Tag: Life

wfh, work, Job hunting

What Happened During My 1 Year of Job Hunting

littleshoeprincess

Last November, I shared that I had been laid off from my job. Here we are, 365+ days later, and here are my takeaways after one really long, tough year.

LinkedIn is like a bad ex-boyfriend.

I should stay away, but it’s like a drug. Here’s why:

  • The entire platform makes me feel badly about myself. Just when I’m feeling accomplished, LI lets me know I’m not good enough.
  • It gets my hopes up, then disappoints me. “You’d be a top applicant for this role!” Then: crickets.
  • It ghosts you. Literally, it’s filled with ghost jobs. Positions that have been open for 5+ months. Or reposted after 769 applications. Fake jobs. Required job posts to satisfy HR when they already have someone they are going to hire.

My favorite LinkedIn story is when the company that laid me off posted the same job I had just done at the company. LinkedIn’s assessment of a job I literally did:

Premium job match notification stating the match is medium and the profile and resume meet several required qualifications.

Medium! WTAF?

I developed a severe case of Imposter Syndrome.

I worked in advertising and marketing for 30 years. Started as a writer and worked my way up through promotions. I mentored young writers and led teams. I won awards! Maybe I wasn’t that good at my job after all?

Perhaps I know too much about one specific thing, when I should know a little about a lot? It seems every content writer position reads like 17 jobs all rolled into one (accompanied by one low salary).

I love to write. I completed a Graduate Program in writing at Harvard! I’ve written my whole life. Maybe I’m a shitty writer after all?

I question every life choice I have made up to this point.

Looking back (and forward), should I have chosen a completely different profession? One where there are not literally 10,000 of me searching for employment? Am I unemployable? What am I even good at? Is planning family vacations my only skill? Am I too old to do something new? What do I even want to do?

I deciphered more of what I don’t want rather than what I DO want.

Over the last year, my priorities changed. While it was an ego punch to not be working, it was a blessing in disguise, as my family needed me and I was able to be there, at all times of the day, with no commitments getting in the way. For that, I am forever grateful.

Reading through job descriptions and ‘return to work’ mandate articles, I have determined the following:

  1. I want to work remotely.
  2. I enjoy the flexible schedule of freelance work.
  3. If I apply to a role that’s full time (and permanent), I must REALLY want the job.

A real life example of job hunting

Late last year, I found a job that interested me. My experience matched the qualifications. The salary was lower than I was making, but I liked the company enough to look past that. It was remote. It looked good on paper.

To protect all parties involved, we’ll call this company ABC.

Brace yourself, here are the details.

September: I find a job posting for a remote role at ABC that fits my background extremely well. It’s not an agency, it’s on the brand side (score!). I have a friend who works at this company! (double score! this is now the only way you will ever, ever hear about your resume). She gives me her employee referral link, and I apply.

October: Receive an email from the recruiting team asking me to share times that work for my calendar to set up a panel interview with five team members. This feels fast, I haven’t even spoken to the recruiters yet. But it was a referral, so LFG! This is scheduled for the following week.

Interview in late October: Video interview with the team lead and four team members. Great interview, no weird silences, good vibes. Crushed the Q&A.

Next day: I send thank you emails to the team. (Oh, no one sends thank you emails anymore? Call me old fashioned.)

Two weeks later: I receive an email from the recruiting team (same two people, again) in regards to the position for which I just interviewed, with a list of questions to answer.
These questions included:
• Where do I live?
• Have I ever worked at ABC before?
• What are my salary expectations?
• Why do I want to work there?

These all felt like questions I should have received prior to my interview but, whatever. I answer them and hit SEND.

Next day: I receive an email from the recruiting team asking me for my availability for a panel interview with the team. The interview is set up with the exact same five people I had met with two weeks earlier. I let the recruiters know this, and they cancel the interview. (I imagine their internal Slack messages said something like, “Oh shit, this girl already interviewed.”

Two weeks later: I am told that I’m moving to the next round of the interview process and would be meeting with the Director of the department. (Finally!) I schedule the interview for the very next day to accommodate the Director’s travel schedule the following week.

Next day (still November!): I interview with the Director and it goes very well. I walk her through examples in my portfolio. I drop my knowledge about retail and concepting and big ideas. She is impressed.

