Slowing the Circles

Term-inal Velocity

2012-01-13T00:10:00.000-06:00

So we've had three holidays come and go since my last post. I would normally feel bad about that, but given that I am 38 weeks pregnant today, I don't.

As for the last two months, we had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving full of good food and days of leftovers.

I finished up the semester with a bang and scored A's in both of my classes, which felt pretty awesome.

Christmas was lovely and magical -

We put lights on the house!

My mom came to visit!

The tree and a stocking hung by the chimney with care!

Wiggle saw Santa for the first time and asked for a candy cane, which he promptly received.

There was much loot to be had

Christmas morning with plastic French fries...

To use in your brand...new...KITCHEN! Courtesy of Santa.

Needless to say everything was awesome. But if gifts and snuggly time with a grandchild aren't enough for you, we also were productive. I should say that my mom was super productive and we just tried to stay out of her way. She painted our dining room, the baby's room, Wiggle's bathroom (which involved leveling old wallpaper glue and priming first), and our hallway. What? Your mom doesn't undertake household renovations when visiting at Christmas? Well, I guess my mom is just awesome like that.

We had an even quieter New Year's Eve which involved painting, some Champagne, and chocolate mousse.

I should also mention that I developed a horrendous cough right before Christmas that is just barely starting to lessen now - nearly three weeks later. I even went to the doctor and took medicine for it, which for those who know me, proves I was truly miserable. I did manage to get the Christmas decorations down and put away, but the rest of the house has completely fallen apart around me in the interim. I was feeling pretty bad about it until I started to feel a little bit better today and the urge to clean finally could compete with the need to breathe. Amazingly, I immediately started to do some of the backed up laundry and vacuuming and the like. I really need to get everything put away and cleaned up since this boyo could be coming any day now. I met the birth assistant, who seems wonderful, we have the birthing pool and have gathered the main supplies, so we are pretty much ready to go, or to stay, when it happens.

In the meantime, I need to finish up my application to the MSW program, freeze some meals for during labor and after the birth, and put the baby's room in order, and if I can manage it finally prime, paint, and put hardware on some of the lower kitchen cabinets, and install dimmers in the bedrooms, and switch out our electrical plugs from cream to white, and rehang the towel bar in the bathroom, and, and, and. Hmmm, maybe nesting is finally starting to kick in. Plus it would be nice if my professor from this semester would email me the syllabus so I could try to get ahead on the readings. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

With my mind on my money and my money on my mind

2011-11-21T19:30:00.000-06:00

I hate budgeting. I hate thinking about money, nor am I good at it. I guess there are very few people who like watching their pennies, but sometimes I wish I was someone who could get satisfaction seeing their balance grow dollar by dollar when saving money. But I am decidedly NOT one of those people.

Since we bought our house this summer, I am much more concerned about our finances. Actually, moving to a mortgage helped bring down our monthly payments, but now I have the future to worry about. How long will the roof last? We need a new water heater. The AC is on its last legs. I would love to add an outside entrance to the kitchen. The list goes on and on.

Most of the time I feel very lucky financially. I am able to stay home with Wiggle. We just bought a house. We have health insurance. We are able to have only one car, and that car is in good condition. So many families are not nearly in as good a situation as we are, especially right now. We are lucky, and I know that, but that doesn't mean that I can be careless with money. And there are still plenty of times when it would be really nice to do this AND that, but we will have to decide to do this OR that. Not really hardship, but as we approach the holidays, and we get closer to adding a new bambino to the family, and as I apply to go back to school officially, a little breathing room would be nice. This means that for the next few days, I will be looking at bills, going over receipts, trying to plan out upcoming expenses, and generally get mired in our money matters.

Afterward, I hope to have a better idea of where to and when the money is going out, and when I can expect to be able to do things like buy a new refrigerator or renovate the bathroom. I am not in a huge hurry because I don't envision having tons of time to manage any major projects in the next few years between school and the baby, but it would still be nice to know that I am working toward being able to make those changes.

It will also perhaps help me reign myself in a little more when I crave some retail therapy. I do not consider myself an extremely wasteful person, but I do have a hard time prioritizing my purchases sometimes. Also, when I need a jumpstart even though I have a million things I could do around the house for free, I would generally prefer to look for new towels or try look for the exact-sized basket for that shelf that is clearly standing between me and complete and total organization, and therefore happiness. I couldn't grow up in Dallas and not have some of it rub off on me after all.

In order to curb my retail tendencies lately, I have turned to another Dallas favorite - make-up. Feeling down? Sequined purple nail polish or bright red lipstick do seem to help a little. If nothing else, they make cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming under the couch a little more glamorous.

Once I get the money thing figured out, I can move on to the master schedule that will allow me to fix-up the baby's room/empty it of clutter, finally finish our kitchen cabinets, read all of Game of Thrones, knit a few items, whip up a few Christmas gifts, finish going through all of our photos on the computer, and generally relax during the month-long Christmas break. I mean it's just a good schedule that I need, right? I can't imagine having to adjust my expectations. That couldn't possibly be the problem.

I guess it's gonna be awhile before "Satisfice" will be my middle name.

A little fall fun in the leaves

Food for Thought

2011-11-03T22:18:00.000-05:00

After three days of eating way too much candy, my body was starting to totally rebel. I was sluggish, my hips were hurting even more than usual, I was nauseous and downright cranky, so it was time for some real food. We went with one of our favorite recipes for fall and winter, Fried Eggs Over Warm Lentil Salad with Lardons. This is one of those recipes that is delicious, easy to make, and even includes some things that are good for you, but it's as comforting as homemade macaroni and cheese or similar artery clogging fare. We sub kale for the spinach and just add it to the water the lentils cook in and then add a little more vinegar at the end because kale is even more tasty with vinegar. I didn't take any pics because we wolfed it down before any rational thought about it could take place.

Wiggle ate his portion with gusto too; he especially liked stirring the runny egg yolk into his lentil mixture. He would say "goo, goo, gooey!" every time he stirred. That kind of makes it sound like he talks in baby talk, but let me assure you he does not.

Now that we have entered November, I am feeling a little backed up on all of the things I have to do. I have so much to do and it's so hard to keep track of all of it that I had to spend my precious library time this morning just getting things entered into my to-do list and calendar. And then, of course, the holidays are coming up, which I love and am looking forward to, but also involve planning ahead or we won't get to do a bunch of the things that I really look forward to every year.

I have been better about managing my expectations though. Normally, for Halloween I like to carve pumpkins, and this year we picked a few beauties for carving, but then Halloween arrived, and we hadn't carved them yet. I decided that carving didn't make a lot of sense anyway since Wiggle wouldn't get to carve his own, so we just decorated two of them in the 30 minutes before we went trick-or-treating. Wiggle loved it, they looked cute and festive, and we didn't have to take a family shower or mop the floors afterward. I'd call that a win.

I'm hoping I can come up with more shortcuts like that for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we still get to enjoy the festivities leading up to the holidays, but that we don't have so much on our plate that we can't enjoy them.
One thing I am looking forward to and will need some advance planning is Wiggle's advent calendar. Last year we did a chocolate one, and I'm not really into the idea of his getting 24 gifts leading up to a day where he gets a lot of gifts, but I saw this one with little boxes and couldn't resist.

This awesome Santa is from IKEA.

I will put Hershey's kisses or the equivalent in at least a third of the days, but I'm having trouble thinking of things that can go in the rest of them that aren't immediate choking hazards. For 3or 4 of the days, I might have a note directing him toward a gift that would not fit in the box, like a felt ornament for his tree. He's totally into Christmas this year, so I'm pretty excited too; can you tell? Plus, we have a chimney for stockings!

See? It's really easy to get ahead of myself. I still have tons of homework, a major paper, some home improvement tasks, and some baby preparation to get through before I can think about Christmas.

Right now, I will settle for getting through the weekend without taking a nap on both days. That would be another one I would put in the 'win' column right now.

Happenings

2011-10-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

More time has passed, more things are happening. I have gotten permission from my insurance company to have a home birth, which I am very excited about. The idea of being in my own house, in my own bed, and having Wiggle around the whole time is fantastic. Plus, I might do a water birth!

In other news, I am kicking butt in my two social work classes. Admittedly, the material itself is not particularly challenging, but getting all the assignments done with a toddler around makes even the simplest task challenging. Also, I am enjoying the classes which makes it a little easier to put in the late nights school requires.

Then we had a visit from C's mom and his Aunt M last weekend. We went to Shenandoah National Park and drove part of Skyline Drive to see the autumn leaves. It was spectacular. The weather was cool and crisp, the leaves were red and gold and rust, and the sun even managed to come out on the way home.

Two peas in a pod

Two guys in the woods

Enjoying the mountain views

The valley

A boy and his Nonna

The rest of the weekend was spent spoiling the boy with kisses and desserts, all of which he loved immensely.
The visit was too short, and we hope they are able to come back soon.

Then, of course, there's Halloween on Monday. Our little Wiggle decided he wanted to be a "monster from the deep," more specifically an angler fish. In case you didn't already know this, there aren't a lot of angler fish costumes available at stores or even online. So in the grand tradition of parents everywhere, I made a costume and stayed up way too late fighting the beast that is my sewing machine. He hasn't been that into wearing the hat/lure that truly makes an angler fish, but that's ok because he absolutely loves his costume.

He has worn it non-stop for the past two days and spontaneously stops and thanks me for making it every few hours. Totally worth it.

Hopefully, this weekend will have more Halloween-y goodness which will mean more pics and more updates.

Fall!

2011-09-29T11:10:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't posted in 4 months. Yikes! It really doesn't seem like it could be that long, but maybe that's because this summer was b-u-s-y.

What's new, you ask? Well, let's see. We moved into our new house! We are expecting a another baby boy in January! Wiggle started school! And I started graduate school!

That gets me off the hook of posting for at least a couple of months, right?

I would love to say that during my absence I have been really good about taking pictures, but instead I have woefully neglected most of the wonderful, fun things we did along the way. Now that fall is here and we are finally on something that resembles a schedule, I hope to remedy that problem.

I do have a couple of recent pics to share.

Wiggle waiting somewhat impatiently for Justin Roberts
to play at the National Book Festival at the National Mall

Cutting out a flower before bedtime. Who doesn't love a little late-night craft-time?

I really need to take pictures of the house, but it is in total disarray most of the time. While we definitely have more room in this house, things don't fit as logically as before, so we keep moving big pieces of furniture around, some of which normally hold things, but we have kept empty in order to be able to move them around. This means that the house is both cluttered and that you'd better watch your shins at night because there's no telling where we might have moved that dresser during the day.

I keep feeling super behind in doing stuff to the house, but then I remind myself that we've only been in the house for a little over three weeks and some of this stuff is just going to take time. Also, adjusting to doing schoolwork with a toddler around, plus being pregnant deserves it's own adjustment period. Luckily, I am able to use Wiggle's preschool time to work on homework, but for papers and things I still need to carve time out of our evenings and weekends. Of course, C has a lot on his plate too, so we can often be found now in the evenings with the TV off, our respective computers and papers spread out around us in the family room. I really wish we had an office though; I find it very hard to transition to work at home without a defined space. Something else to add to the to-do list. Ugh.

I know I have said that I want to post more regularly before, but lately since we have been so busy, I have really felt like time is slipping by unnoticed. I want to take the time, not just to document it, but to reflect on what is going on in our lives right now. We only have a few more months of our little family of three, and while we are very excited to add a fourth, I will miss having Wiggle all to ourselves. He is not the only one who is going to have to get used to sharing!

Now, it's time to pick up Wiggle from preschool, then a nap for him, some cleaning for me, a playdate, a meeting with a potential midwife, making dinner, family dinner, putting the boyo down, some more reading, and then a little relaxation time with C. Just your typical Thursday.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

2011-06-03T22:17:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't normally say that my life is very busy. My days are certainly full and I certainly don't get done everything I want in a given day, but I can usually sneak in an extra load of laundry or a trip to the grocery store if I get behind in those things. What I mean to say is, as the stay-at-home mom of a toddler I don't have a lot of free-time, but I also don't generally have a long to-do list. I do things as they come up. When Wiggle is tearing around the house like a maniac, we abandon the "plan" of coloring and go to the park instead. If it's raining, we run errands, etc. The week is punctuated by a few scheduled activities, music class, playgroup, the occasional doctor's appt, but mostly we go with the flow.

So imagine my surprise at coming home from vacation and realizing that a huge mountain of things had piled up in my absence. First, even though I left the house relatively clean, a week's worth of cat's hair, which they are also shedding due to the excessive heat we had, was wandering around the house like tumbleweeds. Also, despite having done laundry before we left the cottage, it seemed like there were several loads left to do when we got home. Then, of course,there were bills and general budgeting after the free-spending of vacation.

Even more than the things that actually accumulated during the week we were gone, there are a bunch of things I've been meaning to get to, but hadn't actually attempted to get done. Restringing the patio umbrella I got on freecycle, taking the bag of culled through clothes that's been sitting on the stairs to Goodwill, mending this, putting away that. It turns out, I had really needed my vacation, and now that I am rested and recuperated, I can start getting to those things I had apparently been avoiding for most of the spring. Yea?

To keep that vacation feeling going though, we immediately joined the neighborhood pool, and I plan on spending many a late afternoon lounging around in the water or on a deck chair. Take that, to-do list!

How Many Days 'Til Vacation?

2011-05-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

Six. Six days until we meet C in Wood's Hole and stay in a little cottage on the water for a week. I can't wait.

Uncle M comes the day after tomorrow which I'm also super-excited about. I am in day six of having Wiggle on my own, and we have been having a great time (except for the hour and a half it took to get him down tonight. ugh).

Oh yeah, and we're trying to buy a house before we leave for vacation. I mean we're trying to get everything settled for the house we're trying to buy. It's a tight schedule though because the seller is driving across the country and won't get in town until Thursday, we still haven't signed contracts, C will be out of town for the whole thing, and the goal is to have a home inspection on Saturday. It's the beginning of a stressful week, so I am looking forward to vacation even more.

Here are some pics of my fun weekend with the boy.

Taking a walk in the woods

A quiet moment of reflection

Having fun straddling logs

Riding the carousel

It's starting!

We're going to ride a train!

Are you coming Mommy?

We broke down and watched Cars finally - he had to take Lightning McQueen to bed that night.

Making me wood chip sandwiches at the park

Apparently, I needed a lot of sandwiches.

I'm not ready to show the new house in case things don't go through, but I do want to show off it's location. In the picture above, I am standing in the playground directly behind our current house. The white inside the blue circle? That's the roof of what will be our new house. How sweet is that?

M.A.S.H. Game

2011-05-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

Nothing much has been going on, except some major house hunting. Although we've been looking for a little bit, the thought of actually taking on a mortgage has been stop-me-dead-in-my-tracks scary. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that people would see a house for a few minutes and then agree to buy it without ever getting to spend real time in it, talk to the previous owners, interrogate the neighbors, etc. It just seems like such a risk, and I don't really like risks. But then I fell in love with a house and the whole thing seems completely normal, the natural next step. In point of fact, the chances of us getting this house are pretty small for a number of reasons, but that's ok. I will learn to love again; the thing that changed was that I am now able to see myself in the houses I look at, whereas before I could only see the house itself, sometimes that was a good thing, but since no house is perfect, generally it was a hindrance to ever being able to decide on a particular house. I know it's a common first-time buyer mistake, but I kept thinking the perfect house would come along. Not perfect meaning without blemishes, but seeing every blemish as a beauty mark instead of a potential carcinoma. Now I think I'm ready to accept a house, warts and all. Of course, it'd be nice if I could find my warty house within the next few weeks, so we don't have to renew our lease at all, but if we don't, we don't. There's time.

Also, I've been having a little bit of an identity crisis lately. Not shockingly, being a housewife and full-time mother isn't always the most fulfilling job. Overall, it's still what I want to be doing now, but I need to remember how to be interesting. I need to be more stimulated, but I've been feeling too frenetic lately to delve into anything. It's ok most of the time, but occasionally when I'm talking to people who don't have kids, I feel like we can't really have anything in common. I know that's not true, but so much of my day is kid-centered, and then even non-kid things are now colored by having kids. My priorities are always going to be different than someone without kids because my priorities are always going to involve Wiggle. He may not be number one all of the time, but he will always rank, and he can always trump anything else if needed. It's also hard to explain what you do during the day to someone else. Some days are actually busy, but most days a trip to the grocery store can either be a crowning achievement or the dismal dark nadir that colors the rest of the day. I need more balance, I guess.

All I can say is, I'm working on it.

The News as of Late

2011-04-22T23:01:00.000-05:00

Well, there isn't really news per se, but there have been goings on and such. Wiggle is putting us in hysterics for good parts of the day with his observations cute toddler sayings. Two weeks ago, we flew threw airport security trying to catch our flight back to VA. After going through the machines, we were one big mess of shoes, belts, computers, stroller, carseat, and bags. As C and I tried to put Humpty together again, Wiggle kept shouting "I want to pay for us again!" Only after all of our clothes were back on and bags were closed and secured did we realize that he meant he wanted to go through the security line and put all of our stuff on the conveyor belt again.
Since we made our flight, we spent a good few minutes giggling about that.

