Such as, “Where’s the baby’s socks?!” Or, “She should be wearing a jacket.” Or, “Your baby’s hungry. Feed her!” Or, “SHE SHOULD NOT BE WEARING BLUE!!”

Usually I just smile and go on my merry way. Occasionally I have had some very insistent people (these are usually the ones who are convinced I’m starving my baby) who repeatedly express their concern until I just walk off. Sometimes I’ll say something like, “Well, she just ate, so she’s not hungry, she’s tired.” (They never look like they believe me.)

It’s interesting that it’s happening now, since nobody said a thing to me when I had Tommy. I had always read that this was common for new mothers, but since it didn’t happen at all with Tommy, I figured people in Hawaii just didn’t do that sort of thing. Clearly I was wrong! Apparently, when it comes to babies, everybody knows what’s best for your baby… except you.

As for why it happens with Athena and not Tommy, I have a couple of theories as to why we’re treated differently:

1) Athena’s a girl. Perhaps people worry more about girls, thinking they’re more delicate and sensitive and more care is needed or else they’ll be traumatized. Since Tommy was a boy, perhaps they weren’t too worried about me scarring him for life, thinking anything I did wrong would only toughen him up. Of course, it isn’t always readily apparent that Athena’s a girl.

2) My age. I was only 20 when Tommy was born, and my wedding ring no longer fit at that point. I must have looked uncomfortably like a pregnant, unwed teenager, which caused people to shy away from me. Now that I’m older, the age when I’m “supposed” to have babies, people have no problems stating their opinions… especially since they probably think that this is my first child.

I know people mean well. Still, while I may not know everything (yes, I just admitted it… but good luck getting me to say it again), I know my child better than they do, so I can only hope that they keep this in mind when they go up to new mothers and offer their advice.

On a side note, you wanna bet that in 20 years, I’ll be that stranger overly eager to share my shining insight with a new, exhausted-looking mother?

First off: There’s no such thing as a career that’s not monotonous.

Every career has some degree of monotony. Companies thrive on monotony– it’s what keeps them from going under. Every company needs people behind the scenes to do the boring stuff– and every employee needs to do some monotonous task in order to help these people do their jobs. Granted, some positions have more of these tasks to complete. And it’s also a matter of what kinds of monotony you can deal with. Lots of meetings, tons of paperwork, reports galore, overly complicated timesheets? Sitting in front of the computer all day, nonstop typing? There are dozens of repetitive tasks that can comprise your day– so it’s a matter of figuring out what you can deal with.

One very important point here is that you cannot find your ideal career by just sitting around and THINKING about it. You need to jump in and try a few things. The unfortunate thing here is that, for people with responsibilities and families, this is very difficult to do.

So, here’s my suggestions for finding your ideal career:

1. Start off by researching various occupations in the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It not only describes the various occupational categories, but gives insights into working conditions, necessary education levels, wages, and job outlook and projections. There is also a section at the bottom that links to various career resources for this occupation, such as professional societies. This is a fantastic resource, and I highly recommend you make use of it. Not only can it help point you in the right direction, it can help you determine if it’s even worth your time to pursue it. (If, for instance, you discover that your dream career has a very slow projected growth and high competition, it may well be in your best interest to hold off on pursuing it– or consider pursuing something similar but with better prospects.)

2. Once you have a few careers you think you may be interested in, do what you can to jump in and try it out. Whether it’s obtaining a temporary position, internship, volunteering in the field, or asking if you can shadow someone in that field for a day or so– do what you can to really get a feel for the work. There are a number of things that you won’t know about a position until you try it– and there are some things that you may think you enjoy, or think won’t bother you, but later find out that you were wrong. It’s better to find out before fully committing yourself to a career path whether you really do enjoy it, or just enjoy the idea of it. Trust me, there’s a huge difference there.

3. Once you find a career that you feel is really right for you, go for it! Get the needed credentials and network with other workers in that field. Do what you can to get your foot in the door, but at the same time, be flexible. You may not be able to do exactly what you want, but you can get started in the right direction.

So… those are my thoughts on the matter. And as for my own search? I’ve found something of an answer, but can’t get any further at the moment because, with an infant daughter and a family to support in whatever way I can, I’m not yet ready to pursue a different career. In fact, I suspect I won’t be able to for quite some time. However, I do have an idea, and even if it takes 20 years, I hope that one day I can find the rest of the answer.

Any further suggestions or comments? Let me know!

Sloganizer

Short answer: It was bad.

REALLY bad. I sounded like I was just beginning– squeaky, unsteady, wrong notes, wrong finger placements. Granted, it’s been at least 5 years since I really played; however, I used to be really, really good. In 7th grade, I placed 4th chair in the city’s youth orchestra. Most of the people seated behind me were older than me. (There are usually around 30 violinists in an orchestra.) I stopped auditioning for the youth orchestra in 10th grade, and dropped out of my high school Strings class starting in 11th grade, but I continued to practice at home, at least occasionally. While I was no longer as good as I used to be, I at least was decent.

Fast-forward to my leaving for Hawaii. I was limited in what I could bring with me, so my violin got left behind. (In all fairness, I’m not convinced that if I went to another school, I would have brought it with me, either.) It was 2 years before I returned, and although I brought my violin back with me that time, when I tried to play, I was dismayed by how bad I’d gotten. So I didn’t play because it was painful to hear myself, to see just how far I’d fallen.

