My 30th birthday is coming up in just a few days, and of course, because it's me, I am mooning around and reflecting on it. But hey, it wouldn't be me if I weren't introspecting all over the place.
(On a related side note, I am trying to write a novel, but the main character, instead of doing very much, keeps ending up cooking meals and getting lost in thought while she stirs the stew, considering one side of the dilemma, then the other, then the first side again... I guess every novel really is an autobiography in one way or the other ;D)
Really, though, there is something about 30 that catches my attention, because to me it means something more than the other birthdays leading up to this one. I think it is a combination of factors, but really what it comes down to is a feeling that my "practice run" is over. I had a realization when I was in my mid 20s, furiously finishing my schooling, getting married, starting out in all of these life endeavors, that my life was sort of like a big bowl full of Jell-O that has been in the fridge for about half an hour. It was starting to set, and it was time to start sticking in all the banana slices and marshmallows or whatever random things you like to imagine in your theoretical Jell-O mold. I had a certain number of years to keep poking things into the Jell-O mold of my life, but at a certain point, the mold sets, and there you have your Jell-O, too late for any additions. I feel like at 30, the Jell-O has finally set. I am not likely to stuff any more book-learning in my brain at this point, and who I am and what I want is a lot more steady than it used to be. This I see as a very good thing. I am pretty happy with the Jell-O these days.
I have my minor issues with the upcoming milestone, most prominent being my total failure to reach my weight loss goal for my birthday, by about a 25-pound margin. So that stinks. I wanted to be non-overweight so that when I look back at pictures of my 30th birthday party, I will not cringe and wish I had passed up the cake and pasta a few more times before then. I tried, guys, but when we had Constant Sickness in the house from the middle of January until about three days ago, my exercise schedule just completely died, and I don't have time to resurrect it before next Saturday. I eat very carefully for 5 days, then get exhausted and stay up all night grading essays and eating Oreos, then it takes me a few days to get back on track... and so on for about the past 12 weeks. I have lost some weight, but instead of 30 pounds, it's more like 6 pounds. And I have gained and lost the same 5 pounds twice now, and desperately trying not to gain it back yet again. Fridays in Lent are hard because the only things I can eat are carbs and cheese and boiled eggs, and that isn't very healthy. I still have another 15 pounds before I start feeling comfortable in my own skin and not trying to hide from cameras. But I am closer than I have been for a couple of years, so that's good. From now until the party I will meditate on the beauty that is still there in spite of the chunkiness. Maybe watch some more Adele videos (she's gorgeous in spite of or maybe because of being a bit thick) or take some virtual tours through museums of Baroque art. Anything, really, to feel better about the thighs. (sighs)
Other than that, though, it has been a sobering but not really unpleasant journey, mentally psyching myself to walk over this threshold. To me it boils down to the idea that at 30, life is really underway. It isn't the practice round, I don't get a free pass for being a dumbass just because I am in my 20s and don't know any better, I have gray hair and the fine lines start, and the currency I have been hoarding in my metaphorical Hello Kitty wallet from the second grade is outgrowing its usefulness. All the compliments from people that I have painstakingly memorized to tell myself on a rainy day, the days of being so prodigiously young that I was remarkable when I did anything at all, just because other people my age were still delivering pizza for a living, all of that assurance of being somehow remarkable is over. That sounds so terribly conceited when I write it out that way, but hopefully my friends will understand what I mean. It is embarrassing to me to look back on the way I used to see the world, but at the same time I can't deny it. Now, I am a suburban mom who drives an SUV and does laundry without ceasing; I made my first school lunch just this morning. I bought life insurance. I blend into the landscape a little bit more. When I was newly minted as a mom, this blending into the background really bothered me, and I admit that it is still not my favorite thing in the world, but it matters less, because to the people who really matter in my life, I still have distinguishing qualities. Norah says my name with her fat little lips, and her growling baby voice. Chris curls up next to me on the couch and says "I love you so much," totally unprompted. Ben says that I really know him, and it matters to him that I do.
