There are several ways I can always score mom points with Jackson no matter what: take him out for ice cream; let him watch TV; give him a cookie/lollipop/some other thing he probably shouldn’t have too often. Then, there are several ways that I can usually score mom points but not necessarily always: take him on a subway ride; take him to one of his friend’s homes for a play date; give him a present (he’s happy with books, which suits me fine). Today, though, I scored some MAJOR mom points (at least temporarily; I’m sure he’ll forget how cool I am in about an hour).
It was damp and grey and drizzly this morning — not great playground/outside weather — and Jackson is no longer interested in attending Friday morning African dance class, much to my chagrin. All of our friends take various classes Friday mornings, so there wasn’t anyone I could think of to have a play date with. So… I asked Jack what he wanted to do and he said: “Go to the museum and see sharks!” And I was like, “Whaaa?” because I can’t even think of a time we looked at or talked about sharks, let alone a museum with sharks. But I figured the Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side would probably have something shark-like, and, if not, I knew there would be a ton of dinosaurs to distract him (he’s just getting into dinosaurs). So I told him to give me 15 minutes to get everything ready and we’d go. On our way to the subway, he said, “I’m so excited, Mommy!!” And I said, “What are you excited about?” (It’s always good to ask, because you can never be quite sure what’s on the mind of a 2-year-old; I half-expected him to tell me he was excited to watch “Super Why” later…) But he said: “I’m so excited to go to the museum with YOU.” Um, heart-melt.
So, we went to the museum and we did see some sharks, as well as dinosaurs and lots of animals from Africa. I asked him what his favorite was and he said, “The animals, Mommy!” And I said, “Yes, but which ones were your favorite?” And he said, “All the animals!!” Which is exactly how I would feel if someone asked me to pick my favorite cocktail.
Every day, Jackson tells me how much fun he had with Daddy before he left for work or how much fun he had with Mavis, his sitter, the day before. Last week, our friend Mary babysat one evening and, for days afterward, I heard about how much fun he had with her. But whenever I ask if he has fun with me, he gives a very noncommittal, “Hmmm.” Yesterday, his reply was a more creative, “And Daddy too!” Which isn’t exactly a “Hell, yeah, mom, you’re the bomb.” I mean, it’s not even a “yes.”
Today though, when we got home from the museum, I was taking his shoes and jacket off and Jackson looked at me and said: “I had so much fun with you, Mommy.” And that’s all I need for Mother’s Day this year. I mean, that and an egg and bacon and cheese sandwich would be nice.
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No Pants May 9, 2014, 4:02 pm
Today marks 6 months since He Pants and I got married – hooray!
LlamaPajamas May 9, 2014, 4:37 pm
Congratulations to the Pants family!
lets_be_honest May 9, 2014, 4:41 pm
Familia de Pantalones?
No Pants May 9, 2014, 4:07 pm
And I love your story today, Wendy. All the warm feelings.
lets_be_honest May 9, 2014, 4:08 pm
Aww, that made my heart melt on your behald. Also, how fucking cool are you that your son says he wants to see SHARKS and you tell him you’ll be ready to show him actual sharks in 15 minutes?!
LlamaPajamas May 9, 2014, 4:38 pm
Word. Wendy, you seriously get Mom of the Year for that!
Dear Wendy May 9, 2014, 4:42 pm
Well… you sacrifice a lot to live in NYC: privacy, space, a yard, sometimes/often even your sanity. The trade-off is you can take your toddler to see sharks in a museum in under an hour.
LlamaPajamas May 9, 2014, 4:56 pm
My best friend lives in DC with her husband and 2- year old. She worries a lot that her son might be better off growing up in a more rural area with a backyard and some peace and quiet, but I think DC (and NYC) is an amazing place to raise a kid! She and I grew up in Alaska with all the nature we could ever want, but we missed out on a lot of cultural stuff (unless we took a minimum 3 hour plane ride).
Portia May 9, 2014, 6:24 pm
I agree, I think cities give kids exposure to a bunch of interesting things they wouldn’t otherwise encounter. I mean rural and suburban areas have their draws too, but my boyfriend’s niece gets to do a ton of cool things because she lives in DC.
theattack May 9, 2014, 4:28 pm
Omg that is so sweet!
rachel May 9, 2014, 4:41 pm
Aw, that’s adorable. I hope you, and all the other DW moms have a great Mother’s Day!
