Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Mom Marketing Idea

Okay, so I have a brilliant idea for corner stores to corner the market on mom sales. This would work for gas stations, convenience stores...pretty much anyplace.

All they need to do is have carside service. Perhaps while pumping your gas there would be a little button you could push to talk and say, "can you add a gallon of 1% milk and bring it out please?" Because let me tell you, if there was a place that offered that, I would ALWAYS shop there. Because once you have your baby in the car--especially if they fall asleep--there's just no way I'm getting him out for a quick pit stop, no matter how damn thirsty I am. (Remember that time I drove around looking for a McDonald's only to find the ONE McDonald's without a drive through?!)

This brainstorm hit me yesterday when I was at our mom's group. We went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch first, and I got some cheesecake to go, as usual. As usual, I left it in the fridge at the center. Halfway down the road, I had an internal debate about whether to turn back. On the one hand, I really, really wanted that cheesecake and it cost something like $7. On the other hand, it would require getting Milo back out of the car. sigh. I did wind up going back--because that's some expensive cheesecake and got lucky: one of my mom friends was still in the parking lot and offered to watch Milo so I could run in and grab it. (While doing so, I realized the staff probably thought I left my baby alone in the car to get cheesecake. oops.)

Minor crisis averted...but then I needed gas. And milk. And by the time I got to the gas station, Milo was asleep. And he REALLY needed to sleep. double sigh. No frosted flakes for mommy.

The thing is, I really bet that man working in the gas station wouldn't have minded bringing me out some milk. I thought about asking strangers at the pumps, even. They could have a $5-10 minimum charge and I'd STILL probably take them up on it, at least during those super thirsty times.

I'm not looking for royalties on this one...the idea is up for grabs to any and all takers. You could market yourself as the parent-friendly gas station. Perhaps also the elder-friendly corner store.

Get on that, people.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

'Cause, you know...he kinda is a little miracle.

Well, looks like my "commitment" to blogging means posting about every 3-4 weeks. What can I say? At this rate, it's a wonder I'm still married. And that my son is still alive.

No, seriously.

At our opening faculty meetings this year, we were supposed to write postcards about what we did over the summer and post them on the wall for everyone to read and catch up on. Mine said something along the lines of "I kept my son alive all summer." People still come up to me laughing about it, but I was serious. It was a pretty major accomplishment.

One I almost fucked up the other night. The thing is, it's been a rough week. One of the roughest we've had in a long time. It started well enough. On Saturday, we went out to Western Mass to celebrate a friend's birthday and engagement. I was a little stressed because I had only recently realized that I hadn't yet written my college recommendations--which take about two hours each--and they were due on Tuesday. Also, Michael had given Milo his first cold, and he gave it to me. We were all kind of miserable. Michael never gets sick. I'm a total wimp when I'm sick. (Unless I have some big deadline at work, in which case I'm some weird martyr-masochist hybrid.) Turns out we are both wimps when Milo is sick. Milo, on the other hand, is a real trooper. Even when he was running a 102 fever, he was smiling and happy. You just can't get that kid down. Well, unless you're trying to use that Swedish snotsucker invention to relieve his runny nose. Then he screams bloody murder. Sheesh. Trush me, Milo, this hurts me waaaaaay more than it hurts you. ew.

Anyway, we went out to Western Mass for our annual pumpkin carving/birthday celebration and this year, since we were toting a little man with us, Michael and I opted to share a pumpkin.

I had ulterior motives. I had big plans to take pics of Milo in a pumpkin. Michael hates when I do this kind of thing to Milo, calling it torture. Sheesh. So I prepared. I started mentioning the idea weeks before the pumpkin carving weekend. I can't wait to throw Milo in a pumpkin! I'd throw out nonchalantly, as if this was a normal rite of passage for celebrating a first Halloween. Hell, it should be.

Luckily my friend's fiancee is into photography, and also acted like this was totally normal. Which helped my case a lot, I think. We went to pick pumpkins and he held them up to Milo to see if he'd fit inside. That's not weird, right?

Anyway, who cares. We got just about the cutest picture that's ever been taken of a baby. In the history of the world. You might think I'm biased, but everyone that's seen it says so.
This isn't it. But you've all already seen that one  as my facebook profile. 
So, that was fun, despite the sickness and stress and whatnot. Plus I love my friends out there and it was so great to see them. The freak snowstorm didn't stop us from going out for some lovely Indian food, and then we headed to our hotel on the early side to get peanut to bed.

We always, ALWAYS get a free upgrade to the jacuzzi room at that hotel. Unfortunately, the freak snowstorm caused power outages which meant no upgrade for us. sigh.

Then, once settled in, we got a text from our co-dorm parents saying the dorm was out of power too. AGH. The Milk! dammit. I swear, I had JUST gotten my freaking supply worked up again to a non-stressful level from the last time the damn power went out. Has the school not heard of generators? Really? I mean, I don't pay $45,000 a year to live there, but I think if I did, I'd probably expect that my kid would have electricity. But I digress.

The next morning, I got a text saying the power was back on. I figured I had lost the refrigerated milk but the frozen milk would still be good, and most of the other stuff in the fridge should be fine.

Then came a third text saying it was out again.

Fuck with my emotions much? Not funny.

The power was off for two days...just long enough to have to chuck nearly everything. For the second time in two months. And we still haven't had time to go grocery shopping since then.

Of course the second problem was that I had all these recommendations to write in two days. And that required not only power but internet service. Awesome.

So we decided to check into a hotel. We found one near the school that still had power and booked it. We showed up to check in 20 minutes later. They had lost power. sigh. We wasted a whole bunch of recommendation-writing time finding a hotel/place with power and internet and finally found ourselves at the Best Western. Not my favorite, but hey, it came with free wifi and a hot shower.

