Two Mommies and a Shmoo

My First New Year’s Resolution for 2007 – Be Fiscally Responsible.

Sometimes, I am like a kid.

Usually, Lois is able to keep some reigns on me just a little. Not so much lately since she’s on bed rest.

Most of our arguments are about money.

I usually don’t mind spending it, she usually wants to give me a $20/week allowance.

It’s not like I go out clothes or shoe shopping and drop several hundred dollars all the time, it’s more the $2 Dunkin Donuts coffee, $10 take out for lunch, $30 for going out here and there, $25 for a college football jersey. That sort of spending.

So, I need to be better. Like right now, we have a new car payment, a mortgage payment, student loan payments, other stuff and ONLY ONE INCOME. It’s a little scary.

But two things I did yesterday and today really made me happy. (I am fairly easy to please).

One:

I spent $10 on lunch today. It consisted of a diet root bear, a bag of ruffles and a grinder (hoagie to those of you in Philly, sub to the Jerseyites) from the “#1 Grinder” deli in Connecticut – Nardelli’s in Waterbury. I am in absolute glory sitting here with my large Italian Combo grinder with EVERYTHING, including the hot sauce. It’s really the greatest sandwich I have ever had. It totally made my week.
Next week, I will actually go to the grocery store deli and bring my own lunch to work.

Two:

I spent $9 adding NFL Network to my cable plan. It’s $6.99/month + the $2 installation fee. It’s not just the NFL Network, it includes Turner Classic Movies, Speed Channel, Fox Soccer Channel, College Sports TV, Outdoor Channel, BET on Jazz, Fox Movies FXM, Tennis Channel, etc.

When I mentioned something about talking to the cable company yesterday, Lois asked me if I did anything that costs more money. I was very silent for a while, hoping she would get sidetracked onto another issue and forget she asked me that question. It didn’t work. So I promised to cancel it after January.

Why do I need NFL Network, you ask?

Because MY ALMA MATER IS PLAYING IN A BOWL GAME!!!
And since it’s an essentially obscure bowl game, the Texas Bowl, it is only being broadcast on the NFL Network.

Please note that all other bowl games are being shown on ESPN, CBS and ABC.

So, I am buckling down on the spending (I promise LO!!). I am overlooking the $100 that I spent on Lois’ baby gift and the $33 that I just spent putting gas in the car this morning ($2.45/gallon was a deal!).

My New Year’s resolution (#1 in a list of many) will be buckle down and be smarter about money.

I will be driving my car to work from now on. My 4-cylinder Hyundai with 97k miles and a noisy rattle gets about 15 miles/gallon better mileage that Lois’ car.

I will bring lunch to work like I used to do when Lois was taking care of me.

I will make sure that I think “will Lois kill me if I buy this?” before I make any decisions to swipe the debit card.

And I promise to stop rationalizing “she can’t kill me, she can’t get out of bed.”

I guess we have finalized Chubby’s name.

Changing our minds now would involve removing a lot of stitching.

Now it’s in writing:

Here’s our diaper bag, courtesy of Suz and K*.

Here’s Andrew’s froggie towel, just like K*’s hippo towel. Thanks Suz and K*!

And the GIGANTIC bag was from me. Lois told me she’d be mad if I spend any money on her for Christmas, so I made up our hospital bag – to be used later as our weekender bag for our trips up to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Niantic.

The hospital bag I got her had: new robe, slippers, jelly beans, hair ties, lotion, body wash, bath crystals (for her bed rest foot washes), Ritz crackers, Sweet n Salty granola bars, breast pads, her favorite lip stuff and a boppy with cover. Not bad, huh? (Thanks to everyone who helped me with item ideas!)

Now we are working on the middle name. Lois might be changing her mind about Keenan.
We’re now tossing around a few others. Michael? Richard? Joseph? It might take us a while to settle on that.

Lois had a visit with the girls today.

They seemed a little disappointed that we didn’t have any presents for them yet, but we promised to take care of them after they do Christmas at home.

We thought they’d be bored out of their skulls, but watching TV all day is an okay Saturday activity for 10 year old girls. Other than some slight disagreements about a show called Rob and Big (don’t watch it), the day went well.

we had an appointment today and the news was great!

no hospital stay for loey!

the doc says things look really good. she’s been doing great with the bed rest and the numbers look stable. the doctor thinks she can make it to 36 weeks.

lois, of course, is happy about the news, but is trying to swallow being on bed rest for another 4 weeks.

We’ve made it to 32 weeks!

This is one of those major brian and lung development hurdles. We obviously want him to hang in there longer, but we can let out a little sigh of relief.

As for the pregnant mommy, she is doing a fabulous job! As hard is it might be for her to watch me do the Christmas shopping, cookie baking, vacuuming/cooking/cleaning(or lack thereof), she’s been quite the good sport.

And, all of a sudden, she looks very pregnant. She hasn’t shown much the entire pregnancy, then overnight on Sunday, something happened.

I caught a picture of her on one of her rare standing moments, on her way back from the potty. She will not be happy that I’m sharing the pic because she didn’t make herself up or anything.

I think she looks great.

Keep up the great work Lo!

For the last hour, 4 guys have been outside my office window bickering about how they are paving a particular spot of our parking lot.

Once some activity actually started, my managing partner came into my office and we both stared out the window commenting on how much like a beer commercial the work seemed to be.

One guy was dumping asphalt, one guy got on the roller and three more guys stood around watching everything occur, leaning against the building.

We laughed about if they are all getting paid the same amount by the hour for the entire job.

“Just like lawyers,” he remarked laughingly, then we both looked at each other and thought we should actually get back to work.

No, we won’t be billing our clients for that time.

I am starting to really look into myself to see what kind of morals and habits I will be showing my child.

One of my biggest faults is that I am impatient. I clearly have my father’s patience, which he got from his father.

My impatience is usually much more apparent when I am behind the wheel of a car.

Hey, I can’t help it that 85% of all drivers out there don’t know what they are doing.

Lois and I are friendly people, at least I like to think so. We have great friends who don’t seem to think we are assholes. We talk to people on line in the supermarket, make friends with our servers when we are out to eat, hold the door for people, etc.

I am hoping that somehow I can restrain myself from letting the “dumbass” comment slip out of my mouth when someone pulls out in front of me and let my child observe the niceties that we have to offer.

The holidays are a tough time to love your fellow human beings. Trust me, I know.
I worked retail during the holidays for about 8 years. One Christmas, I managed the “Holiday Shoppe” at Bloomingdales in White Plains, NY. You have some very nice spirited people but there were also very many high maintenance Paris Hilton Westchester County types as well (there I go making a generalization about people). No offense Senator Clinton.

I could write a book about that experience.

I’ve gotten off task here. Where was I?

I am hoping that we raise our child right. No kid is perfect, but I am hoping that our kid is respectful, holds the door for someone, picks up and hands a person back the quarter that fell out of someone’s pocket, that stops and apologizes if he accidentally bumps into someone, doesn’t talk about people behind their backs, is a good friend and a good person and sees the world as full of human beings, not classifications.

That’s what I hope to teach my kid. If he doesn’t become a engineer or scientist or surgeon (notice I leave lawyer out of the list), it’s okay. I just hope he’s happy and enjoys life because people treat him as well as he treats people.
I just hope he’s a good driver and will be a little more patient (and drive a little slower) than his mommy.