What a difference 24 hours makes

I'm sitting here, at my dining room table, tapping away, happy as a clam. Was not the case at this time last night. No. This time last night, my stomach was in knots, as I was suffering through Valkyrie.

What possessed me to watch this movie? Well, H and I were having the nicest of nice days. It was Friday, and since I don't work on Fridays, I spent a few hours at my mom's house. H called me as we were leaving, about 1:30, and said he hadn't left the house and had just been working from there! This rarely happens, so Maya and I scurried home so we could all hang together. We played, danced, practiced standing.... H gave Maya-le a bath, and we put her to bed. We made an easy dinner together, I poured a glass of wine, and we turned on the tube. "Wouldn't it be nice to see a movie?" ... we thought. After cruising through all the lame-ass movie channels, we went to Pay Per View. And there it was, starting at 8pm.

I really don't like war movies. I really really don't like Hitler/WW2 movies. The reason being that it's not make believe -- this really happened. And it's painful to re-live. At least after a horror movie you can (try to) convince yourself that it's just make believe and the sun will come out in the morning. That the imaginary boogie-man under your bed won't come out and grab you. But with these movies, you can't do that. It's part of our history, and it's so damn sad.

Well, Tom Cruise did a good job, but I can't say I liked the movie. Gah, it's about the failed plot to assassinate Hitler. You don't have to know the story to know that it was an unsuccessful attempt.

Anyways, I rolled around in bed for a while. H fell asleep RIGHT AWAY. I got up to look for an ambien - half a pill always does the trick. But the bottle was empty. I went to go lie down in the extra bed in Maya's room. Brain racing. I came out to play on the computer a while. I went back to bed. Can.not.sleep. I came back out to try and sleep on the couch, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the oh-so-elusive ambien. I popped in half a pill and made my way back to bed. Placebo affect or not, it shut my brain off and I was able to fall asleep. A good two hours after initially getting into bed. OY VEY, if I do say so myself.

Mamma Mia is on tonight, and I couldn't be happier.

We had a cool day today. During Maya's morning nap I took an hour snooze on the couch... i never do that but I was going on 6 hours of sleep and that really just doesn't do it for me. Once Maya woke up we got ready, my sister came over, and we got ready to head to the Getty to meet my dad and other sister. We were going to celebrate my dad's birthday. We live literally a few miles from the Getty Center off Sepulveda, and I haven't been there in YEARS. silly, no? I've wanted to try the Restaurant forever, and this was a perfect occcasion.

We had SUCH a nice time! I didn't snap any shots from inside, but the architecture is great... big open windows overlooking the city, lots of natural sunlight, it's really just so pleasant. Maya was eating up a storm, I swear this girl loves food like crazy. It's so crazy, that she even likes lemons.


Seriously, she didn't even pucker her lips! It could have been a saltine cracker for all she cared. We were cracking up!

After lunch we went to take some pictures. As hot as it was today, there was a glorious breeze up in the hills. Did I mention it was beautiful?






It was just so nice. After lots of photos we went for a nice walk, and even checked out the photography and sculpture exhibitions. They were not very inspiring, but I believe people come to the Getty more for the ambiance then for the actual art.

We came home, Maya crashed for a nap, and we just stayed cool. It was effing hot outside. H took a late afternoon nap, and Maya and I just went up the stairs over and over -- she gets a total kick out of this. God bless entertaining wee ones!

And now H is down south picking up Bella, and I'm listening to Pierce Brosnan Abba it up! Truth be told, everyone gave him too hard a time for this performance! I love me some Pierce!

Buenas Nochas! :)

It's been so long

since I've written here last. Gah. I won't even try and play "catch up" because it would just be random and long-winded. So I'll just start spewing.

What is the state of my life right now? Overall, I'd say it's going really well. I feel content and OK with the world around me. I really am grateful to feel this way, because I can remember all too well a few months ago feeling quite nauseous with the world around me. Peace is a good thing.