Turning 30 means that I stop collecting life credits in my wallet, and instead, I start to spend them. I lavish my energy on my kids, I literally spend myself serving them, giving things up to be a better mom. I get older, I look older, and my posterity depends on what I do today. So I'm getting out that little girl wallet and I am telling my 20 year-old self, that shadow I see in the mirror sometimes, to calm down and quit worrying. Everything turns out fine. You find a husband, and he's a good one. You have beautiful children. You finish school. You live in a house with a yard. You don't stay young or beautiful or thin, but you stay good, and in fact, you get even better.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Steam Heat
So to continue my nerdy housewifely-type posts, the Happy Nashes just invested in an upright steam cleaner for the carpet (built-in heater!). It has changed my life. I cleaned some of the carpet already, and I don't know if it's just coincidence but everyone's allergies have calmed down considerably after a full week of sniffly, snotty torture. I always like developments that justify me spending money on new toys ;D
But now, a serious note. This thing threatens to advance me into full-fledged OCD (unless you are from my insurance company, in which case, I have no previous nor current diagnosis of any OCD or OCD-related mental illness, nor any symptoms thereof, nor do I know anyone with such symptoms nor have I ever read a work of fiction or nonfiction glorifying or otherwise justifying the presence of such an illness in one or more individuals). It is just so pleasing to clean carpet stains that have bothered me every time I saw them, it's like defeating an enemy. I talk to them as they disappear under the wide, heated, steaming path of the Bissell ProHeat Pet... "Take that! Ha HA! You thought you were invincible but you are DYING A QUICK AND SILENT DEATH haHAAAAA!" Let's say I get a little bit too involved in housecleaning sometimes. So, I want to put all my furniture in the front yard and painstakingly steam clean every inch of my house, while singing They Might Be Giants songs in my head, ignoring everything around me -- people, events, nighttime, daytime, mealtime....
But of course I don't. I keep it under control. But man, having the power to clean instead of quietly seethe at the unmoveable stains under my feet... it's fantastic. Thank you, Bissell. Thank you. :')
But now, a serious note. This thing threatens to advance me into full-fledged OCD (unless you are from my insurance company, in which case, I have no previous nor current diagnosis of any OCD or OCD-related mental illness, nor any symptoms thereof, nor do I know anyone with such symptoms nor have I ever read a work of fiction or nonfiction glorifying or otherwise justifying the presence of such an illness in one or more individuals). It is just so pleasing to clean carpet stains that have bothered me every time I saw them, it's like defeating an enemy. I talk to them as they disappear under the wide, heated, steaming path of the Bissell ProHeat Pet... "Take that! Ha HA! You thought you were invincible but you are DYING A QUICK AND SILENT DEATH haHAAAAA!" Let's say I get a little bit too involved in housecleaning sometimes. So, I want to put all my furniture in the front yard and painstakingly steam clean every inch of my house, while singing They Might Be Giants songs in my head, ignoring everything around me -- people, events, nighttime, daytime, mealtime....
But of course I don't. I keep it under control. But man, having the power to clean instead of quietly seethe at the unmoveable stains under my feet... it's fantastic. Thank you, Bissell. Thank you. :')
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Mother? or Zookeeper? You Decide.
7:45pm. Chris is in the bath. Norah, who has been in the jumparoo for 10 minutes, is now suffering the neglect and moaning and laying her head so far back that she can see the room upside down. She hangs her arms out dramatically to the side. Howl, howl, howl. I am soooooo alone, she says.
So I pick her up and put her in the Bumbo chair right outside the bathroom door, so I can wash Chris's hair and watch her at the same time, and she can see us, so she will stop howling. I put some toys in her reach and scrub Chris's hair with some soap.
It is time to rinse, and I can't find the usual rinse cup, a nifty little device with rubber on one side so that you can rinse the kids' hair without pouring water in their faces. So I improvise, cupping my hand to stop the water and pouring a bucketful over his head to rinse out the shampoo. The first bucketful works, but the second time, of course, some water gets in his eyes, and with it, some shampoo.
Drama ensues. Shrieks, moans, declarations of being in dire straits, My eyes! My eyes! he says. I look around for the towel and find nothing.
Just then, I hear a clunking sound. Norah, who has been quiet (only I couldn't hear the quietness because of the dramatic soap-in-eyes incident) got a little too ambitious and was reaching for a toy all the way across the hall. As I was pouring soap into Chris's innocent eyes, she threw off her balance, and *plunk*, over she went, Bumbo chair and all.
Meanwhile, Chris continues screaming; he is sure his eyes are melting out of his head from the Sweet Apple baby wash that trickled in due to my negligence. He gets on the phone to contact the attorney who advertises for Wrongful Injury cases during Judge Judy. He is surprisingly good at doing paperwork in the bath. I don't have much time to make things right.