Last weekend we spent time in our community garden plot clearing the ground cover and trying to turn the thick. wet clay into rich drainable soil. It's a work in slow-progress due to the continued rain this weekend.

Today, Wiggle and I went to an Easter egg hunt at Fairfax City High School. The egg part was a crazy mass run that lasted all of two minutes, but we did manage to score four eggs in that time. We also got a balloon and went down a fun, bouncy slide.

The football field of eggs

Wiggle waiting to run onto the field

The loot

The loot inside the loot

Having fun on astroturf

Follow-the-leader

Bouncy slide

Two boys and their balloons

Le ballon rose

C and I have, I think, given up all crazy dreams about living in Maryland or DC, and hope to live as close to campus as possible, so C can walk or bike to work, and we can see as much of him as we can during the week. The neighborhoods we're interested in seem doable, but very few properties seem to be on the market at any one time, so we may just have to sit back and wait for the right property to come along. I hate waiting for anything, let alone where we're going to live, but I'll survive.

In the meantime, it's spring. Things are blooming, songbirds are singing, kids are playing, and many, many things are right with the world.

KC Weekend

2011-04-13T01:27:00.000-05:00

We spent the weekend in KC with my in-laws. We had a good time, but Wiggle, Wiggle had a fantastic time! We saw animals, we saw trains, and we flew kites. Totally awesome.

A boy and his Pop-pop

Just a boy swinging

How does this pump work?

Digging

On my own

Trains! Trains! Trains!

I CAN go in there!

The nephew leading the uncle

Daddy

Wiggle flying a kite

C trying to fly a kite

Life is Cherry

2011-03-30T21:18:00.001-05:00

It's cherry blossom time around here - sort of. It is, but we have had several nights of freezing weather, as well as a light snow since the trees have started to blossom, so things seem to be progressing a little more slowly than what I guess is usual.

We did manage to go out and get a few pics though, even in the less than ideal temperatures.

Here's a rare pic where Wiggle and I both have our eyes open and are looking at the camera. If looks could kill....

This is a not-so-rare one of C and Wiggle looking at the camera with their eyes open. I wonder what the difference could be?

My little mischievous Puck

Our best attempt of the day at a family photo.

The Washington Monument and some cherry blossoms

Just blossoms

For the dust jacket...

A rare shot of me and C together

My handsome guys

Me and Wiggle under a canopy of pink

The weekend also consisted of open houses, some good food, and lots of fun.

Static

2011-03-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's the constant change from warm to cold, maybe it's the rain, maybe it's something else entirely, but my brain has been super-fuzzy lately. I feel like there's a low hum going on inside all of the time. When we have a really bright and sunny day, I seem to come out of my stupor a bit, so there may be something to the weather allegations. Otherwise, it's probably stress and avoidance. I have started some major spring cleaning, but completing tasks is easier said than done with a rambunctious toddler underfoot.

I did manage to get the bed switched from winter to spring mode.

Wiggle immediately liked spring mode better , too.

Now that I have pictures, I realize that I would like to switch the navy blue king shams for something in a lighter color, but otherwise, I like both the spring look and feel. Our quilt which is from The Company Store years ago, has aged by getting a little stiffer and more crisp (not in color, but in feel), and the sheets I prefer in the summer are crisp too. I can't understand why almost all sheets are now in the dreaded sateen finish. I much prefer my sheets to be like a good men's dress shirt; you don't want it to drape over the body, instead it should have a little body of it's own.

I have also put away winter coats, boots, and the woolens even though I haven't yet taken out the shorts and tank tops.

Wiggle's room is getting some work too. Although I haven't managed to get rid of a lot of toys, I have gone through and taken out anything that is too young for him. I still have to go through that pile and decide what we keep for posterity, what's kept for the next one, and what just goes to the thrift store. I thought originally that almost all of the battery-operated toys would go to new homes, but a shocking number of them are still around much to Wiggle's delight and my chagrin.

While playing with Wiggle and his toys to see what gets the most play, I've also realized he could use some fake kitchen stuff. We have a lot of felt food and a few utensils, but today he tried to give me tea for "tea-time!" and we didn't have any toy cups. Ever the imaginative boy, we drank out of lamp posts from his train set (they also doubled as horns in the fake band we had a few minutes later).

When we're not spring cleaning, we can often be found at the park doing all the things the big kids do.

Big kids spend time looking cool

And swinging like monkeys

Sometimes we hang out on the hill behind our house. The sky looks awesome and big from there.

This weekend the cherry blossoms are supposed to be in full bloom, so there will be pictures soon! I'm kind of stupid excited about it.

All By Myself, Don't Wanna Be...

2011-03-17T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well, at least for the week. Hubby is living it up in San Fransisco for the week (actually, he's giving a talk and working on some collaborations, but that doesn't stop me from razzing him about his "vacation"). Wiggle and I do fairly well on our own, but when we lock horns, they often stay locked for awhile. It's amazing to see your own bad behaviors in your two-year-old, and yet it somehow doesn't make it any easier to stop doing them myself. When we disagree, we both dig our heels in and try to wait the other one out. Sometimes that can be a loooonnnng time. Basically, we both sit with our arms crossed and our lower lips jutting out and glare at each other until the other one gives in. But which one of us is usually "the other one?" Generally, it's him because I'm the adult, but sometimes it's me because I realize that I need to calm down and take a deep breath and try another tactic; I mean staring and glaring only gets you so far. We also each retreat to our own rooms when things get heated. I really love and need my quiet time and so does he.

This is not how we spend the majority of our time by any means, but a lengthy encounter in the morning can feel like it took all morning when in actuality it was probably only 15 minutes.

We've actually been having a lot of fun in C's absence. Today, we went to music class, played in mud at the playground, kicked the soccer ball around with some older boys, played play-doh on the back porch, and took a walk on campus. Then we had a 30 minute time out session about him almost locking me out on the porch, then dinner, then a bath, some snuggling in mommy's bed and he was out like a light.

Also, I have a new love. Amazon Prime. I got a free subscription for signing up for Amazon Mom and now I get free two-day shipping on everything. In the past that would not have seemed like such a plus, but being able to save an extra trip out for an annoying item like a new inner tube for my jogging stroller is a godsend. Next I might try buying my groceries online. I'm not quite there yet, but I could get there. Right now, it doesn't seem economical since I started using Mint.com a few months ago, and can now confront the staggering amount of money we spend on food every month. It literally left me speechless when I first saw the figures. Now, I have been watching every grocery store trip like it's a major investment. Not fun, and it hasn't been long enough to really pay off yet, but it does help make me feel like we could handle a mortgage payment in the near future.

And now for the good stuff.

These Are The Days...

2011-03-03T22:53:00.000-06:00

So today, I had the best time with Wiggle. He just piled cute, on top of cute, on top of cute.

After his nap he came into my room and got on the bed with me to snuggle for a minute, as usual. While we were cuddled, he said " What we gonna do?" meaning what was up for the afternoon. Teasing him, I asked him if he wanted to "clean the bathrooms?"
"No."
"Fold all of our clothes?"
"No."
"Organize the garage?"
"No."
Then while I was trying to think of the next odious task, he exclaimed, while pointing a finger in the air, "I know! I will give Mommy lots of kisses!"
And he did.

Later in the afternoon, while changing his diaper, we were having the usual conversation about his bottom - how it's cute, that it's where poop comes out, that it belongs to him, when he did something entirely new. He told me a story about his bottom.

One day, there was a bottom that sat in a chair. Then it went upstairs to take a bath. Then it went to sleep.

When C got home, I asked Wiggle to tell the story of the Bottom again. This time the bottom went into the sky after it sat in a chair, but before it got into the bath. Apparently the bottom was not content to just sit.

One his favorite things right now is to sit on benches

Lost in a Blue's Clues reverie

The closest, I hope, he ever looks to a soldier

Nap time is so much better in a tent

1 + 1 = 529

2011-03-01T22:10:00.000-06:00

So even though we haven't gotten any further in the house hunt; I have been hunting. And while I have been perusing listing after listing of houses that we both can't afford and don't like, for the most part, I had forgotten an astonishing consideration. Schools. Not lower ed, because we have that covered almost anywhere around here, but higher ed. Living in Virginia means that Wiggle could eventually go to the University of Virginia or William and Mary or Virginia Tech at in-state tuition prices. Those prices today? About $12,000/yr! Those are some seriously good schools at an outstanding price. Plus, we can buy his tuition today at those prices with a 529 plan. We can even buy a year at a time, since we can't really afford to drop $50,000 on his college fund, even if it is a really good deal. How could I have missed that? So I've been looking less in Maryland and more in Virginia.

Of course, even that doesn't seal the deal. There are still a lot of unknowns to deal with. Wiggle might not get into those schools. I heard from a neighbor that being a white male from Fairfax county means he would practically have to have cured a disease or a book deal to get in. Plus, there's no guaranteeing that those schools will even be state schools in 15 years. I know that sounds weird, but the state is constantly cutting their budgets, and the schools have been trying to make it up, but eventually they might be considered financial sink holes. Also, he might not want to go to those schools, or he could get a scholarship, or we could end up moving to another state anyway, or most likely the higher cost of living in Virginia might negatively impact our quality of life until Wiggle leaves for college. Can you tell I've been thinking about this too much?

This week I need to do some sorting and get some info from the bank and contact some realtors. Maybe then this headache I've had for three days will simmer down.

In Wiggle news - He took a hugely scary tumble down the stairs today. After approximately five seconds of kissing and hugging and making sure nothing was injured, he promptly said "Back to the top!" He then went back up the stairs and started to come down again with as little care as he had just moments earlier. He picked up the dropped hat and mp3 player holder that he had originally been carrying and descended with a big grin. This boy has some spirit; yes, he does.

He also does a mean rock-rendition of Twinkle, twinkle little star.

Weekend Woes

2011-02-26T11:35:00.000-06:00

C has a couple of conferences coming up, so he has requested a work weekend. Ugh. Although I would love the extra help and some time to myself that I would get if he wasn't working, what I most begrudge - and do not mistake me - I do, indeed, begrudge - is the nonchalant way he will pop in and out of our days this weekend. The life of the mind doesn't clock out even when it is supposedly watching our son eat breakfast or listening to me talk about my day. On the flip-slide, it is hard to keep it clocked in when the brain calls quitting time, so we may end up seeing more of C this weekend than we originally thought (if his mind does not cooperate with the overtime suggestion). This is not really to rag on C, but instead to complain about my own job a little. I hate that if my mind goes kaput, I still can't clock out. Plus, if I tried to clock out while on duty, it will just mean I will have extra work at the end of my day. Either Wiggle will be harder to feed or get down and/or the house will be a mess, and I'll have to either stay up and clean or toss and turn in bed filled with the anxiety that I should be cleaning.
This weekend should be filled with some errands, much needed menu planning, and some cleaning. On top of those maintenance things, I would like to spend some time reading, drawing the the pastels class I am taking, and doing some deep organizing - under the bed box/closet storage stuff. I remember when a weekend felt like a long time; now it seems to go by in the blink of an eye.

It's a weekend everyday when you put on a birthday hat!

Bittersweet Dreams

2011-02-24T00:40:00.000-06:00

The boy is growing up - fast. In addition to the constant five and six word sentences, and the barrage of questions about his surroundings, and the many, many mini battles concerning boundaries and limits in a day, he has started to show some signs of going to sleep on his own.

The real change has come at nap time. In the past at nap time, one of us would take up the generally melted-down Wiggle and put him in his bed, at which point we would leave the room and sit outside the door. We would also open the laundry room door against his door to blockade him in because otherwise he would endlessly come out. He would alternate between playing and trying to come out or lure us in, and then would melt down again for one or two minutes before he would fall asleep on the floor. This had been progressing to no melt downs, but still trying to get out, mixed with playing. But this week, I have taken him up, put him in his bed, given him a kiss, walked out, and then gone to my room down the hall. When I hear him open his door, I give a shout to go back in because it's nap time, and lo and behold, he has gone back in to quietly play. Today he was asleep in less than five minutes from when I put him in. Wowza!

At night, things haven't progressed quite as much, but still they are coming along. While he still sometimes comes in for a few minutes in the middle of the night, he goes back into his bed with no trouble as soon as he falls back to sleep. As far as going to sleep, we have a good routine that works, but it relied on us being in the room with him until he falls asleep, generally with me rubbing his back or C snuggling him. Tonight, after the stories and songs and kisses, I said I was going to sit at the door while he went to sleep. He seemed to think that was fine and drifted off quietly within a few minutes.

Now, if we could only move his wake up time a little later in the morning...

Coming Out of Hibernation

2011-02-21T10:31:00.000-06:00

I still haven't felt like writing lately. I have felt the beginnings of a number of posts, but can't seem to sit down and do the actual writing. Truly, I haven't been able to sit down and follow through on a lot of things lately. By nature, I am a researcher, or maybe a better description is an investigator. I like to find things, especially things that are hard to find. What this means in my daily life is that I get sidetracked a lot. A simple task like putting toys away leads to finding every puzzle's missing piece (and ignoring the many cars littering the living room), which leads to an internet search for the next size-up of puzzle for Wiggle to tackle, which leads to a search for vintage wooden puzzles on ebay, which leads to me being mentally tapped, Wiggle being frustrated, and the house still being a mess. Most of my family has ADD and would probably categorize me as ADD too, but I think my frenetic-ness is more about having a lot of bad habits and little self-control than a brain-wiring issue. What I do know is that I would like to spend more time living in the immediate present. I want to stop thinking about what I will do when I next have free-time, or when I go to the grocery store, or when I'm cleaning - I just want to do when it is time to do. Unfortunately, this will mean some advance planning which I have a hard time controlling, but I think I am going to take some of the advice I have given C and use a timer, so that I can't spend endless hours derailing. I have a strong desire to feel calmer, at peace, instead of the frustrated ball of pent of energy that I generally am.

We had some really wonderful sunny and warm weather this weekend, and it felt fantastic to be outside in the sun and feel the warm air. Tonight I walked to campus to a coffee shop and it was raining a little, but in a pleasant, gentle way, and the air just smelled amazing. I always love the smell of rain, but in Chicago, I now realize how much cement I could smell, the rain here smelled so much sweeter, fuller. And I can see stars from my back porch, actual constellations, not just a random star that has burned through all of the pollution to shine. I mean, I know there is still pollution and cement here, but compared to Chicago, it feels like being in the country. Maybe I just need to spend more time taking "the cure, " nineteenth-century style, taking long walks and sitting out on a deck in a lounge chair with a blanket tucked around me up to my neck. Some hot springs would be nice too.

It is my intention to post more frequently, but I have to figure out some balance between trying to write more and just doing some kind of rudimentary updates about our lives.

Just know, I haven't forgotten and I'm working on it; I promise.

Tick-Tock Goes the Clock

2011-02-01T23:13:00.000-06:00

What can i say? We've had an ankle injury for me, Wiggle's birthday,a couple of snow days, my birthday, a wonderful visit from my mom. I haven't had the time or inclination to write.

Frankenboot

The ankle thing isn't major for my ankle, except that I have to wear Frankenboot everywhere, but I've had to stop running completely for now. I am allowed to do 15 minutes on the bike or some water aerobics until it gets some of its strength back. So frustrating! I went to the gym tonight, and even though I wanted to do so much more, it still felt good to get any exercise at all. A couple of old swim buddies from high school and I are going to train for a triathlon in the fall, so I'd better get this ankle thing squared away soon.

We went and looked at open houses this weekend while my mom was here, and I think we've settled on Takoma Park as the area we'd like to live in. Now to get a realtor and start looking in earnest.

Also, I've been going a little stir crazy in the house so much. The snow, combined with my ankle, combined with a toddler who often requires the work of two adults to put pants on, has put a hitch in my going out plans on many a day as of late.

In other news, I still plan on sitting down and thinking about some personal goals for the year. I know we are already a month in, but time has been a rather precious commodity to me lately, and when I do have it, my mind tends to be racing with the thoughts of the day. Adding the thoughts of tomorrow to my cluttered head would just be torture much of the time. I need a clean head space to think about the future, so for right now my goal is to clear out a small closet in my head. If only I could take all that mental clutter to Goodwill or have a garage sale. Anyone want some mild anxiety regarding medical expenses or indecisiveness regarding a potty training method? I could make you a really good deal.

The Preschool Blues

2011-01-20T19:58:00.000-06:00

I have gone to three preschool open houses this week. The first one was thoroughly mediocre and had me a little scared that it would be hard to find a good one. The people were all very nice, but they kind of did a hard sell for a cooperative preschool which just seems to be the wrong way to go, to me.

Then on Tuesday, I visited a wonderful preschool in Fairfax. I wanted to start going there myself. They had a huge room with different activities and the theme this week is dinosaurs, so there were dinosaurs everywhere. Very cool. The only problem? It's in Fairfax, and I don't really want to be here next year.

