God Bless You, Steve Jobs

I don't know about you, but Steve Jobs has had a permanent impact on my life - all of it good. My first Mac was a Macintosh SE, with a 20 Mb hard drive, 800K floppy disk drive, and 1 Mb of RAM. It cost me two thousand dollars. Nineteen years later, I am on my eighth Macintosh and my third iPod. I even had a Newton (please bring the Newton back, Steve - please!).
It struck me how omnipresent my iPod has become. I won't do a simple errand without it - not even run to the store for milk. My laptop goes everywhere I go. I simply need to be able to do my work anywhere. Without all this technology, I don't think I'd be able to do my job, go to school, and be a mom to a toddler and a newborn.
Before you say "yeah, but my Windoze XP machine does all that!", I have to use a Windoze XP machine at work. Strike that - I have to use the XP machine for one or two custom applications that simply do not run on a Mac. Everything else I've pretty much migrated to my Mac. Calendars, addresses, databases, documents, spreadsheets, music, videos, photos, everything is on my Mac.
But my iPod is more than entertainment. Thanks to my iPod, I actually delivered my daughter without any medical intervention. Some might say it worked too well, since I gave birth so fast, I didn't have time to even go to the hospital, nor did I wait for anyone to show up to assist me with the birth! But that's another story. My iPod keeps me sane at work, where I have to deal with a PeeCee that crashes quite regularly. My iPod is extremely important when my son is driving me to the point where I'm about to lose it - I quickly put my iPod on and play my "emergency" playlist, designed to calm me when I'm on the verge of throttling a headstrong two year old. And finally, my iPod plays music for my son, who dances to the Curious George songs, as well as pretty much every Disney soundtrack out there. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for the iTunes Music store, which finally made purchasing music affordable again (RIAA: eat my shorts!).
And to my latest addiction: videocasts, or vodcasts. With a toddler, newborn, full time job, and part time college, I don't have time to waste in front of the television at a specified time. It was so ridiculous, we cut our cable. But now, I can purchase for a REASONABLE price, episodes of Battlestar Galactica and watch them when I have time (usually when I sneak away to do laundry and hide so the kids can't find me! Shhhh!). Or I catch up on the news vodcasts (hey ABC - you got me watching ABCNews thanks to your podcasts! CBS and NBC had better get on the stick!)
But best of all, you saved my sanity. I can rest assured that I'm not the only nutball mom - I simply open my bookmarked websites in tabs and presto! I have all my daily webpages to read - mostly blogs of my friends who are also crazy-busy. Or I can remind myself that I'm not alone by playing my Manic Mommies podcast ("for moms trying to do it all!"). It doesn't matter where I am, because it all automatically backs up to my .mac account, and I don't have to worry about a thing. The only thing I've been resisting is purchasing sudoku for my iPod. I'm afraid I'll never sleep again if I put that particular part of mental cocaine on my iPod. I'm sure in a moment of weakness I'll download it all too soon, and all hopes of sleeping more than 4 hours a night will be lost.
I'm waiting on pins and needles for the iPhone, and I already want to have your love-child.
Off to bed. Let me just grab my iPod and start my "sleep" playlist....

Mother's Day and Mother-In-Laws

I was reading the May issue of American Baby. It has a lot of little anecdotes about Mothers in law, as well as some article and suggestions on dealing with mothers in law.
The first thing I thought was: "I wish I had these problems." My mother in law died 7 days after I married my husband. While I'm certain there are many people out there that envy my position, it's definitely not an enviable one.
Consider this: When the grandparents come over, you get a break. It might not seem like one, but you do. You get to take a shower maybe, or perhaps get the opportunity to cook a dinner without a child (or two!) screaming for your attention. While you might not agree with how your mother in law discusses some topics, or disagree with her choice of gifts, discipline, whatever, you *have* that interaction. I only have a void. No break, no grandma, nobody to complain about, nobody to argue with. Those arguments are simply two passionate, loving women disagreeing about the details of raising loved ones.
Mother's Day is coming up. I got my mother a card from me, and one from my children. I was in the local Hallmark, feeling like I missed a card somewhere. I don't buy Mother's Day cards for my Mother in law anymore. Now, we bring flowers to her grave.
So all you married ladies out there: Go ahead an argue with your mother in law. At least you're communicating with her on some level. The dead don't communicate. They also don't buy gifts for your children that you think are a complete waste. They don't come over so you can go to yoga class. They don't bring a casserole dish of food you love (or hate). They don't give your children hugs and kisses. You might think it's great that they don't belittle or criticize, but that benefit comes at much too high a price.

The blur that is the to-do list

It's unbelievable how difficult it is to cross anything off the to-do list. Children are just hell on getting things done.
My husband and I laugh about how we used to complain before we had kids that we never had time to do anything. Now we wish we had one tenth the amount of time we had back then!
Alas, that to-do list looms ever larger. We worked our butts off today, yard work, laundry, dishes, straightening, you name it. And yet, not a thing got crossed off that to-do list.
The entire day wasn't a total loss though - I managed to get in some yoga, and actually got an uninterrupted hot shower after doing yoga!