Day 3

Why is this hard at day 3? Shouldn't it be hard at day 30? I mean, day 3? Really. Technically yesterday was day 3, but it was my birthday so I am allowed one day off from this crazy project. Oh, and from work because I definitely took the day off from work yesterday.

When my son went to nursery school, I had visions of him meeting his best friend for life and whoever the mom was becoming my best friend for life. I had visions of him having a group of boys that he would go through school with and go through life with. And that I would be automatic best friends with the moms forever. And the dads would automatically be best friends forever. And that didn't happen. Oh, that SO didn't happen.

What I found, in the midst of a school that was running itself into the ground, was a few genuine moms but more of the stab-you-in-the-back-talk-about-you-every-time-you-turn-around moms. You know, the kind of moms who think that their kids can't do anything wrong even though you know that are the devil incarnate.

However, out of this school that shouldn't be standing, came a few really super great moms. The kind that although you don't see them that often because the kids all go to different schools, every time you see them feels like you just saw them yesterday. The kind that still invite all the kids to the birthday parties. The kind that take time out of their day to take you out to lunch for your 35th birthday and bring you candy and balloons to celebrate.

So that's what I'm thankful for today. The good moms and true friends that do exist and that I found in the sea of all of the craziness. So big thanks to my girls for having a great birthday celebration, even when it wasn't something I wanted to celebrate.

Day 2

This weekend, I worked with another business and ran a program where, one morning, families can come and donate their kids gently used Halloween costumes from previous years and exchange them for one that will fit them this year. In the end, the remaining costumes are donated to a local non-profit day care center that serves an extremely poor community. The concept is fantastic and implementing it isn't that hard, but as with everything, one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Obviously the process described above is not foolproof. Here are some hypothetical situations that can arise. Note again that these may be are hypothetical situations.

• If 25 people show up and donate costumes sized for one year olds, chances are that the one person that shows up with a 9 year old will not find anything in his size.
• I'm sorry if your child is afraid of our clown.
• If the event is advertised as starting at 10am and you show up at 930am, that doesn't mean that everyone else is late.
• If the event is advertised as taking place at 11am sharp and you show up at 1130am, I apologize if there isn't anything left for you to choose from. Please don't send me hate e-mail.
• Although all of the costumes are being donated by my company to a non-profit organization, I can not give you a receipt to write your donation off on your taxes because I am not a qualifying non-profit organization. Please don't spend 10 minutes arguing with me about this, after you show up 15 minutes late.
• If you go to an event and start an argument with the person running the event for any of the reasons described above, please do not take 5 of our goody bags with you as you storm out the door.

Because this is a gratitude journal, there is some good that I can find. The people that came to the event, had fun, got costumes and were happy to make donations made it all worth it. The non-profit day care center that will now have 20 extra costumes for their kids to wear in their Halloween parade made it all worth it. The fact that I was able to organize an event to bring people together to show that even if they can do something small, it helps - that's what made it all worth it. And I was glad to have been able to do so.

Day 1

Things haven't been so great lately. It's not because of one event, or two or even three, but lately I've been feeling more of the negative and less of the positive. It seems that, in my life, the happy and good things make me feel happy and good for less time than the bad and sad things make me feel bad and sad. I have two amazing kids and I don't want to ever look back on this time in their lives and feel that I missed because I was constantly rushing through it. Every day we seem to be in a rush, but I'm not sure where we're rushing to. I was speaking to a woman the other night who has no kids of her own but she stated a very simple observation, from an "outsider" perspective - parents generally don't seem to enjoy their children. As I thought about it, I realized that it's both sad and true. I had kids because I love them, and although I do truly love my children, I can honestly say that most of the time, I'm not actively enjoying them. Which really sucks.

I also have to say that in many aspects of my life, I am constantly wanting them to be different. It's really a big giant pity party over here. Which also really sucks.

Recently my friend Jen's mom suggested that instead of holding her daily pity parties, she should started a Gratitude Journal. Each day for 75 days, she is going to write one thing that she is thankful for in the hopes that by Thanksgiving, she'll be out of her funk. Ever since I read her first post, I thought that it made sense. Focus on the positive, write it all down and put it in perspective. So this is what I'm going to do. On the happy days, it will be easy, but I hope that even on the sad days I can find one thing, even though it might be something silly.

I'm starting today and going to go through Thanksgiving, which is 52 days away. If it works, I'll continue. Only time will tell, but today is day 1.