Today I went to visit another cooperative preschool in Silver Spring, around where we would like to buy a house. It was a mixed bag. The kids seemed to be having a great time, and the rooms and teachers seemed cool, but the parents... They were nice, but I have never felt so underdressed and overdressed at the same time before. I was wearing a cherry red sweater set, small gold earrings, and jeans. I also had a tan, plain purse and a black and white ginko print jacket. I felt I had adopted a fairly conservative look that would be at home in a place where I do have to apply to get in, but where I also might get tempra paint on me while there. I should also mention that I was wearing make-up, which is relevant because nobody seemed to even have as much as chapstick on. Also, their clothes were all various shades of mud. Now, I happen to like shades of mud and think they can even look chic, but these all looked shapeless and drab and severe. I felt very out of place, and when I was telling C about it, he said "You felt very Dallas, huh?" And he was right, I felt that they were looking at me and seeing Texas big hair, pageant make-up, and flash. I felt like I was wearing sequins, when I thought I was projecting pearls. And that is a feeling I don't think I have ever had before.

Admittedly, I don't know if all the moms are like that, but really, there was shockingly little make-up around, especially considering the women all seemed like they were in their late thirties or early forties. You need make-up in order to look decent when you start aging; if I don't wear make-up it looks like I just got out of bed, all day. Or that I just finished a not-so-short stay in the hospital. Believe me, mascara and lipstick are with me before I check to see if I have extra diapers. After all, I can always pick up extra diapers, or even borrow one if I have to, but I can't just pick up a new lipstick on the fly.

I have another preschool open house to go to next week, but we may have to wait another year until we're settled to snag a spot at someplace we want. In the meantime, he could really go anywhere, I know I'm a good mom, and he's getting what he needs at home, he just needs some extra socialization, especially some without me there, so most places will do the trick, if it comes to that.

Boring, Boring, Boring

2011-01-18T21:30:00.000-06:00

I had been thinking to myself that I need to have more adult things to write about here, that I shouldn't be so focussed on Wiggle. Then I thought to myself, "hey, no one wants to read about whether I have a bladder infection." (I don't, BTW) How sad is that? The only thing I could think of off the top of my head that would qualify as adult content was a personal medical condition. I've got to get out of the house more. I need to do a little more reading and delve into some hobbies again. Otherwise, my life is becoming truly pathetic.

On that front, my family and I are reading A Midsummer Night's Dream together, which I am very excited about. Also, I am signing up for a charcoal and pastels class at one of the local rec centers. I have little-to-no artistic ability, but it should be a fun way to get out of the house for a few weeks.

I haven't been to the gym in a couple of weeks, which is upsetting, but I have some weird ankle pain, and I was trying to stay off of it, so it could heal. I'm going to make a doctor's appointment tomorrow, to try and get some physical therapy for it, so I can go back to the gym without making it worse.

Wiggle and I managed to have a very productive day, concerning both play and work. I got a little cleaning in, and we played with a bunch of different things without a lot of drama or aggression, which is wonderful. This evening I took him to the pool and we romped around until he got good and tuckered. It was a blast; the only reason we got out was that he was starting to shiver a lot, even in his wetsuit! (A wonderful freecycle acquisition)

My mom is coming out on Saturday, which is awesome for so many reasons, but I am especially excited because we are going to do some neighborhood scouting and house hunting. Fun!

The soccer star!

My husband, the sophisticate.

Enjoying a snack on the go.

Mini Me

2011-01-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

Wiggle and I are currently embroiled in an epic battle for power and dominence, and I, of course, am losing heartily. I don't start the day thinking about campaigns and strategies, but there I am at noon screaming "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" and "if you don't pick up those toys, they are going AWAY!"
And there he is, unphased by the purple, throbbing vein in my forehead and the ever-higher pitch of my voice, grinning, Joker-style, while holding a crayon to the couch, ready to make his mark.

I am exagerating a little for effect jere, but it feels like high drama to me, and it's got to
stop. Today, while I was trying to take down the Christmas lights (don't judge me) from outside, he took the remaining Chrisas decorations from the neighbor's stoop and started smashing them on the ground with all of his might. I couldn't believe the look of abject joy he had on his face, as the plastic lawn stakes broke into smaller and smaller pieces.

When I was in second grade, there was this kid who lived down the street, Brad. Brad liked to throw rocks at the other kids on the block, and when I see Wiggle destroy things, a small part of me gets frightened that I am raising the next rock-thrower. Logically, I should not be worried by this- when some ofthe parents confronted Brad's parents about his behavior they expressed something like, "boys will be boys" or some such nonsense, and my horror at the thought of the same action in my kid means that the outcomes cannot be the same, but still, it is in a parent's nature to worry about these things.

Tomorrow, I'm spending some quality time at Barnes and Noble
in the parenting section. Also, I've got to find an indoor playground of some kind where he can run off some of this extra energy.

What can I say, it's been a rough week.

Post Holidays and New Year

2011-01-11T21:10:00.000-06:00

We had a wonderful Christmas in Virginia with C's mom, aunt, and bro. Wiggle blissed out on trains and other various gifts. Santa brought an awesome digital camera and a book on trains (because he knew Wiggle was getting trains from his Aunt K and X-Man).

The big pile o' loot

Matching Monsters movies for Uncle B and Wiggle

Daddy's new coffee accessory

Perfume for me!

Taking pictures with his new camera

Mr. Serious

Uncle B getting some work in on Christmas morning

After Christmas, we drove to Dallas to see my family for New Year's. Thanks to some early morning help from both my mom and Uncle M, we have gotten to sleep in on more than a few days and finally get some much needed rest and relaxation.

We finally arrived home on Sunday evening. I miss all of our family terribly and wish we lived closer to them all.

I normally like to spend some time reflecting on the past year and making some resolutions for the new year, but I haven't had two minutes to think straight it seems in a little while. I am going to take some time this week though, and try to make some realistic goals for this year. I have a number of things I want to change and several new things I want to try, but I have a habit of shooting for the moon, when it might be better to aim for the ceiling.

Overall though, I think this year is going to be a good one!

More Christmas?

2010-12-18T00:03:00.000-06:00

Last night we took Wiggle to the Bull Run Festival of Lights. He flipped out. It was pretty cool and because it snowed yesterday afternoon, there were no crowds whatsoever. We think we may try to go again when Nonna and Aunt M are in town next week.
I also, finally, got the entire tree lit.

I might put another string along the bottom, and we're going to put ornaments on during Wiggle's nap tomorrow.

We also had our first snowfall yesterday. We went out and played a little bit before music class, and Wiggle went out with his friend to play more today.

By the way, the coat he's wearing was mine from when I was little. Crazy, right?

Christmas Time

2010-12-15T23:35:00.000-06:00

We were going to go get our tree on Sunday, but it rained, and rained, and rained, all day. I decided we had better wait until the next day because I wasn't going to be able to string lights on a soaking tree anyway. In lieu of that Christmas-y activity, we decided to go to "Juniper Ave" in Sterling to look at garish Christmas light displays. Wiggle fell asleep on the way, so when we got there, I had C stop in front of a house lit up like an airport runway that also had a bunch of Peanuts characters out front. We woke Wiggle up and took him out of his carseat for a moment so he could orient himself to his surroundings a bit. He looked around bleary-eyed, and then said "more trees!" and pointed down the street to the Vegas-like strip of houses that awaited us. We obliged his request. For the next twenty minutes all we heard from the backseat was a barrage of "Oh-my-gosh!" and "More!" It was an awesome night.

On Monday we picked out our perfect tree, but I have still not finished putting lights on it. I cannot work on it while Wiggle is awake because he is obsessed with touching the tree, and therefore C and I have to keep our distance as well. At night, I have just been too tired to stay up and work on it. Tonight, I will get a good chunk done, if not all of it.

De-light-ful!

2010-12-07T22:38:00.000-06:00

Tonight, Wiggle and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few missing ingredients for dinner. We left around 5:30 pm, so it was already thoroughly dark. On the way we passed a few houses decorated for Christmas, which I casually pointed out to Wiggle in the backseat. Boy, oh boy, here was nothing casual about it to him. Squeals of delight at each and every house. After the grocery store, he requested "More trees!"
Next week we will take him to this. Do you think he'll like it?

Also, I'm reading Dracula, which is surprisingly creepy, but enjoyable. I guess classics stand-up to time for a reason.

The Big and Small of It

2010-12-04T23:25:00.000-06:00

Recently, I went shopping and discovered a wonderful, yet horrifying fact. I can now fit into regular pants at The Gap and Old Navy. For the last I-don't-know-how-many years, I have been solidly plus-sized in every way and in every brand. So the fact that I can again buy clothes in a regular store after trying them on, instead of sizing them up on the internet, is a personal revelation.
I was overjoyed. And then I was more than a little upset. The pants I was able to put on at The Gap were jeans and as such were sized in jeans' sizes. This means that instead of the vague 10 or, in this case, 20, they were marked with the 28-30-32 type of size. Now, back in olden days of last year or so, these numbers were supposed to correspond to the circumference of your waist in inches. The jeans I was trying on were a 35; let me just break the suspense and say that I do not have a 35 inch waist. This prompted me to go the size chart online which showed that for those with non-plus-sized waists the numbers still correspond to inches, but as the sizes increase, so do the increments of inches between the sizes.
This seemed ridiculous to me. Again, while I'm happy The Gap has deemed that I no longer have to shop at home from my computer with the lights off and the blinds drawn, I think,"just admit you are selling plus-sized clothes already!"
I should say that Old Navy has a plus-sized section that used to be available in stores, but apparently fat people prefer to shop in the shadowy confines of their living rooms, so now plus sizes are only available online. This is unfortunate for me, because on top I am still definitively plus-sized. This will probably continue to be the case until I reach near waif-like proportions since I have been blessed with shoulders only a coxswain could love.
My point is, I'm not sure who they are trying to fool - me? I'm sorry, but I have a fairly realistic picture of my body and just slapping a 35 inch tag on a pair of jeans ain't gonna convince me otherwise; themselves? I think the stores don't want to admit they sell plus-sized clothing so the down-sized labels help them maintain their "image"; Other customers? They are afraid that the cute sized 4 blonde doesn't want to buy the same style of sweater as the fat girl, or at least, she doesn't want to see the fat girl buying it.

On a similiar thread, a couple of weeks ago I heard about a misguided blogger for marie claire who said she didn't like the new CBS show Mike and Molly because she didn't want to see fat people kissing on TV; she didn't even want to see them walking across the room. Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those fat-rights activists who says ridiculous things about how they are just as beautiful and sexy at 300 pounds as they would be at 120 pounds. I am severely overweight, - nay obese, and while I think I am attractive, I'm not stupid. I need to lose weight because my body just isn't made to carry around all this extra weight, and be sure that I know it will make me more attractive to weigh less. I will be more attractive for a myriad of reasons including having more energy, looking and perhaps being taller, feeling the accomplishment of having lost the weight, having clothes fit better, and indeed, being thinner.
All of that being said, we are a nation of fat people and to say you don't want to see someone even walk across a room, for any reason, seems immature, to say the least. I don't want to see a lot of things on TV, but I just change the channel.
In real life, I am generally, quite frankly, too absorbed in my own affairs to spend a lot of time noticing if two "ugly" people are kissing or what-not. Also, it would seem that this idiot blogger was also condemning at least someone she was close to, since the majority of Americans are overweight. Again, I am not saying that we should accept it at a societal level, but on a personal level, we need to be civil, polite, and charitable. Actually at a societal level we need to be all of those things too, but we can also afford to give advice and even admonish a little when called for, and believe me it's called for regarding weight in this country.
Now that I've stepped off of my soapbox, perhaps I will use it to do some step aerobics and burn some extra calories.

In Wiggle news - We were at the mall on Friday night trying to wear out the boy indoors. While waiting for an elevator in Macy's, a man was looking at Christmas pj's for his still infant baby. The wife who was pushing the stroller with the little bambino said to the husband "Mikey, no. We're done." As we all got on the elevator a moment later, Wiggle looked pointedly at the husband and said "Mikey! Nooooo!" And the sound of disappointment and censure in his voice was unmistakable. We all nervously laughed and spent the rest of the ride looking interestedly at our shoes. I think it was our first incident of being embarrassed at something he said.

Later that evening, on the way home, we saw a truck on our street delivering our new trash bins. About half on hour later, they had gotten to our end of the street, and we heard a rumbling from outside. Wiggle and I were snuggling on the couch, and I said "Did you hear that? I think there's a monster outside." I was thinking it would peak his interest, and then we would go to the window to see what it was. Nope. Wiggle looked at me like I was daft and said "gar-bage," while nodding vigorously. I nodded back at him, but held out hope. "You don't think it's a monster out there? You think it's the garbage cans?" He thought for a moment and then said "Wheels. Rolling. Make noise." Then I cried a little. How can such a little boy be so jaded?

Back in the Saddle

2010-12-03T00:14:00.000-06:00

I was out for the count yesterday again because of a cold/fever. Wiggle was out too, but he seemed to be a lot more energetic than I was. Today we both seem to have recovered well. I managed to get the entryway clean the other night.

There's still some work to do to get it really organized, but at least it's functional now. I also have sorted some of the insurance stuff, and done some other onerous tasks on my to-do list. An unpleasant surprise came in the mail today though. I went to the dentist two weeks ago and had three very small cavities filled. It turns out I went to the wrong dentist (similar practice names on the same street), and this one isn't in our network. The dental work didn't hurt at all, but OUCH! the bill. It will be ok, and I'm going to try to talk to them to see if they can lower the cost at all, but man-oh-man this is a mistake that makes me feel stupid. I just hate stuff like that.
I also managed to go to the gym today for a good run and get some Christmas shopping done. I'm feeling a little better and my thoughts are already turning to decorating the house this weekend.
Oh, and we got wellies for Wiggle last weekend, and he had his first opportunity to wear them this week.

They have sharks on them.

I also got to cook my first post-Thanksgiving dinner tonight. (We were done with Thanksgiving food earlier obviously, but we grazed on random pantry items and got take-out the past couple of nights) I made a new favorite a quinoa Moroccan stew.

I still have a lot to do, but it feels more manageable today than earlier this week. I can't believe tomorrow is Friday.

Lonely

2010-11-29T22:33:00.000-06:00

I'm having a bad case of the Mondays today. Every year near the holidays, while I certainly spend my time spreading holiday cheer, I get a little grumpy that I'm not closer to my family. This year I'm a little more grumpy because we aren't near friends or family. When I went to the gym tonight, even my Pandora stations were conspiring against me. There were no fewer than three references to Chicago in live versions of songs, and one mention of Dallas.
I also have a lot of annoying things to do. For example, I have to follow up with our health insurance about some claims which will mean several long confusing phone calls to find out what tiny step I have to take to fix the confusing issue. I have to change our address with a couple of rarely used bank accounts which will involve sending an actual letter out, which will mean a trip to the post office for stamps. I have to get the oil changed on the car. I hate these kinds of tasks. They always take longer than you think they will, and sometimes you are not even sure when you are finished with them completely.
In the house, I want to decorate the front porch and clean the entryway. This is what greets me in the entryway right now.

Stepping over this box every day is the current bane of my existence

I have had emptying that box on my to-do list since we moved in, but every day I just step over or around it. Tomorrow, I will face the horror that is the box and clean up the junk that is accumulating down there.

Things just seem to keep piling up right now faster than I am getting things done. I need a time vacation.

On a positive note, I ran outside on Saturday and Sunday nights, first with Wiggle and then by myself. It felt really good, and I went as fast as I do on the treadmill, which was surprising since it's definitely harder outside. Tonight, I went to the gym and ran for 10 minutes, but then got on the stair climber for 15 minutes. I hate the stupid stair climber because it's sooo boring and I'm a little afraid that I will fall off, but I'm doing it to help build up the muscles in my knees, and I think it's helping. I've gotten over some hump with my running so that it's easier and more fun right now. I think I need to look for a couple of races to sign-up for now because I feel like I can actually train for a race now.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T23:07:00.000-06:00

Our first Thanksgiving in Virginia was a success. It was just the three of us, but we had a lovely meal and a lovely day.

Wiggle helping C stir the brining solution

The big, beautiful bird

A little Thanksgiving day drama

My handsome boy

Enjoying dinner with a real wine glass (with a little soda and water)

A good dinner is always followed by some block building

After dinner we watched Toy Story 3 and snuggled on the couch. Then we took a walk around the neighborhood at Wiggle's request. He was a little disappointed when there weren't other kids out and about at 7:30 pm, but we still had a nice walk. The little boy didn't even make it upstairs before he was asleep in Daddy's arms.

C and I enjoyed some pumpkin pie and a little more of the wine from the winery that shares my last name. All in all a good day.