A week later (December): I send a follow up email to the recruiting team to understand where they are in the process, and what next steps. might be. No response. 🦗

Next day: my friend who works at ABC sends a note to the recruiting team following up about me. 🦗🦗🦗

Two weeks later: I receive a form letter in the middle of the night telling me that I would not be moving forward in the interview process for this position at ABC. No detail, no personalization, just a form email saying to keep my profile updated, and offering me career guidance. (Um, I’d like to offer some career guidance to the Abbott and Costello recruiting team who can’t keep their candidates straight).

Next day: I emailed the recruiters I had been working with to thank them for the opportunity (because you have to sell your soul in order to get a job these days – “thanks for not knowing who I am and being bad at your job!”). I also ask for feedback to help me in my job search. No response yet, but it’s only been 11 months, so there’s still time.

I’m not mad I didn’t get the job, I’m extremely disheartened by the entire process.

First, I was a referral from a current employee, which should count for something. Someone was vouching for me!

Second, the recruiters didn’t realize they were asking a candidate who already interviewed questions so they could set up an interview? Really???

Third, the lack of communication and the poor-taste form rejection email after two rounds of interviews was very disappointing.

If this is what it’s like getting a job these days, I’m not sure I want one!

NaBloPoMo, parents, hospital

What Hospitals Are Not Telling You

littleshoeprincess
Woman wearing glasses and a white N95 mask, photographed indoors

Sadly, Mr. KK and I have spent quite a bit of time in Emergency Departments and Hospitals with our parents over the last year. In doing so, we have discovered that there is myriad of things that we are not being told, and that are not common knowledge.

We have had some hard lessons this year; I’m sharing them with you in the hopes that you can be prepared if you ever find yourself at the hospital. (And I hope you do not.)

There are very few “emergencies” in the emergency room. I’m not belittling life-threatening injuries or episodes, but I would say 90% of the people in the emergency room are there because it was the only game in town. If you need medical assistance at 9pm, there is literally nowhere else for you to go. Once you remove all the people who are having a true emergency room, the place just turns into one big waiting room for a doctor’s appointment. So you wait. And wait. Time stands still in the ER. It’s like being a casino – there are no windows and you somehow spent a boatload of money. When you first arrive they may fuss over you, order a zillion tests, check on you. But after a while, you realize that “The doctor will be by soon” could mean 3 hours.

You need to stay for 3 days. Like hotels, hospitals have a minimum night stay for some things. If the hospital is recommending any type of rehab – physical or occupational – in order for health insurance to cover your rehab stay, you must have completed 3 nights in the hospital. But there’s a catch! Your time in the ER does not count. The clock starts ticking once you are admitted into a hospital bed in a room. One time, my mother was being discharged from the ER with an order for live-in rehab at a local facility.
Me: “Will insurance cover her stay?”
Nurse: “No, since you mother was only in the ER and not admitted.” (I challenge the use of the word “only” here.)
Me: “Ok, then can you admit her so she can get her 3 days in so this can be covered?”
Nurse: “No, I’m sorry, there is no medical reason for us to hold her here. She’s being discharged.”

Inpatient and Outpatient are extremely different entities. When you are admitted to the hospital, you are considered “inpatient”. When you come to a part of the hospital for an appointment, that is considered “outpatient”. These are two very different things.

Here’s how we found this out:

My father-in-law had been admitted to the hospital on a Wednesday and was being monitored and undergoing testing. Separately, he had a doctor’s appointment coming up on Friday in another part of the hospital for immunotherapy. On Thursday, we asked the staff what the plan would be to get him from his hospital bed down to his appointment the following afternoon, since he was having trouble walking.

Staff: “Ohhhh. Well, he can’t go to that appointment while he’s here in the hospital.”
Us: “WTFDYM? He’s literally already AT the hospital. We just need to get him downstairs.”
Staff: “That’s an outpatient appointment. He’s inpatient right now in the hospital.”
Us: “So what you’re saying is that even though he is physically IN the hospital, and just 7 floors above where he needs to be tomorrow afternoon, he cannot attend his immunotherapy appointment at the hospital because he is in the hospital?”

