Beware: Its Girl Scout Cookie Time

Or more precisely it will be here starting next Friday. I took on the Cookie Manager job for PDQs troop this year. After going to training this morning I really have to wonder what the heck I was thinking! I sat through three long hours of forms, deposit slips and the boxes to case calculation for the cookie order. We learned how we would have to sign our lives away to receive the cookies--yes, when we pick them up we become financially responsible for them until we pass them on to the parents of the girl who sold them. There is obviously a process nut in charge of the whole thing, there is a precise timed schedule with forms and an online ordering system. I made my little project manager heart proud. One reason I took the job was a colleague telling me it was right up my PM alley.

If you live in Maryland, beware, the girl scout cookies are coming soon!

I'm Melting......

Yeah, not in the weight loss sense unfortunately. I had a high fever on Friday night, my cheeks were seriously flaming and I felt really horrible. Finally the fever broke and I ended up in a big sweaty puddle--yeah, don't you wish you shared the bed with me? I haven't had a fever since but my temperature control mechanism still isn't right. I've been too hot, I've been too cold but I haven't found just right yet. I actually stayed home from work both Friday and yesterday to try and make sure that I was in decent form this morning to face the executive staff of my company and review a project proposal with them.

So I got up this morning and went for acupuncture, might as well go in as well centered as I could be. It was the same way I started the day that I got sick and ran the meeting that precipitated this one. I have little doubt the stress of that hellish event contributed to being stricken by the plague. By the time I got to the presentation it was hot in their suite, they kept us waiting for 20 minutes and I was feeling a bit queasy. Finally I ran to the bathroom--wouldn't you know that while I was gone they summoned our little group--6 men and little old me. The others, all guys, all senior managers went in and took a seat. Thankfully my colleague grabbed chairs out of another room for the two of us while I handed out the presentation (only half of them in color because apparently they've now limited the number of copies you can send to the color printer unbeknownst to me until 2 minutes before the meeting). Finally I got a chance to sit down and two of the female execs pulled a chair up close to the big people table for me right between them. One of them was so close and kept looking at me intently every time I spoke--I wanted to tell her that her knew glasses were great, it was a bit disconcerting having such a great view of them for SO long!

They were ready to start, the exec in charge the project gave a long introduction while I sat there, he ended rather abruptly and I felt myself fall into the abyss--they expected me to start talking and what do you say to follow that introduction? I could feel my face flush, I could feel sweat forming on my forehead and under my arms, I took a deep breath and jumped in. There were a couple of times I looked at the slides that had occupied my weekend in bed and I swear there were words I'd never seen before! The hour went pretty quickly, thank goodness. The peanut gallery that came to meeting to field questions might have said a dozen sentences between them--from the good chairs. I feel like I escaped unscathed, I can't wait to hear the action items I got assigned after we were dismissed. I really did think for just a moment there wasn't going to be anything left of me but a puddle in that chair.

Blog Blast
Parent Bloggers Network is sponsoring its first blog blast in honor of Mother's Day and inspired by LightIris founder and dad Kevin who has been wearing a Preggo Suit all month long. Can he really actually be empathic to what moms go through? And is being a mom just about the actual having of the kids? or the raising of the kids? What is it that makes YOU a mom? Post anytime on Friday May 11 and e-mail a link to parentbloggers@gmail.com for the chance to be included and maybe even win $100 SPA FINDER gift card in a random drawing!

It takes a village and it stresses me out

I have to say I am feeling like a bitch because I am mad at someone who is taking a long time to bounce back from surgery. PDQs babysitter had surgery back in March and thought she’d take off three weeks. One of those weeks was spring break so although stressful, trying to cover 3 weeks was something we could work with. Now that 3 weeks has turned in to 6. I am feeling wholly unproductive at work and my stomach and my head ache trying to figure out what to do for next week and wondering if 6 weeks is going to turn into 8 or 10. Thankfully Gman has fielded the calls that have come in to let us know she wasn’t ready to go back to work yet. I am angry that she wasn’t more upfront about the potential recovery time. I’ve since talked to several people who had the surgery/know someone who did and said it took them MONTHS to bounce back! I feel bad being mad at someone who is recovering but I really don’t think she has any concept of the complication she’s added to our lives or those of any of the other parents. I’ve used a home daycare for six years and never had issues, this year has been one issue after another, thankfully the person who put up with me for the first five of those six years is still taking care of Boobah and is willing to step in and help out. And I have been paying her handsomely for it, not because she asked but because I feel like she deserves it. I know I am lucky that my employer has an emergency care provider benefit for up to 10 days a year, it has been a great help while paying double daycare costs, unfortunately I’ve exhausted it for the year and who knows when things will return to normal. I dread telling her that we won’t be back in the fall; I’d made that decision before this happened but now it is clear, crystal clear that we need another arrangement.

I also feel bad that I’ve taken advantage of friends and neighbors. Thankfully I have wonderful friends who have been willing to pitch in and help out. I don’t want to be the person known for taking advantage of them though. The last thing I want is this whole ordeal to strain a friendship. They’ve all said it is no problem at all, I hope they are telling me the truth. I was also able to arrange things at work so I didn’t have to depend on them too much. On Thursday, that all blows up in my face. I have a HUGE meeting that needs to be run well and the output generated into a presentation for the board of directors. The people in the meeting are contentious and under the best of circumstances it would be difficult. The meeting runs the entire morning, when I should be dropping off and picking up the kids. Gman traded mornings with me so he can do the drop off part. I am yet to find someone to do the double pick-up duty since the girls are in different places and need to be picked up around the same time. Next week I have to review the outcome of that meeting and another with the executive staff, they haven’t given us a time yet, how much you want to bet its during drop-off or pick-up?