Holiday Plans

2010-11-22T22:26:00.000-06:00

We did most our shopping today for the Big Meal later this week. I still have to get the turkey tomorrow, and find pearl onions and ginger preserves, and get the liquor. Shoot, I guess there's more left than I thought. Luckily, I get a block of time tomorrow without the boy to navigate the horror that is the grocery store the week of Thanksgiving.
We will be doing the same meal that C and I have been doing every year for the past (gulp) fourteen years. We've cooked for hoards of friends and family; we've cooked for a few close friends; we've cooked at our own house and at others' houses. It's always funny to me the hype surrounding this mythical meal. At a playgroup last week, everyone was complaining how long it took to cook a turkey. Most of them weren't hosting their own Thanksgivings, and for that they gave thanks, because they had an outdated idea that they'd have to wake up at 5 am to deal with the bird. I said that my turkey is always done in under 3 hours, which, I'm pretty sure, made them think I am a witch, or that I like to eat raw bird. I will start my food prep on Tuesday evening, and will have knocked out all but the onions, brussel sprouts, and bird before Thursday. It will still seem hectic, but it will also seem comfortable and familiar, like the holidays should. It will be harder too this year, with the Tasmanian Devil that is Wiggle underfoot in the kitchen, but hey, this is why I've been training all these years, right?
I know that holidays are stressful in many ways, but I intend to and do enjoy my holidays. I make sure to sip a glass of Dubonnet with a twist, just as my mother sometimes did while cooking. I make enough food to ensure leftovers, which also means a few days of minimal cooking for the days following the holiday. I spend time with my family playing games or snuggled up watching movies. I do not participate in the madness that is Black Friday. I start daydreaming about Christmas and singing carols loudly and with much enthusiasm. I am a person who loves the holidays both in theory and in practice, and I hope I am able to teach Wiggle to practice loving the holidays too.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like...

2010-11-21T00:10:00.000-06:00

CHRISTMAS!

Tonight we went to Fairfax Corner for their tree lighting ceremony. Wiggle was blown away by the huge tree. I thought it would feel to early for Christmas stuff, but with a tree obsessed toddler in tow, listening to Christmas carols and seeing Santa the week before Thanksgiving felt perfectly natural.
We walked around the shops and got the obligatory, oops, I mean complimentary, Santa hat.

We also went on a carriage ride around the square. For some reason I totally forgot to take any pictures of the horses or the carriage, but here are a couple of us on the ride.

Trust me, Wiggle and I are looking at the rear ends of two huge horses

Wiggle, not psyched about pictures, because it interfered with horse watching

And the best shot...

Our first Christmas family photo

It was a blast. Afterward, we went to Potbelly where Wiggle scarfed down half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some vanilla malt. He was in heaven. Santa was there, but we felt that after the carriage ride, it would just be too much to stand in line again. Plus, we kind of need to do a Santa primer for Wiggle, because as of now, he has no idea who he is. It's going to be so fun. I can't believe how excited I am about Christmas stuff now. I mean, I have always liked Christmas a lot, so I didn't really know that I could be more into it.

Yesterday, C and I went out for Ethiopian food in Alexandria. (Can I mention how much I love swapping babysitting with our neighbors?) The place, Enat, was in a small strip mall, and if we didn't know we were going there, we would never have stopped there on our own. It was delicious. Definitely the best Ethiopian I've ever had. The place was small, but nice, and very friendly. We were the only non-Ethiopians in the restaurant the entire time, I think. I will definitely go back.

On the way home, C and I decided to drive through Arlington for a bit to look at neighborhoods. We drove through some amazing old neighborhoods with streets that had names like Vacation Lane. The houses were beautiful and so expensive I would have start printing my own money now to be able to afford one ten years from now. It was nice to look though, and we enjoyed just driving around a different area of NoVa. I can't believe we are getting to go out so frequently right now. It will probably drop off around the holidays because everyone's schedules fill up, but right now, it feels fantastic.

Tomorrow, the boy gets a tree for his room. I can hardly wait.

Going Uphill

2010-11-19T00:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Wiggle fell asleep on the way home from a late morning playgroup, but I woke him up when I was changing his diaper before I put him down for his nap. I thought he was still going to go down, so I sat outside of his room as I normally do, and waited for him to fall asleep. Then it got quiet; not asleep quiet, but "oh, crap" quiet. I opened the door to check on him, and found this.

He had absconded with the pen earlier in the day and apparently hid it.

He eventually went down around 5 o'clock; we had to wake him up at 6:30 pm, so he wouldn't be up all night. Some days are crazy.

Today we went to our last music class of the session. We start up again in two weeks though, so it's only a short break. Then he had a nap, while I worked my abs on a video. When he woke up, we had lunch and then went our for our first "jog" in the jogging stroller. I ran whenever I could, but these hills are killing me. Both up and down are hard to maneuver with a stroller. Then he watched a little Nemo while I made couscous stuffed peppers for dinner. The stroller was great; lightweight and easy to navigate.

In the middle of our walk we went to a park where Wiggle played in the sandbox.

How did he get so grown up?

He's also started requesting songs by title. He'd done it for awhile with the music on his mp3 player, but now he's started with things we hear on Pandora. The other day he asked for "Monkeys!" C and I thought and thought and suggested any monkey related song we knew, but he refused them all. He also told us that it was "green." He had apparently looked at the album cover that had come up when the song was playing and remembered it. We managed to find the song - a version of "5 monkeys jumping on the bed," by chance, but it was a lucky find to be sure. I seriously can't keep up with him sometimes. The boy blows my mind nearly every day,

Jogging Ahead

2010-11-16T23:45:00.000-06:00

I got a jogging stroller today! It's a totally awesome Kelty Joyrider -lightweight, folds compactly, two cupholders. I've been looking on craigslist for awhile, but the stars didn't align until today. I will try to go for my first run tomorrow. I'm really excited!

I went to the gym tonight and climbed the stairclimber for 15 minutes. Ugh! I pretty much hated that. But it was worth it to come home and eat sweet potato and shrimp enchiladas. My dad has requested that I start including recipes for my awesome dinners, and I am happy to oblige. Generally, I use recipes from epicurious.com, and when that is the case as it was tonight, I will just post a link to the recipe. I skimped a little on the sauce, and it was a mistake, so next time I will buy a bigger can of salsa verde for sure. The parsnips and sweet potatoes rock though. I highly recommend it.

Before cooking; it looked even better after

Broke my tv ban tonight to watch last week's episode of Parenthood. Totally worth it after tonight's workout.

The face of a boy who just realized he can take pictures of himself with my phone.

Americana

2010-11-15T23:13:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, we went into the District to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Museum of American Art. We met our old friend, Red Hawk (think politics, not nature), who lives in DC, but whom we see much to little of, at the museum.

We weren't allowed to take any photos in the exhibit, but I was not all that wowed. They had a lot of famous pieces by Rockwell, but few of them portrayed family, which is what I think of most when I think of him. It was still a nice exhibit, but I preferred the bits of the National Portrait Gallery that we saw. There are apparently two other floors of portraits, so I guess it's good that we live only half an hour away. I really love free museums!

Afterward, we went to get a cup of tea, and Wiggle had a mango lassi, which he wouldn't share with either his dad or me.

Wiggle doesn't trust him for a minute.

Red Hawk entertained him with the light saber app on his Iphone. The boy figured it out right away and was hooked. Next he'll be giving him Star Trek toys.

Today we did the First Haircut. I had debated going to a place called Cartoon Cuts in the mall, but a surprising number of reviews on yelp mentioned kids' ears getting cut, so they exited the running fairly early in the game. I decided instead to go to an old-time barber shop that a woman in our playgroup recommended. I think it was definitely the right choice. They had birds and an aquarium with fish to look at while we were waiting.

Wiggle had to sit on two booster seats so that he would be tall enough. When we propped him up on the seat, he was upset that his feet wouldn't reach the footrest at the bottom of the chair. They also had a big tv and put on cartoons for him during the cut.

The Shaggy Boy

The woman who cut his hair was very nice and quite good with him, but she did take a long time, which I was prepared for because the woman from our playgroup had mentioned it.

Getting started

The first cut

Resting on Daddy's arm and taking some M&M's to make it through

The Haircut

Checking the results

Afterward, C got a haircut too, and both my boys went from chic to geek - that is until we tousled them up a bit and realized that they were still my chic boys. I'm still mourning Wiggle's long locks a little, but he does look pretty grown up with his big boy hair now.

After some other errands, I was scheduled to go to the gym, but was dragging my feet about it. I managed to change into my gym clothes, but was hanging around talking to C as he was giving Wiggle a bath, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My first thought? "Damn! I look good!" Yes, I actually thought "Damn!" and two exclamation points. It's only been a week of my ramped up exercise and healthy eating plan, and I could see a difference. I look a little sleeker, well, let's be honest, maybe not sleek, but less lumpy to be sure! I hightailed it to the gym and had my best run yet. Plus, I made a plan with Red Hawk to run a 10k in April, and I'm getting a used jogging stroller tomorrow, so I have both motivation and an extra tool to get me to my goal.

Tonight, I could have watched TV again, but I didn't. So far, I still really like it without it. I feel less anxious about what I have to do. I don't even think I'm getting that much more done, but I'm more aware of what's on my plate, so I feel more like I have a handle on it. Change is good; I like change, when I initiate it, especially. Another week of the eating changes, and I will get to re-evaluate to see if I want to stick with this, or go a different route.

Oh yeah - we are already Christmas tree crazy at our house. Wiggle would spend hours in the tree aisle at Target if we let him. I haven't gotten him one for his room yet, but will as soon as they have the small ones in stock again. And he wants colored lights to C's great dismay. I prefer white lights too, but I totally see the appeal from his point of view. After all, he doesn't even know about ornaments yet.

I did get this awesome advent calendar though. Someday I will make one that has special significance for us, but in the meantime, this one for $2.50 will do. I think it's really cute, don't you?

Note to self

2010-11-13T23:18:00.000-06:00

Try to write your blog posts earlier in the day, so they don't sound so much like a mishmash of random notes to self from throughout your day.

Thank you.

Me

No Nap

2010-11-13T22:58:00.000-06:00

Today C and I wandered around like zombies for most of the morning. We had gone out to dinner and a movie last night, and when we got home around 12:30 am and had been talking to the neighbor who watched Wiggle, he woke up. I got him back down around 2:00 am, but he was still up bright and early at 5:30 this morning. Luckily for me, C took the first morning shift, so I slept until 7, and then C went back to bed for a bit. Around 11 we went to Costco. I thought it was perfect timing, and Wiggle would be ready for a nap when we got home. He gorged himself on a variety of samples and half a hot dog there, and was clearly exhausted when we got home, but he would not go down. We waited for an hour, but he wasn't even close. I hate when he misses his nap.

At 3:30 we had a playdate at one of the neighborhood tot lots with a new little boy who is two days older than Wiggle. Another neighbor boy was there too, as was his buddy with whom we swap sitting. The four boys romped around the playground for an hour and a half or so. While they all had a good time, I think my little Wiggle might be a bit of a bully. Not to sound like that mother, but he's really not a mean bully, he's just an overly excited bully. He was going around giving everyone high-fives, but if you didn't put your hand up, he high-fived your face. I normally think of a bully as a thug, and Wiggle certainly isn't that, but he has definite ideas about how things should go, and he's willing to, uh, "help" you to see how they should go.
Today was very successful regarding his responses to time-outs, so I have some hope that we will be able to cut down the hitting very soon. If we don't, we just might become the family on the block that everyone talks about behind their backs.
After the playdate, I went to the gym and C took Wiggle to the store to pick up some ingredients for dinner. I tried to run, but I had run yesterday, plus I had had so little sleep that my legs felt like lead, so I did the stationary bike instead. I have managed to workout every day this week, which is awesome!

After C picked me up and we got home, we tried to give Wiggle some dinner, but he only wanted to snuggle on Daddy, so we opted for bedtime instead. C was going to give Wiggle a bath, so he went into the bathroom to run some water, and told Wiggle to start taking off his clothes in his room. By the time C got back into the room, Wiggle was alseep in his crib. Talk about tired - I don't know if that has ever happened before. C managed to convince him that a new diaper and some pajamas were a good idea, but then he was right out again.

For dinner, I had bought some salmon from Costco. I can't remember the last time I cooked salmon, but it really hit the spot tonight. Of course, since we got it at Costco, it's going to hit the spot again tomorrow too.

Salmon with a star anise and tomato sauce, lentils with tomatoes, cucumbers, and goat cheese, and, of course, kale.

While I certainly don't mind eating like this - it's been delicious, I still hate having to be so conscious about what I'm eating. It will get easier once I have more recipes in the hopper without pasta or rice, so I can think about them ahead of time and look forward to them.

Tomorrow, we are meeting a friend in the District at the Museum of American Art to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit. C said it will look like we lifted Wiggle from one of the pictures. Our little all-American boy. There will be pictures, I promise.

Stargazing

2010-11-11T23:40:00.000-06:00

Thursdays are my toughest days. C is gone until 10 pm, and although we generally have music class in the morning, that 45 minutes of structured time just doesn't do it for the day. Today though, Wiggle woke me up at 5:30 am saying "hun-gry," and when that didn't work he put his little face to mine and whined "HUN-GRY!" So I got up and fed the little boy milk and three eggs scrambled with a couple of sauteed mushrooms grated in for good measure.

Turns out we didn't have music class today, so the morning eked on with several time outs for running with knitting needles (that project I had "on the needles?" It's off the needles now), and for refusing to clean up his blocks after dumping them and wanting to move on to the next activity. Then I worked out during his nap; yes, that's right, I have managed to get some On Demand workout shows in, which has had the immediate result of rendering me useless from the waist down from too many squats and lunges.

His latest phrase is "Ever!" which means "Never!"

Me: Are you going to put your pants on?
W: No. Ever.
Me: Do you want to go to the playground?
W: (when feeling surly) Ever!
Me: Hungry? Tired? Play with blocks? Get a diaper change? Clean up? Give me a kiss?
W: Ever.

You get the idea. It's all about the attitude at our house right now, and the boy has it in spades.
We did have some sweet snuggles after he got up from his nap and was still groggy.

My sleepy boy

This evening we went to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items for dinner. When we were in the parking lot, he pointed to an airplane and said "star." It was flying low enough that you could see multiple lights and that it was moving, so I pointed those things out and said that, no, it was an airplane. I then pointed to the two meager stars we could see from the parking lot. He was having a little trouble seeing them, so I asked him if he wanted to go look at stars when we got home. As you might imagine, he answered in the affirmative. When we got home, I walked him up the hill to the empty field behind our house. We could see tons of stars. He pointed to a bunch of them, but then I think the dark empty space around us started to make him uneasy because he said "back in" and he wouldn't walk, preferring to be carried instead.

I really kind of wish we had a telescope because the moon has been looking awesome lately, and he's so interested in stars. I know though, that he's still too young, really, to close one eye and look through a lens. But it's yet another thing to look forward to.

Productive

2010-11-10T22:07:00.000-06:00

Today I managed to vacuum, get three fillings, workout, and make dinner all before 5 o'clock. It felt a little weird.
I made dinner early because I got to go to knitting tonight, and I didn't want to stick C with making dinner two nights in a row. We had a Moroccan stew with butternut squash and carrot over quinoa. It was delicious, and even better it's the kind of thing into which you can throw whatever vegetables you have on hand. Definitely, a keeper.
It was great to be able to go to knitting again. The group I had found met on Thursday nights, and C teaches then, so I couldn't go at all once the semester started. The group leader is having a long recovery from Lyme disease, one of the definite negatives to living in our wooded wonderland, and stepped down as leader; the new leader moved the group to Wednesdays, which is why I can start going again. Yea!
I started a scarf tonight. I don't really know how I feel about the yarn or the pattern, but I like having something on the needles, so it accomplished my first goal. It made me miss tv a little though. I normally knit while I watch tv, and I was excited to knit more when I got home, so the urge to watch was there. Luckily, dinner, listening to some music, and talking to C made the urge pass almost unnoticed.
I've been trying to decide what classes/activities Wiggle and I are going to do next semester, and I'm thinking about switching music classes. Right now we are in Musikgarten right up the hill, which is cheap and convenient, but I don't like it nearly as much as I liked Music Together in Chicago. The downside if we switch is that it would be further away and it's more expensive, but the upshot is that I like the music a lot more, which matters a bunch if you are listening to the CD's ad nauseum. Also, I would get to meet a new set of parents. I've met a lot of very nice people so far, but none of them are my people. Maybe a different class would yield a different set of parents.
I guess I didn't realize how lucky I was in Chicago with a built-in best friend for me and for Wiggle right downstairs! It's definitely going to take a little more work on my part here.

Day 2

2010-11-09T22:48:00.000-06:00

So it's the end of my second day without any tv, and it feels both good and bad. It's good in that I don't miss the tv at all; I know I will really want to veg out one of these evenings, but it hasn't happened yet. The bad is that I thought I would have all this extra time, and I don't seem to have even 15 minutes extra. I know that I spent inordinate amounts of time in front of the tv on any given evening, so if I removed that time, I should get some back, no? It turns out, I do have extra time, it just looks different than I thought. I thought I would be twiddling my thumbs so much that I would be able to start some of those projects that I never seem to have time for - organizing my digital photos, planning some knitting projects, reading fiction, reading the New Yorker. It turns out what my "extra" time is spent doing is eating dinner with my husband, spending an extra few minutes cleaning up after dinner, an extra few minutes at the gym, and going to bed before one am. It does feel better than before, but I'm beginning to realize why parents feel like they never have enough time; it just gets eaten away at by the everyday things. Now am I really complaining that I got to sit down with my husband and eat this -

Chicken breast with garbanzo beans, tomatoes, and yogurt sauce with kale and eggplant.

and have a nice conversation about our days over a glass of wine? Or am I complaining that I was able to get to the gym and get a good run in while C made dinner? No, I am not. I am just surprised. I had an idea of where my time would be going and now it's different.

