Athena laughed for the first time today. I was changing her diaper after returning from Children's dinner at my friends house and Morella was on the bed futzing around. Athena had laughed while looking up at two of her toys hanging down above her changing station.

About an hour later, after Morella was put to bed and she was fussing, she stopped to explore my face with her hand. It was so sweet to feel those moist little fingers bat against my face and see her stare at me in concentration. Oh she also kept trying to touch the keyboard on my phone when I was texting Tim. At first I brushed her hand away because I thought it was an accident, but then pudgey little fingers kept coming back. I really love when babies explore your face -- it's so intimate. I also love baby laughs and look forward to hearing the next one. I wonder what she will find so funny then.

I am looking forward to sharing the whole bed with her tonight. Right now she is laying smack in the middle. I am next Tim's side of the bed with the nightstand and light. Soon I will have to plug in the laptop, though really I should take it as a sign to go to bed.

I havne't gotten out of thinking of "before daylight saving's time it would be almost 11 -- totally past time for bed." I have been thinking like that all day which is dangerous. Okay, not that dangerous but kind of annoying.

Speaking of annoying. I finally canceled our cable. Tim has been after me about dropping it for months. To be honest we have both struggled with whether or not we should keep it over the past year because we barely watch it. Sure we have spells were we watch it but then we also have weeks in between where we don't. The final straw was in the mail today. It was a notice that rates were going up $6 dollars come December.

Let's just say that Charter was not happy to see me go. Previous experience told me that I should use the fact that I often get misidentified as Tim over the phone because of my low voice. Usually I get very annoyed by it, but this time I used it to my advantage. This is the kind of thing that I know they would have pulled the old "Well we can't cancel your cable until the name of the account holder calls and cancels personally along with a sample of DNA to prove it's actual who they say it is." I provided all the necessary info -- phone number, birthday, last four digits of the social security number. The first dude asked me if I was Tim. I said yes and quickly changed the subject. He caught on and later called me Ma'am right before transferring me to someone who was more aggressive than he was in trying to keep me.

I was put on hold for five minutes. During that five minutes Athena woke up from her nap and started howling. Morella sat in front of the computer and started whining at me to play something for her. I occupied her with some yogabba and imagination movers while I dealt with Kathy. Athena continued her howling despite getting a diaper change and being picked up. So much so that every other sentence on each of our parts had to be repeated.

"Hello my name is Kathy, how can I help you?"
"I got a notice in the mail today saying that my rates were going to increase come December and I would like to cancel our cable now," I said.
"May I have your account number?" she replied.
I gave her our phone number. It's what the first dude wanted.
"WAHHHHHHH!" added Athena.
"No that isn't it," she said.
I gave her the account number stated on the letter.
"No that isn't it either. It's a 17 digit number," she said.
"WAHHHHHHH!"

I went to the office and dug out the most recent bill and read aloud to her fast and loud the 17 digit number on top of the screen. She already had it folks. There was no way she could have heard me over that screaming.

"So you are saying that you want to cancel your cable because of a few extra bucks a month?"

"Yep" I replied.
"WAHHHHHHH" hollered Athena.
"Are you aware of the promotions that came with the letter?"
"What?" I asked.
""Are you aware of the promotions that came with the letter?"
"No, the only thing was the letter telling me I would be paying more come December, besides that fact I want to cancel the cable," I replied.
"Blah blah blah only $24.99 for the first six months..." she droned on.
"WAHHHHHH WAHHHHHHHH!" added Athena.
"Well then how are you going to watch TV?" she asked.
None of your business I thought. "Computer."
"What?" she asked.
"WAHHHHH!"
"Computer!" I yelled.
"Well are you aware that blah blah blah blah," she continued.
"Madam, for the third time, I want to cancel my cable," I stated. I was starting to feel a little stressed out from all the complaining going on around me.
"WAHHHH!" pointed out Athena. I did manage however, to calm her down at that point by sticking a breast in her mouth.
"When do you want to cancel it?" she asked after a pause.
"When is the end of this billing cycle?" I asked.
"You are paid up through this Thursday," she answered.
"Then I want to cancel it on Thursday," I replied.
"Okkkkaaaayyyy" she drew out. "On Thursday a Charter van will come to your house and turn off your cable."
"Great!" I said.
"Then your TV screen will be black," she warned.
"That's just wonderful!" I said. Come on, does she really think we don't have other options? My god. "Thank you and good bye."

So there we have it folks. I have only three more days of cable. I have now saved us an additional $65 dollars a month. Now I need to get to the Y to cancel that and save us another $70 a month so that I can use that moola to pay for some quality me time in the form of a mother's helper. I met one gal on Saturday and liked her. I meet the next one tomorrow morning. Then, if all goes well, I'll have a four hour block of time each week that will eventually become mine alone. I hope it's money well spent.

Day one of Single Parenting week is complete. Tomorrow the cavalry will hopefully show up. Today was made possible by the morning help from Tim, my neighbor Emily, and my friend over the hill Hilary who provided dinner and children for Morella to play with before bed time. Thank goodness for peeps!