Dear Wendy May 9, 2014, 5:02 pm
Thank you!
LadyinPurpleNotRed May 9, 2014, 5:01 pm
That’s adorable! And just what I needed after a turbulent first plane ride. One down, one to go.
sobriquet May 9, 2014, 5:28 pm
I got married today! I’m a WIFE. We’re saying our vows next week in Mexico, but I still teared up during our very impersonal ceremony at the courthouse today.
I’m having a big ass glass of champagne with Nigel right now as a tiny celebration while a massive Texas thunderstorm rolls in. We just cheers, like, 17 times. Cheers to everything and everyone! Happy Friday, y’all!!
lets_be_honest May 9, 2014, 5:30 pm
Congratulations!!!
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 5:32 pm
Congratulations! So, does this mean today, May 9, will be your anniversary or the day you say your vows on the beach in front of everyone?
jlyfsh May 9, 2014, 6:10 pm
i have a friend who did this and she uses the big ceremony as her anniversary, they still acknowledge the other day though! 🙂 but, everyone else wishes her happy anniversary on the day they got married in mexico.
Portia May 9, 2014, 6:28 pm
My parents got secret courthouse married 6 months before their wedding. We had no idea and my mom only pulled out the pictures a few years ago. It’s my parents, their bff, and the judge my mom interned for. I think I told my mom she was a total badass and why hadn’t she brought out the pictures earlier?
othy May 10, 2014, 2:59 pm
My older brother and his wife had a secret courthouse wedding a year and a half before their real wedding. My little brother and I know, but no one else in our family does.
sobriquet May 10, 2014, 6:41 pm
May 17th will be our anniversary (the wedding on the beach) and we’ll probably forget the actual date we got married. We have too many other anniversary dates to keep up with.
We’re not trying to be sneaky about it or anything. We just didn’t want to have to be forced to take drug test in Mexico and pay something like $600 to have a legal ceremony there.
lemongrass May 9, 2014, 6:19 pm
Congrats!!!
Portia May 9, 2014, 6:28 pm
Congrats!!!!!
rachel May 9, 2014, 7:39 pm
Congratulations Sob, and I hope you have a fantastic time in Mexico!
Dear Wendy May 9, 2014, 6:50 pm
Congrats!!
d2 May 9, 2014, 10:55 pm
Happy news! Congratulations!
sobriquet May 10, 2014, 6:28 pm
Thanks, everyone!
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 5:30 pm
Happy mother’s day to all you mamas!
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In honor of YOU, a friend and I are getting bottomless mimosas on Sunday. You’re welcome. 🙂
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In other news, my work crush with the girlfriend asked if I wanted some coffee and I said yes and so he got me some and he gave it to me and it allowed me to take a close look at his hands as he handed it to me and he has nice hands. That is all.
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Well, after 48 hours Facebook finally let me re-block my ex-boyfriend. That’s good. Reading his statuses and seeing his pictures and his upbeat, optimistic, happy-go-lucky public image was … nauseated. F that.
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Operation Find That Dad starts tomorrow!
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Also tomorrow I plan to buy all the stuff I need to make my porch complete. First order of business is picking up an 11 ft x 7 ft slab of fluffy fake grass. My porch is gonna be so cooooooooool.
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 5:30 pm
*nauseating.
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 5:51 pm
Update: work crush is back and now needs to borrow a hanger that he can use to hang his pants and so he is standing at my closet (we have closets in our offices) checking out my hangers for the one with the thick bar across but lo and behold most of my hangers are those cheap dry cleaner hangers…. and anyway he is wearing very cute jeans that hug his butt ever so perfectly. And I am watching while I pretend to work but instead I post here. This work crush is going no where very slowly, why do I waste my time for these little moments of nothing. HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND.
iwannatalktosampson May 9, 2014, 5:59 pm
I’m confused. Why wouldn’t he get a hanger from his girlfriend if she works there too?
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 6:02 pm
Because he secretly wants to marry me? That’s it.
