In memory

I learned this morning that my grandmother passed away yesterday. We weren't at all close, which is something I regret, and I am sadder than I thought I would be now that she's really gone. I thought I had long ago worked through the fact that I wasn't going to have a grandma the same way other people have grandmas, and that when the end did come it would just sort of feel like the final detail in a relationship that wasn't really a relationship at all. But I am sad that things were the way they were.

Still, I've spent the day reflecting on some of the happy memories I do have of my grandma, and even if you didn't know her, these are amusing. And they're a fun way to honor her and to remember that once upon a time, things were different. Here we go:

• To the best of my knowledge, my grandmother invented "stuffed celery," which is raw celery stuffed with a combination of cream cheese, chopped onion, pepper and more salt than seems reasonable. It is one of the great taste sensations of all time, and I believe could be considered one of my grandma's best contributions to society. To this day, it does not feel like Christmas or New Year's to me if I do not have stuffed celery to eat.
  
• Aside from the triumph of stuffed celery, my grandmother was not a very good cook. My dad has great stories about her trying to make mashed potatoes with melted ice cream because she was out of milk, or SPAM sandwiches with that weird jelly stuff still on them. But my own personal memory of my grandma and cooking revolves almost entirely around Jell-O. I hate Jell-O, and really pretty much always have, but she was one of the great supporters of Jell-O's sales figures when I was little. I vividly remember one of her kitchen cabinets was literally filled with boxes of every kind of Jell-O.
• One year, she gave me a kazoo on my sister's birthday (you know, so I wouldn't feel left out). I know my parents were greatly displeased by this, but I thought the kazoo was pretty awesome. I think she may have also been the source of the harmonica I had, but never learned how to play properly. Harmonicas sound horrible if you don't know what you're doing, but they are pleasantly noisy if you're 6.
  
• She was a great beer-drinker. When I was very little I said to her (and I have no idea where I got this notion), "Grandma, ladies don't drink beer." And she laughed and took another pull from the bottle. *chuckle*
• One year she gave my dad pajamas for Christmas. My dad hates pajamas, and I told her so. In front of everyone. From this experience I learned that it sometimes it is better not to say what you're thinking, even if it's true...and this life lesson serves me well to this day.
• Another food-related memory: my grandma's lake cottage is the only place in my life I ever remember having Tang to drink, and it was horrible. On the plus side, though, she would get those little individual-serving boxes of all the super-sugary cereal we never were allowed to have at home, so we got to eat Coco Puffs and Sugar Crisp and whatever that really sweet honey cereal was that had a frog on the box. That was really awesome, especially for a kid from a decidedly Grape Nuts and Cheerios family.

But the very best thing I have to say about my grandmother, and the thing I will always be most grateful to her for no matter what flaws she might have had as a grandmother, is that she gave the world my dad. And that, my friends, is an amazing contribution. :)

KO, baby

We played Wii Boxing tonight...and I doled out two straight knock-outs to Brock. I am the boxing champion of our household! Woo hoo! All I need now is a big gold belt.

I think it was all my kickboxing training. :)

Let's not talk about my bowling, though...I was doing really well, on my way to pro status, and then I bowled three crummy games in a row. Besides, I think Hannah's gotten the highest score of all of us, anyway...

Busy busy busy

The last few of weeks have been pretty crazy. I made it through a very rough week at my new job, in which I was convinced I had made a huge mistake and should just go cry in a corner instead. But I came out on the other side of that, and while I'm still kind of overwhelmed and feel like I don't know which way is up, I'm making incremental progress on some things and am starting to feel like I'm accomplishing something.

I had my first business trip with the new job last weekend. Thankfully, it was short - but it also encompassed Saturday and Sunday, so today is my first real day off in a couple of weeks. Also, I came back from the trip with a stomach bug and spent Tuesday lying on the couch eating crackers, 4 at a time, in shifts of every few hours. What was completely bizarre about it was that exactly 24 hours after I started feeling horrible, I got ravenously hungry and ate tacos. And I've been totally fine ever since. Really weird.

Brock is off with some friends this afternoon seeing The Dark Knight, because I refuse to go see it in the movie theater. At some point, I want to see it because it's supposed to be really good - I told Brock I felt like I'd be missing out on a cultural experience if I didn't eventually watch it - but I can't handle it in the theater. Too many scary clowns. And I'm scared of clowns that aren't even supposed to be scary. So Brock's "screening" it for me and when we do eventually watch it together, it'll be on DVD in the safety of our own home, and he can tell me when I need to hide my face.