(We ended up pushing for him to be discharged on Friday morning so that he would not miss his immunotherapy appointment. But that would not have happened if we did not advocate for him.)

There is such a thing as a safety sitter. I didn’t find this one out until yesterday, but this is 100% someone we could have used during our hospital stays. Basically, if you are worried that your loved one might try and get out of bed (when they shouldn’t be) or might try and do something else they shouldn’t be doing, and you cannot be at their bedside 24/7 to watch over them or you do not want to be the person the patient starts to hate because you keep telling them “no”, you can ask the hospital for a safety sitter. This person will sit with the patient to ensure that they don’t do anything crazy to get themselves hurt. The hospital will NEVER suggest this person to you. They will see you there at the bedside, pleading with the patient to stay put or they will fall, and just assume you have things under control. If you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it.

There is no ONE PERSON who knows what’s going on. Between shift changes and schedule rotations, you could be in the hospital for 3 days and never see the same nurse or doctor twice. It’s hard not to feel like you’re being passed around like a bad cold. You are trying to be the holder of all the knowledge, and find yourself repeating the patient’s history 347 times a day. Did you know you can request a meeting with the full care team to make a care plan? ASK FOR IT.

Nurses are the heroes. You probably already knew this, but it’s the nurses that you’ll remember from your hospital visit. For me, it was the kind nurse who got me a second chair, a blanket, and a warm ginger ale the night I stayed overnight in the hallway of the ER with my mother.

Everything about being at a hospital is stressful. First, no one wants to be there. Second, it’s filled with germs and sick people. Third, if you are the patient, you are scared you’re dying; if you are the caregiver, you are worried your loved one is dying. Lastly, the lighting is just awful; no amount of makeup can fix it.

If you find yourself at the hospital – and I hope you don’t – speak up for yourself. Ask questions. Then ask more questions. Request all the services. Be a nuisance. When they say, “I’ll get the doctor for you” and it’s been 2 hours, go find them and ask again.

Learn from my experiences; your loved one is lucky to have you.

blogging about life as I know it
NaBloPoMo, getting old, sleep, Age, writing

10 Ways to Know You Are a “Woman of a Certain Age”

littleshoeprincess

There you are, cruising along in your early 40s, things are looking pretty good.

You’re at the top of your career.
You’re getting a solid 8 hours of sleep a night.
You jump at the chance to go out to dinner at 9pm.

And then, something shifts. It’s subtle at first. Until one day you wake up – slowly, you seem to have hurt your back somehow while sleeping – and you are more barely surviving than young and thriving.

As someone who still believes that 1990 was twenty years ago, this transition was grueling. I felt like a stranger in my own body. I was restless. And slightly ragey.

Here are the 10 ways to know if you’ve become a “woman of a certain age”. Which is a polite way of saying: Girl, you old.

  1. Grandma hobbies. You become acutely aware of extracurriculars, with a sudden interested in mahjong, pickleball, or knitting.
  2. Book clubs. You want one, preferably with wine and no drama.
  3. 6pm is the new 8pm dinner reservation. Home in jammies by 9pm.
  4. Exercising the word “no”. You have never felt more librated saying no to people, to plans, to dumb ideas. (Without giving a reason!)
  5. Oh, the creams and ointments! Your social feed is one continuous ad for moisturizers for crow’s feet and crepey neck skin.
  6. You’re the protein police. You will never have enough. Ever.
  7. Wide awake at 3am. You used to be really good at sleeping but now it eludes you.
  8. Caring for kids AND parents.
  9. A squishy middle.
  10. You just want to retire to a beach house and read, drink wine, and eat good food. (This one may be just me)

How am I the same person who used to START TO GET READY TO GO OUT at 9pm? Dress in my jeans and nice top while pre-gaming cheap beer. Forgo a coat in 27 degree weather. Stand in line to get in, only to stand in line at the bar. Humid air, sticky floors. And then a nebulous way to get home after you couldn’t flag a cab for 30 minutes at 2am. (Sometimes getting in cars with almost strangers to get home – wait, did we actually invent Uber before Uber did?)

Just writing that paragraph made me exhausted. Because girl, I AM old.

Computer, technology, writing

AI Said I’m Not For Everyone

littleshoeprincess

I’m BACK!
(Daylight Savings and the first day of November blogging in the same day? Too much excitement.)

