Welcome to the World of Domestic Bliss

I am home until June 12th. Hubby already told me the TV line up for the night (which is why I am right here blogging instead of watching). Speaking of entertainment, the Red Sox, my beloved team, is behind the Evil Ones by .007 of a point. Beware, Chag, we start again tomorrow night and I will lovingly mock you when we win (do you hear the maniacal laughter?). I sent you a very reserved email last time WE WON BIG but I will have a bit of hubris this round. My Hubby, who actually doesn't care about sports unless there are some class V rapids involved, is actually a fan of that evil team, and eventhough we were already pregnant and pretty much told to get married, I would have had grave reservations about marrying him if I had known about his allegiances before we entered into a nuptial agreement. Now it is too late and I accept his foibles.
So I thought I would wake this morinng, walk Noodle to school, run my 2.5 miles and take a shower. Funny how domestic bliss can get out of whack. Instead, I noticed the rash that had been only on Noodle's face on Saturday was now ALL over her body. I was a little worried she may have fifth disease and she is around kids who have moms who are pregnant so I called the doctor and they said 'hurry up, come in!' so we drove to the doctor and Noodle itched and I fretted. The poor kid has the same sensitivity to everything with fragrance that I do. We don't even know what new fragrance she came across. She didn't have fifth disease and she didn't have strep so it is probably allergies. I got to bring her to school and tell her teacher 'if she seems to start having respiratory distress call 911 and then call me... thanks.' So she got topical benadryl during the day and oral benadryl at night. The kid is passed out hard right now.
Speaking of Noodle, she was accepted to our first choice for schools. Core curriculum seems cool and I hope it helps her adjust form having us as parents. Oh wait, what is a blog without a great picture...

That was taken about a month ago. She is just the most beautiful thing in the world.

Back to my foray into the world of domestic bliss. After I left Noodle at school I came home and decided to sneak a peak at my work email, which I hadn't checked since Friday. My clients had issues. One went live and eventhough I haven't been there for a year they were having issues so I helped them as much as I could. The other one, the one I just rolled from, is doing UAT (user acceptance testing) testing for the very complex approval hierarchy I set up for them and there has only been one set up issue. Yeah for me. They call it user accpetance testing but usually managers who don't really get it do the testing. They have had a ton of functionality issues though. It was all stuff we reviewed but until you are doing it, you just don't get it. So I answered questions for awhile and went to lunch with a friend that I never see enough and her perfect 3 month old baby. No really, he is perfect. He smiles and gurggles and eats and smiles some more, and has a cool baby trick, if you rub the back of his head he falls asleep... everytime. And he has red hair and he is cute as a button. Not that I have baby envy (in spades) but this kid is really quite amazing. We sat in a restaurant for and hour and a half and he didn't care. Then we went shopping and he was happy and then I went home, read blogs for 20 minutes, made a marinade for the tuna steaks and went running. I run right past Noodle's school so I got her and then we walked home listening to my iPOD. We listened to 2 of her favorite songs: Lucious Jackson's Naked Eye and Jack Johnson's Upside Down. Noodle has this thing called Nakey Girl Power, it is about being naked and powerful. So to her, 'In My Naked Eye' is really an anthem. She has asked what the lyrics mean:

wearing nothing is divine, naked is a state of mind, i take things off to clear my head, to say the things i haven't said, i live inside the elements, the earth and sky are my best friends, water is the evidence that washes me from end to end

I tell her it is about taking a bath. And we sung together and it was really nice (except we are both tone deaf). Our house is 3 songs away from her pre-school. I am going to make a Noodle playlist tonight for tomorrow's walk. I was suprised she didn't want to listen to Really Rosie or Rachmoniniff's piano concerto #2, two of her favorites. She told me you had to sit for the piano stuff, you can't walk. I'll give her that. She probably doesn't like that I cry every time I hear it either. Just an aside (like there hasn't been a few dozen already), who the hell owns the rights to Really Rosie and why isn't it out on DVD yet? Fuckers. We don't own a VHS player and you can't get the tape anyway.
So I got home and started making dinner because I agreed with Hubby I should be domestic goddess for the time I am home since I don't have much else to do and getting dinner ready is a good thing for him. He is sort of in wicked crunch mode, almost done with one house and another house right behind this one so they can get on the market during the height of the real estate sales period (April to September). I feel like I can totally pretend to be stay at home mom for a few weeks while he kicks the renovation work out. It's the least I can do. Except tonight, I sort of forgot, I had put together a conference call to discuss a new utilization bonus plan. So the director I invited to join the call had to ring me up to ask me where the fuck I was. I told him it was his fault since I am normally so on the ball when I am billable*, I screw up a lot when I am not billable. It was a good call, he liked what we had put together and I am sure the it will go into effect, even if I was a total goofball forgetting the call.

I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I hope my family still likes me in the end.

*In consulting everything is about whether you are billable or not. When you are billable the sun shines directly on you and the people who own the company love and cherish you because you are a cash cow. When you aren't billable it is called being on 'the bench' or if you live near the ocean it is called being on 'the beach.' Then you are seen as a pariah, and evil leach on the face of the company, bringing all members of the company closer and closer to bankruptcy. You think I am kidding but the first consulting company had a little unofficial saying 'Your first week on the beach should be nerve racking but your second is fine because you will be getting unempoyment.' The company I am at now is much more generous.