Daily living – Page 7 – My Truant Pen

The gym

I am not a gym rat. I have never had a gym membership. I’ve generally been sort of unsure how they work, except they seem to involve getting up early in the morning and having a wardrobe of specialized clothes for looking good while sweating.

Well, it turns out my new job has an onsite gym. That all my colleagues are regulars at. That costs a grand total of $25/month of which $150/year is reimbursable through my health plan. That has everything you might possibly need, including cable for day Red Sox game. On contemplation, this seemed pretty hard to forgo. So in early April I bit the bullet, wrote a check, and decided to try to figure it all out.

I’d like to take a moment to thank my junior high and high school gym teachers. At the time, I thought it was the height of unfairness that SCHOOL where I was supposed to be GOOD at stuff was making me do things that I didn’t know how to do and was bad at. I had to learn whole new skills like lifting weights, running, stretching, and even doing pushups. Despite my early despair, this education made doing sports seem plausible. And sports taught me how to be in shape and negotiate fitness, in addition to how to work hard at things I was terrible at in order to attain hard-won mediocrity. I went to state in basketball and track (through no merit of my own), and have varsity letters in things other than Knowledge Bowl and Pep Band. I haven’t done an organized sport since my sophomore year of high school, but I have confidence in my ability to do physical things that require sneakers and sports bras. This was not inevitable.

An adult gym seems very different. I mean, there’s the whole subtext of locker rooms. The thing about locker rooms is that you are naked in them. Not metaphorically. So there’s my boss’s boss’s boss, and there’s someone who works in the cafeteria and we’re all getting our clothes on for Zumba class. It’s very equalizing in an “I hope I don’t make a complete idiot of myself” kind of way. There are fitness friendships that spring up far across corporate divisions. And then there’s the issue of unspoken etiquette, which I’m sure I don’t know all about. Does one attempt to hide under the insufficient towels, or is one unafraid as one walks out of the shower? There are brushes on the counter in front of the mirror… do only idiots use them? Are they just for show? Or is it ok for me to use them? And these are my coworkers — people whose opinion is important — so it’s important I not commit huge faux pas.

I suspect I might be oversensitive, since the jr. high/high school locker rooms was the place where “gross” “freaky” and all the other terror-terms of my youth were defined — where being “normal” and “like everyone else” was the height of my desire. Perhaps the payroll coordinator is more forgiving of foibles than was the norm in 7th grade.

Also, among my areas of ignorance is hair dryers. I’ve just never used them, never mastered the art of them. I only own a hair dryer for putting up that plastic sheeting across the windows. A hair dryer is a must if you’re using a corporate gym, because really? Sopping wet hair does not say “professional”. So in addition to Force, Java, an entirely new business, and powerpoint for everything I have to master hair dryer skills? It seems too much!

The good news is that I’m really not in all that bad a shape. I did 25 minutes on an elliptical without trouble. I ran a mile and a half on the treadmill. (I do love those day games!) I’m up to 5 visits. I think this is going to work for me. But I find it like a strange new world with all these rules and customs I need to carefully wend my way through.

What about you? Are you comfortable doing vigorous exercise? Do you have a gym membership? Is it like a second home to you, or a foreign country?

This post brought to you by Deadliest Catch

I don’t watch much tv. I have never seen an episode of Friends, Dr. Who, or Glee. Frankly, if it weren’t for baseball, I’d be more or less ok getting no cable whatsoever. (But there is baseball. Do not underestimate baseball.) But on Saturday, a friend came to stay with me while my husband was away with our friends on the Cape. One thing lead to another, and we spent most of the evening watching Deadliest Catch. I have to admit, I love this show. On bad days, it makes me insanely grateful for a desk job with benefits and a practically 0 chance of having 32 degree Bering Sea water dumped on my head. On other days, I reflect on the ties back to a former age. Interspersed with sonar readings and hydraulic cranes are age-old superstitions and an environment where men teach each other to be men in the oldest ways — as men have in the ruggedest environments since they first plied the waters. It’s an interesting environment for a feminist to see. I can tell you this much: I couldn’t hack it. I’m pretty sure that after 20 hours of backbreaking labor I’d be in tears and handing in my resignation.

Thane loves the park. It has the BEST garbage!

