Month: February 2010

Socializing

~ marobbie ~ 1 Comment

After more than a year of taking my son to creche, I am used to the routine of settling him in for the morning which is mostly a difficult process, as I have to deal with clinging, mood change and occasional tantrums. Most days I struggle to extract myself from this, suffering guilt feelings and changes of mood myself, which leaves me emotionally exhausted before my day at work even starts.

Today was a blissfully different experience. Robert was greeted by one of his classmates, and also his favorite friend Gina. She quickly whisked him away towards the playground and they started chatting and running around cheerfully. As I left the school I glanced back at Robert; he was totally engrossed in following Gina around as she pedaled along on a scooter-bike. He was happy and unaware of me watching him.  This is the first time I see my child as a social being, interacting with friends and classmates; he is growing up.

Something for Me

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

Robert is staying overnight with his father today. I was trying to keep him from falling asleep before his father’s arrival so we started packing his overnight bag.

We had to choose a toy. He first said he wanted Cannuck the white teddy bear and then said that he wanted the monkey as well.  I said: “No Robert, there is no space for two toys it is either Cannuck or Monkey”. He thought for a little bit then took out Cannuck and put him back on the bedside table with the rest of the toys: “Take monkey to papa”, he said. Then on second thought he handed me the teddy bear and said:”This is for Mommy to hug”.

Sure thing my boy. You of all people will know that if it wasn’t for Cannuck I will have nobody to hug tonight. Sleep well and I will hug you tomorrow.

I love you very very much my baby.

Happiness is…

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I subscribed to a site called the Happiness Project and I am trying to follow some of the advice dished out by Gretchen Rubin the who authored a book called The Happiness Project.

One advice she gave last week was to take a day off which I did today, unauthorized of course. I felt overwhelmed with my life, as yesterday was particularly demanding with Robert. I felt like I spent the whole afternoon running after him, picking up messes and fixing things that he broke (the dial out lock on the phone and one of my tapes to name two). I read somewhere that one can phone work and request a mental health day, which of course is not possible in our marvelous workplace, so I claimed food poisoning instead. No, I am not afraid to be found out by management since I have given notice already, they cannot fire me anymore.

So What we did today with Robbie boy? We went to his swim lesson which was great then I came back to spend some time with my new best friend – my new laptop which I bought yesterday. Later and after my boy forced at least one shut-down and aborted one download we went to the Waterfront. He kept asking yesterday for steak sandwich from the Waterfront,  just as we were getting ready for sleep.

So we spent a leisurely two hours walking there and back. It was one of those golden afternoons, warm with no wind, heralding the arrival of autumn, my favorite season.  As we sat together on a bench, with Rob eating his sandwich and sipping on a cool drink (dry lemon soda of all things) I felt I was so happy, what more do I need from life? Things are falling into place. I have work coming up which will keep me busy and there might also be another opportunity on the horizon.  I will have to drink this in and the memories and appreciate what I got.

Robert took pleasure in watching people dismantling the little rides that were busy here during the summer holidays. One of them is a roller-coaster that looks like a caterpillar. I felt a pang of guilt that he never got to ride them this summer but I am hoping to do the rides with him next year. Also there are still things that I can do with him once I am a free working from home mommy.

There are always the good times, I should remember that. This blog is not only about me whinging. It is also about me enjoying life as a mom and taking little snapshots of our time together. On our way back for example he had the hiccups and asked me for water: “I am hiccing up” he said, and I thought it was so funny that he made up this verb. I heard him before saying: “I hicced up”.

I hope I will never forget these little phrases and his little gems of wisdom he imparts on me every once in a while.

Paper Men (and women)

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Don’t you just hate it when you ask something relatively simple and doable from  your superiors at work and then they start quoting you the “rules” , the Employment Act and proper procedures ? Meanwhile you know and they know that rules and procedures are elastic and that they have frequently transgressed those or blatantly threw them to the wayside whenever some minor interest of the corporation was at  stake.

I had this experience many times, therefore I was not surprised when I asked my superiors a few days ago to retrench me and got NO for an answer. I just knew that they wouldn’t do it because of the way they started citing the rules. Basically it does not change a thing, I am still going to leave this company, but it would have afforded me a little better shot-term financial benefits.

I have mixed feelings at the end of my road with this corporation. I am frightened, relieved and elated, all at the same time. I might miss the benefits and suffer the lack of funds for some time,  but I definitely will not miss the office politics. I will not miss the rules and regulations that are taylor-made to restrict and obsturct the employees. I will not miss the paper trail recording everything from minor mistakes to a few minutes of late-coming. I will not miss having to explain sick days or the reason why I wanted a particular day off. And most of all I will not miss the paper men and women who think that forms and signatures will help enforcing a collection of mindless rules. They don’t! They only teach people to sign whateve stupid idea their bosses come up with thus creating more and more “paper” men (and women).

I only have to put up with all this for another four weeks. My resignation was handed in today.