Walking Backwards

The boys are not so quietly reading books, so I am going to try to knock out this weekend's baker's dozen. I could add so much more, but I think keeping the info at a nice round 12 will keep it interesting and be more than just me ranting on and on.

1. I forgot to eat on Friday until around 7 in the evening because I was keeping myself so busy. Low blood-sugar makes everything seem unusual.

2. Nicholas had another behavioral assessment. We would really like to start knowing the results of these things since we have already sent ourselves into the poor-house paying for them. Another one is scheduled for next week.

3. Set-up for the silent auction was long and tedious. I was left to set up a room almost all by myself.

4. I like Lebanese food.

5. Make sure there is a lock on the door before getting changed in a preschool bathroom. No one wants to see you squeeze yourself into pantyhose, ever.

6. I should have doubled checked to make sure I brought my nice shoes with me when I left for the preschool in the morning. I looked a little odd wearing a fancy velvet burnout skirt, pantyhose, beautiful blouse, and Converse.

7. Joe is totally incapable of doing my job completely when I am gone. He acknowledges this as well. He was very proud to have completed a load of laundry and kept the child alive at the same time.

8. I should not drive home at 2:30 in the morning after such a long day. I was taking my life and the lives of others into my hands.

9. I could not get out of bed on Sunday and watched a ton of public television including the conclusion of Bleak House which left me a little wanting.

10. We ate out for every meal this weekend and now cannot afford groceries. Hmmmmmm, next time I will not use exhaustion as an excuse for not having forethought.

11. Right now we are experiencing some of the nicest weather of the year (80 degrees, sunny). Only in Texas is February the best time of year.

12. My house became dirtier this week/weekend than it has been since we moved in. Even dirtier than it was when it was torn up from us moving.

13. The reason I couldn't write an entry last night:

Weekend dishes -

No time for an entry now, I'm going out for drinks with friends. It has been crazy busy and will get to my baker's dozen so you can see. Until then, in the 80s music vein I've been following, check out the video for "Tear You Apart":

She Wants Revenge

If anyone is going to the show in Austin on March 4th, let me know. I'll be out and about downtown that night.

I don't have writer's block, I just don't feel like talking. Ever have so much going on that letting it out makes you realize how stressed you should really be? That's why I don't want to talk. However, I'll come up for breath soon and be able to let out what is going on. Two things until then:

- My son's preschool has a silent auction this Saturday. I've been working on the silent auction committee and after Saturday my work is done. Almost six months worth of work. Thank God.

- A friend of mine just found out that the child she is carrying is probably not going to survive. She is 24 weeks pregnant and becoming gravely ill. Her child has stopped developing. They deliver the baby tomorrow because her kidneys are shutting down. She has two other children waiting for her at home. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts, oh internet.

MOTHERFUCKINGSONOFABITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

South Dakota Senate passes abortion ban bill

I'm sorry, but I'm pissed. The first week Alito is in office and two major stabs at abortion rights occur. Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't the issue the wanted to focus on Mr. Alito. Fucker.

This weekend's Baker's Dozen:

1. While my son is my favorite person on the face of the planet, dealing with him can be hard sometimes.

2. We took my dad to Hut's for his birthday lunch. They have the best onion rings.

3. Nicholas can read a recipe and helped me make my dad's birthday cake. It was German chocolate, in case you were wondering.

4. We tried to make soap this weekend, but were foiled in our plans. All of the lye has been pulled from the shelves to prevent people from making methamphetamines.

5. Instead of making soap, I got to hang out with Annie and Geoff. Ah, grown-up conversation.

6. Bulky trash pick-up this week = Cleaning out the spare bedroom. So long to all of our old, destroyed furniture.

7. While in the cleaning mood I decided to hit the attic. I guess it is time to give all of the baby goods to someone who can use them. No way I'm giving away his David Bowie onesie, though.

8. I have officially moved into the realm of overbooked. We had friends over for dinner Saturday night and an hour before they arrived I was at the grocery store buying pre-made dinner.

9. Joe was on call and worked about ten hours on Sunday.

10. Because Joe was on call, he missed a potluck dinner at another friend's house on Sunday night. Good thing for him because Nicholas totally annihilated their blinds. It was kind of uncomfortable.

11. My car is a mobile trashcan

12. Target has children's art supplies in their dollar spot this week and we stocked up. I think we should be set for awhile now. Amazing that you can spend twenty bucks on dollar items.

