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Thursday, January 19, 2006

 

Three hundred sixty five days of the year

I was trying to explain something to Mike last night and he only vaguely understood what I was talking about. Let me unload explain this phenomenon to you wonderful people out there in Interspace. Send me a confirmation if you know what I'm talking about.

The year is filling up.

There's this thing that happens when you are involved in activities, whether they are work, volunteering, or kid related. Events get scheduled, sometimes many months in advance. You are bombarded with pieces of paper and emails that contain important information and DATES YOU MUST NOT FORGET. You realize that you no longer can live without a calendar. Wait, make that a calendaring system.

So you pick out a calendaring system the next time you're at Target buying two jumbo packs of size 5 diapers and you are amazed at how many blank little boxes the calendar contains. It's so new! So pretty! So unused!

Then you start filling in all of the little boxes. First, you neatly fill them in using color-coordinated pens, but eventually you end up sloppily filling them in using the wand from an old mascara. The pieces of paper, the emails, and the IMPORTANT DATES are coming at you fast and furious. You make no promises without first consulting your calendar.

Once in awhile you imagine losing your calendaring system and the thought throws you into a panic. You know that if you were smart, you would make a back-up calendar but you don't have time to be smart. Instead, you take a large Sharpie and write on the outside "Property of Mary Tsao. Reward if found!" At least, that's what I wrote. You should write your own name.

This year I again made the rewarding-yet-foolish decision to be the newsletter editor for my Mothers Club. I have an unpaid army of nine women who work on this newsletter with me. We produce the newsletter according to a strict schedule. Just like a real magazine! My gosh, it's fun to have deadline pressure when you've got one toddler hanging on one leg and another toddler hanging on the other. Lucky for me, I can type with my hands. And I've put duct tape over the button on my hard drive, which, if pressed by a sticky little finger, could mean the loss of hours of edits (although I've learned to be a compulsive saver, truly OCD about it) as well as the chance that one more child is leaving the warmth of a suburban home for the chill of an orphanage. But I'm kidding. Maybe.

So the other day I got out my calendar and filled in the various monthly deadlines for the newsletter. While I was at it, I added important birthdays (mine, of course) as well as anniversaries and other important events for which I've already booked hotel rooms (BlogHer '06! It's time to get your room!). My weekends are filling up fast, but since most of my weekend events are childfree, I'm certainly not complaining. About that.

But then there's Emily's 3rd birthday in June, which means I want her to start preschool in September. Which means I need to start looking for a preschool, like, NOW. In our neck of the woods, preschools fill up fast and there are ridiculous hoops like interviews and waiting lists and the signing of your name in blood. It's insane, but the alternative is *gasp!* no preschool, and we all know that if she doesn't attend preschool we may as well spend her college money now on coke and whores because she won't be needing it.

Yikes, I think my blood sugar just plummeted.

Anyway, when I got to December I felt as though I had just lived the entire year. My head hurt and I was hungover from celebrating one-too-many birthdays and anniversaries and from soothing a crying little girl who didn't want to go to preschool. BlogHer '06 was fun, though.

If you can relate to this pain, let me know. When my husband told me last night that he didn't get it because he "just didn't live his life that way," I wanted to throw my calendar at him. Except that I can't risk hurting this thing. My calendar, that is.