That’s not normal!

This email was actually sent out at my company today (slightly altered to avoid my being sued – they are a little scary, obviously).  It just leaves me flabbergasted that anyone with an ounce of sense could actually fall for this line of bull, but maybe the massive amounts of legal-sounding gibberish would just confuse people enough to be swayed.  I’m just shocked at the gall of the company.  Maybe that just demonstrates my continuing naivate.

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Issue:

The Maryland General Assembly passed House Bill 40 during its recent legislative session that will require employers of 15 or more employees, who provide paid leave, to allow their employees to use their leave (sick, vacation or compensatory time) for the illness of a child, spouse or parent. Employees who earn more than one type of leave with pay may elect the type and amount of leave with pay to be used.

Background:

The bill is currently awaiting the Governor’s signature to become law.

Our Position:

While we support the laudable goal of supporting employees who need to provide care for immediate family members who are ill, there are some provisions listed below that will hurt our competitive advantage.

·       Restricts Employers in Issuing Equitable Corrective Action – The bill provides that an employer may not take any adverse employment action against an employee who exercises his or her rights under the Act. This would impose inequitable treatment of employees who are similarly situated. One employee who incurs absences not covered under the Act may be subject to corrective action for excessive absenteeism but another employee with an equal number of absences would receive no corrective action if those absences happen to be covered under the Act.  I don’t even get this one – it’s bad because they can’t punish people for missing work to take care of their sick kids?  We usually punish people for being sick, but we can’t punish people for their kids being sick?  Um, yeah, that sounds like a bad idea for the employees…

·      Contains Ambiguous Language About Leave – As the bill is drafted, it does not specifically require an employee to provide actual care to an immediate family member; only that an employer grant an employee paid leave simply for an immediately family member’s illness. This is regardless of whether the employee is required to provide any care to that family member.  What?  You mean people might lie about their kids being sick to take a day off?  How shocking!  Or maybe they’ll take the day off, and then just go to the movies while their sick kid sits at home alone, is that what they’re thinking?  It isn’t like people who want a day off don’t lie about being sick already, it just gives them a different lie to use. 

·      Creates an Employer Mandate – H.B. 40 would mandate how employers administer paid leave. This may force some employers to cease their paid sick leave or extended leave bank programs. Extended leave banks are banks into which unused paid leave rolls at the end of a year or after a certain maximum number of hours have been accrued. These banks serve as a type of insurance policy for the employee should s/he experience a catastrophic illness. If the law is changed to require employers to permit employees to access the paid leave in these banks anytime an immediate family member is ill, they may be depleted – thus defeating their original, intended purpose. God forbid people deplete their massive piles of sick leave, that they don’t get paid for if they leave the company or retire, that they can only use if they end up needing maternity leave or major surgery and are out for 3 months… yeah, you definitely want to save that.  Most of the employees at our company who have been here more than 5 years have at least 4 weeks of sick leave accrued – most have more than that. 

Action Needed:

If you agree with our position that this bill is a bad idea, please contact Governor Martin O’Malley and urge him to VETO House Bill 40.             

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Whew – I passed!  Is it wrong to celebrate passing your gestational diabetes test with 2 cherry pies at McDonalds?  I’m going to say no so I don’t have to feel guilty about it. 

Looks like I can expect a lot of pricks in my life on Monday – I failed my 1-hour glucose test, so I have to go in on Monday morning and have the 3-hour test done.  I am not looking forward to it, maybe that is obvious.  I know, it’s for the health of the baby and it’s better to know, but I REALLY don’t want it to be positive, and I’m going into that “maybe if I put it off taking the test it won’t be true” mode.  That works, right?  I’m sure my craving for cherry pie and chocolate and the massive growth of my monster baby is just a coincidence.

Oh crikey, how will I survive on a monitored diet… please please please let me pass this test…

Why now, when I’m pregnant and craving cheeseburgers night and day, do I have to be subjected to Jack in the Box commercials?  I LOVE Jack in the Box, I ate there a lot when I lived on the west coast, but they don’t even have them here in Northern Virginia!  The nearest one is in North Carolina, and even to satisfy my craving I’m not driving THAT far.  They are just taunting me with images of Ultimate Cheesburgers and curly fries.  Makes me want to take a paddle to Jack’s little ping-pong ball head.  Arrrr!  Someone has to stop them!

My daughter is a girly girl.  There, I said it.  It’s out there now, in the open.  My worst fear realized.  Ok, maybe not my WORST fear, but a fear nonetheless. 