I figured that as long as he didn’t go around preschool saying, “What the *beep* took you so *beeping* long to *beep* bring me my *beeping* Legos?” this was a pretty good show to watch. The only violence is against crabs. And there’s a truth to it. Of course, now he says he wants to be a fisherman because “It looks like fun.” Clearly he’s not paying attention.

Since I complain plenty when the boys are hard to handle, in fairness I should tell you that they’ve been just amazingly lately. Thane has stopped clinging to my leg like a screeching limpet while I make dinner. Now he’ll play with cars (he LOVES lining them up on a table, taking them down, and lining them up again). He has this Spongebob figure he’s extremely fond of. He, like his brother before him, calls the little yellow guy “Bob-bob”. He’s talking up a storm. He’s extremely interested in whatever his brother is doing. One of his most frequent words is “Gwey”. He’s also recently become obsessed with apples. Normal people will eat a great apple down to the core. With Thane, if he’s hungry, he’ll eat the entire apple. As in, there are no remnants of the apple left when he’s done. Apple is also one of his clearest words. At the height of apple-mania, I believe my 25 pound son (or so) ate about 5 apples in one day. There was a dinner where the boys collectively turned their noses up at pizza and preferred to eat apples instead. I confess that one left me not knowing how to feel. On the one hand, children should eat their dinner. On the other hand, apples are likely much better nutritionally than pizza.

Project “Teach Thane To Walk” has been going extremely well. Thane will now walk considerable distances holding a hand. The other day, he walked all the way down the block with me. This may not sound astonishing, but he has little legs and strong opinions. For him to nicely walk such a distance past so many distractions is real progress. Grey is quite a walker. My friend who spent Saturday brought her pedometer. We walked 3.7 miles that day. Grey walked all of it with us, and with the running around and jumping, much likely significantly more. I look forward to the day when all four of us can walk through the woods together (and not stop every 3 feet for a snack).

Grey has been super and fun and a delight (with one or two exceptions). I’m continually stunned by how USEFUL and HELPFUL he is, and how we can DO things with him. For example, we played several games of “Kids of Carcasonne” and he followed the rules and played correctly. He was also compassionate towards his parents (possibly not getting the idea of a game) and helped us complete our roads. He’s really, truly, honestly reading. I asked him to read a book to my friend, and he read through the entire thing with one mistake. He said “not” when the word was “never”. And it wasn’t a book he knew by heart — he was really reading it. (The book in question is Today I Will Fly). He is superb with Thane… most of the time. It’s a joy to watch him run and jump and play and make friends. And he’s very loving towards me. He’s also really sensitive. The other night he said he was scared. As I carried him to his room, I was talking about all the reasons he should be happy and ended with “And all’s right with the world.” He replied, “No, it’s not. There was that earthquake, and all the people got hurt.” He’s right, of course. All is right in his small world, but not the larger world. I was struck by his awareness that just because everything is good for him, doesn’t mean everything is good.

Monday is Patriot’s Day. It’s a state holiday. While theoretically it’s about some historic thingamajig, in reality it’s a day when Boston shuts down to watch some baseball and then watch the Boston marathon come through. There are some battle recreations in the morning, too, I believe. I have to work, but the boys’ new preschool is closed for the day. So I called Abuela tonight to ask if she’d be willing to take the boys. You know, she sounded really, really happy to hear from me. She really wanted to hear how the boys were doing. She said she really missed them – and I believe her. I’m caught between feeling great and feeling sad. Feeling great because it was such a great relationship for so long. And of course, feeling sad because I don’t see how that relationship can be well continued (although I have suspicions that if the Y takes Patriot’s Day off, they probably take all the other holidays off that I don’t get).

I hope that all is as well and joyful with you out there as it is for us!

Typical Monday Morning

Things that need to go out the door with us tomorrow:

1 18 month old
1 4 year old
4 lunches (one of which needs to be microwaved in the morning)
Sheet and blanket for 18 month old
Blanket for 4 year old
2 laptops for work
2 power cords for laptops
Change of clothes for my gym (2x)
Shampoo, conditioner and face clothes for same
Aikido gi & spare clothes
Aikido weapons (wooden sticks)
Purse
Keys
Coffee mug
Coffee thermos (full)
Coats all around, maybe
Bills to mail

Also, since it’s the Monday for it, I need to have sheets out for every bed in the house and a check on the counter for the housekeeper.

No wonder I don’t have short term memory for much of anything these days!

