Appearing tonight...

Sleep is one of those things you only notice when you do not have it. Sort of like electricity or plumbing, you rely on its functionality on a daily basis but never take a moment to think about why or how it works. Lately, I have nothing but moments to think about it because apparently sleep has stopped working for me. Actually, to be precise, sleep only works sporadically and I have no idea what makes it stop or go. I feel like Woody Allen when I talk about it because I whine and analyze to the camera constantly and find my opinions on the topic fascinating. I can also be kind of Meryl Streepish about it but that performance is reserved solely for the benefit of my husband and only shows at 4am. One night I was a little Courtney Love about it and took some Tylenol PM, but I had such a sleep hangover the next day I kicked the habit immediately. Most recently I became kind of Howard Hughes about it when I bought an expensive pillow and started to develop an OCD way of setting my bed up at night. Anyway, at this point one byproduct from my lack of sleep should be completely obvious, and that is the fact that I’m watching an insane amount of television.

WWBB: What Would Betty Buy?

B and I are totally getting the house ready for Betty. With her in mind, we have made or will soon make the following improvements to our home:

1. a new cordless phone system
2. the addition of high definition to our cable package
3. a new mattress and box spring…for us
4. new bedroom furniture…for us
5. a new stove
6. a new dishwasher
7. a new roof
8. a new gutter system

I had a funny feeling that B and I were focusing on our own needs a little bit too much when we discussed what kind of car we should get for our second car and argued between an old muscle car or an old Cadillac. I knew we had gotten off course because Betty would never want us to commit to a car with terrible gas mileage and would probably prefer a cute hybrid like Cameron Diaz drives

Case law

Like a creepy stalker, I have become a person who blatantly stares at other people. Not all people -- just people who are pregnant or who have kids. The reason I do it is to take note of what is acceptable and what is not when you have your kids with you. On Sunday, for instance, B and I went to a Sports Bar to watch a game and I saw a mother there with a baby that had to be 4 or 5 weeks old. The fact that she was sitting behind me did not stop me from turning around in my seat every five minutes to see what they were doing. Score of the Eagles game? Not sure. But I can say that the baby was bottle-fed twice, took a nap, and did not cry one time. That mom does not know it, but she has set a precedent for me that I too could be there with a baby. An example of a negative precedent happened during a recent trip to Target where a dad continued to shop at a leisurely pace while his daughter was in the middle of a Category 5 tantrum. I don’t know what I would have done if that had been me and Betty but I do know that I was close to smothering my own face with a pillow in an effort to make the noise stop. Anyway, so far, my creepy and voyeuristic Lexus-Nexus research leads me to believe that the verdict will depend on the volume level of the experience rather than the location.

Baby steps

When B and I bought our house we made a major miscalculation. Not in the financial sense – I mean we calculated correctly that we would be dead broke if we bought it. But in the sense that we thought that with the ownership of a house would come the enjoyment fixing things around the house, keeping our lawn nice and working in the garden. This turned out to be not-so-much the case. We don’t mow our lawn, I hate working in the garden, and the things that need to be fixed inside the house stay unfixed until we can afford to pay someone else to fix them, which means we had a bucket in our bathroom for three months catching a drip from the toilet. Now, my concern is that I have assumed that because I am going to have a baby, I will become a mommy. In the literal sense this is true, but will I have tissues on hand to blow her nose? Will I have healthy snacks available? Will I have entertainment alternatives to television? Will I ever get past the fact that I think breastfeeding is so icky I can’t even look at a cartoon illustration of it? Judging from my prior house miscalculation the answer to the above is probably no. But I can point to some small signs that I am moving towards mommy-hood in that I suddenly love everything pink, I bought antiseptic wipes for the counters, and I have started to make sure I put the caps back on my medicine bottles. I’ll try to take some comfort in the idea that this is what is meant by “baby steps.”

