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Eek!

Posted by hilary on February 8th, 2010

Apparently I am afraid of mice.

But if I am allowed to elaborate, I might suggest that I am rather Not Pleased With Having a Mouse in My Apartment. I have glimpsed numerous mice while staying at a farmhouse in Vermont, and one can hear the mice scrambling through the walls of my parents’ rural home. But roaming through my apartment in Queens? Not Okay.
A few weeks ago my son, age 2.75, announced, “I saw a mouse” while pointing to the radiator in the kitchen. Neither Mr. Apparently nor I saw any mouse and we chalked it up to toddler imagination (knowing the odds were decent that this was willful self-deception on our collective part). But last Wednesday night I walked into the kitchen to discover a little brown mouse scrambling furiously up the back of the stove. I calmly put down the plant I had intended to water, walked to the bathroom where my son was being bathed, and announced, “There’s a mouse in the kitchen.” By the time Mr. A arrived to investigate, our little visitor had disappeared.
Mr. A used the top rhetorical skills in his considerable arsenal to convince me that this very small rodent was here by accident and didn’t want to be in my kitchen any more than I wanted him (the mouse) there. I remained squicked-out and tense. And then we went on vacation for four days. leaving explicit instructions with the building’s management to let the exterminator into our apartment and deal with the little…pest. This did not happen.*
I returned to find mouse droppings on my counter, and I flipped out. You can rest assured that my kitchen has since been thoroughly disinfected, phone calls made and plans set afoot. Holes will be plugged and humane traps will be set. By tomorrow my home should be a fully-mouseproof zone.
But strangest of all to me? My own reaction. I didn’t exactly get up on a chair and flail my arms about, but I’ve pretty much accomplished the 2010 version.
My cat, by the way, is useless.
*Isn’t it required that people who live in apartment buildings provide a set of keys to the building management? I have always done so, and I’ve always known that in the case of an emergency – fire or massive water leak or something along those lines – the the super has the right to enter my apartment. Apparently in my building they are in possession of a scant handful of keys, a fact I first learned during the Great Upstairs Water Leak of 2009. The management company, when asked, just shrugged it off with “people aren’t always very cooperative.”

Toddler Math, or Let’s Play in the Snow

Posted by hilary on February 3rd, 2010

The walk from our apartment to preschool is five blocks. A healthy adult can make this walk in five minutes, or perhaps six if one observes all traffic signals. A healthy adult walking with a curious toddler, however, can make this walk in fifteen minutes at best, and that’s if the lights cooperate, as we stop for every one. Short legs plus an affinity for asking questions about each truck, bird and sound makes for a chilly journey in winter weather. So usually we take the stroller to school. And let’s be honest: this is for the boy’s mother’s comfort. He’s happy to play in the cold.
This morning, however, we woke to a rare bit of snow.
And so I bundled us both up and we walked to school.

Plus, I Have to Make My Own Coffee

Posted by hilary on February 2nd, 2010

Old news, but new to me: according to Salary.com, if stay-at-home mothers were paid the equivalent of their professional counterparts in child care, cleaning, cooking, and all of the other tasks demanded of the role, we would earn ~$134,121 annually. That number represents 91.6 hours each week. Let’s be more precise here and remove the laundry machine operator and (most of) van driver from my particular equation – that’s still more hours than I ever spent as a corporate strategist. That said, I enjoy my colleagues and the dress code is more relaxed.



Who’s a Bug?

Posted by hilary on August 17th, 2007

Brian refers to Adrian as “The Bug.” The first few times I heard this I found it a little strange. After all, he’s an adorable little baby, not an insect. I know babies who are called “panda” and “the mouse,” both of which are sweet little monikers. Perhaps Brian sensed my lack of enthusiasm on this topic, because he pointed out that the nickname is short for “snugglebug,” which itself is short for “snug as a bug in a rug.” My mother used to ask me if I was snug as a bug in a rug, and so now I’m grooving on “The Bug.”

Four Months and One Day

Posted by hilary on August 3rd, 2007

Four months ago right now, I was in a wheelchair heading to the NICU to feed my son for the first time. Tonight I danced with him in the park, in the company of our new mommy-daddy-baby friends, to the swingin’ sounds of a Frank Sinatra tribute band. Lots has happened in four months, but I’ve been just a little too busy to document it properly. My goal is to change that, to catch up, and to keep track of the growth and development of the sweetest little boy in Sunnyside.

(Apologies to my new-mom friends with other sweet little boys. You’d say the same thing if it were your blog.)

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