October 31, 2003~~11:39 a.m.
I Am Not a Housewife
So I�ve been away for awhile�. I had a baby in August. Her name is Elizabeth and since she is my new co-worker, you will probably be hearing a lot about her escapades. Three weeks after she was born, we moved from Sacramento to San Jose because my Marine husband, Omar, is now turning into a cop. I tried singing �We don�t need another hero� to him, but he wouldn�t listen. You can take the Marine out of the war, but you can�t take the war out of the Marine. Now that I am no longer employed by e.ScIeNtoLogy (a character we will sorely miss here, at ringoffire) I am adjusting to my new job as mother and wife. My official title is �Domestic Affairs Manager.� The other day at the gym, this guy tried to label my job as �housewife,� a title I disdain. Lucy Ricardo was a housewife. I am not a housewife. I am a dietician, fashion consultant, physician, personal trainer, tutor, librarian, personal shopper, photographer, secretary and travel agent to a three month old and a chef, launderer, housekeeper, social secretary, accountant, career consultant, comedienne, and concierge to Omar. I have already screwed up several times on the mom thing and would surely have been fired if this were a paid job. There was the time I put the baby�s car seat into the cart at Albertson�s and steered it across the parking lot toward the store. Right away, I noticed that the cart was making an astounding amount of noise and shaking around very violently. Elizabeth looked up startlingly with her big blue eyes and a sort of distressed look on her face. I passed the errant cart off as just having problems moving across the asphalt, but lo, it continued its crazed ways on the sidewalk too. I felt badly for Lizzie�s bumpy ride as I transferred her to another, hopefully more smooth cart, but Christ, how was I supposed to know? Then there was the night that she just wouldn�t settle down and go to sleep. She had been fed, and cuddled and rocked all to no avail. So I put her in her crib and let her cry a little bit. About fifteen minutes later, I was about to give in, when she suddenly stopped crying. I thought to myself, �Heehee, you didn�t know how close you were to getting picked up!� And then I saw it: a puddle of pee on the sheet. Of course I had to pick her up and change her and the sheet, but there I had been, about to leave my poor newborn to sleep in a puddle of urine after crying for fifteen minutes about it. I felt so guilty that I let her snuggle in bed with me until she fell asleep. For the most part, though, I think I�m a pretty good mommy and I don�t get flustered when she cries and I have a sense of humor about the whole experience. Plus, Elizabeth is a good audience for my comments about the Dr. Phil show and she also appears to enjoy all of my favorite MTV reality shows as well. What more could a mother ask for? Meanwhile, I�m learning how to be a wife. If you recall, when Omar and I got married after 5 days� notice, he then took a honeymoon in Iraq and I was left pregnant and barefoot at home to await his return. Then he started the police academy right after he got home from the war and it wasn�t until late August that we actually lived together for good. So, technically, I�ve only been practicing being a wife for about 2 months. I am learning to walk around his �piles� and to agree with his worst case scenarios for why the baby is crying. So far, I haven�t burned anything and I�ve even cooked chicken several times without gagging. Of course, I have to take Omar�s word for it that it is tasty as I will not bite into something so fowl. I have also taught myself how to cook fish and steak, of which I am immensely proud. Elizabeth is going to be a bunny for Halloween tonight (we nearly bought her a hilarious cow costume complete with hood and ears so she could go as an Aggie, but we decided to wait until next year) so we are off to find her a fluffy tail. I love this job.
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