Today I am thankful for the fact that the sun is shining and it's quiet. After a rainy Saturday and a weekend of running around, I'm glad that I have an opportunity today where the sun is shining, kids are in school, husband is at work, dog is quiet, phone is not ringing and I can think. I can concentrate on getting work done or do no work at all. I can do the laundry, empty the dishwasher, think about making dinner tonight. Or I can do none of those things and just revel in the quiet for a little while. I think that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Book Review: The Weight Of Silence

A few weeks ago, I found myself on my own on a Saturday night with a husband out with the guys and two kids sleeping over grandma’s. My night consisted of ordering in sushi and wandering around Borders – by myself. Usually in a bookstore I have two kids on hand, both whining and asking for everything in sight, but on this night, it was just me. I was able to walk around the bookstore and look at all the books I wanted to look at. One of the books that caught my eye and went on my “to read” list was The Weight of Silence, written by a brand new author, Heather Gudenkauf. A few days later when I was asked by MomCentral to read the book and write a review, I immediately said yes.

The book opens from the perspective of Calli, a little girl with selective mutism that was brought on by a family tragedy years before. In the first chapter, Calli describes how upon waking up one morning knowing that her father is leaving for a fishing trip, she tries to him out because she doesn’t want to see him. We learn that Calli’s family is much happier when her father is away, mainly because he is an abusive alcoholic. Unfortunately, she has to go to the bathroom and although she tries to slip downstairs without being seen by her father, she is unsuccessful and he begins to berate her for not speaking, forcing her to walk with him into the woods behind their house, unbeknownst to anyone else in her family. Although the author hasn’t explained it, at this point, you can assume that her father had a lot to do with Calli’s selective mutism. The same morning, Calli’s best friend Petra’s parents awake to find her gone from her bed as well. Throughout the book, both families realize that their daughters are missing and it turns into a search for the two children, who are thought to have been abducted. The question is by whom – as I read through the book, my mind raced through many different scenarios, only to change as I read the next chapter.

Because each chapter in this book is told from a perspective of each of 7 different characters, you are able to see the story unfold from all of these different perspectives and learn the back stories as well. This changing of voice made the book a little bit difficult for me to read at first, but once I got involved with the story, it actually made the most sense that the author would have chosen to tell the story in this way. Each character was very developed and their histories were all intertwined – as the reader, you being to feel like each character is actually speaking to you, telling you about their lives, their secrets and their thoughts.

The Weight of Silence is definitely not a light read but absolutely a great book. It’s very thought provoking because it could be a story about any family living anywhere, right now. Being Heather Gudenkauf’s first novel, I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

Dear Time...

I had one question when I got up this morning and that was, WHERE THE HELL DID THE WHOLE SUMMER GO??

Seriously, how could it have flown right by me without my noticing?

It was apparently moving at the speed of light because I didn't even feel the breeze as it rushed by.

Maybe it was because it rained every day except for 3 during the entire month of June.

Or because our first day that the temperatures went over 90 degrees was in August.

But sigh, camp is almost over for the kids - only one more week.

Which means that I only have one more week of freedom between the hours of 9am and 430pm. And probably only one more week of finding Camryn asleep in her bed at 6pm and having her sleep until the next morning until 730 or 8am.

Soon they'll be back in school. And we'll be waiting for the school bus again every morning.

I'll be the mom of a first grader. A first grader who will be getting some serious homework this year.

And then the weather will get cold. We'll probably skip fall again and then all of a sudden we'll be knee deep in snow.

Why is it that as soon as I had kids, time just started to fly?

I feel so super young, but numbers don't lie. And my number isn't super low anymore.

So here's my plea.

Dear Time,
Please slow down. Just a little bit. Let me appreciate and enjoy my kids while they're young because if you keep going as fast as you are, I'm going to turn around soon and they will be gone. So if you could just slow down a little bit, I'd really appreciate it. Let me feel the breeze as you pass by. Pretty, pretty please? Thanks.

Love,
Amy

Grand Plans

At the beginning of the summer, I went for a physical and realized that my current weight equals my weight when I was 8 months pregnant with Aaron. Not so good. I then realized that that is a great reason why my clothes don't fit how they used to. So at the start of the summer I had grand plans to start exercising.

I bought two new exercise "games" for the Wii Fit. Yes, the one that I made my dad stand on line to get one day while I was at work. And yes, the same one that I've used probably about 6 times in the past year. I bought these two "games", used one about 3 times and returned the other one.

I thought about joining a gym for the summer. That's pretty much as far as I got with that because I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

I thought about buying a treadmill. Then I remembered the elliptical that we bought on Craigslist a few years ago and how although it made a great decoration, we used it about 3 times before it sat in our den for the next 18 months. I did though enjoy the $250 we got for re-selling it on Craigslist.

Then I saw a TV ad for Planet Fitness and how they were offering a one year membership for $99. I figured there had a to be a catch (like the commercial that screamed a $10/month, no contract offer from Lucille Roberts which apparently included a $199 membership fee if you didn't want to sign a 2 year contract). One Sunday morning, I went in to visit Planet Fitness. It was just what a wanted - about 100 treadmills, ellipticals and arc trainers. So I joined. My plan truly was just to go every day, do the treadmill for 30 minutes and leave.

The first week went swimmingly. Hubby was home on vacation from work, so I left the kids with him while I went to workout for an hour at the crack of dawn 7am every day of the week.