Meanwhile, in the hallway, Norah has not let her setback slow down her ambition. The Bumbo chair is still stuck to her butt and she is whimpering from bumping her head, but unbowed, she continues toward the toy, crawling like an army recruit but with the Bumbo chair riding along like a turtle shell on her back. Must... get... toy...
At this point I am standing in the bathroom doorway, laughing my head off, trying to decide whether to move Norah, Bumbo shell and all, from in front of the closet door where she is crawling, so that I can get a towel to get the water out of Chris's eyes before he files suit, or to bend down and check Norah out for bumps and scratches sustained during the great Bumbo Tip-Over-Clunk of 2011.
I don't really remember what happened next. I think I nudged the Norah-turtle out of the way with my foot and got a towel to dry Chris's eyes, and then removed Norah to a safer location while I got Chris dressed for bed.
Sometimes I feel more like a zookeeper or a lion tamer than a mom. But hey, those are exciting careers too! ;D
So I pick her up and put her in the Bumbo chair right outside the bathroom door, so I can wash Chris's hair and watch her at the same time, and she can see us, so she will stop howling. I put some toys in her reach and scrub Chris's hair with some soap.
It is time to rinse, and I can't find the usual rinse cup, a nifty little device with rubber on one side so that you can rinse the kids' hair without pouring water in their faces. So I improvise, cupping my hand to stop the water and pouring a bucketful over his head to rinse out the shampoo. The first bucketful works, but the second time, of course, some water gets in his eyes, and with it, some shampoo.
Drama ensues. Shrieks, moans, declarations of being in dire straits, My eyes! My eyes! he says. I look around for the towel and find nothing.
Just then, I hear a clunking sound. Norah, who has been quiet (only I couldn't hear the quietness because of the dramatic soap-in-eyes incident) got a little too ambitious and was reaching for a toy all the way across the hall. As I was pouring soap into Chris's innocent eyes, she threw off her balance, and *plunk*, over she went, Bumbo chair and all.
Meanwhile, Chris continues screaming; he is sure his eyes are melting out of his head from the Sweet Apple baby wash that trickled in due to my negligence. He gets on the phone to contact the attorney who advertises for Wrongful Injury cases during Judge Judy. He is surprisingly good at doing paperwork in the bath. I don't have much time to make things right.
Meanwhile, in the hallway, Norah has not let her setback slow down her ambition. The Bumbo chair is still stuck to her butt and she is whimpering from bumping her head, but unbowed, she continues toward the toy, crawling like an army recruit but with the Bumbo chair riding along like a turtle shell on her back. Must... get... toy...
At this point I am standing in the bathroom doorway, laughing my head off, trying to decide whether to move Norah, Bumbo shell and all, from in front of the closet door where she is crawling, so that I can get a towel to get the water out of Chris's eyes before he files suit, or to bend down and check Norah out for bumps and scratches sustained during the great Bumbo Tip-Over-Clunk of 2011.
I don't really remember what happened next. I think I nudged the Norah-turtle out of the way with my foot and got a towel to dry Chris's eyes, and then removed Norah to a safer location while I got Chris dressed for bed.
Sometimes I feel more like a zookeeper or a lion tamer than a mom. But hey, those are exciting careers too! ;D
Monday, February 28, 2011
Big Amie
Before I had kids I was a big fan of the HBO series Big Love. I thought it was compellingly odd, and having traveled to Utah and seen the polygamist compounds there, and of course being obsessed with utopian societies and strange cults of all kinds, I found it interesting.
Recently we reopened our Netflix disc account and I ordered up the next part of the story following what I had previously seen -- the first part of Season 3. Just as when I watched "My So-Called Life" as an adult (total buzzkill, by the way, when you start to sympathize with Angela's parents and want to grab Jordan Catalano by his ear and throw him out the front door...) I have a very different perspective on the show.
I know that my opinions about a years-old season of a show that few people watch anyway really does not amount to a hill of beans, but I thought it was interesting, so here goes. This is what struck me this time around:
1. Bill is such a jerk! He loves to tell his wives to just "handle it" when he has made some sort of terrible social mess. While I am sure that the delegation skills required to maintain a polygamous household would push anyone to their limits, in a real marriage you cannot just tell your spouse you don't want to hear anything about the problems that affect both of you. It's ridiculous, and I don't know of any functional husband-wife pairs who do things that way. It's one thing for one person to handle one aspect of the household, and the other person another aspect, but it's different to just say, "Oh, handle it, and quit whining." I have yet to mow our lawn, but when Ben comes in after doing it, I will at least get him a cold drink and give him a pass on watching the kids solo until he gets over the heat stroke. I am the one who does my teaching work, but Ben will still listen to me when I have a problem and help me figure out a solution.
