Every Little Wonder

I know I’m super lucky to be able to escape the cubicle and make good money and spend time with my crazy adorable baby toddler. But since moving to Sacramento (and in with my parents) and starting to work from home full-time, I have…accomplished absolutely nothing. I think I figured that working from home would give me even more delicious time to waste away online, but my google reader situation is out of control (oh, three months behind or so), I go weeks without remembering what a twitter is, and I don’t even know where to start blogging again.

Spending less time online would be great if I were at least doing something productive or fun or…anything. Anything at all. The sad truth is that working from home has made my crazy ADD magpie-esque level of time-management skills really, really obvious. I feel a bit like I’m drowning all the time despite the fact that I am doing absolutely nothing.

Sure, it’s hard to get things done living out of a small room in my parent’s house with all my belongings packed away in storage. And yeah, it’s obviously hard to be productive with a toddler—and not just any toddler but one who spends 90% of the day bouncing off the walls like he’s just snorted a few lines of coke in the bathroom while I wasn’t looking. (‘drank a bottle of coke’ would probably have been a more appropriate analogy, I know, but we’re two hours past time and he won’t sit still for longer than two seconds and oh my goodness, child, why won’t you just lay down already ). But excuses aside, my to-do list is multiplying daily and I’m not even attempting to pretend to make a dent in it.

I know I need a babysitter/nanny/mother’s helper/whatever, but that’s not really going to help until I get some ADD meds that actually work. Paying someone to watch my kid so I can squirrel away hours looking at pinterest and watching whatever Vin Diesel movie is available OnDemand is probably not the smartest use of my money.

1. The House:

They’ve finally started building it. (!!!) We walked around all excited, and then realized that our backyard is small. Like, it’s silly how small it is. I think I’ve had larger balconies in old apartments. We knew it was going to be tiny because the lots are small, but…dude. It’s okay though—we’ll make the most of the space we have and keep it cozy and cute. I didn’t want to buy a lawnmower anyway.

2. Nap Time:
is going splendidly. Yes, I know, I’ve totally jinxed it now, but I can’t help it. I’ve finally got Ezra on a one-nap-a-day-right-after-lunch schedule and he falls asleep in a minute or two. I’m not spending two or three hours every day trying to force him down. This is epic. I’m an idiot for even mentioning it.

3. Bed Time:
Entirely different story. Ezra hates bedtime and wants nothing to do with it. Period. The end. Now let’s go play with trains.

4. Boo Hoo:
Cris is still working/living in SF and I feel like a sad single mom. There have been so! many! interviews, and there are a few positions they are just dangling in front of our faces, torturing us with while they take their sweet, sweet time making final decisions. So we wait and fret and make sad faces at each other over the phone and try not to think about how much we are spending on gas for the weekly/semiweekly trips between San Francisco and Sacramento.

5. WAHM:
It’s hard to be productive while working at home with a very, shall we say energetic toddler. But I spent the last two days in the office and managed to be almost equally unproductive, so this is more of a me thing than a baby thing. Specifically, a me-with-ADHD thing. I should maybe do something about that. After looking at this shiny thing over there.

6. Food:
I’m over it. I’m tired of thinking about it, planning it, cooking it, fighting to get the kiddo to eat it. My parents eating habits are so different from my own, Ezra doesn’t like anything that isn’t cheese or yogurt or crackers, and I have no real space for storing and cooking meals here, and no breaks from the baby to prepare a nice meal even if I had the energy. I want the human equivalent of cat food. I want to go grab a 90lb bag of human chow at Costco and dump in the kitchen and just be done with food for the month. Taco-flavored human chow.

7. Future Plans:
Within the next year, I want to a) lose 60 lbs b) have another baby c) get married. There is no graceful way to make all these things happen concurrently, so…I will probably spend the next year lounging around, listening to Mumford & Sons, and growing increasingly agitated. Hey, at least it’s a plan!

So hey, turns out I have ADD. Over the past few weeks, a random confluence of in-person conversations, news articles, and internet stumbling-around let to me thinking there’s a chance I have something that I previously only associated with hyperactive 12-year-old boys. So I scheduled an appointment with one of them psychologist people.

After talking to the doctor a bit, she said she was going to ask me a series of questions and I had to answer with yes or no only—no maybes allowed. I thought it was going to be hard. I’m an indecisive waffler. Having to answer a yes/no question is like a form of torture for me. My brain goes crazy running though a million different hypothetical situations and well what if this and but what about that…until I end up passed out and drooling on the floor.

And then she started asking the questions.

Yes. Yes. YES.

Every single question she asked got an immediate and emphatic yes from me. No waffling required. She put the questionnaire away and gave a little chuckle: Well, that seems pretty clear-cut!

So…yeah. ADD. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. I don’t want to make a big deal of something that is certainly Not A Big Deal, but… does this mean I’m not just the laziest person in the world? The worst procrastinator ever? The biggest underachiever in the history of the forever? Is it possible that I can become the kind of person who… does things? Someone who actually Gets Shit Done? And if so… AM I STILL ME?!?!!!? WHO AM I???

It’s all making me feel vaguely conflicted and unsettled.

It’s all making me need a nap.