The test to see if I'm really committed to this is whether I'm willing to wake up earlier in the mornings to workout. Right now, I am not that committed, but I will need to get there for this to work.

In Wiggle news - C was giving him his bath tonight and asked him if he wanted to stay in the bath and play with his toys or get out and put on his pajamas. The reply - "More choices!" It turns out he wanted to swim and blow bubbles. This boy is outwitting me at every angle.

He has also begun asking us to read books "again" and "again" and "again." His favorites right now are Where the Wild Things Are and Inch by Inch. I read Inch by Inch over 15 times today, and C read it 5 or 6 times. It's a good thing he has, so far, focussed on good books.

We had playgroup today and he charmed a number of people with his stylish outfit.

I think it's the hat.

I also managed to lose him today in a closed room. You might think I'm a bad parent because of this, or you might need to watch this video.

Turning a New Leaf

2010-11-08T21:32:00.000-06:00

Today is the first day of my one-week long television ban. I'm not gonna lie - the urge to turn on the tube after I made dinner was strong, but I managed to resist. Because I like to turn pebbles into avalanches, I am also trying, actively, to lose some weight starting this week. I still don't have it in me to count calories, or even to keep a food diary at this point, but there will be some changes. Basically, I'm cutting out bread and pasta, but not all carbs, as I'm keeping things like beans and lentils, and some whole grains. I'm cutting out all soda and such, which I don't drink all the time, but when I do, I tend to binge. Otherwise, I'm going to try and eat three meals a day with a couple of snacks, and try to load the meals with as many fruits and veggies as I can. Tonight for dinner we had, chicken sausages sauteed up with a bunch of mushrooms, onions, and some cannellini beans. Then I put that on top of some green lentils and kale. On the side - roasted cauliflower and a green salad. How's that for veggie packed?
Breakfast is all set too. I have oatmeal with blueberries, walnuts, and ground flax seeds. I think I would probably still prefer eggs, but the oatmeal is instant, and for this morning-averse mommy, instant is key.
I will have to figure out a way to get more workout time in somehow. On Saturday morning, I took Wiggle for a walk in his stroller, but it's a rare day, anymore, that I can count on him to be content while riding around. Maybe I can try to do some cardio at home? I have no problem violating my tv ban for workout videos. We'll see.
It felt like the motor turned over today; it was a small shift, but perceptible to be sure. Now to make a plan...

2010-11-06T23:05:00.000-05:00

I've been in major avoidance mode lately. The house is a mess, I'm tired all the time, I'm watching wayyyyy too much tv; it sucks. I think I've been avoiding my grad school apps. I think I will implement a no TV week to try and set things straight.
I did manage to get one floor clean today, but that means there are still two to go. Ugh. While vacuuming today, Wiggle spent most of the time actually between my legs, or trying to drive his walker on top of the vacuum. It makes things challenging, to say the least.
C has offered me a free weekend next weekend, but I need to figure out what to do with it. I want to keep the cost down as much as possible, but I still want to do something fun. I'll have to look into it more this week.

Happy, happy, happy

A man surveying his vast M&M empire

Climbing in the cold

Seriously, I need to get him to wear some mittens!

My handsome date for Saturday night

Today and Tomorrow

2010-11-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

Wiggle has started to talk about today and tomorrow. I told him that we would play with his friend from down the block "tomorrow" and he insisted that we should play with him "today." Then tonight he asked to paint and I said we couldn't today because it was time for bed, so he said "yeah, ok. Paint tomorrow."

Even though I managed to go out and get a haircut this morning, which felt awesome, I didn't get anything else done today. I don't even know what I did do today, all of a sudden it was time for dinner. Hopefully, tomorrow will go a little more smoothly.

Maybe I'll manage to take a picture or two tomorrow as well.

A Few Things

2010-11-04T23:48:00.000-05:00

On the Wiggle front - my previously picky toddler has become my little foodie again this week. For weeks now I feel like his diet has consisted of pizza (admittedly homemade, but still), hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, bananas, and milk. We would get some tastes in of other things and a few vegetables would get in there due to my constant pushing, but mostly he delighted in saying "No." I know this is developmentally appropriate, but, come on, who turns down raspberries? Or sweet potatoes in yogurt with honey and cinnamon? Or anything green, except peas? A 2 1/2-year-old girl's mom's comment that her daughter had not eaten anything new in a year started to haunt me. C and I love food, was my son going to be someone who throws a hamburger out a second story window because it has mayo on it? (True story, btw.) Then this week with the promise of M&M's from Halloween as an incentive to even try something new, we turned a corner. For lunch yesterday, Wiggle had two helpings of ma po dofu, a very earthy, somewhat spicy, Szechuan dish. I couldn't believe it. He also devoured the dry-fried green beans and eggplant that C made to accompany the dofu. Today, he ate pastitsio, a sort of Greek lasagna, for lunch and dinner. I love pastitsio, but it is made with ground lamb which has fairly overpowering smell; he just kept munching it and munching it. I should say though, that neither dish seemed to compete with M&M's current top position in his food hierarchy. He holds them, sings to them, counts them, sorts them by color, picks them up and lets them rain down on the table; they are perhaps the best candy to give to a toddler ever. I'm not a big candy advocate, but at least it's easy to portion control the discrete pieces, and he gets a little learning in during the half hour it takes him to eat his 10-12 pieces. Last night he had peanut M&M's, which he called "biggers MnMs." While eating the last one, he really took his time, he sucked the candy off, and then bit into the peanut, leaving half an M&M on the table. C and I looked at each other, puzzled. Why would he leave half an M&M? Then he asked for "More!" When we said that he had already had one bag and that was it for tonight, he sulked for 5 seconds, and then took the last half and popped it in his mouth with a big grin. Talk about managing his own disappointment!

Also, while trying to brush his teeth tonight, he was refusing to open his mouth, and I was reiterating that we have to brush teeth every night - then, he said "timeout?" I said that I hadn't mentioned timeout, but he kept saying it, so I asked him if he wanted a timeout, and he said "yeah." Now, based on the fact that he did not, in fact, sit for his timeout, I think his mentioning it was a ploy to move out of the bathroom, so he could make a break for it. Does that make me cynical? Does it make him an evil genius? Does it make me a bad parent to think it's kind of awesome if my 21-month-old is an evil genius? The boy definitely has some skills.

In other news, I miss the Co-op grocery store, or Treasure Island. Things I haven't been able to find in our grocery stores? Chipotles, porcini mushrooms, ground lamb, muir glen tomatoes, liquor. And even my costco is letting me down, I was there yesterday for my weekly bulk cheese run (don't worry, it's not the same cheese each week, we just run out of them at different rates/times), and they didn't have emmantaler or gruyere. We had already been disappointed with Trader Joe's version of each - very rubbery. Chicago was a really, really good food city, and while we have a lot of things here, I'm not really going to drive to 15 different ethnic supermarkets each week, or even month, to get my basic supplies. At least we're not in Norman, OK. Or someplace like it. No offense to Norman, per se, but I'm betting I wouldn't find their local supermarkets adequate. We do have one facny-schmancy supermarket, but it's a little far and on the weekends it gets so crowded you cannot find a space in their giganormous parking lot. Admittedly, I can generally go on a weekday, but if it's the place to get that last ingredient, mon Dieu! Maybe I should just keep trying supermarkets and then look at real estate near the best one.

Feast on This

2010-11-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

November!?!

2010-11-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

How did it get to be November? I know it was Halloween yesterday, but I really wasn't prepared for it to be November today. C will be going to Montreal this weekend for a "conference," so I will have the boy by myself for a few days. I jest about C, but he does get to gallivant around with a bunch of his friends in an awesome city for 3 days. Do I sound jealous? Because, I just want to be clear - I am.

Wiggle has been doing some crazy cute things lately. Last night, he had some M&M's from his Halloween candy. He had one in each hand and was singing and talking about their colors when he handed an orange one to C. C was on the phone with a friend and absentmindedly popped it in his mouth. Wiggle was dumbfounded. At first, I thought he was upset that C had eaten his M&M, but when Wiggle quickly popped the other one into his mouth and started to grin, I realized that he hadn't known you could eat them. He thought they were beads! He then enthusiastically ate the rest of the miniature bag, until he got to the last one. He must have held onto the last one for 20 minutes. Tonight after dinner he got another bag, and C said he danced and sang songs to each and every M.

Cute thing #2,670,321 - He would mix "Happy Birthday!" into his "Happy Halloween!" greetings yesterday. He's only ever been to one birthday party, but somehow "Happy Birthday" got in there.

Halloween!

2010-10-31T22:53:00.000-05:00

Although this is technically our second Halloween with Wiggle, we didn't do anything for it last year, so I consider this year our first Halloween. We did the whole deal - he wore his chicken costume to music class on Thursday, and then we went to a Halloween party at the library.

This is how he started the party

And this is how he looked at the end

On Friday, he wore his costume again to the last potluck of the season.

On Saturday there we didn't have any Halloween related activities, but we did go to the Rally to Restore Sanity, which was awesome.

Does it get any more Washington than this?

Wiggle was blown away by the crowd

Listening to some nearby politicos

This one looks real, no?

Today we went over to campus for Witch Watch, an event put on by the various fraternities and sororities. There were games, crafts, and, of course, candy.

Checking out the tables

Is that a chicken I see there?

His first taste of proper candy, a Tootsie Roll. He immediately asked for "MORE!"

After Witch Watch, we headed to the 'hood for some good old fashioned trick or treating.

Greeting his friend; the boy digs hugs.

Strutting his stuff

He even stopped by our own house with a very cute Nemo

The crew

It was a fantastic first Halloween. We had a lot of fun, Wiggle had a lot of fun, and there was a minimal amount of crying. I'm already getting excited about Christmas...

Pumpkin Carving

2010-10-29T22:43:00.000-05:00

We finally carved our pumpkins today. I thought it was going to be a supremely messy endeavor, but it turned out to be both manageable and enjoyable. We toasted the pumpkin seeds too, so the fun provided a delicious snack as well.

Wiggle contemplating making "pumpkin faces"

A new favorite face

Painting a pumpkin is serious business

Concentrating...

Always take a step back to review your work

I think he may be pleased with the result

He knocked the pumpkin, the protective paper bags, and his crayons and pencils on the floor.

I asked Wiggle what he wanted me to carve and he said "People!" I chose our family.

Philosopher by day, pumpkin carver also by day.

Daddy's pumpkin face.

Trying to slip out of his high chair, Houdini-style.

The pumpkins on the porch.

Tomorrow, we go to the Rally to Restore Sanity. I'm pretty excited, but also nervous about the amount of people that might be there. If we don't make it through the whole thing, no big deal, it will be a fun day whatever happens.

Sunday in the City

2010-10-26T22:56:00.000-05:00

On Sunday we went in to the District. We had a friend from Chicago in town, and we decided to brave the traffic in order to check out some museums. It was a quick trip to the Mall, and we found some fantastic parking.

To the right of our parking spot...

And to the left.

Then we trekked the short block to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Wiggle was very excited at the prospect of seeing dinosaurs.

His jaw literally dropped

Two guys and a triceratops

Teaching me about butterflies

Bee watching

What a pair!

I think the short one's in charge.

Bones!

Wiggle spent the entire time glued to our house guest, B. He insisted on holding B's hand and walking around with him. C and I were definitely playing second and third fiddle this weekend.

It was wonderful to have a friend in town, and we learned that getting into town on the weekend isn't as big of a hassle as we thought. Of course when we go in next weekend for the Rally to Restore Sanity, things will be a little more hectic...

Fall Colors

2010-10-24T22:47:00.000-05:00

I know I have been a little remiss in my blogging habit, but the boy has been running me ragged as of late. We've been having a lot of fun, but it is challenging to be sure.

Last Wednesday we went to Shenandoah National Park to look at the fall foliage, and it was spectacular. The day started out foggy and cool, but in the afternoon the sun came out and it warmed up. It was really an almost perfect day. Also, we got to hike on the Appalachian Trail. Admittedly, we only went about a mile, but with the little guy that was pretty good. I have always wanted to hike on the Appalachian Trail, and now it is only about an hour from my house! Virginia rocks!

Here's a link to photos from the day.

What Goes Up...

2010-10-18T23:49:00.000-05:00

Pumpkin Picking

2010-10-17T23:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we drove about an hour west of Fairfax to pick pumpkins. We were at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, and it was beautiful.

I cannot believe we were only an hour from the house! The pumpkin patch was wonderful too. Very low-key, no amusement park extras that so many pumpkin patches in the area have. Just pumpkins, wagons to haul them down the hill, and the fantastic setting.

Wiggle had a blast running around showing us all of the "orange" "pumpkins." We each picked a pumpkin to carve and/or paint, and an extra red one for good measure. Wiggle insisted on pulling the wagon, even when we were going up the hill.

C and I each managed to get our own turn as well, with Wiggle riding in the wagon, of course.

Wiggle ran, fell, and played among the pumpkins and the vines.

I managed to play a little too.

As if the pumpkins weren't enough, this farm also had greens to pick. We bought two huge bags of the spiciest mustard greens, collards, daikon radish tops, arugula, and some tender mesclun. Wiggle actually helped us pick them, and he sniffed, pulled, and tasted everything we did. Normally, he eschews most green stuff, but with everything he tried he said "Mmmmm, I like it!" The same sentiment did not hold true once we got the greens home, however.

After we were done picking, Wiggle was pooped.

On the way home we stopped in a town that shares my last name, and even better, a winery sharing my name. We did a quick tasting, bought a few bottles, and walked around the vineyard for a few minutes. When Wiggle saw a red barn, he wanted to go in to look for the cows that he was sure were inside, but weren't.

We will definitely be going back to this pumpkin patch next year, and now I'm even more excited to explore more of Virginia.

History Repeating Itself

2010-10-16T23:43:00.001-05:00

The past -

The present -

The Sting of Rejection

2010-10-15T23:44:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here in the living room watching endless HGTV house hunting shows. A few minutes ago I heard the pitter-patter of little feet and the creak of a door opening, so I rushed upstairs to meet my little wayward toddler on his nighttime excursion, but when I got to the top of the stairs, I didn't see anything and his door was closed. Perplexed, I checked in our room, but C was fast asleep. I was about to chalk it up to feline exuberance when I saw Wiggle's door open a crack. I turned and opened my arms to receive my little boy, but the door quickly closed again. When I walked up to the door and turned the handle, it was shut abruptly. I tried knocking and entering, but a little body was laying against the door to block my entry. I felt utterly dejected.
I tried again in a few minutes and was able to get in and pick my slumbering boy off the floor and put him in his crib again. I am really glad that he is not coming out of his room every time he wakes up now, but wow, that was fast. He practically doesn't need me anymore. I never thought I would feel this way about being a mother. He's only 20 months old! How will I deal with him being a teenager?

They grow up so fast.

The Emperor Needs Old Clothes

2010-10-14T23:44:00.000-05:00

The latest battleground? Clothes. Today, I got him dressed to go to music class, but I still needed to get dressed, plus it was pouring outside and we walk to class, so his cooperation was essential. While I was trying to get dressed, he threw a conniption fit, pulling on his clothes, rolling around on the floor, hyperventilating; the whole nine yards. I took off his shirt, thinking he might prefer another, then the pants came off, and the diaper. Then screaming continued for reasons I couldn't ascertain, so I held him and comforted him. He promptly fell asleep. C managed to help me transfer him to his crib and put on a diaper. He only ended up sleeping for about 30 minutes, but I think he needed to catch up a bit after our nocturnal adventures in toddler bed transitioning last night.

Tonight, we've had one waking already, but he went down without a million trips to the door, so, hopefully, tomorrow will be even better.

As for me, I've been feeling a little stir crazy lately. Dealing with him has been really frustrating because so much of the time I can really reason with him, but then there are the other times... It makes me feel like whimsy rules my day, and I do better with a schedule than whimsy.

Free time tomorrow morning should help.

Speed Demon

2010-10-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

We took the side off of Wiggle's crib today. He had been climbing out about a month ago, but then stopped after a couple of days, so we didn't move forward with anything. This week though, he has woken us up both in the morning and in the middle of the night by coming in our room, plus I saw him take a pretty nasty header, so off came the side. He is fine with the change conceptually, but of course, he is tempted to come out instead of just going to bed. I am having a harder time with the change than he is, I think. It seems like such a sign that he is growing up, and I'm not totally ready for it. He's not my little baby anymore.

There is a cure for that though, isn't there? Not quite yet, but soon, I think.

Otherwise, things are good, but I really need to work on my graduate school apps and ask for recc's. I hate this part of going to school. On the plus side, I have decided a PhD program is not for me. I don't really have any interest in doing research, and I want as much time with my family as possible, so the MSW route feels right. I think I could be very happy becoming an LCSW, and I think I would be pretty good at it, after some training, of course.

Next on the horizon? Apple picking, pumpkin carving, Halloween. Any ideas for costumes for me and C?