2. Bill and the three wives are always having these long, drawn-out, uninterrupted adult conversations in the early evening hours. Let me say, in our house we have one husband, one wife, and two kids, and it seems at times that the house is bursting with people, everyone needing something. In the Henrickson household, there are at least three babies, and five or six other kids besides. There is no way that all of the adults sitting calmly over the remains of barbecued chicken in the backyard would be able to carry on an entire conversation about the future of the store expansion, or some complicated legal situation, without at least one or two babies screaming and needing their mothers.
3. The Henricksons remind me of Dr. Quinn in that they are really plain old modern WASPy pop culture-infused, fashionable, politically correct people wearing a little hats that say "ooh except I'm different." Dr. Quinn was supposedly from the frontier, although she didn't represent the 1870s worldview really at all, and the Henricksons have twee little labels on their foreheads that say "I'm a polygamist! (giggle)" From what I know about religious zeal, it is much more likely that in real life a family like them would be a lot more private, a lot less "hip," much angrier, and certainly a lot less fashionable. Polygamy is more of a "schtick" for the show than it is central to who the characters themselves actually are. In fact, they all seem untouched by it except for Nicki. She is the only character that I really buy. Of course, that could be because she is played by the faaaabulous Chloe Sevigny. I honestly think they would have done better with the show if they put aside the religious aspect of the polygamy and had some sort of situation in which they had an open marriage between all of them, for everyone's mutual benefit, but the kicker is... it's in Utah! And the husband left the fundamentalist Mormon church! So he's living out his destiny, even though he's doing everything he can to rebel against it! Kapow! It might be more about them differentiating themselves from the compound polygamists rather than sort of throwing their lot in with the rest.
4. The women all just have way too damn much free time. Like I said before, I have two lovely kids, and every second of my day is circumscribed by caring for them. The show is forever showing this wife or that just roaming around the mall, or driving all by herself from one place to the next, or doing her nails, or something. Really?? I have two kids and I rarely do those things. If I had eight or ten kids in my charge? Forget it. I would run out to Walmart at 11pm for milk and diapers once a week and that would be it. I wouldn't even wear matching shoes half the time.
5. Motherhood has not seemed to affect these women. This is certainly my own experience writing itself all over what I watch, but I have a hard time watching shows in which women are bearing children right and left and still just being their normal selves, but with a fat, gurgling baby on their knee. Motherhood changed me in a really fundamental way. I literally don't feel like the same person I used to be, except in peripheral, detail-type ways. I don't even know how many kids the women have. They rarely mention them by name. And their houses are always so effing clean... yeah right.
So I don't know if I will keep watching it. I find the antics to be more about the "fish out of water" storyline and ignoring the domestic reality that would certainly come into play. For example, Nicki and Barb both have jobs. This means that Margene is watching 8-10 kids... all day. And she still looks so sprightly? I just don't buy it. And the older kids are going to all these drug parties and stuff... can you believe that a fundamentalist Mormon dad wouldn't have a really strong law about that kind of thing?
Interestingly enough, the one element that I have less of a problem with is the idea that all of the women could get along. Aside from sharing your husband (ew), I can appreciate the fact that it might be nice to have a couple of subordinate wives around the house to do my bidding. Ha ha.
So there it is. My opinions are so strong, and yet they don't matter at all. I enjoy delving into the unimportant every once in a while, for the chance to take a vacation from my real life, which looks nothing like the scrubbed and shiny polygamy farce on Big Love.
Recently we reopened our Netflix disc account and I ordered up the next part of the story following what I had previously seen -- the first part of Season 3. Just as when I watched "My So-Called Life" as an adult (total buzzkill, by the way, when you start to sympathize with Angela's parents and want to grab Jordan Catalano by his ear and throw him out the front door...) I have a very different perspective on the show.
I know that my opinions about a years-old season of a show that few people watch anyway really does not amount to a hill of beans, but I thought it was interesting, so here goes. This is what struck me this time around:
1. Bill is such a jerk! He loves to tell his wives to just "handle it" when he has made some sort of terrible social mess. While I am sure that the delegation skills required to maintain a polygamous household would push anyone to their limits, in a real marriage you cannot just tell your spouse you don't want to hear anything about the problems that affect both of you. It's ridiculous, and I don't know of any functional husband-wife pairs who do things that way. It's one thing for one person to handle one aspect of the household, and the other person another aspect, but it's different to just say, "Oh, handle it, and quit whining." I have yet to mow our lawn, but when Ben comes in after doing it, I will at least get him a cold drink and give him a pass on watching the kids solo until he gets over the heat stroke. I am the one who does my teaching work, but Ben will still listen to me when I have a problem and help me figure out a solution.
