While today Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat was lost to the Republicans, it was a day of successful comings and goings for me and Gavin. Not a day of successful napping, sadly, but we did manage to leave the house two separate times, go somewhere in the car (me driving), get something accomplished, and make it home again.
First I dragged Gavin to an appointment in Bloomfield Hills, during which he was charming and adorable and only started to fuss a bit at the end. On the way home he fell asleep so I kept driving past the turn for our house on down Woodward. I knew he would be hungry when he woke up so I didn't want to get too far from home. I kept looking at his little sleeping face in my rearview mirror. Actually I was looking at a reflection of his little sleeping face in the mirror above his rear facing car seat. He really looks beautiful when he sleeps. I used to watch him in his crib when he was younger -- "newer" is maybe more appropriate -- and didn't stir as easily once he was asleep. He gets this little Mona Lisa smile on his face. I hope this is something he does into adulthood because I think chicks will dig it.
We made it home in time for me to heat him a bottle before he had a complete meltdown, but it was pretty close. He had cried himself red-faced and runny-nosed by the time I got the bottle in his mouth. Every time I go to feed him he always turns toward my breast first even if he's already seen the bottle. Needless to say, that's a no-go. And a bit frustrating for him. He's a boob man and would take that over a bottle any day. I'm sure part of him wonders why mine don't work. I think it's sweet though, in a way, maybe a little sad. It's like, "Sorry, Dude, I don't have what you want. This restaurant is take-out only. No dining in."
After I got a bottle into him I rushed him back into the car so we could make it to the unemployment office. It's actually not the unemployment office, it's Michigan Works, a place for people who are looking for jobs. In Michigan that's a lot of people. I am laid off right now and as part of the whole unemployment benefits thing I have to register at Michigan Works. In any case, I didn't even put a coat on Gavin. Just his little skull cap and I covered him with a big fuzzy blanket in the car. I whisked my jacketless little guy to the entrance of the MW place and was stopped by a sign that said, "No children allowed in the office." This posed a problem since I, in fact, had a child with me and I wasn't about to leave him in the car. I thought, "Oh well. If they ask me to leave I'll tell them he's my seeing eye child." But nobody said anything. Maybe they felt sorry for him because his mom is jobless and he doesn't even have a coat on in January.
Michigan Works is a sad place. A lot of folks out of work and a lot of folks who don't have it together. Almost everyone who approached the counter while I was there was missing crucial parts of their application, especially resumes. So many people didn't have one even though the Michigan Works Web site is very clear about that requirement. You can't register without one. The woman helping me was nice, but clearly tired and overworked. She gave me some forms to fill out and then took me over to a computer terminal where she had me type in my user name and ID#. She then went through and filled out the form on the screen herself as she asked me questions, as if she deals with so many people who can't use a computer she just assumes the worst about everyone. Gavin reached over and poked a few keys while she was entering my Social Security number and that screwed things up a bit. But not much. I have to say, Gavin was an angel there. I didn't bring any toys or anything to keep him occupied. After the keyboard incident I gave him my cell phone to suck on which satisfied him long enough so that the lady and I could finish the form. She then gave me a receipt that verified that I had actually shown up and registered. And then she pointed to the place on the form where I'd written my user name and ID# and said, "And here's your user name and ID#. Hang on to this in case you forget it." She turned to the next page and pointed out a workshop I could take, for free, about creating resumes and stuff. "Because last year's resume is not this year's resume," she said. I did not disclose that my resume was, in fact, created last year and I just plugged that info into their system. Because that's not what she meant. In any case, it was not an uplifting experience. And I would much rather be unemployed than work there.
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