Buckley for EOTY 2007

As many people know, the Congressional campaign season has begun in earnest. What people may not know is that I am also in the midst of a campaign season myself because I am the current Employee of the Year for 2006. As the incumbent I feel I deserve another term to finish the initiatives I started such as free chocolate on the desk, signature smiley faces in my professional memos and the addition of soft rock on the phone system while people are on hold. The only problem is that I will be out of the office for three months in 2007 on my FMLA sabbatical, which will allow other contenders to take the spotlight in my absence. Therefore, I have begun my campaign in earnest by politely pointing things out that I’m doing well because I’ve heard that people love that. I use the “cc” option on my email to include everyone I’ve ever known professionally in my correspondence so that they can keep up with my day to day activities. I introduce myself in meetings as the 2006 EOTY (eeeyoteewhy) and have submitted a request to our office manager for that designation to be added to my business card. I am also working on setting up a meeting with the Mayor to introduce myself and offer him some constructive feedback, after which I will provide the Town newsletter with an exclusive expose on what happened at that meeting. It’s a lot of work in addition to my regular duties but since this greatness was thrust upon me I feel I am honor-bound to live up to the EOTY office and prove that working mothers can still have it all.

I'll take the option with no pain, please.

Apparently week 25 is the third trimester, which I have to say really snuck up on me. And as much as this marks the home stretch (emphasis on stretch), it also marks a day of reckoning for me that is quickly approaching. So far I have been skipping along week to week in a very eastern mode of living-in-the-moment and put off any thought of how I’m going to get to know Betty on the outside. I have not read ahead in any book or let anyone talk to me about it, so I am pretty much in the same mind frame I began with, which is the mind frame I have always had about pregnancy. And that is that the whole idea is insane. Why someone would do this voluntarily is beyond my comprehension. I can’t escape the issue forever, obviously, but I hope no one will stop me from hoping for the doctor to offer me an option that I haven’t heard about yet where I get to go to sleep and wake up with a baby - without any kind of cutting, thank you very much. And frankly, why that has not already been made an option for women is testament to how screwed up health care has really gotten, if you ask me.

Halfway there

Since moving away from New Jersey I have come to view it less harshly and have even developed a perverse pride of my Jersey blood after witnessing people from other states struggle with some kind of Jersey Turrets Syndrome where they are powerless against asking about exits and mentioning refineries and smoke stacks. And ever since the HBO series, “the Sopranos,” portrayed it so glowingly, Jersey expatriates have been provided some kind of blanket mob cred, which I’m not too proud to roll with. Anyway, I think when I moved away there was some kind of microchip implanted in my brain that invokes the song “living on a prayer” by Bon Jovi every time someone says, “halfway there.” Ever since I passed the twenty week mark in my pregnancy someone will ask me how far along I am and say, “oh you’re halfway there” and without knowing they have pressed play on the chorus of that song that seems to be on a constant loop inside my head lately. This microchip idea is not a new theory of mine because I already hold it responsible for my steadfast delight in all things airbrushed; my firm belief that all businesses should be open 24-hours a day; and my inability to express myself verbally without using the f-word and the word “boom” when I draw a conclusion or provide driving directions.

Choosing my sources

Most of the time, Peggy from King of the Hill is my Oprah who I look to for advice about everything from clipping my toenails to choosing my life partner. With one exception: on one episode her son Bobby hurt himself and she rushed to the computer to google his symptoms and said, “I swear, I don’t know how people raised children before the internet.” After being pregnant for five months, I can say that people probably raised their kids without knowing everything they could know about how to do it, but they were also able to function without the paralyzing knowledge of worst case scenarios for every situation. After my first expedition into the internet world on the subject of pregnancy I was pretty sure that I had miscarried and was no longer pregnant due to the horror stories I encountered from WebMD and pregnancy chat rooms. When an ultrasound technician told me I was still pregnant I swore to never google on the topic again. Recently, I gave it another try and thought it would be less scary because all I was looking up was, “back pain sleeping pregnancy.” But no. It turns out I was probably experiencing pre-term labor. What? The thing is, no one goes on the internet and writes, “I had lower back pain during my pregnancy that turned out to be nothing more than lower back pain and I sucked it up.” They write about the urban legend that their girlfriends who have never been pregnant told them about. Whatever. I’m sticking to Paris Hilton searches from now on because there is no such thing as scary information on that topic.