2. Bill and the three wives are always having these long, drawn-out, uninterrupted adult conversations in the early evening hours. Let me say, in our house we have one husband, one wife, and two kids, and it seems at times that the house is bursting with people, everyone needing something. In the Henrickson household, there are at least three babies, and five or six other kids besides. There is no way that all of the adults sitting calmly over the remains of barbecued chicken in the backyard would be able to carry on an entire conversation about the future of the store expansion, or some complicated legal situation, without at least one or two babies screaming and needing their mothers.
3. The Henricksons remind me of Dr. Quinn in that they are really plain old modern WASPy pop culture-infused, fashionable, politically correct people wearing a little hats that say "ooh except I'm different." Dr. Quinn was supposedly from the frontier, although she didn't represent the 1870s worldview really at all, and the Henricksons have twee little labels on their foreheads that say "I'm a polygamist! (giggle)" From what I know about religious zeal, it is much more likely that in real life a family like them would be a lot more private, a lot less "hip," much angrier, and certainly a lot less fashionable. Polygamy is more of a "schtick" for the show than it is central to who the characters themselves actually are. In fact, they all seem untouched by it except for Nicki. She is the only character that I really buy. Of course, that could be because she is played by the faaaabulous Chloe Sevigny. I honestly think they would have done better with the show if they put aside the religious aspect of the polygamy and had some sort of situation in which they had an open marriage between all of them, for everyone's mutual benefit, but the kicker is... it's in Utah! And the husband left the fundamentalist Mormon church! So he's living out his destiny, even though he's doing everything he can to rebel against it! Kapow! It might be more about them differentiating themselves from the compound polygamists rather than sort of throwing their lot in with the rest.
4. The women all just have way too damn much free time. Like I said before, I have two lovely kids, and every second of my day is circumscribed by caring for them. The show is forever showing this wife or that just roaming around the mall, or driving all by herself from one place to the next, or doing her nails, or something. Really?? I have two kids and I rarely do those things. If I had eight or ten kids in my charge? Forget it. I would run out to Walmart at 11pm for milk and diapers once a week and that would be it. I wouldn't even wear matching shoes half the time.
5. Motherhood has not seemed to affect these women. This is certainly my own experience writing itself all over what I watch, but I have a hard time watching shows in which women are bearing children right and left and still just being their normal selves, but with a fat, gurgling baby on their knee. Motherhood changed me in a really fundamental way. I literally don't feel like the same person I used to be, except in peripheral, detail-type ways. I don't even know how many kids the women have. They rarely mention them by name. And their houses are always so effing clean... yeah right.
So I don't know if I will keep watching it. I find the antics to be more about the "fish out of water" storyline and ignoring the domestic reality that would certainly come into play. For example, Nicki and Barb both have jobs. This means that Margene is watching 8-10 kids... all day. And she still looks so sprightly? I just don't buy it. And the older kids are going to all these drug parties and stuff... can you believe that a fundamentalist Mormon dad wouldn't have a really strong law about that kind of thing?
Interestingly enough, the one element that I have less of a problem with is the idea that all of the women could get along. Aside from sharing your husband (ew), I can appreciate the fact that it might be nice to have a couple of subordinate wives around the house to do my bidding. Ha ha.
So there it is. My opinions are so strong, and yet they don't matter at all. I enjoy delving into the unimportant every once in a while, for the chance to take a vacation from my real life, which looks nothing like the scrubbed and shiny polygamy farce on Big Love.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Walkabout
Today we walked to the store instead of driving, and I was surprised by how short the walk was. For some reason it is easier to get the kids ready to go out for a walk than it is to get in the car. Perhaps it is all in my head, but it worked well.
I had Norah in the hiking carrier and Chris in the stroller. The weather was actuallya bit hot today (80 degrees) but it was dry and sunny and really pretty pleasant. Norah looked really cute in her little sunhat.