Three cheers for Marmee!*

My mom has come out to visit. I know Holy Week might seem an odd time for a pastor to be a continent away, but Spring Break coincided with Holy Week this year and she is also a teacher, and so she came! My father is coming out in a week or two. My mother-in-law is coming out towards the end of April when I am going to FRANCE (and Amsterdam) for WORK with an agenda that has a bullet point for WHITE ASPARAGUS SEASON. This whole work thing is going fantastically, if you ask me.

Anyway, it’s sort of feast or famine with help for us. For reasons I’m still attempting to work out, our relatives are less inclined to visit us in February? Why on earth do people not feel downright DRAWN to New England in February? The mind boggles.

But it’s been awesome having my mom around. I sometimes feel guilty for how hard it is not to take my mom’s time and help for granted. Like of course she’ll make me my favorite cinnamon rolls. And of course she’ll get up with the kids so I can sleep in. She’s my MOMMY. She’ll take care of me FOREVER. And then I think about 27 years from now, when I’ll be where she is now, and wonder if I’ll be so gracious. It’s a sobering part of parenthood to remember that everything you expect from your parents, your children should have a right to expect from you. Do you hold your folks and yourself to the same standard? I hope my husband and I can live up to the ones set for us!

She took the kids on Sunday, after church, so my husband and I could be cultured dilettantes. We went to the Museum of Fine Arts, courtesy of a neighbor who gave us tickets. We wandered the dim remains of The Secrets of Tomb 10A and marveled at the items which have traveled so very far through time and space to arrive before us. We ate overpriced pastry at an artistic table and drank cappuccino and no one interrupted us. Then we had dinner in Cambridge, followed by an evening of gaming and hanging out with friends. We didn’t get home until late. It was AWESOME.

I think a little more concerted attention, as well as the final arrival of his in-process molars, has really helped Thane. He’s developed a deep and abiding love of apples. You wouldn’t think such a little guy with so few teeth would be able to eat an entire apple, leaving nothing behind, but you would be wrong. “Appa! Appa! Appa!” Happily, it also keeps him occupied while a grownup type person cooks dinner. It will be interesting to see if he’s permanently leaving the “Cling to mom’s leg and weep while she prepares dinner” stage behind, or if he’s just taking a hiatus with it while he has Grandmama to shower attention on him. He has started talking a mile a minute. I was trying to remember if this was 18 month old standard, or if it’s Thane-specific. The nice ladies at daycare comment on it nearly every day, though, so I’m thinking Thane specific. One of his favorite phrases is “E-I-E-I-O”, which means exactly what you think it means.

Grey is just full of awesome. I LOVE LOVE LOVE 4 years old. He’s so much FUN. The imagination is off full tilt. The knock-knock jokes rise to new levels of zany. He’s solicitous and loving. He’s finally ceasing to NEED the naps that he dropped nearly a year ago, so is less tired. He remembers everything, and we start to get precious glimpses of his life without us. [DIGRESSION: including the fact, which we’d completely missed, that they don’t heat up his lunch at preschool. They do for Thane, so I ASSUMED they were warming Grey’s lunches of soups and casseroles which all were designed to need heating. But no. Cold spaghetti. Cold potato casserole. Cold everything. NO WONDER he didn’t eat his lunches. I wouldn’t like cold macaroni and cheese either! So after a bit of foaming at the mouth followed by a bout of self-recrimination I took the blessed opportunity of another grownup in the household to run to Target and buy thermoses. Star Wars themed. Because I pay attention to the patter, which now has a strong, if ill-informed Star Wars bent. “Did you know that Annakin cut of Dark Vader’s head?!?!?” /END DIGRESSION] Grey plays these wild, imaginative games with other kids. Yesterday one of his friends came over and they disappeared and were playing games with shifting rules defined by parameters grownups can’t possibly imagine. Delightful. With me, in the blessed space cleared by mom making dinner, Grey and I turned into Annakin and Luke Skywalker, with Thane playing a surprisingly convincing R2-D2. There were laser noises and epic light-saber battles up the stairs. Even Thane got into the laser-noise action, bopping around saying “pew pew pew!”

