Doctors, Jobs, Unseasonably Warm Weather

Well, I'm sure everyone will be glad to know my muscle is not twitching today — not as glad as I am, but glad. Heh.

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Last night I took my son to the local craft store to pick up supplies with which to make Christmas presents. We're going the economical route this year, so I'll be calling on all my creative skills and imagination to make the presents look like they cost more than they did. Kidding! No one will care how much they cost. I can wander around craft stores for hours, and last night's trip lasted two hours. My son was a real trooper, but he did require a 99-cent wooden airplane to extend his patience. I told him we could paint the plane, so he's been asking about that ever since we got back from the store. The thing is, today I have Real Work to do, and we have to go to the bank to deposit some checks so we can pay the bills. Busy, busy, busy! I think any plane-painting we do will have to take place after business hours, or tomorrow.

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The heater guys are supposed to call today to schedule a time to take out the new unit they installed and replace it with another new unit. I'm a tiny bit exasperated about this, but I'm betting they're even more discouraged, since this is their busy season and I'm sure they'd like to move on to the next job. Of course, the weather these days is blessedly warm — the highs this week are supposed to go all the way up to 74 degrees F — so at least we're not chilly. Last Christmas season I had the flu, then my son had it, then his dad had it, and the weather was cold. Okay, cold by Southern California standards. We went to Miami to see my son's dad's family, and I left the heat completely off in our absence. When we returned at midnight the house was about 55 degrees F and it took forever to heat it up. I remember bundling up to go to bed and snuggling with my son so we'd both stay warm as we slept — not that we slept much that night. My dad says he remembers a time when our family returned from a trip and discovered the house was somewhere around 32 degrees F; it took 24 hours to heat up again. This was in Illinois, which accounts for the drastic temperature. It made me cold just to hear the story. Brr!

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I'm starting to put my resume online, at least at Monster.com. My business is growing bit by bit, but I'd love to receive a regular paycheck from a company in addition to doing some freelance work along the way. The thing is that I really want to telecommute, and it doesn't look like a lot of reputable companies are exactly looking for telecommuters. The positions I see are "full-time employee" positions. I'm tentatively putting a telecommuting reference in my cover letters, but something tells me that's not wise, so I'll likely leave that out and wait until a phone conversation to bring it up. My son is turning four next month, and although he'll start going to preschool a couple of half-days a week, I want to be around for him. Additionally, I believe I must telecommute in order to protect my custody arrangement. This is what drives me in almost all things these days. I'm trying to be very honest with myself about what I need/want, and trying to have faith in putting it out there so I can receive what I need/want instead of a close second. I figure if I'm honest about it I have a better chance of getting it, but I also know from experience that job-seeking involves playing a game of sorts. Still, one company excites me — Hay House. They had an ad on Monster.com for an opening, and although I'm not yet sure it's a fit, at least I now know the company has a site in San Diego County, and the company in general may be a fit for me. I've read one or two of Louise Hay's books, and my having edited two Religious Science books and and an inspirational leadership book seems to fit the genre that Hay House falls into. If I don't get a response to the application I submitted, I plan to contact them about possible contract possibilities. How cool would it be to work for them?

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My son is wandering in and out of my office, performing various medical procedures on me. The latest — "One, two, three, PINCH!" — is giving me a shot. Yesterday he mentioned that he's been to the doctor before, and I told him he's almost due for another checkup. He cried and angrily "wrote" me a note that he says declares that he will never have to go to the doctor again.

He doesn't know that it kills me to have to hold him and see him cry when he gets a shot, even though he cheers up soon afterward — especially when we go to the store to buy a little reward for being such a big, brave boy. I tried telling him that when he was a baby in my belly I had to get lots of shots, including one in my bottom (RhoGAM shot), and he was momentarily impressed by that: "In your BOTTOM?? REALLY??" Then he was back to protesting all doctor visits, poor thing. I can remember crying when my mom told me how babies are born. I was maybe seven or eight, maybe nine, when she told me, and decided right then and there I would never do that. Heh. I probably wouldn't ever have done it if I hadn't had a surprise pregnancy. Anyway, I can relate to my son's fear — these things are big for kids. I get it. It's sort of like the way I now feel about eye surgery. Bleah.

On the subject of Medical Necessities That Terrify Children, last night my son was asking me how he came out of my belly. I think I'd said something to him about how long it took (3.5 hours of Real Pushing, not to mention all the time in labor), and I told him the doctor had put a special thing on my son's head to try to gently pull him out. I could see my son thinking about this for a moment...then he burst into tears. "Doctors should NOT put OUCHY THINGS on BABIES' HEADS!!" he yelled. I hugged him and told him it didn't hurt him — it just helped him come out a little sooner so he could play with Daddy and Mommy, but he wasn't quite buying it. Ah, he's surely traumatized for life at this point.

Okay, having accomplished that, I must get to work. ;-)