Michael ran out for supplies and Milo needed a bath pretty badly since we hadn't bathed him since that whole throwing him naked in a pumpkin incident. He can't sit up by himself yet, so to avoid drowning, I took a bath with him. Then, just for fun, I decided to take him "swimming" by holding my hands under him and moving him through the water. I bounced him around and dipped his head back. And he totally liked it. Or maybe he liked my clever "swimmy swimmy swim" song. Hard to tell. But I had fun, and it did make rinsing the shampoo out of his hair super easy.

I wrote recommendations all night and fell into bed sometime around two. The next morning, I got a text that we were getting a small generator and should have some power back, so we checked out early and went back to meet the nanny and get back to work on those recommendations.

I was up until 3 am that night and the next, but got everything done. Oh--did I mention I decided to apply for the co-director of college counseling job? I figured I could explore any concerns I had in the interview process and that I shouldn't rule myself out...I should let them do that. The only problem was that the resume and cover letter were due the SAME DAY as the recommendation letters. Which I can only assume was a test of my time management skills, given that they definitely know the college application timeline! So I was mostly (sort of ) okay with that. I finished updating the resume, wrote a cover letter, and then went to check the job description to make sure I had addressed everything. Which was when I discovered they also wanted a PERSONAL STATEMENT. WTF?! I'm not applying to a phd program here. It took a while to determine what to put in a personal statement that wouldn't repeat the cover letter and resume, but eventually I got it all done. Several pages later.

This is all important background about the whole keeping Milo alive thing. I didn't forget about that.

The point is that I was stressed out, sleep deprived, depressed over lost milk, and without food. After several nights of a 3 am bedtime, I went to bed "early" at 1:00 am. Of course Milo woke up hungry right after I got settled and fell asleep. I sleepily lifted him from his bassinet and lay him down next to me, in the center of the bed, to nurse, promptly falling asleep again. At some point, I realized he was done, and flipped him to my other side so that the next time he woke up I could feed him without him really waking up. We do this all the time, folks. No babies are injured. Usually.

Only for some reason, Milo was wide awake. I, on the other hand, not so much. I sleepily pulled up Billy Joel on my iphone to lull him back asleep and was out before the song was over. Him, on the other hand--not so much.

I usually wake up if Milo breathes funny, that's how in sync we are. (When he's sleeping next to me.) Which just goes to show you how tired I was. Because I was PASSED OUT.

Until I heard a sudden shriek.

I had no idea what happened. It was pitch black. I was disoriented. I wasn't even sure where I had left Milo last. But some kind of super-mother-instinct shit kicked in and within seconds I was scooping him off the floor. The only thing that registered was his sad little body, lying on the floor, perpendicular to the bed. How did he even wind up in that direction? OMG. Did his head hit the wooden lip on the bed on the way down? How can you tell if a baby is concussed?

I've been pretty chill about Milo. I let him play on the floor. Sometimes I clean his mouth with the burp cloth AFTER I clean the floor with it. I let people hold him when they ask to, and I don't even ask if they've washed their hands. I can handle him "crying it out."

But holy shit, I am not kidding when I say I am still traumatized by the falling out of bed incident. He could have broken his neck!

Luckily, Milo stopped crying pretty much as soon as I picked him up. And, to his credit, Michael did not act the least bit accusatory that I let our son fall out of the bed. Unfortunately, I had enough adrenaline coursing through my body that I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. I suspect Milo had a hard time as well, given that I was squishing him against my body in a death grip.

So that's my story. We're all still alive. I don't let Milo near the edge of the bed anymore.

Really, it's time to start transitioning him to a crib anyway, since the bassinet is getting a little small for him.

I never, ever though I'd say this, but I'm really gonna miss that little guy in my bed at night. I mean, I'll be happy to get my "big guy" back. I've missed Michael, with the baby often in between us. But he doesn't like it as much when kiss his face all night.

So then, once all that was over, I had a day to get the presentation done for our open house. So then I was up until 2 am again.

In case you're wondering, I worked 47 hours last week. Which is more than twice what I'm contracted for. For the second week in a row. (Doesn't bode well for my ability to set boundaries in a director level position, does it?)

Also, as my colleague reminded me...not worth the $6500 a year I'm making. Actually, now that I have the nanny coming for more hours, it's less than that, but I can't bring myself to re-calculate. Better not to know.

And then...we were on duty. And we had our Admissions Open House. And we were missing a student for an hour or so (after curfew). And then had another student crying in our apartment.

So...yeah. A rough week. But I will say that Milo does provide some much-needed perspective.

For example, I had to bring him to faculty meeting and as always, he's perfectly quiet and smiley. Until he gets really tired. And starts to talk to himself. After someone asked a question and the room fell silent. haha. Well done, Milo. Um, I'll just sneak out the back now though.

And also--the kisses. Okay, I know they're not really kisses. He probably thinks my cheek should have a nipple on it or something. But he has started giving me open-mouth kisses and while I would find it quite gross from anyone else, I think it's pretty much the most charming thing ever.

I may have even licked his face in return. Once.

And then there was his first shower. He was totally unfazed by the water in his face and super cute and happy. Our little water baby. And the first time he sat up by himself. And HALLOWEEN. Aw. Our little tootsie roll. And all the time in the new front carrier. I swear, dear readers, I never thought I'd be one of those  moms that called their babies "miracles" and refused to leave them ever. But I hate leaving him. I'm seriously trying to figure out how to have a job where I can bring him to work with me. (People here bring dogs to work; why can't I bring Milo? He's way cuter and non-allergenic.) I love running errands with him in the carrier.

And I *might* have bought him a little Chanukah outfit with the word "miracle" on it with the idea that it was a double entendre.

'Cause, you know...he kinda is a little miracle.