Fair Weather

2010-10-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Playing under the covers on my bed

This was a busy, but fun weekend. Friday night we had the usual potluck and then I babysat for our friends while they went out salsa dancing. On Saturday, we went to the Fairfax Fall Festival. The day was absolutely beautiful, and the festival was hopping. Wiggle petted some guinea pigs, rabbits, goats, sheep, and even a llama at the petting zoo.

He's suddenly not so sure about the llama

Then we decided to get some lunch, which I hardly ever do at fairs or festivals because I am not generally a fan of fair food. This sign helped to change my mind -

Seriously? Crab cakes? At the fair? I've never lived close enough to a body of salt water that this could even seem like a remotely good idea. I decided to tempt fate and get the crab cake sandwich.

Wiggle and C waiting in line for our crab cake

The crabby deliciousness

It was good! Quite good actually. It still seemed very strange, especially because we live far enough inland that I do feel any water nearness. Although, shortly after we got here, there was a hurricane that they were afraid would hit Virginia Beach, and I thought "Yipee! Hurricanes!" Not ironically mind you, for a moment, I was genuinely excited to be near another type of weather phenomenon. Then I remembered that I hurricane can actually, you know, kill people and stuff, and I developed the appropriately sober response. But if hurricanes, means the possibility of crab cakes, or vice versa, then I will take hurricanes (I'm just trading in tornadoes anyway).

My little imp plotting mischief

We walked around some more and scored a balloon from the local Democrats.

Isn't he positively jaunty?

Wiggle pranced around with his balloon, darting in and out of groups of people and booths, until he became an, admittedly very cute, nuisance. We carried him around for the rest of the booth browsing.

The most unexpected booth we happened upon? The Sons of Norway. Several very nice men and women from the local Sons of Norway chapter were promoting all things Norwegian. They even have a kids' club! Vikings for Kids, which includes a quarterly newsletter extolling the virtues of woodcarving and the like. The best part was that they were selling lefse. Lefse! It was good too. C and Wiggle got to try their first Norwegian tortilla, and both enjoyed it very much. The group hosts potluck dinners regularly, and I might even be able to stand being around lutefisk in order to get some more fresh lefse.Northern Virginia keeps surprising me.

Me and my lefse

Last night, C and I got to go out for dinner, a mojito, and a movie. We saw The Social Network which I liked. C didn't think it quite lived up to the hype, and while I wasn't blown away, it wasn't really supposed to be a blow-you-away movie, so I think it stood up well. Good directing, good acting, and good writing, with a great story, make it hard to go wrong. I think the thing that is worse about the movie is that we still don't know how it ends. I mean the movie itself has a perfectly good ending, but we still don't know the effect Facebook is going to have on society. Living a recorded life is actually not so new, as scads of nineteenth century diaries can show. Living a partially public life is also not new, as the same century's towering mountains of correspondence show. But a public life that is only partially recorded by ourselves and is also recorded by those around us, is new, and the implications for trust, privacy, and even our self-identities have only begun to evolve. While I am somewhat careful about what I put on the web, I am not a person who constantly bemoans the privacy settings on Facebook or worries about whether my bank is selling my personal info. I probably should be more worried about those things, but I am more interested to see what happens when those things go awry. Like the bill currently in Congress regarding sites that are "dedicated to infringement activity." YouTube is a big target for this bill, and I know there is a lot of stuff on youtube that violates copyright, but that's not what the creation of the site was about, nor is it what most of youtube has on it. I can say that about 95% of what I look at on youtube is created by the person who posted it. The other 5% consists of listening to a song, watching a music video, or looking at a forwarded clip from a TV show. While I know all of those things in the last 5% violate copyright technically, perhaps we should change how we view copyright. Why? Because of the songs and videos I have watched, I have gone and bought the song or sometime the entire album of the artist completely legally from iTunes. I just used youtube to do the initial listen because it's easier than searching through Google for a site that actually has the song, or worse yet going to the record label's website and being bombarded by pop-up videos and loud music that I don't want to hear. As for the TV clips, almost all of them are of the type where there are one hundred different ways to see the clip. You know, the Dr. Laura saying the N-word, winning touchdown, Tom Cruise jumping on the couch, type thing that is playing on every news station every five minutes, and I don't happen to be in front of a tv. Sometimes the networks need to just get over themselves and realize that youtube may be doing them a favor. I am more likely to tune into that exclusive interview with the idiot who did something crazy, if I got to see that crazy thing they did, so just let me see it. Anyway, we shouldn't start censoring the internet just because things aren't as easy as we thought to regulate or manage or penalize or whatever it is we are trying to do. Privacy is the same way. Things just aren't going to be as private, or I should say, the kinds of info we thought of as private before, may not be the info we regard as private, in the future.

I guess that's what you might call - a tangent. Anyway, I liked the movie, and I liked our weekend. I might even feel ready for the week for once.

New Phrases

2010-10-08T00:37:00.000-05:00

Favorite new sayings are "Alrighty!" and "Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok."

Today we went to music class and during the song "Around the Mulberry Bush," he held hands with his new best buddy. It was super cute.

Yesterday, he had chocolate for the first time and ran around for three hours afterward. I had vowed "Never again!" but today with no chocolate, it was the same thing. The boy has some extra energy as of late.

He also almost always speaks in full sentences, and expresses his preferences for most things. Today, he told me that two red things were the "same" for the first time. We then talked about a bunch of other things that were the same, in regards to color.

All Hail Caesar!

2010-10-07T00:53:00.000-05:00

Here it is Mom - the recipe. I stupidly did not take pictures of the finished product, but I did photograph the process, because there has been some trouble in replicating my fantastic results.

My fabulous Caesar salad

Romaine lettuce, croutons, and freshly grated parmesan reggiano cheese

Two anchovies, if you wanna sub anchovy paste, which we do a lot, it's about 1 Tbs

The juice of one lemon, plus one garlic clove pressed

One egg coddled for one minute, we make sure to get all of the slightly solidified white because it gives the dressing more body

This is the lemon juice, anchovy, garlic, egg mixture so far.

A dash of Worcestershire sauce.

This is the dressing after we've whipped it, but before we've added olive oil; it's volume is around 100 mL.

After the olive oil has been added and it has been whipped again. Now, it's around 200 mL. There is a lot of foam on the top making it look like it's a little more. Mom asked which brand of olive oil we use, but we are not brand loyalists when it comes to olive oil. Do be sure to use extra virgin though.

Add the dressing to the salad bowl and toss with the lettuce, croutons, and parmesan. While this dressing is excellent, it is not the most consistent recipe. Partially that's because I don't measure anything, but it's also because there are a lot of variable ingredients in it. The age of the egg seems to make a difference to the body and depth of the dressing; since the egg isn't fully cooked though we really try to only use fresher eggs anyway. Also, we buy our parmesan at Costco in big wedges, and it definitely gets a little smoother and less robust after it's been in the fridge awhile. Even the lemons change things. We sometimes get a really acidic lemon, but other times they are much more mild. Whatever the differences, this recipe is definitely a Caesar salad revelation. C and I eat one a couple of times a week with dinner to break up the classic vinaigrette monotony.

And just to add insult to injury for anyone who didn't have a terrific meal tonight - butternut squash and sage pasta. One of my all-time favorite fall recipes.

The world's slowest way to eat peas, but I don't think speed was the goal here. Also, at the very end of the video, you can hear him say "Cook it!" He was telling me to cook the box of pasta that was on the table, so he could eat it. The boy knows what he wants.

A Woman Without Country

2010-10-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

So we're thinking about buying a house. I know, it's a HUGE step. I want to get out of the gates and get a real estate agent so we can start looking at places, but I keep waiting because I want to have a better idea of where we want to live. Ideally we would live close to Mason so C's commute wouldn't be a bear, but it doesn't look like it will be easy to do that. Plus, while I love Masonvale and our neighbors, Fairfax is a little too suburban for us. There are too many professional stay-at-home moms, too many Chuck E. Cheeses. Plus, I keep feeling the pull of DC. I read about so many cool stores, restaurants, concerts, and such, not to mention the museums. I don't need to live in the District, but I would really like to live closer. C was in Maryland the other night for a meeting and he said it was less pretty than Virginia, but it felt more like home. And we could try to find a needle-in-a-haystack affordable place in the NW part of DC. These are all really good options, so I shouldn't really complain, but it makes me feel ungrounded. I like to plan for the future, and I need to plan for our immediate future. I will be filling out preschool applications for Wiggle this winter, and I am applying to school and would like to be able to get in-state tuition, so knowing where we will live does matter now. Ugh.

No area is jumping out at me, but plenty of them are hard enough to price into that it's worth looking somewhere else, so the list just keeps getting longer. And for those of you that say we should continue to rent, we may, but it looks like buying might be more affordable, and that's a strong motivator right now.

Any thoughts about Silver Spring, MD?

A Perfect Fall Day

2010-10-03T00:17:00.001-05:00

We woke up verrry late this morning due to multiple awakenings during the night. Wiggle is cutting his two-year molars which has meant some extra clinginess and more than a few less than restful nights. When we finally got going, we went to the Fall for Fairfax Festival. It turned out to be a lot of health-related booths, some pay rides which were geared for older kids, and A LOT of firetrucks. The firetrucks were all lined up in a row and you could get in them and explore. As you can see above, we went in one of the hazmat trucks. The inside looked like an office; there were books on shelves, a few computers, a large flat-screen tv on the wall, a printer, file drawers. I guess it makes sense because each hazmat situation is probably unique in a lot of ways, so the most important part of handling it, is research, research, research. Wiggle mainly liked all the buttons he could press and the headphones.

Wiggle also liked the ambulance, but it might have had something to do with the cute EMT sitting in the back.

Wiggle pointing to the next firetruck he wants to see.

Me and Wiggle enjoying the sunny day.

We're thinking about becoming a crime fighting duo. (I would be the sidekick, obviously.)

This stylish boy is on the move.

My two handsome boys sporting their cool fall jackets.

Look at that face!

After a quick trip to Costco, we came home and Wiggle took a much needed nap. Then he got up and wanted to go to the playground to play with kids. We went outside and took the tricycle, but never made it to the playground because some of our neighbors were in the alley riding trikes and a play-kitchen. Wiggle just loves the 2 1/2 year old next door. He follows him around and mimics him constantly. He also has spontaneously learned his name; he doesn't even say the name of the boy we swap babysitting with, and we see him almost every day.

When playing turned into a lot of quibbling and eye-rubbing, we brought him inside for dinner and some skyping with the grandparents. They sang some songs, he sang some songs, they danced, he danced. I think they all had a good time.

The big news.... At bath time, when his diaper was off, he went to sit on the potty and peed!!!! He pointed down too, to let me know. It was the first time. He sat sat on the potty lots of times, and we normally do it before he gets into the tub, but he has never successfully gone before. I think he has known what it's for though because sometimes when he sits on the potty, he strains a little, like he's trying to pee. I know that it could not happen again for a long time, but I still think it's pretty cool. I'm hoping this could be the beginning of potty-training. Well, this and the many other signs of elimination awareness he has been giving us. He now points or grabs his diaper when he pees a lot of the time. He also appears to hold it for longer.

And when I read back on the last few sentences, I realized that I am now that mom. There will be tons more potty training talk on the blog to be sure, but I'm going to try to keep it to my frustrations or pride, and not the mechanics of the issue. Please forgive my earlier exuberance.

I'm hoping it's another beautiful fall day here in Eden tomorrow. Seriously, I never knew fall could be like this, and I feel a little cheated that I didn't get to experience it earlier. And the leaves are going to turn in a couple of weeks! All of the leaves on all of the many, many trees! I'm really beginning to fall in love with the East Coast.

Free Time

2010-09-30T23:37:00.000-05:00

We have started a babysitting swap with a neighbor, so tomorrow I have four hours of free-time tomorrow morning. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do during the time. In some ways it feels like it will be an eternity, in other ways it feels like it's no time at all. Nothing seems like it's worth it. C is going to take Wiggle over in the morning, so I can sleep in a little bit.

Today we went to music class, and it was raining, so on the way home we had to stop and do a little splashing and some singing.

He insisted on holding the umbrella

C said this shirt was too preppy, but I think he looks great.
(That's also the New Yorker that he's reading)

Things Are Really Cooking

2010-09-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

Tonight I cooked dinner for the first time since we moved here. For those of you tsk-tsk-tsk-ing, let me say that I have prepared and assembled many meals, but I had not yet cooked. I looked through a cookbook today, chose a couple of recipes, went shopping, and then made dinner. We've been doing a lot of shortcuts lately, and it felt really good to have multiple pots on the stove, to chop a variety of vegetables, to smell good cooking smells. I decided on Indian food because I have wanted to introduce more ethnic food into both our eating and cooking repertoire. Plus, C really loves it, and I wanted to have a nice dinner for him when he got home. I chose chicken in a sweet red pepper sauce, potatoes, peas, and carrots, and an aromatic rice dish, all from the same cookbook. Everything was delicious and there are plenty of leftovers for tomorrow.

It felt good to cook again, to move around my kitchen; I always feel more grounded when I cook regularly.
I also have been neglecting part of my stay-at-home mom duties by not cooking. C doesn't care if I have planned dinner, but I do feel that it is quite a luxury to be able to be at home with Wiggle, and that my "job" rightly includes a good deal of cooking and cleaning. Plus, after a day of taking out and putting away blocks a million times, or vacuuming in the morning only to have cat food spilled all over in the afternoon, preparing a nice meal gives me a not-insubstantial feeling of accomplishment. And C is very appreciative, and it makes tomorrow easier in that I generally either have lunch or another dinner taken care of. It's really a win-win-win-win-win... I don't understand why everyone doesn't love cooking.

I Need Counseling

2010-09-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

Or, rather, a degree in counseling. Tonight I went to the info session for the MSW program at Mason. It seems fine, and I will definitely apply, but I am also toying with the idea of applying to PhD programs in counseling psych. From what I've seen so far though, I doubt I'd be accepted. For the relatives in the audience, I am not being self-deprecating, rather I am being lower-GPA, who will I get for letters, no research experience realistic. I just thought I should try to have a couple of options.

Ugh, this would all be so much easier if I knew where we were going to live.

Up All Night, PB & J

2010-09-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

Then we went to a fellow faculty member's house to meet-n-greet C's graduate students. Wiggle insisted on wearing his argyle sweater because C was wearing one. I didn't get a pic, but trust me, it was exceptionally cute.

Howdy, Neighbor!

2010-09-25T23:12:00.000-05:00

Today was the Masonvale meet-n-greet barbecue. Other than the blinding sun and scorching heat, it was quite a bit of fun. We had seen most of the neighbors last night at the potluck, but you can't really have too much of a good thing, can you? Wiggle ate a hot dog, played with the other kids, and looked apprehensively at the world's most depressing clown. Not only did I never see him smile, but I tried to get a picture of him for 20 minutes, and he never even looked up enough to get a full-on shot. Also, the Masonvale representative looked like someone that some neighborhoods would form a watch-group about.

The barbecue also brings up a new blogging problem I am running into. While my blog is basically anonymous, I obviously do let family and friends know about it. There have been several things that I would have liked to blog about, but I wasn't sure if the people I would be blogging about would eventually be reading the blog. It's not that I want to trash anyone, but if something frustrating or unusual happens, I might want to write about it. I have seen other bloggers talk fairly freely about their reactions to situations in their lives, but, of course, I don't know what the reactions of those in their lives are. I guess I'll just take it on a case-by-case basis.

For your viewing pleasure -

Trying to put my creation on as a hat

Still trying...

This was seriously my best shot of the clown. I guess, this is why people are afraid of clowns.

Out with the Old...

2010-09-25T00:37:00.000-05:00

Today, I threw out old and bought new underwear. It sort of got me thinking about other stuff that I have been holding onto that could use some updating. Thing-wise, we are doing well because I did a lot of purging before the move, but I have a lot of ideas and attitudes that I should really try to put out with the weekly trash.

This week I have been coming to terms with our new budget. Although moving here means we have more job stability than ever, it also means some belt-tightening. I don't mind living cheaply, but I hate trying to live with a specific budget. Keeping track of each and every item we buy and categorizing it, gives me a stress headache just thinking about it. More importantly, when I get stressed about things, especially money, I tend to catastrophize. One minute I'm going over the bank statement, looking for where we can make cuts, the next I'm telling C that we will be homeless living under a bridge if he continues to buy coffee on campus. I need to learn to take a deep breath and take more responsibility for what's making me nervous about a situation. In this case, after the move I hadn't been paying as much attention to our spending habits as I normally do, so that when I looked over our monthly spending, I felt ambushed by a month's worth of purchases all in one sitting. It wasn't, in reality, a bad situation, but it felt out of my control, so I felt like my whole life was out of control.