We attracted a lot of attention within the store, and on my way out someone asked me if I wanted a ride home -- I have noticed that people have a hard time believing that someone with kids would walk around on purpose. I am always surprised by people's generosity, though. Once when I was strolling down the sidewalk with C, a man stopped his car in the road, put on his hazard lights, and yelled out his window to make sure we were okay, and see if we needed to borrow his phone to make a call. Suburbia is sooooo dangerous ;D
One of the most pleasant parts of the walk was on the way home, when the sidewalk passed by this beautiful row of hedges, a long stretch that I never once noticed while driving, because it is placed right next to a section of the road where I am always trying to change lanes. There was breeze, and shade, and birds singing. It was a very gentle walk, and a reminder of the good little things in life.
It was good exercise and I enjoyed it. I am hoping to soak in as much outdoor living as possible before terrible prehistoric summertime strikes!
I had Norah in the hiking carrier and Chris in the stroller. The weather was actuallya bit hot today (80 degrees) but it was dry and sunny and really pretty pleasant. Norah looked really cute in her little sunhat.
We attracted a lot of attention within the store, and on my way out someone asked me if I wanted a ride home -- I have noticed that people have a hard time believing that someone with kids would walk around on purpose. I am always surprised by people's generosity, though. Once when I was strolling down the sidewalk with C, a man stopped his car in the road, put on his hazard lights, and yelled out his window to make sure we were okay, and see if we needed to borrow his phone to make a call. Suburbia is sooooo dangerous ;D
One of the most pleasant parts of the walk was on the way home, when the sidewalk passed by this beautiful row of hedges, a long stretch that I never once noticed while driving, because it is placed right next to a section of the road where I am always trying to change lanes. There was breeze, and shade, and birds singing. It was a very gentle walk, and a reminder of the good little things in life.
It was good exercise and I enjoyed it. I am hoping to soak in as much outdoor living as possible before terrible prehistoric summertime strikes!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Golden Baby Days
The postpartum haze is gone now, and I am really settling into enjoying Norah now. It is hard to explain what that grey funky haze does to me -- it's not like I wasn't enjoying her before, but it was as if I was too busy trying to keep my mind together to really pay attention to how fun she is. Or something. Maybe other moms know what I mean.
Now she is 10 months old, cruising around the living room holding onto the furniture, babbling a *lot* and saying "dada," "mama," "baba" (brother), and "clap, clap, clap!" which sounds sort of like "bap, bap, bap!" but is accompanied by clapping so I feel pretty confident that it is what she is saying.
She eats SO MUCH FOOD. She eats breakfast for an hour -- I put her in her high chair and she eats fruit and cereal, then cheerios, then yogurt, then back again, then rice crackers, until she starts refusing the food. She eats so much. And she growing to match -- C sleeps in a diaper still and the two of them wear the same diaper size.
I am really enjoying this phase, because she is still a baby -- she really looks like a baby when she is drifting off to sleep in my arms, her little feathery lashes resting on her chunky chubby cheeks :) But her personality is showing itself more and more, she sleeps through the night, and she is testing out her independence in tiny ways here and there. She is so sweet, too -- there is nothing sweeter than a baby girl!
Chris is growing and getting smarter every day, too. He cursed the other night while we were watching a movie. It isn't funny, but Ben and I were choking trying to hide our laughter. The thing that is so funny about it is that he used the word in the exact right context. They learn a little too well sometimes ;D So my mouth is on lockdown right now. I am trying really hard. I have a tendency to let my frustration come out in a string of muttered curses, but I just have to cut it out and find something else to do with my frustration. Maybe I will become a marathon runner ;D
Around the house I am on my ever present quest to find balance and simplify things, and I have managed to relegate my teaching to the early morning and late night so that it doesn't intrude on my daily responsibilities like hanging out with the kids and trying to keep order in the house.
I have found out a couple of useful things: first, if I proactively feed the kids -- feed them as soon as they wake up for the morning and from nap -- then they are in a much better mood afterwards. And they eat better, too. I was having a lot of trouble getting Chris to eat enough, but these days when I offer him food right when he gets up, he eats more. He also really is getting to like fresh fruit and veggies, which is a great thing. It makes me proud although I didn't really have a hand in it.
My Rubbermaid Reveal mop is just as exciting as the day I bought it -- the floors are much cleaner than they used to be, although I do wish it had a scrub brush on it for the really tough stuff. I feel like I spend a lot of time prying things up off the vinyl with an old butter knife. How does food turn to cement sooooo quickly?