And after the truly epic deluge of the last week, today the sky has emerged washed clean. The lawns are greening up. The forsythia is out in shocking yellow to color-deprived eyes. My hyacinth waft perfume on the afternoon breeze as I return to my home in daylight. I will not be TOO cold in my Easter dress this Easter, for possibly the first time EVER. And the Easter Bunny has brought some fun stuff for two little boys. I’m in an Easter spirit and frame of mind, this Good Friday.

Anyway, there – sans thesis statement of unifying theme – is what’s up with me lately. How about you?

*Bonus points if you catch the reference

Hey, that’s me!

I’m always interested in the spots where I seem to react differently than other people do. I wonder why, what part of my personality and upbringing combine to create this unusual reactions. I’ve lately been thinking about my astonishment when I see something I know in other circumstances.

What do I mean? For example, recently a celebrity crime occurred, which got a moderate amount of news coverage. By that I mean that you could go to the CNN home page at the time and find a link to the issue. Well, that crime happened not only in my town, but in a house that I can see from my bedroom window. For a week or two, there were news vans circling our neighborhood. I could tell whether the affected family was home or not by just looking up and seeing lights. I debating whether bringing cookies to a neighbor I’d never met was an appropriate response. But I got this odd shock and thrill at hearing the name of my town, the picture of my neighborhood uttered by these national media outlets. People I’d never met from faraway walks of life knew the name of my town! I was surprisingly surprised by it all.

Then came the acquisition. I have a few media sources I access regularly: NPR, The Economist, CNN.com, Boston.com. On my morning drive in, I heard NPR make the announcement (thank heavens I already knew from having checked my email the night before or who knows how my driving would’ve been affected!). The Economist has it in the first page summaries. CNN didn’t carry much coverage, but the Boston Globe had a big ol’ story, with a picture of my office highlighted on it. It felt really weird, as though I’m a part a big important multinational company, or something.

Oh, wait.

So I got to thinking about why I don’t expect to ever hear about my town, or my company. I was raised in a town of 400 people. We got bused over a mountain pass for Junior High and High School to a booming metropolis with fewer than 2000 people. You can live in the town that has the closest cinema, and never have heard of the town I grew up in. It’s off the road on a dead end, and only has something to offer if you like fishing and beer, preferably simultaneously. (The town roughly quadruples in size on the opening day of fishing season.) When people ask me where I grew up, I usually either lie and say Seattle, or ask them how well they know Washington geography. This town is so remote that it wasn’t covered by any meteorologist or weather report. (I mean, my dad has a weather station now, but when I was a kid? Not so much.) Can you imagine if you listen to the radio to catch the weather report, and it’s for a place 60 miles away and 2000 feet of elevation change lower? You could gather the big patterns, but you shouldn’t expect to ever hear the name of your town uttered, or know about the weather in advance, or even hear news coverage about something that happened.

Then there’s the companies I’ve worked for. The first one, professionally, had a grand total of 5 people. Most of the rest of the company was related to the founder. (I just checked. They still have 5 people, most of whom are related to the founder…) After I was laid off on Mother’s Day, I went to a much bigger company. I mean, there must’ve been 15 or 20 people there! Through acquisitions, it might’ve gotten up to 40 by the time I left… to go to a company where I was employee #6. Again, there was growth in that company as well, but never past the point where we could all meet in one conference room. So three small to very small companies, that stayed small companies. Of course they weren’t usually profiled in big business journals or the Economist — the impact they had on the wider world was limited. This is the first time I’ve worked with a company big enough to make the news. So no wonder I’m surprised when I see and hear my company talked about in a large audience.

I come from a small town and have always worked in small companies. I expect no one to know where I come from or where I work. It’s surprising to find in my adult life that neither of those is true.

How about you? When you tell people where you’re from, do you expect them to know where that is? When you talk about your company, do you have give the 5 minute elevator speech explaining what it does, or does everyone already know? When you see something you recognize in the news, is it “of course” or “omg I can’t believe it! I know where that is!”

Vignettes

Grey seems to be doing very well in his new preschool. We’re hearing about his friends and the things he’s doing. He keeps careful tabs on what we’re packing for his lunch, and offers guidance on acceptable offering. He’s bringing home art projects. One recent one was about the tooth fairy. The question was “What does the tooth fairy do with the teeth she collects?” His answer was that “She cuts the teeth and wishes come out.” Neat! He’s also bringing home these awesome drawings with these elaborate back stories. He’s reading more and more (although I think that’s unrelated to preschool). He reads a lot more than I realize, sometimes, and can read entire books. He picks up lots and lots of written words. So he seems like he’s doing very well.