The weird thing is, I am really good at feeling out of control where Wiggle is concerned. One day a few weeks ago, we were at the library, and he kept running away from me up and down the aisles. I was having trouble catching him without making a big commotion, so in effect, we were playing peek-a-boo, with him at one end of an aisle and me at the other. Then I popped my head around the next aisle, and he wasn't there. I tried the next few aisles, the last few, I hurried to the end where he had been. I didn't see him. My heart started to pound, and I was beginning to feel frantic because I wanted to yell, but I was in the library. Instead of totally freaking out and yelling his name as I ran around like a freak, I was able to calm myself down by remembering that a lot of people had seen us playing and were therefore aware of him and could help me if needed. Also there were a ton of families there; I felt pretty sure that if an unattended little boy was wandering around, a concerned mother would probably look after him until I could find him. Plus, if I decided I did need to yell his name, since it was a library, everyone would hear me, so everyone would look up from whatever they were doing. It would not be a proud parenting moment, but he would be safe. All of this went through my head in a matter of seconds as I looked around the unfamiliar library. I found him after maybe a full minute; he was "hiding" under a computer station. He had felt nature call and was taking a minute alone to complete his business, which seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation for abandoning our "game" in the stacks.

Why can't I do the same thing with our budget? Or thinking about going back to school? Why can't I see a frivolous purchase and think "that was not the best way to spend that money, but all I can do is change how I spend our money from now on" ? Why can't I realize that even if that latte pushes us over our budget, if we change our behavior the next month, we will only be over budget by one latte, which even I can see will not cause us to live in a refrigerator box under the freeway?

I still need to make that penny-pinching budget this weekend, but I'm feeling less overwhelmed by it. Now I need to sign up for the GREs, make sure I have done everything I can to establish Virginia residency, study for the GREs, and start looking at application deadlines. Perhaps my money stressing has just been masking my going back to school stressing.

So many things to stress about, so little time. Scratch that. So little time, so few things worth stressing about.

Who knew new underwear could say so much?

Painting on the porch

Hamming it up for the camera

Strutting his stuff while putting a crayon in his "button"

Just a guy starting his day by taking off his pants, putting on his hat, sitting in his chair, and drinking his milk. You know, a regular guy.

Mr. Preposition

2010-09-22T23:44:00.000-05:00

Little boy on the prairie

Wiggle is all about prepositions lately. If you give him something he doesn't want, he gives it to you and says "from me, to Daddy." If you have something he wants, he says "for me."

He also had a spoon in his bowl hanging over the edge, and he started moving it around in a circle and saying "tick, tock." He has been able to identify clocks for a long time, and somehow realized that analog and digital forms are both clocks, but I have know idea how he knows how a clock works. We don't have any analog clocks in the house. I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff.

Today Wiggle showed me C's old cellphone and pointed to the back where the camera hole is and said "cheese!" He has gotten a jaded, I guess.

Say "Cheese!"

Helping me take out the trash

Dead Tired

2010-09-21T22:02:00.000-05:00

This might be categorized as TMI, but ever since Wiggle, before I get my period, I get absolutely exhausted. I mean, I just yawn all day. I even nap when Wiggle takes his nap, but I could sleep until 6 or 7 at night easily. I started taking a B12 supplement today because I read that is supposed to help. In the meantime, I will sleepwalk through the next few days.

This morning Wiggle and I went to our new playgroup. There were a couple of other kids around his age, and all of the kids and their parents seemed very nice. Wiggle loved playing with "kids!" and went down for his na[ around 12:30 pm instead of 1:30 pm, which I welcomed.

We spent the afternoon coloring and Wiggle correctly identified red, green, purple, blue, yellow, black, and brown. Then he requested his dinosaur coloring book which was quickly followed by dumping all of the crayons and pencils on the floor.

This evening we went outside and Wiggle rode his tricycle down the street. It was pretty awesome. We met C on the way home, and then we played at the playground for a little while before dinner.

Other than the exhaustion, it was a pretty good day.

2010-09-21T00:11:00.000-05:00

At swim class today, Wiggle was zoomin'. All the other parents and the instructor were saying that he would be swimming by himself in no time. He spent a lot of time going under the water, laughing and smiling the whole time. Afterward, I went to the gym, and did my time on the treadmill unenthusiastically, but diligently.
Tomorrow, we have our first Mommy and Me class at the local rec center. I hope Wiggle and I meet some fun new people.

Mommy's little boy

Sugar Crash

2010-09-19T23:20:00.000-05:00

Not actually sugar, but the equivalent in Grandparent and Great Aunt love. The in-laws left today, and Wiggle crashed around 6:30. He was in bed by 7:00 pm, and he was trying to climb into his crib as soon as he got upstairs. He loved seeing them and playing with them, but it is more intense attention than he gets most days around here.

C and I got to go out again last night. We didn't get home until after midnight! I can't remember the last time that happened. We had dinner and a couple of drinks, and then saw a movie. It was absolutely wonderful. I think we tuckered the in-laws out a little by staying out so late. Another sterling argument for staying at the house; you can babysit while sleeping. We went out to breakfast this morning, where Wiggle inhaled all of C's and my lox, and then picked at his own eggs. Then he went to church, where he was apparently very well-behaved.

The extended fam

A boy and his other favorite aunt

Boys being boys

Our Own Private Economic Stimulus Package

2010-09-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

We did our part for the economy today. Wiggle made his first trip to Toys-R-Us, and I didn't know if we'd ever get him out again. He got a big dump truck with plenty of "beeps." I tried to push for a non-noisy one, but was told "no beeps, mom!" and was vetoed. He also got some new puzzles, a big megablocks set, a playmat, some Matchbox cars, and a couple of books. Quite a haul. Then we went to Target, where the boy charmed us into buying him yet another fall jacket by looking so darn handsome. Don't worry, there will be pictures. Oh, and shoes! Some really cute brown boots. The boy was flying high with no nap and more attention than is good for anyone. To top it off, I procured a tricycle from Craigslist that he pedaled himself his first time on it! The boy is amazing.
Nonna, Aunt M, and Pop-pop babysat while we went out to dinner. We sat outside at a little Thai place; it was so nice to go out and have some time to ourselves.
Tomorrow, Nonna has requested a trip to IKEA because she's never been to one. I am quite positive she has no idea what she's in for, but it should be a fun trip. Plus, there are meatballs, a Wiggle favorite.
I will try to remember to bring a camera tomorrow because my recent posts have been sorely lacking in photos.

Family -Time

2010-09-16T23:07:00.000-05:00

Nonna, Pop-pop, and Aunt M arrived today! Wiggle was super excited. He went through all of the paces, impressing and entertaining the troops, so to speak. C had to teach tonight, so the rest of us went out to dinner at Coastal Flats. I had a shrimp roll, and Wiggle had a lot of bread, butter, and some crab dip. Wiggle, of course, charmed all of the waiters and the hostesses and the patrons in nearby booths.

I was a little disappointed to find out that Nonna wouldn't be staying at the house because I was looking forward to going on a date or even two? with C, but, hey, going out, on the weekend, at night, is overrated, right? Perhaps a lunch date is in order.

Tomorrow, Wiggle will be spoiled with clothes and toys, which is just the way he and the in-laws want it, so I think everyone will be happy. Then, if the weather is nice, the neighborhood block party. Friday night looks pretty good from here.

Double Header

2010-09-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

So I totally forgot to post last night. I went to the gym after Wiggle's swim lesson, and it totally kicked my butt. Also, my in-laws are coming today, which is great, but I was a little distracted. I've been having trouble sleeping lately too. I find myself lying in bed thinking that I'm relaxing, but then I realize that my muscles are all tensed up and my jaw is clenched. I have traditionally had trouble sleeping, but since Wiggle was born it had been better. Now it is worse than ever. Here's hoping for easy slumber in the near future.

Farmers' Market and Playdate

2010-09-14T23:25:00.000-05:00

We went to the farmers' market this morning and met our neighbor and his son at the nearby playground. The weather was absolutely perfect, not too sunny and warm with a slight breeze. I got some great looking peppers and tomatoes, and some Romaine that actually had flavor.

Grilling the delicious veggies to go with some flank steak

We spent some more time at the playground behind our house before dinner. Wiggle ran around and we played "I got you!" which consists of me chasing him around calling "I'm gonna get you!"

Peek-a-boo!

We are looking forward to Nonna, Pop-Pop's, and Aunt M's visit on Thursday. Wiggle keeps talking about them, so I think it will be a really fun visit. Plus C and I will get some alone time!

Swimming!

2010-09-13T23:52:00.000-05:00

We had our first swim lesson today. Wow! What a difference a real instructor and a warmish pool makes. Wiggle loved it and so did I. These lessons are also twice a week, so he will probably be able to gain some actual swim skills. Then I did my run, which was hella hard today.
I also took a career-aptitude test which told me that I should be an accountant. Nothing against accountants, but I do not want to be an accountant. The next step? A career interest inventory, and some GRE studying. I'm also wondering if I should retake the LSAT. Of course, I don't have a problem taking tests; I LIKE taking tests. I just don't know what to do after that. Ugh. Blech. It will get better, but it feels slow going right now.
Tomorrow, the farmer's market and a play date at a really fun park.

The Best Kind of Sunday

2010-09-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

This morning I awoke to fresh blueberry muffins and coffee, thanks to my wonderful husband. It was overcast and rainy outside, which is my favorite kind of weather. In our new house my favorite weather is paired with my favorite view, green and hilly. What can I say? It's my Scottish ancestry, I guess. We lazed around inside for the rest of the morning.

After Wiggle's nap, we went to the library where Wiggle scored some new books to pour over, and I scored a GRE practice test book, a couple of career aptitude books, some cookbooks, and a knitting book. Overall, it was a good haul. I have a couple of fiction books in the hopper at home, but I wasn't able to get the book that my book club is reading. I might have to read it online, which I'm kind of dreading, but the meeting is this Saturday, so it may be the only viable option. Then we ran to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things, but made a pit stop at the frozen yogurt/gelato place next door. Wiggle enjoyed mango and mint chocolate chip gelatos.

As we drove home from the library, Wiggle said "house" and "playground" when we reached the neighborhood. Naturally, we walked over to the playlot and horsed long enough for Wiggle to start being a little wobbly with fatigue. On the way home, we met another of our neighbors and his son, who is almost three. Wiggle followed the older boy around, who was pretending to be some kind of monster, with rapt attention. His mom is home too, so we will probably be seeing a lot more of him.

For dinner, we had some more of the delicious candy tomatoes in a pasta salad. This is the way I would like every Sunday to go, and I don't really see any reason why most of them can't be like this. I have a pretty good life.

A boy wolfing down gelato and tasting our frozen yogurt

At the playlot

Climb it!

A Beautiful Day

2010-09-11T23:33:00.000-05:00

Today we got a late start, so we had to rush out the door to get to the farmers' market before it shut down. We hadn't been to the Saturday one before (there is also one on Tuesday and on Sunday), and it was both larger and appeared to have more local produce than the other ones, which is great.
We took home some peaches and nectarines so fragrant, that I kind of want to rub them on my neck as perfume. Also, we have cherry tomatoes in both yellow and purple, as well as some big, beautiful heirlooms. The tomatoes here are some of the best I've ever had; each variety actually tastes different, and they are so sweet, they are almost like candy. Even Wiggle, who normally eschews tomatoes, ate a bowlful tonight with dinner.
We also went to an awesome park today, Burke Lake Park. It is about 15 minutes from the house and is HUGE. There are trails and picnic shelters, a kiddie train, the lake, boat rentals, playgrounds, and a gold course. It is also very pretty. If I ever work up to running outdoors, it is a dream spot.
The park was very crowded today, partially because it was a beautiful day ("Hello, Fall! I've missed you!"), and partially because today was the last day of Ramadan, and there were many families out celebrating and grilling. We took a walk to the lake and on the way back we had to cross a part of the path that was separating two parts of such a group, as we walked by they had a huge bowl of grilled chicken that smelled strongly of lemon and garlic - two of my favorite smells. We made our way past the crowd hovering near the bowl, when a hand reached out the bowl to us, and a young woman asked us if we would like some. I said "yes!", but figured I would taste it and then give the rest of the piece to Wiggle, who was running down due to a delay in both nap and food. Then they offered C a piece and Wiggle, and it was delicious! We walked back to the car savoring our chicken and thinking how lucky we are to have moved to such a wonderfully diverse and welcoming place.

Here are some pics from the park.

Looking at geese and fish from the pier

The boat launch and view of the lake

Wiggle noshing on the awesome chicken

Weekend in the County

2010-09-10T22:49:00.001-05:00

So apparently, we live in Fairfax County and not the City of Fairfax as I originally thought. For some small reason, this is a little disappointing to me. I guess my snob streak runs deeper than I thought. Oh well, that's not really a big surprise.

Some of the neighbors had a potluck right outside on our cul-de-sac tonight. I met some other nice families and their kids, and the best news, they have plans to do it every Friday night. Talk about a neighborhood; it's pretty awesome.

Wiggle and I have been avoiding the park as of late because it is unrelentingly bright and sunny here until 7:00 pm, and Wiggle has developed a new habit of rubbing sunscreen in his eyes to the point of needing his eyes flushed. Today it was fairly overcast and wonderfully cool, so we went over to one of the playlots this afternoon.

We spent a lot of time going forward and backward; playing hide-and-seek, and going down the slide, of course.

Chillin' on a park bench

Going "ovvvvaaaaa" the bridge

Riding the bulldozer

A Slow Day

2010-09-09T22:48:00.000-05:00

Thursdays C teaches until 10:00 pm, so I'm on my own for the evening, as well as the day. When I discovered at mid-afternoon that C had left the trash he had promised to take out last night sitting in the entryway, complete with a rotting chicken carcass, I took a bit of a "mental health" afternoon. Wiggle and I watched some of a movie and vegged out instead of going to the park as I had originally planned.

On the upside, I read a bunch today and last night.

This new blogging regimen is going to be trying, but worth it in the end, I think.

VAriety

2010-09-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

So, we've been in Virginia about a month, and we are starting to settle in. So far the traffic has not been as bad as everyone said, but then again, we don't try to go into the District at rush hour, so we haven't fully experienced it. Everything is crowded though. There is people traffic, as well as car traffic. Stores are crowded, restaurants seem crowded, parks, and trails are crowded. Not so much that things are at a stand still, but you are very aware that there are a lot of people around. Also surprising is the amount of diversity in the area. Coming from a city of neighborhoods, many of which are ethnically segregated neighborhoods, it is a welcome change to hear 4 or 5 different languages spoken while in line at the grocery store. This also means that there is a wealth of ethnic food and ingredients around. One thing we appear to be lacking so far, is cheap produce. Even the farmer's markets seem expensive compared to Chicago, especially considering that the food is generally not organic.

The days seem to fly by, so we haven't established much of a routine yet, but C only started teaching last week, so hopefully, the structure that I crave will firm up in the coming weeks. Wiggle clearly misses his friends, but loves his new, huge room, and our house in general. He has already met a couple of new playmates in the neighborhood, but it will be awhile before they are really chummy with each other.

The boy is growing up fast. I gave him his first haircut the day before yesterday.

He is talking up a storm. Sentences become longer and more frequent each day. He expresses preferences by saying "like it" or "yucky." He has been working on colors, although he tends to favor pink and blue as guesses. He also counts to ten, even if 5 and 8 don't generally make the cut.

One of my favorite things he does, is when he tries to get you to do something by as many means as he can. If he wants to watch TV, he will say "Watch!" When I say no, he tries "See!" or "Look!" Then he may ask for a show by name, or even try pulling me toward the remote. I wonder where he gets this stubborn streak?

On a personal note, I realize that I will not be running a marathon this fall. Am I bummed? Not really, I plan on doing a 10k in October, which will be 5 miles more than I could run at this time last year, so I feel pretty good. Plus, I have found I really love running, and I feel better than I have in a long time.

I also have a few more resolutions to put in print.

I am going to post a blog entry ------- EVERY DAY. In this case, I'm going for quantity over quality in order to get the habit ingrained. Now for all of you Wiggle-freaks out there, this does mean that there will be more pictures and Wiggle-related posts, but they won't all be about him, because, well, I am trying to have a life too.

Also, I am going to read every day. I would like to get through at least two books a month, which I know will be a breeze some of the time, but I have the resolution for those other times. And the newspaper - I have to read the newspaper every day. Now that we are where news happens, I feel woefully uninformed.

More amorphously, I need to find out what I want and can go back to school for and start that process. My goal is to be taking some classes by next fall.

Don't worry there are some pics...

A busy professional with a keen fashion sense

This blurry chicken is always on the move

Routine

2010-07-14T00:19:00.000-05:00

Since having a baby, I have really gotten into routines. I always liked having them, but I have never fallen into rhythms easily, so I didn't have many routines unless they were forced upon me. Having a baby sort of forces routines on you, and I have generally loved every predictable minute of my routinized life.

Now that leaving is upon us, I have started realizing how much other people have woven themselves into my routines. Today, while on my walk, Wiggle and I ran into a friend and her daughter at the exact place we had run into them yesterday. It was around the same time, but only within an hour, yet there we were waving to each other around the same corner. I love that about my neighborhood. I run into people on the street, at the grocery store, the post office, the park. Before we had Wiggle, it happened less frequently even though we were out more. Now, we are more conspicuous when we are out, and even more than that we and all the other Hyde Parkers with kids are following a routine, one dictated by naps, meals, and weather, and emphatically punctuated by more weather, health, and, of course, mood.