It looks like I am not going to make my birthday weight loss goal :( I have only a month left and twenty pounds until the goal, because I lost all the progress I made in January, somehow. It makes me sad but I am trying not to wallow in it, but just to keep on with forward progress. Exercise is a big challenge, because I get tired and hungry when I exercise, so I don't do it much because I don't want to overeat or fall asleep after. Allegedly it will get easier over time but I haven't really gotten to that point yet. So I am just trying to keep moving. I bought a little pedometer at Target to track my steps and aim for 10,000 a day, but then the second day I had it, I lost it. I have no idea where the fracking thing is. I changed from jeans to shorts and forgot to switch it over, and then later I remembered and went back to the jeans to get the pedometer off of them and click it onto the shorts, but it wasn't on the jeans, either. :p Stuff like that tries to derail me all the time. I think to myself, other people can keep up with their things. Other people do not spend 50% of their day looking for stuff they just set down that has now disappeared.
Also, I have had to give up coffee. I started having mini panic attacks and not being able to sleep -- oops! It's all from the caffeine. Somehow caffeine from coffee is worse than caffeine from other sources. So for now I am drinking a lot of green tea and popping Tylenol to deal with the withdrawal headaches. I am a pretty big caffeine addict :p It's hard not to be, though!
Overall it's going well. I can smell Spring in the air. Norah is going to start walking any day now. Maybe that will be the secret to my weight loss ;D
Now she is 10 months old, cruising around the living room holding onto the furniture, babbling a *lot* and saying "dada," "mama," "baba" (brother), and "clap, clap, clap!" which sounds sort of like "bap, bap, bap!" but is accompanied by clapping so I feel pretty confident that it is what she is saying.
She eats SO MUCH FOOD. She eats breakfast for an hour -- I put her in her high chair and she eats fruit and cereal, then cheerios, then yogurt, then back again, then rice crackers, until she starts refusing the food. She eats so much. And she growing to match -- C sleeps in a diaper still and the two of them wear the same diaper size.
I am really enjoying this phase, because she is still a baby -- she really looks like a baby when she is drifting off to sleep in my arms, her little feathery lashes resting on her chunky chubby cheeks :) But her personality is showing itself more and more, she sleeps through the night, and she is testing out her independence in tiny ways here and there. She is so sweet, too -- there is nothing sweeter than a baby girl!
Chris is growing and getting smarter every day, too. He cursed the other night while we were watching a movie. It isn't funny, but Ben and I were choking trying to hide our laughter. The thing that is so funny about it is that he used the word in the exact right context. They learn a little too well sometimes ;D So my mouth is on lockdown right now. I am trying really hard. I have a tendency to let my frustration come out in a string of muttered curses, but I just have to cut it out and find something else to do with my frustration. Maybe I will become a marathon runner ;D
Around the house I am on my ever present quest to find balance and simplify things, and I have managed to relegate my teaching to the early morning and late night so that it doesn't intrude on my daily responsibilities like hanging out with the kids and trying to keep order in the house.
I have found out a couple of useful things: first, if I proactively feed the kids -- feed them as soon as they wake up for the morning and from nap -- then they are in a much better mood afterwards. And they eat better, too. I was having a lot of trouble getting Chris to eat enough, but these days when I offer him food right when he gets up, he eats more. He also really is getting to like fresh fruit and veggies, which is a great thing. It makes me proud although I didn't really have a hand in it.
My Rubbermaid Reveal mop is just as exciting as the day I bought it -- the floors are much cleaner than they used to be, although I do wish it had a scrub brush on it for the really tough stuff. I feel like I spend a lot of time prying things up off the vinyl with an old butter knife. How does food turn to cement sooooo quickly?
It looks like I am not going to make my birthday weight loss goal :( I have only a month left and twenty pounds until the goal, because I lost all the progress I made in January, somehow. It makes me sad but I am trying not to wallow in it, but just to keep on with forward progress. Exercise is a big challenge, because I get tired and hungry when I exercise, so I don't do it much because I don't want to overeat or fall asleep after. Allegedly it will get easier over time but I haven't really gotten to that point yet. So I am just trying to keep moving. I bought a little pedometer at Target to track my steps and aim for 10,000 a day, but then the second day I had it, I lost it. I have no idea where the fracking thing is. I changed from jeans to shorts and forgot to switch it over, and then later I remembered and went back to the jeans to get the pedometer off of them and click it onto the shorts, but it wasn't on the jeans, either. :p Stuff like that tries to derail me all the time. I think to myself, other people can keep up with their things. Other people do not spend 50% of their day looking for stuff they just set down that has now disappeared.
