Cute mommy blogger.. nope.. Mr. Mom here..

Ok.. so I'm not a "Mr.".. but I'm feeling like I need to watch that movie again. Visions of making grilled cheese sandwiches with a clothes iron and the whole vacuum cleaner scene mark incredible parallels with the past few days of my life.

I had grand ideas of blogging this transition. I still may.. but it won't be as I had originally planned.. which involved sitting peacefully at 8:30pm after Benji had gone to bed typing while smiling and laughing as I told about the adventures and antics that had filled our day. I thought -- hey.. maybe I'll blog every day for a year.. really journaling this experience for me to look back on (fondly of course) in the future.

Well.. it's Wednesday.. we're 3 days into it and this is really my first real update. If you're friends with me on facebook, you've seen some general updates and if you're savvy enough to follow twitter, I may keep up with that through my cell phone, which has been my only link to the outside world for the past few days... thank god for internet access via cell phones and text messaging.

Ok.. in short. We had a rough start. The transition is an absolutely huge ten ton heavy thing of change to cope with. As a change-a-phobic (there must be a word for that), I was prepared for my role change from full time engineer/acoustics consultant to full time mom to be like bunji jumping.. you know.. mostly incredible thrills that are worth the "oh shit" moments when you realize that the little shit beautiful 3 year old has cornered the cat with a lightsaber.

Ben started off the week with a bit of a cold and a low grade temp. Just enough to be cranky. It was POURING outside.. so plans to get out of the house were derailed as I didn't want to expose him to the elements (um.. i'll get over that quickly) and in general.. i was in a haze. As a result.. the house sort of blew up.. toys everywhere, dishes undone, cats laying on unmade beds, benjamin running through the house like Max from "Where the Wild Things Are" (one of the top 10 best children's books... movie is great too.. for kids over 25).

Shiela came home and of course took one look around and smiled nicely and made a comment about wow.. it must have been an interesting day. I, in return, snapped her head off. How dare she criticize me for not having things perfect.. i was tired, damnit! I had spent the day with a sick child who was pretty much running things and making his own rules while I ran after him saying "no honey.. don't pour your yogurt on the hamster". It was the first day... Shiela did swoop in.. we had a steak dinner and took it easy.

Day 2 (Tuesday), wasn't much better. I had progressed past the daze of "oh my god, I'm not going to my office.. the office I had been in for 10 years.. oh my god.." to "holy crap.. the house is a mess.. we're moving in a few months.. and what do I start with first.

This is where things stuck with the overwhelmed Mr. Mom kicked in. I had a headache.. Ben was still sick-ish.. he is adjusting to not being at daycare and has about the same reaction to change as I do. he is ok.. but wants my sole attention 24/7. i don't blame him.. i'm cool. BUT.. this is hard to do when the house looks like a tornado hit and the cats are kicking cat litter around the kitchen. Plus.. still raining.

We picked Shiel up from work for an excuse to get out of the house. I dropped the two of them off and headed over to my spa to use my gift certificate for $150 from Shiela.. I opted for some extreme hair removal. Pain.. is an understatement. I forgot that I usually take a vicoden before those appointments (just kidding). I did take an anxiety med so I could relax a little.. it's seriously painful. At the same time.. once the endorphins kick in.. you actually walk out an hour later feeling like you had a great workout. I was feeling clean and pampered (with smooth legs) and got home to a VERY flustered Shiela dealing with a VERY flustered Benji.

Turns out our psycho neighbor got pissy again and came up yelling at Shiela to "turn it off".. um.. the only thing that was "on" was the 3 year old.. and they don't come with off switches. Plus.. we do everything we can to minimize his noise because we know we share a duplex with another person. The guy is just a loony jerko. The second time he came up, he banged on the door and then ran down the stairs back into his apartment. Shiela decided (and I agreed) that he's run out of chances and the cops will start being called. We've already given our notice to the landlord that we're moving at the end of our lease.. but I'm sure he will side with us regardless anyway. I just want to fluster the jerko (neighbor) with the big Arlington police dudes telling him to cool his heels.

SO... I put ben to bed.. he was asleep by 8:30 for the first time in months. No nap and lots of tantrums will do that to you. Shiela and I were asleep shortly after hoping for a new day.

Today was a LOT better. I'm starting to lose consciousness, so I'm going to blog about it tomorrow.. but the short version is that Ben and I had a great day.. he had a post-op appointment with his ENT that went great and a visit with his audiologist that also went great showing passing threshold of hearing tests in both ears (good thing) and played at the park.. had a nap.. I got some paperwork and cleaning done.. and took a short nap myself.. then we went off to pick up shiela at work again. All is happy in our world today.

I've only touched the tippy tippy top of all the change we've got in store for us for the next few months. I'll leave one teaser. We'll be moving "home" (for me) within a month or two.. we have a single family house lied up about 30 minutes from my hometown (go Raiders! woot!) and it will feel WONDERFUL to be back closer to my family again.

Ok.. I'm falling asleep.. goodnight.. good night moon.