Hannah has a cold...which stinks...but this morning at 4:45 when she woke up crying we really thought it might be bronchitis, so we'll take the cold. She's been doing all right today. Dimetapp is helping.

And now...I need to go do some stuff for work. Bleh.

Wii!

We finally got one! Wahoo!

So far we've only played Wii Sports. Hannah's pretty good at bowling. :) I think I'm best at baseball and worst at tennis...Brock seems to be best at golf and bowling.

As soon as my shoulder fully recovers from the rotator cuff injury I suffered last weekend playing boxing on our friend's Wii, I am totally going to use boxing as my new stress relief. It was a better workout than the lame kickboxing class I tried earlier in the summer.

This thing is awesome.

Confessions of a working mom

My new job is insane. It's insane partially because I think that's just how it's going to be, and partially because I am trying to learn it while simultaneously doing my old job (because there's no one else to do it). I had seven meetings today, and there were two times where two meetings overlapped. It's that kind of crazy. I left work late and Hannah was the last kid left at daycare, which doesn't happen often but still makes me feel like a horrible mother when it does. It's been bugging me all evening.

It occurs to me that because I had a child while still on the upward climb of my career, I have set myself up for many years of internal conflict and guilt over pursuing career advancement. I thought I'd already understood it, but with this job I think I've hit the point where it's really going to be something that weighs on me. While my family will always be the most important thing in the world to me, my career is still important, too. I hope that in the long run this will be a really good example for my daughter - that you can do all the things you want to do, and have success in your own right while also being a good wife and mother. But I think the key is marrying well; that is, marrying someone who supports that, and plays an active role in the daily running of the family. I'm lucky my husband supports my ambition, and that he is an active dad who would never, ever refer to spending time with Hannah as "babysitting." But I still have guilt.

The other day, I was talking to one of my friends, who's expecting a baby. I said to her that I felt like the decision to be a working mom is a catch-22: if you stay home, people may undervalue you because you're not "working" and you may feel like you should be doing more (which is a crock); if you work, some will judge your career dedication negatively, and you'll feel guilty for not staying home (also a crock). None of this is fair, but as my mom always said, "Who ever promised fair?" The answer, now as it was when I wanted a Whistle Pop at the grocery store, is "nobody."

I know that I would not be a very good stay-at-home mom. I mean, I'd be okay at it, but I don't think my daughter would be as well-rounded if she were stuck with me all the time. In fact, judging by the few times we've been on our own for a few days when her dad was traveling, I'd say we'd get pretty sick of each other. I've said a million times that she wouldn't know how to do half the stuff she knows how to do, because it wouldn't occur to me to teach her. We're always so impressed when she starts doing something new - and one of us usually says, "Did you know she could do that?" And then we start working with her at home, too...but it takes a little kick in the pants to get us started. I also know I wouldn't be one of those moms who's really good about arranging activities and crafts and things, and I don't think I'd like "mommy & me" classes very much.

At the same time, I wonder about being a working mom and if my drive for success is going to affect Hannah. She's already good about applying the guilt when I travel, and it's awful. It makes me feel selfish - but really, although we certainly need my salary and it helps a lot, the real reason, deep down, that I work is for me. I need it. I need the interaction with people, and the intellectual stimulation, and the ability to feel like I'm accomplishing something that's just mine. I've said before that I was the first person in my family to graduate college, and I went to college for a reason, and that reason was to have a successful career. So I guess it is a bit selfish. But I also think that's probably okay.

What I can't figure out is why there's guilt, anyway. I mean, who ever said I have to be the one to pick up my kid from day care every day? Who said I'm the one who has to get up first in the morning, and get everyone else moving? Who said I'm the one who has to make dinner? Certainly not my husband, who is more than willing and able to share all these responsibilities. Not my parents, both of whom always worked when I was growing up. Even my grandmas worked. Sometimes I think it's a function of moving to a different geographic area, where there seem to be more stay-at-home moms than I ever encountered where I grew up. I don't think I had any friends when I was younger whose moms didn't work. Everybody's mom worked. They had to, and that was that. So you'd think that moms my age would have purged all that guilt and second-guessing, because even their moms worked and they turned out just fine.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I just always feel like I should be doing more.

Sorry to be so pensive. I just needed to get all that out.