The second week with him back at work, my early morning workouts were a thing of the past. I then started going after I put Camryn on the bus for camp at 930am. Only issue was that by the time I got there, worked out, came home, showered and got dressed, it was between 11 and 1130am. Not an issue for most, but I have to work!

Last week I went 3 times and both days on the weekend. 5 days in a week, not so bad.

This week I had fantastic intentions to go every day again, but I think I went twice.

Sigh.

I think I need a pep talk. Somehow I doubt that sitting at my computer working will help my ass to shrink any.

Customer Service Strikes Again...

At the end of the school year, I posted here about an awful experience I had in a local retail store and wondered what happened to customer service. Today I learned that lousy customer service does not discriminate against large corporations.

In 2005, I was an employee of Cablevision, our major cable company here on Long Island. When I decided to leave the company, our family said au reviour to our employee perks of free cable, internet and telephone. We decided to change the account over to my husband's name, making him a new subscriber and therefore eligible for introductory rates. For some reason still unknown to us, Cablevision insisted on sending a tech out to our house to work on the account's name change. Even the tech had no idea why he was here and due to errors in the main office, he wound up spending the day and part of the evening with us - he was here for more than 4 hours! Soon after this very long afternoon, we decided to scrap Cablevision and move to the other side. We became customers of Verizon Fios. And the story begins....(right, the above had nothing to do with the awful customer service I'm ranting about today, it was just background!)

ClearlyI think our first mistake was signing up with one of the sales people who walk around neighborhoods knocking on doors selling the service. At sign up we were promised a $100 American Express gift card and a $150 Target gift card to be received within 60 days of installation. A few weeks later, we had the installation, which went relatively well.

After about 6 months and we hadn't received either of the promised gift cards, I started to call Verizon. Do you have any idea what it's like to try and get someone on the phone there? It's more than tough. I finally got a woman named Mrs. Brown on the phone who asked me to fax over the sales slip. I did. About 25 times over the next 6 months and for some reason, they would never receive it. Which generated another call to Mrs. Brown, another request to fax over the paperwork, another faxing of 5 fronts and backs of papers, and another result of nothing. At some point, Mrs. Brown transferred departments or left the company stopped taking my calls. The whole calling and faxing and refaxing and calling back had turned into almost a part time job for me, one where I had well earned the $250 in gift cards about 10 times over. To be honest, the whole cycle was so infuriating to deal with on a daily basis that I just wound up dropping it and forgetting the whole thing. 1 point for Verizon!

About six months ago, a salesperson from Cablevision came knocking at our door. We talked, I found out the "deal" he was offering and immediately called Verizon to let them know, hoping that they would save us from their competition and match the price. The woman on the phone expressed her "I'm sorry's" and told me how important we were as customers to Verizon, especially given the state of the economy. By the end of the conversation, this very nice woman wound up giving us enough discounts to beat the competitor's offered price by about $10/month. Perfect. 1 point for us!

Come last week, the honeymoon was over. I received that bill and read something that I was never told - the discounts we were given were to last for 6 months. 6 months that clearly were up, as our bill was now well over what we've been paying. In my mind I started figuring out how much time this was going to take, but thought it wouldn't be a big deal, another call to Verizon, another discussion about how they don't want to lose customers as clearly the economy is not much different than it was 6 months ago, they would reinstate the discount and we'd all be happy. Right?

Wrong. Really, really, super wrong. The rep I spoke to on the phone did not hesitate to tell me that there are no longer any promotions being offered that we were eligible for. I explained to her the situation that occurred 6 months ago and how at that time there were no promotions either but that Verizon doesn't like to lose customers so they were able to compromise and keep us on. The conversation was absolutely futile and in the end, I told her that although I am sure she is doing her job, I can't imagine that Verizon would want to lose a customer for $30/month and I'd like to talk to someone else that would be available.

After another 15 minutes some fantastic hold music, a supervisor gets on the phone. I quickly go through the same conversation with her and she tells me the same thing. "There are no promotions that you are eligible for." I'm still not quite sure what that means but I did voice the same reasoning I had used on the other rep, that I can't imagine how 6 months ago we were so important to Verizon and now they were willing to lose us for $30/month - customers who use every service they offer, phone, television, internet, cell phone service. So what did she say next?

Ready?

She said, "If you'd like, I can cancel your service for you right now, effective immediately so that you could switch to Cablevision."

Huh? I have to say that I didn't even know what to say. I managed to get out that I would have my husband call Verizon at a later date, thanks for your help.

As I hung up the phone, I was puzzled. Has Verizon recovered so well in this crazy economy that they train their customer service reps to offer to cancel service for their customers? Very interesting tactic, I hope it works well for them.

For us, we're looking at our different options but I will say that Verizon has been extremely disappointing. On the bright side, now that my level of loyalty to Verizon's has significantly decreased, iPhone here I come!