Our current routine runs something like this- up between 7 and 8, breakfast, some reading and drawing, coffee while he watches Sesame Street at 10, play, down for nap around 12:30, up at 2:00, lunch, playing on the porch or in the yard, some laundry if we are in the yard, dinner around 5:30, a bath, bedtime stories, and down at 7:30.

Of course, it doesn't always go like that, but even if the times are off, there is still a rhythm to our day and our week. I will miss music class on Wednesdays, playdates on Thursdays, Saturday mornings at the Farmers' Market, the weekly run to Peet's for coffee.

I know we will find new routines in Fairfax; I will sign Wiggle up for another music class in the fall, but I will miss the other mothers and the kids from our class. Even if we did not form friendships with most of these people, they are in our lives. They are the people I wave to, exchange bits of info with at the grocery store, email about teething issues on the parenting listserv; they are my neighbors. I had been thinking about all of the things in Chicago I will miss, and of the specific people I will miss individually, but I will also very much miss my neighborhood, my community.

Hyde Park, I'm gonna miss you.

Adios!

2010-07-12T23:03:00.000-05:00

One of the things I will miss most about Chicago is the Mexican food. I'm sure DC has it's fair share of run-of-the-mill Mexican, and it probably even has a few standouts, but there is no better city in the country for Mexican food than Chicago. We have been lucky enough to have a couple of truly outstanding meals the last two weekends, both Mexican, and both completely different.

Two weekends ago, we went to Amelia's. This is a place we have driven by for years (it's at 45th and Halsted), and I always said I wanted to eat there, but I couldn't find out any info on the restaurant on the net, so I would forget about it until the next time we were driving by. C ended up going there this spring for a faculty dinner at IIT, and he raved about it. He suggested we go there the night after his dinner there. This should have clued me in to how good it was, but instead I took it as a sign that we needed to get out more, which was also probably true. The Saturday after C's defense, we managed to score some free babysitting from an awesome friend, and he suggested Amelia's again. This time I did not resist.

The minute we walked in, I loved it. I'm so upset I never took the leap and went there all those years ago, because it is a place I would go back to again and again. It has a nice atmosphere, but it is also very comfortable. I felt at home there. I immediately liked the waiters, the look of the menu, the chairs, etc. It's BYOB, and we had picked up some beer to bring. They brought us glasses, poured our beer, and put the other bottles in an ice bucket on the table, a nice touch.

Then, of course, there is the food. Everything was so good. We started with the -
CROQUETAS FRITAS
Artichoke corn Fritters, Squash Blossoms, Epazote and Salsa Cruda...

and the -

QUESADILLA DE HUITLACOCHE

Corn Truffle, Chihuahua Cheese, Epazote, Roasted Corn and Black Bean Salad, Tomato Salsa….

The huitlacoche quesadilla was excellent, with the best mix of tangy vinegar and cheese and the requisite corn smut. You gotta love good corn smut.

For entrees, we ordered a special with scallops on top of a squash blossom risotto. The scallops were buttery and sweet and cooked perfectly. The risotto was full of squash blossomy goodness, and I love squash blossoms, so you really couldn't go wrong there.

We also ordered the -

LOMO DE PUERCO
Grilled Pork Tenderloin, Fava Beans, Anduille Sausage Baby Spinach and Spicy Ciruela Sauce..

The fava beans made this dish, and again it was perfectly seasoned. I can't remember a time when all of my dishes were so perfectly seasoned. All of the flavors were so well balanced that I think even if you did not like a dish, it would be hard to criticize it.

It was such a good meal and so close to the house that I think we will try to go again before we leave in, gulp, 18 days.

The second Mexican meal was one for which we had been waiting for a long time. We had always meant to go to Topolobampo, Rick Bayless's more upscale restaurant, but we never seemed to get around to it. C's defense seemed like the best sort of excuse, and I managed to get reservations for this past weekend. Wiggle had been spiking a fever for the previous three days, so on Saturday before dinner, we took him to the ped to make sure he was ok, and see if there was any chance we could still go to dinner. The ped figured it was roseola, but we were all slightly concerned it was a UTI because he had been saying "penis, penis, penis" all morning and didn't want a diaper on. The poor guy had to go through TWO catheter attempts to get urine, both came up empty, and we were told to go home and hope a rash (the roseola sign) would show up the next morning, so we wouldn't have to try another catheter the next day.

As soon as the catheter ordeal was over, he started perking up, and his fever seemed to have broken. Our babysitters for the evening were an extremely generous couple, who have sat for Wiggle before, and their gracious friend from out-of-town who had agreed to come along. (I know, I know - how lucky are we!) Since there were three extremely capable caregivers at hand, and since Wiggle seemed much happier and somewhat healthier, and since the next available reservations were in late August, well after our move, we decided to risk going to dinner. Boy, did we make the right decision!

We each did a tasting menu with the wine pairings. I got the White House State Dinner, and C chose the Veracruz Tasting. We shared everything.

Phenomenal. The best meal I have ever had.

The mole negro I had with my main course was just amazing. It made me want to cry. I don't mean that it was so good, I wanted to cry, I mean it made me feel sad. It didn't make me think about sad things, instead -and don't laugh at me now- it felt sorrowful. I told C what was happening to me, and I think he thought I'd had a little too much wine. Then we switched plates, and he took a bite of the mole, and his face fell. He felt sad, too! It was, perhaps, the freakiest food experience I have ever had, but still so awesome.

When we got home, sated and happy, the boy was sleeping soundly. The next morning the telltale roseola rash appeared, so no further doctor visit was required. The "penis" thing turned out to be, just a boy being a boy.

Doctor Who?

2010-07-01T22:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, C successfully defended his dissertation. That means, today he is a doctor. Crazy!

Wiggle ended up attending the defense too, due to a babysitter snafu. He ate raisins, pointed aggressively at the ceiling fans, played with the buckle on his stroller, and was generally well-behaved, yet still a noticeable distraction. Afterwards, we all went to Jimmy's, the campus dive bar, for a beer. As C said yesterday, "now we can say that (Wiggle) has been laid out on the floor at Jimmy's!" Between munching on french fries dripping with ketchup and trying to run behind the bar, Wiggle alternately sat and laid down beneath our table happily playing with both of our phones, a true indulgence.

Two philosophers and a toddler

Yesterday evening, we sat on the back porch with the neighbors, sipping sparkling wine and watching the kiddos play with and sometimes eat chalk. I would say it was a very good day, indeed.

It has already prompted some thinking on my part though - I know I don't want my Ph.D., but I'm thinking a plan for the future/my future may be on the horizon...

But first, I will focus on the impending Move. Today I acquired some boxes; this weekend I will start packing books and some other things that can go into the storage unit until the move. I will also try to encourage my husband to read more of his novel and play a few hours of Madden before he starts stressing about his classes in the fall. A wife's work is never done. (big dramatic sigh)

Little Boxes

2010-06-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

We went to Virginia last week and rented a townhouse to move into in August. We drove around the DC metro area for three days, and in the end went with the thing we had seen first. We are moving into faculty housing at GMU. The development is brand spankin' new and looks a little like Disney designed it. Even the name is a little Stepford-like - Masonvale.

Since we're moving to a totally new area to us, we decided to go with as much certainty as possible. The university is the landlord (well, a management company hired by the university); the development was built to help recruit/house new faculty, so the environment will hopefully be a little like Hyde Park; you can only live there for 1-2 years, so everyone there will also be looking for a new place to live, so who better to trade research with on potential neighborhoods and schools.

We also went with convenience. Since Masonvale is on campus, C can walk to work, which means I can have the car all of the time. Our 3 BR townhouse has a two-car garage, dishwasher, disposal, washer/dryer, and 2.5 BA! I am so looking forward to doing laundry in my own house, I am almost giddy. And I am perhaps weirdly excited by the disposal. It means less trash to take out, and the trash will get stinky less quickly. There is an old elementary school right behind the house which has a huge playground and a big soccer field to play in. Fairfax itself is still a bit of a mystery to me, but I have a year to explore it, and I am a big fan of exploring, so it should be fun.

Now I have to focus on the move itself. I have been getting quotes from moving companies and will have to start some preliminary culling and packing in the next two weeks. Ugh! I really hate moving, but I am super excited about our destination, so I will power-through.

Maybe I will look into wearing dresses with an apron, so I can really fit into my new surroundings...

We Are Family

2010-06-14T23:43:00.000-05:00

My sister and her family were in town this weekend. We got to spend time at both the MSI and the Field museums, eat Chicago pizza, and hang out at the apartment together for some much needed bonding. The last time my sister was in Chicago, she was five or six months pregnant with my nephew. The time before that, we spent an evening dancing on a radiator at a frat party to "We Are Family," taking special care to belt out the "I've got all my sisters with me" part. It doesn't seem like that much is different each time I see her when I go home to Dallas, but when I think of how much has changed between each of her visits here, I can see how far we've both come. We both have wonderful families. She owns a house and has a great job. I'm about to move across the country to a place far away from our family and almost all of our friends. It's crazy to think I'm the same person who used to yell "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" countless times a day to her, and that she is the person who would have wanted to keep trying to come in.
Last week I only she was coming in on an extended business trip, but she managed to score some great last-minute fares (she's extra talented at finding things like that), so the hubby and my nephew, X-man, could come out too. I was totally psyched, especially because that would mean that X-man and Wiggle would get to spend some quality time together. Wiggle was pretty much in awe of everything that the X-man did. Playing with Legos - supercool. Making the robot lizard face - completely hysterical. Reading a bedtime story - captivating.

X-man can moo, can you?

Wiggle is making a "hoo, hoo" sound, like an owl.

The visit was way too short; I wish we lived close enough to see them all the time. Luckily, we are moving to a fabulous destination city, so we might be able to finagle even more visits out of them in the future. Or maybe they can just send us the X-man for a while. He owes me a rematch in Monopoly and those games can get lonnnnng. Whaddya say, sis?

It's All About Timing

2010-06-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been cleaning a lot. Part of this sudden urge to clean stems from the fact that we're moving in less than two months, and part of it from the fact that Wiggle is a grade A mess-maker.

In all of this cleaning though, I realized something very important. I don't really know how to clean. I mean I know the basics of cleaning, but I never learned all of the things that make a cleaning thorough.

For this gaping hole in my education, I will openly blame my mother (sorry, mom). Make no mistake, my mom is a great housekeeper. No, her crime against me did not come in the form of a messy house, but in how it became clean. You see my mom has a couple of problems; she is a personal perfectionist, and she is an insomniac. My mom was like one of the shoemaker's elves who worked through the night, and when we woke up all we saw were shoes. I cannot count the number of times, my sister and I stumbled out of our rooms at three in the morning because we heard the vacuum running downstairs. Sure we had our own responsibilities - we unloaded the dishwasher, or at least we did some of the time, we handled our own laundry, and made plenty of our own food, for breakfast and lunch at least, but we never saw much of the nitty-gritty of cleaning. While I watched my mom cook for hours and hours, sitting and talking with her in the kitchen as she made dinner, I hardly ever saw the bulk of her cleaning routine. I saw and inherited the desire for the detail work, like taking a toothbrush to the kitchen faucet, but sweeping and mopping occurred mainly by moonshine.

I know my mom would have told me how to really get in the corners, or pre-treat a stain on my shirt, but I never thought to ask. It all looked so easy for her (not in man hours, but in know-how), so I just assumed I could figure out how to do it, or that it would suddenly come to me. But I didn't and the "flash" never came, and I now realize the last time I really questioned my cleaning techniques, I was probably fifteen.

And then I had a baby.

Now I vacuum my living room rug every other day because if I don't the detritus that can be found there is large enough for Wiggle to eat, and so he does. I dust more frequently because I notice more that the surfaces are dusty. Those dusty places are where I put my coffee cup and the old battery that I'm trying to keep away from Wiggle. I've been systematically going around the house with a 4/1 bleach solution, cleaning all of the baseboards and woodwork because I have actually seen him lick our walls.But since I don't have any elf in me, I had to figure out another way to get time for cleaning into my day.

I am definitely a stuff person, I like physical things around me, so my biggest obstacle to cleaning is clutter. Now even though, I am not blessed/cursed with a nocturnal urge to clean, the clutter would certainly keep me up at night. It's just that my cleaning thoughts at night are a little crazy. You know, the weird slightly OCD ones that make you think that you can't throw out old magazines until you buy new towels for the bathroom. If you read the last sentence and thought, "what the hell is she talking about?" then you are probably normal or you are a guy. If you thought that the sentence made sense, then I can guarantee that you have at least one closet door in your house that you don't even let your husband open. The "logic," in case you are wondering, is my husband likes to take magazines into the bathroom, so I would like to give him old ones to have in there, but they should really have a place to go in there, so I need some kind of container, but what kind? Hmmm. I need a new soap dispenser to replace the one that broke, and the soap dispenser and magazine container, should "go" together, but if either of those things have any color in them, they need to complement the colors of the towels, and I need new towels because my current ones have bleach stains on some of them, so I can't go through old magazines yet, because I don't have a place to put them. It's crazy, I know. But that's what happens to me when I stay up all night and try to clean, I just get one of those thoughts after the other, until I've made more of a mess than I started with. So since I'm not naturally an elf cleaner, I needed to find another kind of magic.

My magic is a timer and a hokey website. Actually, with a toddler, I don't even need to set a timer most of the time. I just try to do a small enough task that if Wiggle leaves the room, I can finish in enough time that he hasn't injured himself in the interim. One tiny thing at a time, I clean the house. In order to stop myself from the crazy thought train, I turned to the FlyLady. Do not judge me. Even though, the constant "bless"-ing terminology turns my stomach a little. It has good advice. Also, more importantly for me, it tells me what to do - every day. I never walk into a room, and think "How do I decide what to do first?" because she tells me. I love not being responsible for planning my cleaning routine or deciding what to do at every turn. I love just doing what comes next on the list, and I generally do. It turns out, it doesn't take a lot of time to keep the house in relatively good condition, as long you do a little bit all of the time. I love being a grown-up and realizing that I don't care if a website that helps me is homespun hokey; the important thing is that it helps me.

Sporting a new 'do.

Home Sick

2010-05-31T00:12:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday I had my gall bladder removed. Everything went well, my incisions seem miniscule, and I've had almost no pain whatsoever. I have, however, felt like I had surgery this week. I'm generally tired and weaker than usual, two facts that keep sneaking up and surprising me. I credit my overall speedy recovery to the tremendous support I have gotten in the last week by my MIL, C's brother Zio, and C.

Zio and Nonna stayed for the week and watched Wiggle, so that I could get some R&R. I will admit, I was a little apprehensive to have them come and stay with us, even though I was the one who invited them. I knew I would need the help, but I also knew I wouldn't be feeling very well, and house guests can be the last thing you want when you're not 100%. I'm glad to say I was completely wrong. They weren't house guests; they were family. It was absolutely wonderful for me, and Wiggle had the best time. He spent the entire week showing off and learning tons of new things, like saying "thank you." I've been working on that one for awhile to no avail, but for Nonna it was effortless. I can't wait until their next visit!

C and I even got to go out to dinner on Thursday night for our third wedding anniversary. We had a very nice meal at Fonda del Mar, one of the many Mexican restaurants we will miss when we leave Chicago at the end of the summer.

As summer gets started, I am realizing that our "last time" for many things is fast approaching, and for a ton of others has already occurred. We've already had our last winter in Chicago, which is fine because I'm really enjoying the warm weather, but I'm still getting nostalgic already.

Today we sat in the backyard, talking to friends, while Wiggle played in a kiddie pool for hours with his friend, and I kept thinking about how much we will miss those people, this yard, and Chicago summers in general. For so many people we know, Chicago is just a stop along the way, but for us, it is home. I'm sure we will love Virginia and the East Coast and everything else about our new life, but when I wake up in the morning and the sky is a certain shade of blue, no matter where I am I will think I'm waking up in Chicago.

On Tuesday I had my gall bladder removed. Everything went well, my incisions seem miniscule, and I've had almost no pain whatsoever. I have, however, felt like I had surgery this week. I'm generally tired and weaker than usual; two facts which keep sneaking up and surprising me. I credit my overall speedy recovery to the tremendous support I have gotten in the last week by my MIL, C's brother Zio, and C.Zio and Nonna stayed for the week and watched Wiggle, so that I could get some R&R. I will admit, I was a little apprehensive to have them come and stay with us, even though I was the one who invited them. I knew I would need the help, but I also knew I wouldn't be feeling very well, and house guests might be the last thing you want when you're not 100%. I'm glad to say I was completely wrong. They weren't house guests; they were family. It was absolutely wonderful for me, and Wiggle had the best time. He spent the entire week showing off and learning tons of new things, like saying "thank you." I've been working on that one for awhile to no avail, but for Nonna it was effortless. I can't wait until their next visit!

I'm sure we will love Virginia and the East Coast and everything else about our new life, but when I wake up in the morning and the sky is a certain shade of blue, no matter where I am I will think I'm waking up in Chicago.

Impatiently waiting for the pool to be filled

Who needs a slide when you have measuring cups?

Playing in the Pool