Hot take: it’s ok to have a love/hate relationship with AI.

In the last year, AI has deemed my resume and skills not a fit for numerous (and I mean, numerous) jobs; has created an abundance of creative flyers and ads for businesses that literally burn my corneas; and has ruined my love of – and perfectly executed use of– the em dash.

I had a job interview conducted by AI, and was constantly cut off mid-sentence by the robotic voice repeating everything I had said back to me before going on to ask me the next question.

I was completing a case study for another job opportunity, and was asked to disclose if and how I used AI to answer the questions.

And every piece of content I review for my clients that’s written by their marketing agencies, I have to rewrite so it sounds human.

And now, AI has an opinion on me and my blog.

I did a quick Google of my blog for funsies. This is what came up:

Can we analyze this for a hot second?

  • Humorous, honest, and vulnerable. Agree.
  • 800 blog posts! This is true, I found them at the end of last year.
  • Capturing her life as a DINK! This one made me laugh.
  • “She is currently compiling these past posts into a narrative for a future novel.” Even AI is pressuring me to write my novel.
  • “Pack of dogs” hahahaha
  • “The posts feature situational comedy about her family, like her husband doing unnecessary yard work right before hosting Thanksgiving.” THIS IS GOLD. See that, Mr. KK? Even AI knows you blow leaves!
  • Mid-life markers. Oh, AI, if you only knew.

So of course I asked AI if it was a good blog.

Hey, I’m bingeable! And clutter-free!

(Also, AI is really hammering it home that Mr. KK obsessively mows the lawn right before a holiday.)

Look at all this nice things that AI is saying about me. I’m raw and authentic! AI thinks I’m funny! Reading my writing feels like reading an email from an old friend. Aw, AI, I’m blushing!

And then, AI gets real.

Hold on a minute, AI.

I have plenty of recipes in my blog! Cocktails! Stuffed artichokes!

And you want life hacks? How about how to eat out with a toddler?

Also, “If you miss the early 2010s era of blogging…” Ouch.

So it seems if you prefer curated and educational content, you should move along, I’m not the blog for you.

However, if you’re interested in reading about how life is sometimes messy, how middle school is a transformer machine, ridiculous job hunting stories, and my intimate POV on our broken healthcare system, follow along all month long!

Entertaining, holiday, Mr. KK, thanksgiving

Ridiculous things men do before hosting a party

littleshoeprincess


If you don’t have inside jokes with your partner, are you even married?

There’s a term I use often in our house: Blowing Leaves. This is term I coined for Mr. KK, on a Thanksgiving morning about a decade ago (when I first wrote about this). It perfectly describes the different mentalities between moi and the hubs when it comes to “getting ready” for a holiday.

I saw this on social media today, and it inspired me to re-share this post, as it’s one of my favorites.

(remember this was 10 years ago. RIP Vito the Wonder Dog)

It was Thanksgiving morning, I had been up early, halving a million pounds of Brussels sprouts, slicing and baking Ina Garten’s Parmesan crackers, and assembling a veggie tray. There were still quite a few things to be done – not to mention me showering and drying my hair, which could take forever in itself – and with only two hours left, even if we didn’t stop to pee or drink something, we’d be cutting it close.

I was piling raw broccoli onto the glass platter when my husband walked by me dressed in windy pants, wool socks, a flannel coat and a winter hat. He was carrying gloves and headed towards the door to the garage.

“Where are you going?” I asked him. He was clearly dressed for the outdoors. 

Was he running out to get something we forgot to buy? 

Are the stores even open today?

“I’m going outside to blow leaves. The yard and patio are covered,” he replied, sensing nothing wrong with this answer, while we were T minus 2 hours until our guests arrived. “I should only be a half hour or so.” And with that, he was gone. Minutes later, I heard the blower start up and saw leaves swirling in a million directions as he made his way across the patio. Vito was on his feet immediately, barking at what he thought was a crazy stranger on our property. Because who else would be outside doing yard work on a holiday mere hours before 12 people were coming over? 

Only a madman, obviously.

The definition of Blowing Leaves is this: starting a task that bears no relevance whatsoever on the situation at hand, and having said task take up WAY too much time and energy, both of which you do not have.