Never have I been so glad the school year is almost over! Camp won’t close down, it will cause minor schedule upheaval but compared to these 6 weeks its nothing. Next year both girls will be somewhere all day. No running between schools in the middle of the day or fancy footwork. It will be such a relief. I am so tired of trying to keep all of the balls in the air and I know I am really lucky since Gman pitches in to help where he can.

What I've accomplished today

• The alarm went off, twice, finally I turned it off instead of hitting snooze, fumbled for the phone and called my boss to tell her I wasn't coming in today.
• Helped G-man get the girls ready and out the door.
• Took a bath, trying to steam the gunk out of my head.
• Cancelled my dinner plans with 3 women from an e-group that I've been part of for nearly 7 years! (boo hoo)
• Updated a project plan, 3 different times and had the server barf on me every time I tried to save it. I e-mailed the guy in charge of it and he reminded me it really hates VPN.
• Compiled a bunch of stuff for a meeting tomorrow and sent it out
• Made lunch for G-man and nuked my own Lean Cuisine.
• Played spy, taking pictures from our bathroom window of G-man constructing the swing set that Santa brought.
• Made the appropriate grimaces when he came in to show me the finger that he hit really, really hard with a hammer. It is pretty gruesome.
• Took large doses of ibuprofen to try and get the pain in my head to recede.
• Took a shower thinking that if I were cleaner I'd feel better (no dice).
• Read a large part of Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille. I usually read mindless crap but DeMille does a great job of making the potentially cataclysmic seem possible and makes you want to read all about it. I keep having to remind myself its fiction.
• Defrosted something for dinner
• Sat outside, its 78 degrees!?, and kept G-man company
• Read lots and lots and lots of blog posts

Doesn't that sound thrilling? Okay, off to blow my nose...

And today's challenge for Super Mom....Childcare Calculus

Will it never end? Today the new wrinkle in our scheduled to the moment lives--PDQs babysitter needs to have surgery and will be out for nearly a month. "Lucky" for us that one of those weeks is Spring Break and she can go to daycare with Boobah. After that, the assignment for Super Mom is to coordinate daycare before and after school.

Boobah's babysitter (BB) doesn't live on a bus route for PDQs school, she can watch her after school but getting her to BB creates some scheduling issues for Super Mom. BB might be able to pick her up at school but will need Super Mom's van to do so and needs cooperation of another child's parents as he arrives from preschool at the same time school ends.

PDQs babysitter (PB) has asked two neighbors to help out during that time. Its up to Super Mom to negotiate times and rates with these neighbors. PDQ knows one of the women marginally and dislikes her son, she doesn't know the other woman at all.

Grandma & Grandpa live 5 hours away, Grandma works Tuesday and Wednesday every week but maybe they could come provide some relief.

Boobah's school (BS) has an enrichment program one afternoon per week that Boobah attends as well as one of PDQs classmates. Can Super Mom negotiate a car pool with said classmate and get BS to allow her to attend for 2 afternoons?

Just considering the possibilities has given me a headache. I have a whole month to get everything negotiated and in place--thank goodness for small favors. I manage big projects for a living and sometimes I think arranging our lives is far, far more difficult!

Is it really only Thursday?

It has been one of those weeks, I have worked long hours on a ton of little things, there is no big deliverable I've been driving towards to get the big payoff of having accomplished something. I guess the big accomplishment of the week happened on Tuesday when a project got killed. We'd been working on something and I asked several times if it was the right thing, finally someone much higher up than I asked the same question, in the end I went back and put the information together, gave it to the financial whiz and got back the answer--bad idea, very expensive idea that might get us laughed at--that is pretty much the high point. That particular project killing got me a much more complicated business changing kind of project to replace. Fun to figure out but with everything else I have to do more than my brain can absord at the moment. I've been to 18 meetings in the last four days, most of them I ran, a few of them I even planned before I ran them. More than once I showed up having no idea what the topic was and winged it!

I have put together notes from none of them, followed up on none of them, I haven't had time to think about much of anything. When I get back to my desk I just sit down and turn into a pile of gelatinous ooze trying to figure out exactly what it is I should do first, I start something, think of something else, switch to that, go back to the first. I guess the report that multi-tasking is a loser was right. I do it pretty well but I think at the moment I've hit the wall. Hopefully tomorrow things slow down and I have time to actually get something done.

Despite the kind of week its been, it has been fun. There are big changes going on, the stuff I have been writing is making a difference, the people I work with are great, and it feels like some real change might actually happen. I have to say, the year I spent feeling crappy from my gallbaldder was really stupid. I feel so much better I know I am more productive. For awhile I was even sleeping better, now my mind is moving so fast that I wake up planning things or trying to figure out an important detail.

The girls and I had a great time last night, we played Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders and Dora Dominoes. Then we cuddled up in the bed with a new Cam Jansen book and the 20th reading of the Arthur in a Pickle book. Today I had conference with PDQ's teacher and all is well. Then I went off to visit another preschool for Boobah. I loved the place, its on the way to work and I am pretty sure we'll enroll her there next year. I was thinking last night, a year there will cost more than tuition, room and board my first year in college--and its not the most expensive place I've been to visit. Guess that's why I need to keep working!