultimate conclusion that my hair will meet its natural end (natural, chopped short from the breakage, or teeny weeny afro) after swimming this entire summer with permed hair. Oh well, such is life. . . .
I don't profess to know everything, in fact, most days I think I know less than I did the day before. (The good thing is) I learn something new about myself everyday, which for me is weird because before I marched into the corporate zone, I thought I pretty much knew most of what I needed to know about myself. HA! Geez was I misguided. Whatever. I guess I will live and learn as my mother always says. Just these past two weeks I have learned that I am super indecisive when it comes to my hair. If you are interested in this blog, you most probably know--and have dove head first (pun intended) into the age-old female debate: creamy crack (perm) or natural hair. I should say, upfront, that I don't give a hoot about how people decide to wear their hair. "As long as you like it--I love it!," is my mantra. However, I don't think people should be guilted into wearing one form over the other, for whatever reason the opposition gives.
I have worn my hair in many different styles and lengths over the years. For the first 9 years of my life my hair was natural. And most of my memories of that time consist of either being popped in the head with a comb or brush for not sitting still, crying because it hurt, or my grandmother standing over me on Easter Sunday morning with a straightening comb, screaming "child be still, that was just the grease rolling on yo' scalp." Really?
Then it was the ever famous "Jerry Curl," because "Michael Jackson had one." Then cornrow braids, because my mama worked and didn't have time to comb my "head" everyday. Then back to the Jerry Curl for a few years. However, in the 7th grade I begged for a perm because everybody was getting rid of their Jerry Curls (especially after that scene in "Coming to America" where the whole family had Jerry Curls and they sat on the sofa and left Jerry Curl "juice" spots all over the headrests). My mother allowed me to get a perm and so it has been since then--with periods of extensions, weaves, cornrows--long, short, and in-between.
Well, 2-weeks ago, I decided I was going to go natural. My reasoning? I was sick of going to the salon every week. Every week without fail I HAVE to go to the salon. I have super bad dandruff and if my hair is not washed every 7 days--day 8 is the very reason why dandruff shampoos exist. Sooo, I figured if I cut it all off I could skip the salon and be free. Right? Wrong. So needless to say, after 2-weeks of protesting the perm, I am too tied to my hair to chop it all off at once (I went to the salon and got the creamy crack applied today). After all, I actually just completed my, "I'm going to grow it all out so I can have a ponytail on bad hair days" stage. Which was working fine until I decided I wanted to teach my daughters how to swim. Who thinks swimming (multiple times a week) with permed hair is a good idea (raise your hands)? I thought not, which brings me to the ultimate conclusion that my hair will meet its natural end (natural, chopped short from the breakage, or teeny weeny afro) after swimming this entire summer with permed hair. Oh well, such is life. . . .
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