Maybe your husband’s ‘blowing leaves’ is just one more quick video game before you’re due at a friend’s wedding. Or maybe it’s trying to fix that leaky pipe under the sink that he needs just 10 minutes for as you’re walking out the door to meet your parents for dinner. Or maybe, he’s scrolling Instagram while you’re multi-tasking like a bad ass.

No matter what the activity, every husband blows leaves.

And that’s why we love them.

May your week be easy, and the leaves stay on the trees.

Life, memoir, memories, NaBloPoMo, writing

I Uncovered 800 Blog Posts

littleshoeprincess

Before I began writing this blog in 2018, I had two other blogs on a now-defunct hosting platform.

I started my first blog in 2007, while at work. My schedule as a writer was so unpredictable, I would sometimes find myself waiting on art directors to design, supervisors to approve, or clients to give feedback. During those lulls, I would write…about anything and everything. The first time I was ma’amed. The girl at the gym who blew dried her hair wearing only a parka. The time our channels were getting crossed and demonic dialog from X-rated shows would blare from our TV. You know, regular life stuff. I wrote that blog until 2013, about 600 posts in total.

For reasons I can’t remember now, I started a new blog in 2014. This was the year that Little Mister was born, so maybe I wanted to shed my childless leash on life writing for more mature subject matter? This blog had about 200 posts, which took me right up until I bought my domain on WordPress and started THIS blog.

The first blog was easy to find – I remembered the URL immediately. Oh, to scroll through my life as a thirty-something DINK (look it up if you need to!). The snark! The unlimited time on my hands every weekend. (You guys, there were weekends when I did nothing. Like, I woke up and thought, ‘What should I do today? nobody is counting on me, I have nowhere to be and nothing to do. today is all about ME’!)

The second blog was harder to find. I could not remember the URL to save my life. This could be because much of that blog was written when Little Mister was a baby and toddler and I was tired all the time with zero energy. Unlike now, where I’m tired most of the time and have 10% energy.

Lying in bed this morning – awake at 4:30am with my arm pins and needles because I was sleeping awkwardly around Bruno, who was sharing my pillow and snoring loudly – I had an epiphany on how to find my old blog. And while I will not reveal my secrets, I FOUDN IT. There it was, all the honesty of becoming a mom, raising a baby, going back to work, and losing a little of myself in the process. 200 more posts.

But what reading those posts did for me, was remind me that I am a pretty good writer. And that being laid off – which had nothing to do with my performance – HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY PERFORMANCE. My blogs are funny, honest, and vulnerable. They are, well, me.

What does this mean? Well, it means that I’m going to take a day and read through all 800 posts and just enjoy them. There are blogs about my grandparents, who have all passed away. Funny stories about our parents. Anecdotes of Little Mister pooping himself so badly as a baby that I had to cut off his onesie.

Then, I’m going to pick out the posts that fit the narrative of my future novel, and start putting them into a document. And shaping them into a story. And hopefully get one step closer to putting something meaningful together.

Age, getting old, Life

Progressive Glasses Changed My Life

littleshoeprincess

A little more than a decade ago, I begrudgingly accepted the fact that I no longer had the eyesight of a 25 year old. I bought my first pair of reading glasses.

And I’ll admit, they changed my life. First of all, I could SEE – my texts, the computer screen, even the food on my plate looked sharp and more appetizing. Second, I liked the way I looked with glasses, even furthering my resemblance to my celebrity doppelgänger Julia Louis-Dreyfus (in her Elaine Benes days).

The love affair started slowly. One pair at home, a pair to leave at work. Then, more. Tortoise shell. Teal with wooden arms. Oversized. Sunglasses! I was obsessed with finding stores that had a Peepers kiosk. Book stores. Whole Foods. I even found readers at a gift shop in the Charlotte airport. I was obsessed. They were the perfect accessory – they always fit, and they could match your outfits and your moods.

Even though the glasses were classified as “readers” I wore them all the time – cooking, watching TV, living life. It was just easier to leave them on my face. I climbed my way from a 1.25 magnification all the way up to a 2.75 over the course of a decade. My computer and phone screens were crystal clear, but the world around me was now fuzzy. In the car, the GPS was sharp, the road was soft. My readers spent half their time on my face and the other half on my head (inevitably falling off if I bent to far in any direction). So I schlepped to the eye doctor.

