P recently sent me an email that said “This is perfect for you”, with a link to this license plate:

LOL! I know I complain about him a lot. With all the complaining, it may seem like I don’t love the man. Like why the hell are we even married anyway? Part of the problem we face is that he’s a Leo and I’m a Scorpio. Or, for the non-astrologically enthusiastic people, we both like to be in charge. He’s a first-born, I’m an only-child. Yeah, so you get the picture- life is a power struggle for us most of the time. But deep down, I know I married the right man. I do adore him really. He’s very funny (in a sarcastic, cynical way that speaks to my own personality) and can be very sweet and surprisingly thoughtful. He’s also a very good Dad to the boys. Plus, he understands and tolerates my obsessive-compulsive ways (believe me, he has his own quirks to match!). Here are a few of my favorite photos of him with the boys:

Baby G and Daddy
April 2008 at the Hospital
(G was just born):

Baby G and Daddy
Father’s Day, June 2008
(G is 2 months old):

Q and Dad
July 2007
(Q was 6 mos. old):

Q and Dad
April 2008, taken the morning that baby brother was born
(Q was 17 months old):

Yeah, they’re pretty cute. I think I’ll keep them

What part of “Leave of Absence” don’t they get? Hello, I’m on maternity leave! You ever heard of it? MAH-TURN-EH-TEE-LEEV. As in me at home with brand new baby (work is the last thing I care about right now). As in not at work, gone for 4 months, don’t bother me at home- go away, leave me alone, lose my phone number! Especially when you’re calling to bug me about something that I thoroughly trained you on before I left. And you know that my overly-organized ass was thorough indeed. There was checklists left, detailed instructions left, there was a matrix of items that needed coverage and follow-up. A freakin’ MATRIX people!

But noooo, apparently all that ball-busting work I did in order to prepare for my leave was a total waste of my time and energy. One of the admins I lead called me a couple of days ago and wants me to help her with scheduling the quarterly Business Update Meetings. I’m usually in charge of coordinating this and it’s so involved that I normally start working on it at least a month in advance. Apparently, she “forgot everything” that I trained her on for the Q2 meetings and well, now Q3 meetings are about to begin and she’s freaking out. So now I get to pull out my work laptop and walk her through it all again. Ugh! The last time I fired up my work computer (about a month ago) I had over 400 emails waiting for me (and it had only been 5 weeks since I last logged on). I’m not looking forward to that again! Most of those 400 emails were from various distribution lists that I’m on (that nobody bothered to take me off of, despite my requests for them to do so before I left), but there were also quite a few emails from people asking me for direction or giving me AR’s to work on. Good lord, don’t people freaking read OOO messages?!

P.S. - “AR” is one of those annoying corporate acronyms for “Action Required”. Which basically means someone is bossing you around and wants you to do something for them. “OOO” is another annoying acronym for “Out of Office”. I’m practicing my corporate jargon for when I go back and become a zombified cubicle monkey again.

P.S.S. - Even though I often (lovingly) refer to the other admins at work as “bitches” (I can’t help but giggle), I really do like (some) of them. I even consider a few of them as “friends”, not just co-workers. And I really do appreciate the fact that I have such a well-paying job. Or a job at all for that matter! I just like to bitch about it all though- and I especially like to bitch about TDWSH (The Devil Wears Sag Harbor - aka: da’ boss lady).

Today was an emotional challenge for sure! I woke up in a horrible mood and just wanted to shut the world out and not deal with any of it. If I could have stayed in bed all day and ignored my responsibilities, I probably would have! I really felt like I wanted to close my eyes and not exist, as bad as that sounds. I just felt so sad and overwhelmed by everything. I won’t go into specifics, but I wasn’t the nicest person to deal with this morning when hubby walked in the door (think anger ball). He knew I was in a bad state of mind and helped me a lot before he went to bed. As much as I’d like to have a nervous breakdown right now, I just can’t afford to! Too many people are counting on me. I had to suck it up and drag my sleep-deprived ass out of bed to get working on the mountain o’ dirty dishes, bottles, and sippy cups that were piled up in the sink. When P got in this morning, he was bitching at me about why I can’t keep up with the dishes (as in there should never be a single thing left in the sink). Yeah, he’s a bit of a neat freak too and I usually want the kitchen to be spotless as well, but sometimes it’s just too much to keep up with!

While I was working on the kitchen, hubby helped Q with breakfast and gave him a bath/dressed him. Then Baby G started crying and he had to get him up, change him, and feed him too. All during that time I was still working on the kitchen. It took me like an hour total time. When I was done and about to relieve hubby of feeding G (so he could get to bed), I said to him, “You see how long it took me to do that? Do you realize I never would have been able to clean up the kitchen unless you were here to help me do everything else?!.” He finally acknowledged that the whole morning routine is really a two-person job and that it’s extremely stressful when dealing with toddler tantrums by Q and then G crying in the background. If he’s bitching about having to help out now (while I’m still home on maternity leave), I told him just to wait and see how bad it really gets when I go back to work and I’m really stretched thin. His help will be needed more than ever! He will be the one responsible for getting the boys ready and to daycare in the mornings (all before he goes to bed himself). With the long commute I face every morning, I can’t do it or I’d be late to work all the time.

Anyway, things did get better as the day wore on and my mood changed significantly. You know I absolutely love my Mom to death, she is one of the most important people in my life. She’s my best friend really! And she helps me so much in SO many ways. But she can sometimes really harp on the negative, a trait which she has definitely passed on to me. So when I call her to talk (now on an almost daily basis), we just have a huge gripe fest about everything that sucks about life. With all the negativity in the air, I tend to get really very down (in to my dark place) about things and it’s hard for me to pull myself out of it. Attempts made by The Hubby to “cheer me up” just make me want to bitch-slap him. Seriously, because I feel like he isn’t being serious or mature about the issues we are facing! I feel like he just wants to bury his head in the sand.

I get so sad and angry about all of the stress in my life and then I have to step back and realize that while I feel pretty miserable at times- when it comes to the big picture, I really have nothing to complain about. I mean what is so terrible about my life anyway? We’re really not going through anything different than any other set of stressed out parents (with young children and a brand new home to maintain and not enough time/energy to do it all). None of us are seriously ill, we make good money, we have nice things, we have an extended family who loves and supports us immensely. What is there to bitch about? Of COURSE there is always someone out there who has it better- who has more stuff, has less stress, is thinner, is smarter, makes more money. But there’s also good people who have less than us. So really, I think I just need to put on my big girl pants and deal with it!