(I dunno, b/c her office is on another floor? Because everyone knows AP’s hangers are the bees’ knees? Because he this is how he flirts, he asks to borrow a hanger? Which by the way he didn’t end up borrowing b/c he found one in his office. See? We are getting no where, slowly. )
Addie Pray May 9, 2014, 6:07 pm
wait, are you questioning my story? Do you think I’m lying? I no lie!
iwannatalktosampson May 9, 2014, 6:10 pm
Haha no I just think he’s weird. You might as well just ask him if they are having problems in their relationship. Clear the air.
TECH May 10, 2014, 6:38 pm
I have a work crush, too. Except mine is married. I try to pretend he doesn’t exist. Instead I just get sad, knowing there are guys out there like this, but I haven’t found one yet.
But on to more important things, how is Operation Find That Dad going?
Addie Pray May 11, 2014, 8:01 am
O.F.T.D. has not been successful. But want to hear something funny? As I was giving MG a tour of my building and the common areas yesterday evening, we walked in on a couple doing it in the rarely used (for reading, anyway) reading room. Well they were about to or he was going down on her …. We don’t know we just avoided making eye contact and got out of there. So that’s kind of exciting, eh?
BriarRose May 9, 2014, 5:33 pm
I came home to a dead lizard (tail across the room) and a very proud looking doggie. So far I’ve disposed of the tail but have to work up the nerve to approach the lizard. It has a makeshift sheet covering it, thanks to some old homework papers.
Jenny May 9, 2014, 5:44 pm
What a sweet story, Wendy 🙂 Those little moments sure do mean everything. Every time my son says “I love you, Mommy” in his little voice I feel like my heart is going to explode. Hope you and everyone else has a great Mother’s Day!
Dear Wendy May 9, 2014, 6:51 pm
Happy mother’s day, Jenny!
thewriteway May 9, 2014, 6:03 pm
I have been increasing my efforts in my job search. We just had a schedule change again, and I’m getting tired of my hours being thrown in the air every 2-3 months. I’m also tired of being in my field and am seeking to transition to something that has saner hours. I am still OK with occasional weekends and overtime if needed, but I’m burned out on working till 12 a.m. or 1 a.m. on a consistent basis. Also, in the last schedule change, my boss took me off my couple early shifts and didn’t give me one of my requested days off, instead giving them to a junior coworker who needs more time off to finish his wedding planning/get married. (Yes I have a couple of vacations coming up…one is a weekend in June, the other is in August and will give me about five days off. I can look forward to those in the meantime.)
I did get a social media internship, and I can’t quit my job for it because it’s unpaid. But it is a step towards taking the advice of some other DW-ers and gaining additional skills to make me more competitive for job openings. I saw the internship opening on Twitter, as I have a follower who works at the company. It’s a remote position as well and there’s no set hours…it’s a “you’ll get out of it what you put in” deal. My plan is to rock it and hopefully get some employment out of it.
As far as Mother’s Day, my mom was hospitalized earlier in the week, so it might be a pretty mellow day save going out to dinner or something. I don’t know yet, as the restaurants are always zoos and we hate waiting longer than half an hour for a table. But I told her don’t worry about cooking and hopefully we can find a restaurant that won’t have a line out the wazoo and I can pay for her dinner. Fingers crossed!
LlamaPajamas May 9, 2014, 6:28 pm
I hope your mom is OK!
thewriteway May 9, 2014, 6:55 pm
Thank you! She has recurring cellulitis in her leg and it’s been flaring up every two years like clockwork…no explanation as to why. :/ But the most important part is that she’s home and other than being on work leave for another week or so, she can do everything pretty normally.
LlamaPajamas May 9, 2014, 6:21 pm
So far my boxes packed to beers drank ratio is 3:1. Nothing exciting better happen on DW next Tuesday because I’m going to be moving all day… My mom and I are spending Mother’s Day apart this year since I”m packing and I thought she was going to be taking my grandmother to the hospital a few hours away (her surgery was cancelled at the last minute though), but I sent her a card and gift and I’ll call her on Sunday. It’s a good thing she’s not that into Mother’s Day because my moving in with Llama Guy would pretty much ruin the holiday for her this year.