 Before she was born, we talked about how we would raise her, and we knew we would try to raise her without any gender stereotypes.  Well, for the most part (hubby seemed to think that pink should factor in mightly in the nursery color scheme).  And because I don’t consider myself particularly girly, I thought by playing with puzzles and balls instead of toy vacuums, watching the Backyardigans instead of Dora, somehow she’d follow in my footsteps.  And although she loves those things, right now her favorites are:

·         The candy necklace she got for her birthday

·         The bead necklace someone gave her at the bowling alley

·         The bead bracelet my friend gave her

·         Any chapstick or lipsmacker (I know, but they taste good!) she finds in the house

·         Her baby doll (another gift from Grandma, complete with bottle and stroller)

·         Anything she can use as a purse 

I think this is a battle I’m going to lose.  Soon enough her hair will be long, and she’ll be asking for elaborate hairstyles and polished nails and glitter… it’s only a matter of time.  And I’ll be completely out of my element, saying “I have a brush and chapstick, what more do you need?  That’s all Mommy needs”.  Somehow I think that’s not going to cut it. 

At least the next one is a boy… I shouldn’t have to deal with this with him.  If I do, that’s a whole different problem.

We went grocery shopping yesterday, and when we got home my daughter started putting the groceries away.  In the refridgerator.  In the right places.  On the shelves, in the drawers.  I was stunned – I didn’t realize she even knew where things went!  She’s only two!  She did fine until it came to canned goods, and then she was stumped.  But how cool is that?  Not only is she helping, she’s doing in voluntarily!  She can’t really be related to us, there must have been a switch at the hospital.  That would explain her fixation on closing doors and washing things – she doesn’t get that from us, either. 

I’m just so amazed that she figured all that out on her own, I’m ready to send in her Mensa application right now.  Maybe I’m too easily impressed…

Step one of Project Nursery is done – I cleaned the garage!  This may not sound like much, but it was a huge chore.  But finally all the baby stuff is pulled out, the shelves in the garage have space cleared for all of hubby’s boxes of souvenier Star Wars pencil erasers and classic Xena posters.  Of course, the challenge now is to get it all out of “his” room and into the garage.  And of course, my daughter was “helping” me, mostly by grabbing every item of baby stuff I pulled out and getting so excited to see it again.  “What!  There’s my bouncy chair, I’ve been looking everywhere for that!  Thank god you found it.  Oh – and my infant carseat, I need that now, please put that in my room.  And these clothes, yes, I know they look too small for me, but I desperately need them, I’ll just take them with me…”.  I have a feeling she’ll be stealing a LOT of her baby brother’s things in the future. 

When your 2-year old daughter starts yelling and dancing around when “Don’t Need Nothing but a Good Time” comes on at the bowling alley, does that mean that she just loves to dance, or that it’s time to stop letting her watch Rock of Love with mommy?

How wrong would it be not NOT tell my mother if they move up my c-section date, so she doesn’t come?  She lives across the country, and hasn’t told me of any plans to come for the birth.  But that doesn’t mean she isn’t planning to:  she has her own agendas in her head and may be waiting until the last minute to spring it on me when I am weak and can’t argue.  The thing is, I love my mother.  But she makes me crazy:  she is completely self-absorbed, wants everything her way, and will crush you into a pulp if you disagree with her.  Even if you’ve just given birth and are lying doped-up in a hospital bed – a fact I learned when I gave birth to my daughter. 

This time around, I want the birth to be less stressful, and more of a quality family time with my husband, baby and daughter.  Husband thinks I’m crazy; that she’ll find out, that I secretly want her there, that the lying is wrong.  I think I’m the one giving birth, I should be allowed to have it be as stress-free as I can make it.  Who’s right?  And is it worth going to hell anyway if I’m wrong?  (yes)

I feel SO pregnant.  Like I could give birth any day now pregnant.  I can’t believe how huge I am already.  Fortunately (I guess) my OB agrees, so I’m getting extra sonos to monitor the baby’s size as we get closer.  So I went Friday to the sono, and it was great to see his little face and feet and hands so clearly!  And then they tell me they think he’s already over 3pounds – I’m only supposedly 28 weeks, 5 days along!  She says no, you’re closer to over 30 weeks.  She would move my due date up by 11 days!  Not that I’m complaining, exactly; I am SO ready for this baby to be born.  But what is going on?  Were they that wrong?  Or is this some sort of freakish growth rate, and I’ll be giving birth to a 16-pound baby?  Should I just name him David Banner and give up?  I’m more than a little freaked out right now.