Maya is just a pure, pure joy. So much fun. Such a little love. A round, chubby, scrumptious, edible, smiley baby.

Who likes to hang out in diaper boxes.

Maya and my mom this past weekend

and will probably have crazy hair like her mama

Right before bath time

She's crawling up a storm, pulling up, and as of yesterday, standing hands-free! For about 10 seconds, when she plops on her butt. Thank goodness for cushy diapers! She's very proud of herself, and squeals with delight. It's too darn cute.

I think all of the excitement over standing solo made it really hard for her to fall asleep tonight. I put her in her crib at 6:45 and she was supremely silent, but I watched her crawl around her crib, stand up, lie down, move from this side to that side, repeat, for over an hour! At some point she just said, "OK, this is getting boring. Might as well crash." And that was it. But not one little inkling of noise! So awesome. Thank god for the video monitor. And Ferber.

I also feel pretty balanced because I came to terms with something the other night. I had my review at work week before last. It was about 5 months late. Seriously. Boss was just busy and kept telling me we'd do it "soon." I wasn't too worried, because any raise I got would just be paid out in one lump sum to reflect getting it on my date-of-hire anniversary. The review was good, standard, basically the same song and dance I get every year. However, my ears perked up when my boss said, "We'd really like to know when you're planning to come back to work full-time." Uhhhhh, huh? My mental answer was, "Never." But I told him I'd have to think about it and get back to him.

See, before Maya was born I had a sit-down with my boss and CEO. I told them there was no way I could maintain my 50+ hour weeks and long commute, once the baby was here. I suggested working full time, but two days from home. After a good amount of back and forth, they said that they didn't want to set a precedent of having people work from home, so if I wanted one day at home, we'd cut my time by one day and I'd work 4 days. They said that we could maintain this schedule as long as it worked for the company, and if there were any problems with work not getting done, they'd talk to me about it before taking any action. Cool.

Well truth be told, I am getting all my work done and more. Somehow having a baby just makes you not waste time when things need to get done. I took on a whole new set of responsibilities when I came back to work in January and am still getting it all done. And I cost my company 20% less. With all the push for "cutting costs", they have a hell of a deal with me. I put all of this in a letter to my boss, asking him if we could re-evaluate the situation in 6 months, when I'm done breastfeeding. But that was just dangling a carrot. My Mon-Thurs are intense and exhausting and having my Fridays at home with Maya is just too valuable.

See, it's a struggle having a career and being a mom. You want to "climb the ladder", be more, attain that "C" title. But you cannot do that without sacrificing quality time with your kids. It's a very hard thing to balance. I am ambitious and I want to do great things with my career. I am competitive and I want to do better than my coworkers. The other night I felt so unsettled about it all. I started talking to H about getting to the "Director" level and beyond, and he said, "Well, is that what you want?" His phone rang so he got distracted, but I sat outside, enveloped in the warm evening air, as the sun was setting beyond the tall cypress trees (what an incredible night), and asked myself that exact question. Is that what I really want?

Hmmm. What's my boss's life? 10-11 hour days. In the office on Saturdays. Lots of travel. Not a bad life if you have no kids or you don't really value quality time with your wife/husband. But if you do??? Hell no. I love my family. I love hanging out at home with Maya, with H, with friends that stop by, with family. It's the bread and butter of my life right now. It's the best. And these years, of raising a family, are years that you can never get back. It's a period in our lives, and once it's gone, that's it. I'm loving it so much that I just want to savor each moment of it.

Once that thought processed through my mind, I felt so settled. I'm going to do a kick-ass job at getting my things done right now. I'm going to run my business unit better than it has ever been run before. I'm going to knock their socks off. Yes, sir. Mon-Thurs, from 7:30am - 3:30pm. On those off hours, I'll be loving it up with my precious family. If work needs me? Blackberry.

Word. I've felt on top of the world since. And the fact that a recruiter has been jocking me hard-core for a Director-level job at our biggest competitor? That helped too. :)