XanderT May 9, 2014, 6:34 pm
Awww, Wendy! That was lovely. Good for you! Happy Mother’s Day. Hope it rocks.
iwannatalktosampson May 9, 2014, 6:55 pm
Wendy I love hearing about your worries regarding parenthood. I kind of have the opposite worry – like that I won’t like my kid or I’ll like one kid a lot more than their sibling.
rainbow May 9, 2014, 7:26 pm
I think about this a lot. What if I have a children and they’re horrible? What if they’re the kind of people who breathe trough their mouths, use complicated words on purpose, cry and apologize all the time and are always in love with someone they can’t have? Or if they’re like those ridiculous 12-year-old “satanists” who take selfies with makeup and goat heads but let their spongebob posters show in the background by mistake.
lemongrass May 11, 2014, 11:17 am
I worry about that too but honestly I don’t think that it would be physically possible for me to not like my kid. Sure, he gets frustrating and I’m sure that will only increase as he gets to the age where they steal or hurt on purpose but the love I have for him is so ingrained and he brings me so much happiness from the littlest things- a kiss or a smile makes my heart feel like it is exploding that those moments take over the hard ones. It all balances out in the end.
Penguingina May 9, 2014, 7:47 pm
I miss when my 7 (almost 8!) year old brother was so little. He still thinks I’m a cool sister though and is still super cute so he hasn’t run out of adorableness. I’m super freaking happy right now because I just turned in my last test of the semester half an hour ago. Yay break from college for over THREE MONTHS!!
Morgan May 9, 2014, 8:47 pm
I’m super excited because I visited an apartment I really like and now I’m trying not to get too excited in case I don’t get it. And, I just got my sephora order, including six great samples!! Three are the little freebie one use samples, but three I got with my sephora points (I had a lot of sephora points) and they’re pretty substantial. I got a really pretty nars gloss, and a sample primer, and I caved and got the benefit they’re real. If I’m here next week preaching to the masses, you’ll know I’ve been converted.
Morgan May 10, 2014, 11:37 am
Okay fine, it’s the greatest mascara I’ve ever used, my lashes look phenomenal and aren’t clumpy at all, the brush is great, you all win, whatever I don’t want to talk about it.
Seriously though. I was pretty convinced it wasn’t going to live up to the hype because there was just so.much.hype, but I really like it. When I can afford to spend money on expensive mascara, that’s definitely what I’ll get.
Lyra May 10, 2014, 12:56 am
Today was a loooooong day. On top of my regular teaching day, which is usually pretty exhausting on Fridays, I had a concert tonight. It went really well, and the kids pulled it off after a really crappy rehearsal yesterday (so much so I was tempted to cut half of the music that was on the program).
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I really just need a slow day to catch up on stuff. I have too much going on right now, and at the end of the year it’s just going to come to a raging halt. But until then I have to try to keep my head above water.
rachel May 10, 2014, 2:33 am
I found out that my department has a happy hour every Friday. Life is good.
katie May 10, 2014, 9:29 am
It’s wedding day everyone! I had dreams about the cake. Also yesterday I learned that this is an in the round view and not a front view so I had to modify the design. Yikes. I wish people knew that was an important detail when picking out cakes and when setting up a room. At the wedding I was in two weeks ago, *after* I had put all the flowers on the cake for a front view the useless wedding coordinator was like “oh btw it’s an in the round view! Ha” and I almost killed her.
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After today I will have free time again. I’m so excited! I’ve been working on these two weddings, which had one week in between them, all year.
CatsMeow May 10, 2014, 9:36 am
I have to perform tonight! I’m already so nervous. It’s a sword dance, and when we practiced at the venue, I was so nervous that I was shaking and it was really hard to balance. Everyone cross your fingers that I don’t drop my sword or stab anyone!
Christy May 10, 2014, 7:17 pm
Michael Sam just got drafted, cried, and kissed his boyfriend, live on ESPN. It was awesome. I teared up.
Dear Wendy May 11, 2014, 8:32 am
Best moment in football!
honeybeenicki May 11, 2014, 11:40 am
I watched the video a few times and made my husband watch it at least once. I had been holding hope that he’d be drafted because he’s a great player and it’d be really shitty to not draft him just because of his sexual orientation.
fast eddie May 11, 2014, 9:11 am
Dads are for fun, Moms are for eating healthy(?) food, tying shoelaces and making an ouchie feel all better. Happy Mothers Day Wendy.
Portia May 12, 2014, 8:32 am
In my house, dad fixed the ouchies. But, he’s a doctor…