“Have I killed my eyes by wearing these all the time? Am I making myself blind?” I asked. Like, did I do this to myself, this dependency on glasses?

The doctor gave me that look doctors give you when you ask a ridiculous medical question, or tell them that you used Dr. Google for a diagnosis. “That is a myth. You cannot make your eyes worse by wearing glasses, just as you cannot make your child’s feet grow by buying them bigger shoes.”

Fair point.

I walked out with a prescription for progressive glasses, feeling 80 years old. However, I was determined to see life clearly again, so off to Warby Parker I went.

Two weeks later, these babies came in the mail:

The Esme. Photo: Warby Parker

I had heard horror stores about progressive lenses being hard to get used to, people literally missing steps and falling, and incredible headaches. The first few hours, I did have a headache. And then, it just went away. I surprised myself with how quickly I adjusted to the different lens strengths. After two days, I never wanted to take them off.

I. Could. See.

Things I didn’t realize I was doing in a fuzzy haze until I put these glasses one:

  • Chopping/slicing/mincing and everything else needed to prepare dinner. How I didn’t lose a finger is beyond me!
  • Driving. I knew it was a little fuzzy, but driving with these glasses honestly made me wonder how I was driving around before!
  • Watching TV. I used to take my readers off for TV because it was so far away. But apparently I needed just a lower strength to see the TV clearly because I was once again able to read text messages on people’s phones on the screen.
  • Everything else in life was just…clearer and better.

I feel very progressive in my progressives! And I have even convinced Mr. KK to also get progressive glasses because I don’t want to be 80 years old by myself in this house.

Life, Little Mister, Mr. KK, sleep

I Haven’t Had a Good Night’s Sleep Since 2003

littleshoeprincess

We bought our Little Mister a kid-friendly “smart” watch for his birthday, in an effort to help him become more aware of time (and the passage of time, and how 30 minutes on an iPad feels different than 30 minutes of folding laundry), and his daily activity level.

Last night, he asked to wear his watch to bed so he could “track his sleep”. When he emerged from his shower this morning, he popped his watch on the charger.

“So….” I said, eyeing him expectantly, “how did you sleep?”

He deftly hit a few buttons. “Eight hours and forty four minutes!”

Almost nine hours! Oh, to be a kid again. The last time I slept for that long was…probably never? But we have been training Little Mister to be a champion sleeper and apparently it has paid off.

Somewhere, under this pile of stuffed animals, is Little Mister and
our dog Rocco and potentially our dog Bruno as well.

Way back when, as I was gently placing Little Mister into his crib on the last night of my maternity leave, I whispered into his ear, “You need to sleep through the entire night”, then I kissed his head and backed out of his room.

Guess what? He slept through the night from that day forward. I believe it was because I willed it to be true, because I could not even begin to think about waking up for work every day after having been up multiple times during the night.

Up until that point, Little Mister had already been a great sleeper. In his early days, newly home from the hospital, he would sleep in 5 hours stretches of time (which, ironically, sometimes now passes as a full night’s sleep for me).

It’s no wonder that he sometimes clocks 9, 10 or 12 hours of sleep (I have had to wake him up on more than one occasion on a weekend as the clock neared 11am!)

I was never a late sleeper, and Lord knows I’m a morning person and not a night owl. As a child, I would wake up on Saturday mornings WAY before the morning cartoons started, quietly playing in my room until my parents woke up. In high school, I never needed an alarm to wake up for school. In college, well, let’s just I would lie awake on my bottom bunk waiting to hear someone in our house stirring so I could pounce on them to start the day.

I know how important sleep is for my body. Because I can’t sleep late, I try and go to sleep earlier on the front end to get some quality hours in before midnight. Almost every morning, my eyes open close to 5am. (It was 4am a few weeks back when we changed the clocks because apparently I have the sleep patterns of a toddler). Every morning Mr. KK wakes up to see my face lit up by my phone or Kindle, eagerly waiting for someone to talk to.

At this point I’m so used to being away so early. I do some of my best online shopping before the sun comes up.