We also get these sheets on Thane’s progress. All I can say is man, that kid can eat. There’s an update on how much of his lunch he ate, and the answer is almost always nearly all of it. It’s also kind of funny how surprised and unused we are to him talking. The surgery was now about three weeks ago, so you’d think we would’ve adjusted, but he keeps being verbal in ways we don’t expect. It’s like if Maggie from the Simpsons broke out in a discourse with Lisa. For example, at dinner tonight Grey turned to him and asked “So Thane, how was your day at daycare?” (Aside: I love that Grey has internalized that dinner is sharing time — sometimes he’ll ask his father and I how our days were, too.) So far, so sweet. But then Thane replies, “Good!” Yoinks! Or Thane will come out with his new favorite word, “No.” He loves to do something he knows he’s not allowed to do, while saying “No” as though that somehow makes it ok? Unfortunately, the new daycare does NOT accommodate his need for a morning nap, which I really don’t understand. He’s 16 months old, as of this weekend. Plenty of 16 month olds haven’t dropped their morning nap yet, right? He plays hard, he eats hard, he sleeps hard. Actually, as he gets older, I think he looks more and more like my father – right down to the large feet. (He wears a shoe size only two sizes smaller than Grey does, and Grey is hardly small-footed. My father wears a size 13 wide.)

My first week at work was absolutely as good as a first week could be. I really like my coworkers. I’ve met oodles of people. I’m very well supported. I’ve gotten my first task, and I’m at the panic stage of learning a new language. It’s structured very differently than web technologies, and I haven’t figured out the structure yet. My colleagues come from very different backgrounds (Lotus Notes, for example) and can’t help me figure out the analogies because they don’t know where I’m coming from. So I’m doing the time-honored technique of reading everything I can find, staring at code samples, and waiting for it all to gel. It will. I know it will, it just requires (amazingly) hard work, open-mindedness, patience and sleep.

The storm last night was amazing. It would’ve been some blizzard if it had come down as snow. It came down as driving rain. The noise was astounding. It sounded like we were sleeping at the base of a waterfall. I have never heard such noise! The house, however, did not shake. I feel very secure in its old bones. On the other hand, we lost some of the gutters — all the way up to the roof line. They just need to be put back into place. Also, the trim on our windows is really quite rotted. Does anyone know what one does about that, other than hire a contractor to come replace all the trim in our windows? (Ah, yes. I suspect that’s the real answer.)

I’m loving the Olympics. I’ve tried to record the nightly programs, and they’re a lot of fun. I’m sad to see them come to a close. However, as the rains fall and the snow melts it comes to mind that not far away is spring training. Truck day has come and gone. Pitchers and catchers have reported. Position players are in Ft. Meyers. In fact, according to a quick trip to their site, the first Spring Training game is next week! Ah, winter. You do not ACTUALLY last forever. You just feel like it! For some reason, this winter has seemed less oppressive to me than usual. Perhaps it’s all the change in my life, or getting enough sleep for a week there.

Oriented zombie needs BRAAAAAINS….

So Monday morning arrived, and lo. It was time for me to do a “commute” and go to “werk” again. I spent the first four hours of my day being oriented on things, large and small, at my new company. It was interesting. I’m sure I’ll remember it later, when I actually have slept on it. Right now, I’m like, “Uh, I learned like stuff?” Then I spent the afternoon attempting to log into all the various systems I was supposed to log in to, unpacking my huge box o’ stuff (my pens occasioned comment), discovered where the loot was stored, where IT sits, and that there is composting available in my building. I call that a day well done.

Oh also, this blog represents my own view and by no means the view of my employer, who I’m kind of hoping no one ever figures out or ties back to this blog, so it really really doesn’t represent them. (Why yes, I did actually read the internet use documentation and guidelines. I’m a sucker like that.)

I don’t intend to discuss my employer or employment much here. And obviously that’s like 90% of what I’m thinking about right now. That and logistics, like packing lunches, how tired and hungry the boys are when I pick them up from their new preschool and other completely thrilling things like that.

So to sum up:
Good day. Good company. Things are going well.
Hopefully I will be less zombielike soon.