Also, I have had to give up coffee. I started having mini panic attacks and not being able to sleep -- oops! It's all from the caffeine. Somehow caffeine from coffee is worse than caffeine from other sources. So for now I am drinking a lot of green tea and popping Tylenol to deal with the withdrawal headaches. I am a pretty big caffeine addict :p It's hard not to be, though!
Overall it's going well. I can smell Spring in the air. Norah is going to start walking any day now. Maybe that will be the secret to my weight loss ;D
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Winter Weather
Unlike most of the country, right now our weather is fairly mild. There is a slightly springy feel in the air, although it is still chilly. It's hard to explain, but it just smells sort of "green" at different times of day. Sometimes the ocean air comes up and it smells sort of beachy outside.
Today C and I got to play outside while N had her morning nap. We went out to the swingset and played for a long time there and with the sandbox full of rocks instead of sand (sand attracts the neighborhood cats and also when it rains, frogs come and lay their eggs in the pools, and... let's just say the sandbox turned into a science experiment within about a week last year, so we opted for rocks instead this time around.). The weather was slightly chilly but then perfect once we got moving. We took a short walk after N woke up as well.
A few things struck me about the weather this time of year. First, when I open the door and look out, down the road and across the neighborhood, at this time of year all the colors seem to coordinate. Everything is taupe, grey, or brown, and the living things that are noticeably alive are fairly sedate. It's a calm feeling compared with the riotous, violent nature of summers here. With tropical heat, fanged snakes (yes, in our yard... shudder...), twisty stabby vines, lightning, flash floods, etc., summers are kind of scary when you really get down to it. No one goes anywhere except from the house to the car to the store/office and then back again, hunched over and rushing. In winter, though, we can stroll outside, go for walks, observe the changing seasons, and generally enjoy the out of doors without having to fight off saber-toothed tigers (yes, in our yard... shudder...) and plunge our heads into ice water to avoid heat stroke. In the winter I can imagine I live somewhere sedate. Ironically, the places I imagine, like Connecticut, Kenosha, or Iowa City, are in the middle of a violent experience of their own right now, although instead of venomous snake fangs and eggs frying on the sidewalk it's a lot of ice and snow and cold.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that if this calm, peaceful, enjoying-the-outdoors feeling is what northerners experience in the summer, then I can grudgingly understand why a person could look forward to July instead of dreading it and conspiring to make it pass as quickly as possible.
Also, it was really fun watching C play on the swingset again. He is finally gotten up the courage to actually swing, and he's getting better at it. My little monkey.
Today C and I got to play outside while N had her morning nap. We went out to the swingset and played for a long time there and with the sandbox full of rocks instead of sand (sand attracts the neighborhood cats and also when it rains, frogs come and lay their eggs in the pools, and... let's just say the sandbox turned into a science experiment within about a week last year, so we opted for rocks instead this time around.). The weather was slightly chilly but then perfect once we got moving. We took a short walk after N woke up as well.
A few things struck me about the weather this time of year. First, when I open the door and look out, down the road and across the neighborhood, at this time of year all the colors seem to coordinate. Everything is taupe, grey, or brown, and the living things that are noticeably alive are fairly sedate. It's a calm feeling compared with the riotous, violent nature of summers here. With tropical heat, fanged snakes (yes, in our yard... shudder...), twisty stabby vines, lightning, flash floods, etc., summers are kind of scary when you really get down to it. No one goes anywhere except from the house to the car to the store/office and then back again, hunched over and rushing. In winter, though, we can stroll outside, go for walks, observe the changing seasons, and generally enjoy the out of doors without having to fight off saber-toothed tigers (yes, in our yard... shudder...) and plunge our heads into ice water to avoid heat stroke. In the winter I can imagine I live somewhere sedate. Ironically, the places I imagine, like Connecticut, Kenosha, or Iowa City, are in the middle of a violent experience of their own right now, although instead of venomous snake fangs and eggs frying on the sidewalk it's a lot of ice and snow and cold.
So I guess what I am trying to say is that if this calm, peaceful, enjoying-the-outdoors feeling is what northerners experience in the summer, then I can grudgingly understand why a person could look forward to July instead of dreading it and conspiring to make it pass as quickly as possible.
Also, it was really fun watching C play on the swingset again. He is finally gotten up the courage to actually swing, and he's getting better at it. My little monkey.
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