Since I wasn’t a late sleeprer, I needed to ensure that I was getting quality sleep over quantity. Mr. KK and I were waking up sore every morning. I was crooked when I first would stand up, hobbling to the bathroom until I could stand up straight. We knew it was our mattress.

So a few years ago, Mr. KK and I bought a Sleep Number bed. And it changed our lives. I can control the firmness of my side of the bed with my phone, AND it tracks my sleep for me. Now I wake up (pain free, I might add) and I can see how restless I was, when I was in deep sleep, and when I got out of bed. And while I’m not sleeping any later, I am sleeping better. We have a friendly competition going of who got the better sleep score the night before. We are both tied for best score ever of 95; but for me that was only after traveling 11 straight days for work, sleeping like shit in hotel rooms, and coming home while Mr. KK was traveling and having the bed all to myself (plus 2 dogs). That night I got quality AND quantity.

I am so incredibly jealous of how well my child sleeps. Not only can he sleep late, he can stay up late! On Friday nights we’ll all be on the couch watching TV and before I know it, I’m waking up and it’s 11:34pm and Little Mister is sitting there wide eyed, holding the remote, watching a show.

And now that he is older, he wants to go to bed later. Which is the opposite of me, who wants to go to bed the minute the dinner dishes are in the dishwasher. Especially because I have no problem falling asleep within 3 minutes of climbing into bed. There are nights where Mr. KK and I can’t wait to go to sleep, and we’re ready to hop in bed the minute Little Mister turns out his lights. Those are the nights that LM loses his mind, yelling, “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO BED AT THE SAME TIME!”

To which I reply, “So go to bed earlier.”

When I heard Little Mister slept for almost nine hours, I’m not ashamed to admit that I was a little jealous. What does it feel like to sleep that long? Do you wake up feeling rested? Does your back hurt because you’ve been lying down for so long? I have so many questions.

I average about 6 hours of “good” sleep a night. The other hour I’m in bed is me tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable around the two dogs who are bed hogs, and thinking. Making my mental lists of what appointments need to be made, what we need at the store, what time the holiday concert is, whether or not I need to adjust Little Mister’s dismissal plan. Not to mention what’s for dinner, what’s going into lunches and when was the last time that the little dog Lucy pooped.

All this to say: I’m incredibly jealous of Little Mister’s carefree life that enables him to sleep late. And that it’s barely 9pm right now and I can’t keep my eyes open!

Here’s to the tired Mamas out there. I see you.

Family

My Dad Was An Army Secretary

littleshoeprincess

In honor of Veterans’ Day, I thought I’d share the story of my dad in the army.

Until the day she moved out of her apartment, my grandmother kept an 8″x10″ black and white photo of my dad in his army uniform on her armoire. In it, he look at 14 years old, crew cut, clean shaven, hat and deer-in-headlights look on his face. She was so proud of him for serving in the army, you would have thought he won the war.

The other day, Little Mister was surprised to find out that my dad – his grandfather – was a veteran.

“What did Grandpa do in the army?” he asked me.

And with a straight face I let him in on the long-running joke I have with my dad: “He was a secretary.”

True story.

And I have been joking with him about it for as long as I can remember. Mr. KK’s dad was stationed on a submarine, working as an electrician on a boat, while my dad sat behind a desk and answered phones.

Apparently, sometime between when he arrived at boot camp and was trying to avoid getting the shots necessary to actually be in the army, someone found out that my dad could type.

I imagine it went something like this:

My dad – in line for some ebola or rabies vaccine at the army base – joking with his buddies. A Captain or a General is walking up and down the lines of newbies, picking out the ones who weren’t going to make it and the ones who would rise in the ranks. Maybe one of them muttered, “Man, I wish we had someone who could take notes really neatly.”

Upon hearing this, my dad’s ears perk up and his arm shoots into the air. “Sir, I can type 80 words a minute, Sir!”

Upon hearing this, the Grand Puba plucks my dad out of line. “Boy, can you type without mistakes? Can I count on you to take notes and memos?”

And just like that, my dad avoided combat and got himself a desk job. Pretty smart if you ask me. It’s like getting the best job at the worst place to work; it’s not great to be there, but you could be getting shot at.