Tax day

So today is sacred to the Doing of the Taxes. I have to admit, taxes are super-un-fun for me because we often end up owing money. Very large chunks of money. Amounts of money that could be a lot of fun in other circumstances. So I have all the joy and happiness of doing taxes just so, at the end, I can have the thrill and fulfillment that come with writing a Very Large Check to the federal government.

So imagine my chagrin and disappointment when I logged in incorrectly to my tax website (which I use, you know, once a year) too many times and they told me I’d have to wait 20 minutes before logging in again. Oh, horrors! Despair! And I was so looking forward to it!

On a completely unrelated note, I can’t figure out why it takes me all day to do taxes, can you? Nope. Boggles the imagination.

So for today’s offering you get a completely unrelated and random grab bag of Stuff I’ve Been Thinking About. All of which may or may not get written in 20 minute interstices between incorrect logins.

Thing 1
So for several weeks now, my husband has been talking about his “Secret project”. He’s had this box that he works on that I’m not allowed to see. He spent many an evening in pursuit of his secret project. I was getting the distinct feeling I was about to be seriously outclassed on Valentine’s Day. Desperately, I bought some Hazelnut Lindor Truffles and hoped for the best.

Well, he gave me half a dozen red rozes, and a box of chocolates from Fine Chokolader.

Here are the roses:

A closeup:

Aren’t they lovely? I was taken completely by surprise by his hard work and the gorgeous outcome. Then he showed me the rest of the box — all these practice runs and different flowers. It was hours and hours of effort. It is gorgeous. And best of all, these flowers won’t wilt or fade. Thank you, love.

Thing 2 – the Olympics in Vancouver
When I was young and still learning how the world works, my family took a trip to Vancouver BC for Expo 86. (Funny, I could’ve SWORN it was Expo ’88, but the internet must know better than I!) This was a huge deal to my young mind. I remember distinctly the amazement at having my passport stamped by all these countries (or, er, their booths as the case may be). I remember the robot taking a picture with us. It was hot, I recall. And Vancouver was this mecca of excitement — the most important place on earth at that moment! (Or so it felt.)

I suspect my opinion of the importance of the World’s Fair was greatly affected by growing up in proximity to Seattle. If you heard about he history of Seattle, which I did rather ad nauseum growing up, you couldn’t miss the importance of the 1962 World’s Fair in taking a provincial town and turning it into a world class city proud of itself and its accomplishments. It was for the ’62 World’s Fair that Seattle built the Space Needle. My father was a Boy Scout volunteer for those games. It was, and still is, a Big Deal.

Finally, for the last couple years my husband and I have vacationed across the straight in Victoria. Which, for the record, is totally not like Vancouver. But I have a sense of fellow feeling, of “I’ve been there!” that makes the entire thing even more fun to watch!

OK, the tax software has finally let me in, so I suppose I should have at. Watch this space for more procrastinatory dialogue AND/OR bonus whining about having to pay more than was withheld.

(Note: I’m actually philosophically delighted to pay taxes. I generally think they’re a great idea, although my confidence in the system has taken a bit of a hit lately. However, that doesn’t prevent me from whining about it.)

Prelude to the Afternoon of Shovelling the Driveway

The last few days have not gone as planned. First Grey got the stomach bug, and lo. Sunday was not as expected. Then Monday I had procured tickets to The Secrets of Tomb 10A, and my husband and I were going to go check out the mummies ALL BY OURSELVES. It was going to be just like Vienna. And maybe we’d have a dilatory lunch or something. Bliss!

Then I was going to pick the kids up from Lawrence and drive past all my old haunts one last time. You can go back to visit, but you never again go back to belong. It was such an unexpected belonging — me and the creaky, broke, corrupt, lovely City of Lawrence. I would go a last time over the 130 year old iron bridge that will soon be demolished, that I could see from my window at work. I’d check out the latest foreclosure signs. I’d whisper goodbye and feel silly and maybe shed a few tears as I pulled away from Rubertina’s a last time.

All this was not to be. I spend the day as sick as I’ve been in Grey’s lifetime. I think the last time I was that sick was while I was pregnant with him. The time before was my freshman year of college. I rarely get very sick. But I was washed out. Sitting up was too much work. I napped from 10 am to 3 pm. My butt hurt from excessive sitting. Before about 8 pm, what I’d had to eat was 20 cheerios, 5 Ritz and some Jello. I skipped COFFEE people, that’s how serious it was.