So now, after even more years of not playing, I’ve gotten to the point where I sound like I did when I first started out. I wanted to play something simple for my children– both for their enjoyment and in the secret hopes that they’d someday want to learn to play, too– but found myself incapable. Because I stopped using my talents, I lost them, and it would take a lot of work to get back to where I was. I don’t know that I have the energy or motivation to devote to that, so it seems likely that I’ll never really regain that lost talent.

I can, however, continue to hope that my kids decide they want to play.

First off, our apartment parking deck is being fixed, so during the day we have to find street parking. I got lucky yesterday and found parking after 3 swingarounds, but today after 4-6 times around the block, nothing had yet opened up. I had a doctor’s appointment later, so I decided to just go up to the deck, park next to the door, run inside and grab a few things, then head on out to the hospital, where I could wait an hour or so for my appointment. Since I was parking where I wasn’t supposed to be, I was in a bit of a hurry. When climbing back inside the car after returning from my apartment, I managed to hit the back of my head hard enough to leave me feeling woozy, with a headache lasting for several hours afterwards.

When I got to the hospital, I sat in the car and fed Athena for a while. While doing this, she starts to poo. I figure I’ll wait for her to both finish eating and pooing, then I’ll change her. But of course, once she’s done and I shift her to get out of the car, I discover that the poo… leaked. REALLY leaked. All over her clothes, all over MY clothes, on the car, on the ground… I even discovered some on her bag later, while walking to my doctor’s office. And yes… that means I had to go to an appointment covered in poo. I had no change of clothes, after all. I washed off what I could in the restroom, so I don’t think anyone noticed, but still. It’s GROSS. (And yes, that is why I say today was a “crappy” day. A ha ha ha ha ha ha…)

After my appointment, I go back to the car, only to discover that the jerk next to me parked over his line, leaving me so that I couldn’t fit Athena’s carseat through her door. I had to crawl in from the other side, struggling to get over Tommy’s carseat, just to get her inside.

Luckily, my day improved after that. I found parking right next to my building, and didn’t even have to swing around. I got a good nap, Toby brought me some yummy chocolate peanut butter cake, and we went out to the mall. So aside from a difficult morning, I had a pretty good day. Hooray for chocolate peanut butter cake!

Yeah, I tried to unsubscribe a bunch of times, but I haven’t been able to…

My question is, why bother? There have been efforts in the past to phase out the penny; it is, after all, worth less than any other coin that has ever been in circulation in the US. There is no real reason to keep it in our currency, except for sentimental reasons and, apparently, zinc lobbyists.

But as far as I’m concerned, there are no real benefits to keeping the penny around. Vending machines and parking meters won’t accept them. You can’t really use them to pay for anything, so they tend to just sit around until you finally roll them and take them to the bank. Pennies now cost more to produce than they’re worth. Oh, and apparently they’re toxic.

So I say we as a country try to move beyond sentiment and realize that it would be of benefit to everyone (except the zinc industry) to move pennies out of circulation. Hey, at least I’m not alone in my thinking!

Death to the penny! Long live the nickel (so long as it still has value)!

**Random note: Once while Toby and I were dating, I went out of my way to pick up a penny on the ground. When he gave me  a questioning look, I replied, “Pennies are valuable tender.” How things change…**

Hmm. Good question. Apparently Geotrax has no female trains or drivers. Which makes sense, given that the line is largely marketed to boys. Still, I find it interesting that Tommy seemed to think it strange that there were no Geotrax girls. I guess even at his tender young age, he realizes that girls make the world a whole lot more interesting.

Good for you, Tommy. Good for you.

However, Tommy seems to have gotten entirely the wrong message from that book. Rather than coming away with “I think I can”, he seems most riveted by the phrase used by the rusty old engine: “I can not, I can not, I can not.”

If he doesn’t want to do something– be it eat, brush his teeth, or put on his clothes– he tells me, “I can not, I can not, I can not.” I try to tell him that the rusty old engine wasn’t nice, because he didn’t even try. Doesn’t matter. He likes that phrase better, it seems.

Today, his retelling of the story was a bit different. He was doing really well, right up until he got to the rusty old engine. After that, every page became, “I can not, I can not, I can not.” The little blue engine that came to help instead said, “I can not, I can not, I can not.” ….The end. Sad story.

Come on, books shouldn’t use such a catchy bad phrase! Tommy couldn’t possibly be the only kid over the last 80 years to take away this message instead… could he?

Here’s the story as told by each of the players in this drama:

Toby’s version:

Meighan’s version:

I was trying to get myself and Athena ready. Toby was at the end of the hallway, by the elevators, and I was just heading out the door. Toby called out something to me. I assumed he was telling me that he and Tommy were going to wait for us downstairs, so I started heading towards the elevators. They were of course already gone by the time I got there, as expected, though oddly the doors opened as soon as we arrived at the elevator without us needing to press the button. We got in, and along the way, the elevator stopped at the 3rd floor. I heard a kid crying and assumed it was some kid with his mother about to get on; however, a hysterical Tommy got on instead, saying that he had lost his mommy. I waited a few seconds for Toby to follow before realizing that Tommy had been alone on that floor. We got out on the 2nd floor and I comforted him while waiting for Toby.

Tommy’s version:

I got off alone. I cried when I got off alone. Daddy went past me, and [Mommy] found me.