At family gatherings, I will tease my dad, mimicking him typing on typewriter, and tapping the point of a pen to his tongue to start writing a memo. I’ll yell out, “You! Take an emergency memo! The troops are moving in! STOP. We must prepare. STOP.” and then we all laugh and laugh.

But jokes aside, I’m proud that both my dad is a veteran. Even if his greatest weapon was Wite Out.

hospital, parents

My Dad Slept Next to a Fugative

littleshoeprincess

Staying true to the tagline on this blog of “You can’t make this sh*t up”, get a load of this story.

A few Fridays ago, my dad had routine kidney stone surgery. This is when they give you propofol (aka: the good stuff) and put you to sleep and then go in with a laser and blast the kidney stones to smithereens. (I can’t tell you how excited I am to have used the word ‘smithereens’ on my blog!)

My dad has had this surgery before, it’s in and out of the hospital on the same day, then go home and rest and don’t lift anything heavy for a week. And this is exactly what we did. However, the weekend following the surgery, my dad developed a fever and the chills and was lethargic, and on Monday the morning the nurse told him, “Go to the Emergency Room!” And so Uber KK went and picked up Mom and Dad, and drove back to the hospital, this time to the ER. Blessedly, there was no one there and he was taken back immediately.

My dad was in his street clothes on a gurney, parked in the hallway due to no open curtained rooms. It’s possible my dad was one of the only sober person being treated. The guy behind him was hacking up a lung and throwing up on his gurney. A woman was screaming for hematology and ripping all the gloves out of the boxes that hung on the wall and throwing them all over the floor. Someone else kept a steady tempo of yelling “Nurse!” for a solid hour. During all of this they poked and prodded my dad, taking urine and blood and his temperature until finally they admitted him with an infection. (No medical training over here, but hearing his symptoms when I picked him up that morning, I diagnosed him with the same thing).

When they wheeled my dad into the room, there was already someone else there in the bed by the window. He was about thirty or so, walking with a limp and cane. His music was blaring and he was singing loudly. If he walked by us once, he walked by us a thousand times – grabbing pudding out of the floor fridge, handing out at the nurses’ station, visiting other patients on the floor.

“This guy is like the mayor,” my dad commented as our roommate hobbled by.

The next morning Uber KK picked up mom and then we headed down for another full day of bedside sitting at the hospital. I was reliving my childhood sick day dreams: glued to the TV watching Let’s Make a Deal and The Price is Right (RIP Bob), plus more hours of news in one morning and afternoon than I have consumed in the last 20 years.

A nurse came to check on our roommate, and – with those flimsy curtains doing nothing to block sound – I heard her ask: “Did you break your parole?”

Say what?!?!

Not long after this exchange, three hulking men in street clothes with multiple guns strapped to their legs and waists came into our little hospital room.

“Excuse us, ma’am,” one of them said to me. “We’re just going to move that gentleman to another room.”

It was like we were in a COPS episode. At once both of my parents started talking.

“SHHHHHHHH!” I commanded, waving at them to be quiet, my eyes bulging at them. “I can’t hear!” I whispered.

The cops moved the curtain aside and smiled at the roommate. “I’m going to have to take your phone,” the first one said.

A second officer glided in, ordered the roommate to lay down, and handcuffed him to the bed.

This was really happening!

With little fanfare, besides multiple men with giant guns and the arrival of a uniformed police officer, they starting wheeling our roommate out of the room. I didn’t know where to look! Do I pretend to be into the muted episode of Judge Judy? Do I bury my face in my phone? Do I look him dead in the eye…no definitely not that one!

“I need to finish my antibiotics,” he said to one of the officers. “Oh you will,” the cop replied. “And when you’re done, you can go back to jail.”

When my dad’s nurse came in to check on him, she peeked on the other side of the curtain to see if he was gone.

“See all this entertainment I provided for you?” she joked, taking my dad’s temperature.

I asked the obvious question: “He has been walking around this floor for two days, why did they now handcuff him to the bed?”

The nurse said matter-of-factly: “Oh, that’s because they just found out where he was.”

Oh.

“They came in here to arrest him. That’s what they just did. Now he’s in a private room on the other side of the floor.” She finished up with my dad. “They’ll be in soon to clean, someone else is moving in here.”

I looked at my dad. “We have to get you out of here,” I said. And then the news came on. Again.