Bubbles and Lights

I used to imagine my firm's partnership vote in the year 2012. I imagined celebrations and champagne. When I joined the firm, I had one goal. I wanted my name in lights (Figuratively of course. I haven't had the nerve yet to pitch my concept of a new marquee for the front lobby.) There was a vote today, but I didn't make the ballot. I knew when I went part time that I was putting my career into a holding pattern. I agonized over the decision. And I thought I was okay with it. Until I wasn't. Because there was a vote, and I didn't make the ballot.

Work/life balance has been discussed, swept under the rug, and discussed again until the very mention of the idea makes me roll my eyes. Recently our bar journal tried to shed some new light and some new ideas. All of the articles except one were written by men. Secretly I believe that's because the mommy lawyers were up all night nursing babies and up all day taking care of all of the men in their lives. (In reality, I could have written an article too--life is about choices, and I chose to make a casserole instead of write an article. Or something like that). There is no balance. I'm not even sure there's a juggling act anymore.

At the end of the day, my career is in a holding pattern. And I'm not okay with that. But I will be. So today, I mourned a vote that could have been. I celebrated and did a little dance for a friend. And while my day didn't involve champagne, it did have bubbles (and twinkly lights too):

R.J. got his first pair of light-up shoes. He asked so politely that how could mommy say no?

P.S. GiGi turned 6 months old today. Time moves too fast to spend much time thinking about what could have been. What is is this: 

The soccer player

"Today's my first soccer game. I gonna put on my soccer blades [cleats] and my long socks, and you gonna say that's my boy!"

And that, is how my Saturday morning started. RJ played in his first soccer game. I was worried he would be intimidated. I was worried he would get hurt (and he did--a scraped knee--he toughed it out). He surprised me.

On the way to the game, he fell on the sidewalk and skinned his knee. So, we entered the soccer "fields" as a pair--his arms around my neck--a big boy all grown up and being carried by his mommy. It made my heart smile a little bit. The soccer "fields" were the grassy area of a city park roped off with orange cones and chalk. It's Oklahoma, and the wind was sweeping down the plains at about 40 miles an hour.

RJ didn't mind. He promptly picked out a pink ball (he's my son after all), and away he went to practice.

Game time, the whistle blew, and 10 three year olds endeavored to hit the right goal. RJ's coach is smart--he hangs a giraffe (whose name is GiGi) in the goal. My son promptly found a ball on the sidelines and drove it toward GiGi. Right goal. Wrong ball.

At one point his coach told him to "run for GiGi!" He ran straight to his baby sister.

But, at the end of the game, we discovered we have a soccer star. Compliments abounded: "He sure is fast. He aimed for the right goal and everything!" The standards for three-year old soccer are exactly as they should be: ground scrapingly low.

My baby is a soccer player (and he asks to be called the soccer player on many occasions):

Someday I may convert this to black and white. Or not. He really did love the pink ball. 

GiGi watched from the sidelines. I will have to have a discussion with her about putting her dress over her head one of these days. 

This is not the best picture of the game. But it captures the best moment of the game. He was joyful. Pure  and simple joy of a child that is unmatched. 

And when we got home, my big boy reminded me that he's my baby. He melted. And wanted to be rocked. He ate chicken nuggets wrapped in a quilt on the sofa. We snuggled. Pure and simple joy of a parent that is unmatched.

Two slices of white bread and cheese

I made a cheese sandwich this morning, and it made me want to cry a little bit. RJ has been in preschool since August, but just two days a week and for only two hours. Last week he told me he wanted to stay with Miss Lindy at "stay and play." Stay and play runs from 11:30 until 2:30--adding another three hours to the school day. RJ has staunchly resisted. "No, I just gonna go home and eat lunch with you," is the response I usually get. 

So, why the change of attitude?

A lunch box. Tin. Decorative. Lightening McQueen. I've been cleaning house (or rather, cramming broken crayons and the random cheese-it into cute decorative boxes in order to make the clutter look prettier--cleaning is not in my repertoire). RJ's lunch box came to the surface, and I immediately filled it with paintbrushes and glue sticks. "Hey, I have a lunch box!" he yelled at me. "I can go to stay and play!"  A lunch box? That's what has been holding him up? Apparently.

So this morning, I made a cheese sandwich (American cheese, white bread--RJ has simple tastes). He told me he didn't want it cut into train shapes, and it kind of broke my heart. But then he made sure he had his Tow 'Mater apple juice box, and I was happy  that he's still my little boy. He left me at his classroom door holding a soggy umbrella and a jacket that miraculously resurfaced in the lost and found box this morning.

My little RJ is getting big. He's growing up. He wants to spend time with his friends at stay and play. It makes me happy, and my heart feels warm (except when I remember that he's eating a cheese sandwich with his friends in the lunchroom today, and I want to cry just a little bit).

For now, I'll pretend to focus 100% on a receivership and foreclosure action and hope that the phone I have propped against my computer screen doesn't ring at lunch time. I hope that two slices of white bread and a piece of cheese in a Lightening McQueen lunchbox will be enough to get my little man through his day.