On the plus side, I seem to have lost some weight! Not the best way to go about doing it, but don’t look a gift stomach bug in the mouth! (No really, to be avoided.)

Then, this morning, the boys’ first day at their new daycare, we go in to find Thane’s crib covered in vomit. Of course, based on his behavior today I’m not at all convinced he’s sick, piker. He’s certainly not anywhere as sick as *I* was, Mr. Incredibly Perky and Can I Come Up On the Couch For the 93rd Time Mom?

And so my last week of employment freedom races by in a blur of effluvia. And I haven’t even done the taxes yet. (Tomorrow! It must be tomorrow!)

I’d tell you more, but there’s about 3 inches of sticky white snow that should be shoveled while Thane sleeps, or this’ll get ugly.

Put today in the loss column

I try hard to focus on the positive, the joyful and the thoughtful. I attempt to shift my mental space from the whining (which is easy and natural) to the rejoicing. I have read that rehearsing a litany of wrongs makes you an angrier person, whereas choosing not to do so and not to practice your anger makes you actually happier. I believe this to be true. I suspect, since this is the venue where I do much of my intellectual and emotional processing, that this leads to a rather Polyanna-ish blog of my life. (Although it’s worth reminding you that Polyanna’s optimism worked!)

Anyway, that’s a long and meta intro to say that today? I’m not up to it. I can’t even tell you what exactly happened to make today one to be forgotten. It started ok — I got to sleep in until a near pre-kids hour due to an amazing and loving husband. But Thane is at such a stage. He’s not bad, not at all, but he’s demanding. I probably hauled him up onto the couch 45 times today. He wants things that are beyond his capabilities. He doesn’t really believe that I mean it when I say no. He hits his head on things apparently recreationally. And when thwarted, he throws a back-bending, writhing fit. He is, in short, 15 months old. (Aside: it’s AMAZING just how much progress he’s made verbally since the ear tube surgery. It’s VASTLY different. In the what, week? I swear his vocabulary has doubled. He OBVIOUSLY wasn’t hearing well before and now he’s parroting EVERYTHING. It’s pretty awesome.)

Grey? Well, he’s his own version of demanding. He bounces back between super-capable and frankly lazy and demanding. (AKA: four years old) He and I had a little friction this morning, which I suspect was at least equally due to me being cranky for no good reason. Then, aikido. Oh, he’s been doing so WELL. He knows the names of the techniques. His focus is amazing. He’s energetic. He listens and does well. But today we had an EPIC MELTDOWN.

I’ve always read that you should be very honest and true to your word with your children, and I have tried to be. (I think integrity is important, and I think it’s learned by example.) So if, for example, I promise him he can be excused if he has three bites, he gets excused when he has three bites — not four. I’m starting to wonder if this sets up an unrealistic expectation. Today, he wasn’t doing his rolls properly, and he’s getting far enough along that he needs to learn how to do them right, not his way. The person he was working on (lucky enough to get one on one time!) asked him to do it once more. He did it. Then the person said (apparently) “Again!”. And Grey stormed off the mat in high dudgeon and did not stop crying for about 15 minutes. It took me about 2 hours to get him calm enough to tell me what went on. And what a two hours. I had to carry him out of the dojo. He hit me. He’s getting strong and big — it hurts. I still don’t know what to do when your child hits you and you have to (for example) get out of the dojo and get home. You’d be amazed at how quickly your back-brain steps in when someone, even your own beloved child, hits you in the mouth. (For the record what I did do was pin his hands to get him in the car, not give him his DS, go straight home instead of to our usual post-aikido treat, and send him to his room for the next hour and a half or so.)

We all stumbled our way, grumpy, through the remainder of the evening. We put the boys to bed about an hour and half early, based on their completely exhausted behavior. And then, Grey started throwing up. He threw up while asleep. Now he throws up all the time, but this was something special. (I think the difference is that he usually throws up because of his gag reflex, so he has plenty of time and warning. This was not so tonight. I think this was actual nausea.)

So here I am, bedraggled and patience in rags. What should’ve been a joyful family Saturday was more of an ordeal. I don’t think I was my best self. Worse, I don’t think I discovered in any of this a lesson I could learn or trick I could apply instead next time — no silver lining or lemonade here.

Just the promise that tomorrow is another day.