13. Saturday play:

The weather here has been in a bad mood lately. I normally enjoy the cold, but not when it is accompanied by the freezing rain and the cranky baby and a busy schedule that requires us to be driving about all the time. We decided to skip the park day and had a friend cancel her outdoor birthday party because of the obvious discomfort that would be experienced (these were scheduled when it forty degrees warmer on average). Joe, Nico, and I still braved the super cold temperatures to take my father out for his birthday and I had a bunch of little errands that had to be done this weekend.

We also have another reason this weather is a little more difficult to bear than normal - my son has become a giant in his winter clothes and we can't find/don't want to buy another winter wardrobe for Mr. Growth-spurt over here. This is his third growth spurt in the last few months. I have already bought him new winter clothes twice. He has moved from 2T when we left for Italy to a 4T or 5T now. This is made even worse because I always buy his clothes at the end of the season the year before, so he has also grown out of his summer wardrobe for this year, too. So, right now I should be grumbling and buying him a third set of sweatpants and sweaters and mittens, but, upon further inspection at the stores, it is actually spring and our growing-like-weeds toddlers should be able to survive the rest of the season in sleeveless tops and jersey-weight shorts. To be completely honest, I am kind of glad that I can't even be guilted into buying new clothes by my son's freezing ankles. He'll make it through the week and even a little bit more in his snug clothes. We live in Texas after all, this will not last. I don't want to be stuck with three sets of toddler clothes that have to be put away before they suffer the fate of all other well-used toddler clothes that end up getting cut into quilt squares or rags or put in the trash after facing little boy destruction.

I have to ask: why is there this sudden throwback to 80s new wave music? It's like I'm in high school again. Not that I'm complaining, I really jammed out to the Killers' album 'Hot Fuss' and I did start to miss turning on the radio and actually enjoying what I heard. Tonight, with Joe out, I was watching television and heard a song that caught my attention because I thought it was older (who am I kidding, it was on CSI: NY). Nope, it was the Bravery. The guys look like carbon copies of my boyfriends when I was a teenager. The song is called Honest Mistake (click to hear it). Next thing you know, I'm going to dye my hair ultra violet and start wearing knee-high Dr. Martens.

This year I made a goal for 43things that was stupid. I have a goal to read 50 books this year. I'm not doing well so far with only 3 books completed for the year, but I figured that I always read several books a week when I'm not in school so there is time to make it up. The first 20 are already on my shelf thanks to hand-me-downs. I figured they should go first. Here is my list of 'to reads' for the rest of the year, let me know if you can think of anything:

1. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (next month's book club book)
2. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner, and others
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (only finished half of it)
4. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
6. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
7. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
8. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
9. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
10. Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
11. Lucky by Alice Sebold
12. The Color of Water by James McBride
13. A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel
14. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
15. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
16. The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett
17. The Prize-winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
18. The Master by Colm Toibin
19. The Dubliners by James Joyce
20. Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert
21. Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
22. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
23. Althaea by Andrea Crowder
24. Atonement by Ian McEwan
25. Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
26. Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
27. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
28. Plays by Harold Pinter (2005 Nobel prize for Literature)
30. Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That's all I got for now. I think I am going to try to round out my list with books of short stories and plays, but I still have twenty books to think of, so if you can think of anything . . .

Today has been painted in the colors purple, pink, and red. Not for me, of course, but for Nicholas. I no longer think that Valentine's Day is the one holiday of all holidays that is for adults. When you have kids, there is no holiday just for adults. They have Christmas and Easter and Forth of July and all of the other holidays that I can't think of right now. I would count Thanksgiving as an adult holiday because what kid wants to sit at the dinner table for three hours, but the plethora of construction paper turkeys and pilgrim hats that adorned my walls smashed that false assumption of mine. So Valentine's, what I assumed was the last holdout, has fallen, too. Today, I went to a preschool Valentine's party.

Normally I would be pissed about having to go to a party that I had been invited to the day before, where I am expected to bring something (kid's valentine cards), that is on the opposite side of town, and is being held when I normally put baby H down for his nap. However, I'm a bigger person than that and Nicholas therapist told us that we need to start getting him more involved with his peers. Really though, why would I be bitter *grumble, grumble*!?

The first hurtle we ran into was shopping for valentine cards the day before the holiday. After Nicholas got out of school on Monday, we shopped at four (FOUR!) stores and, because Nicholas isn't a fan of Bratz dolls, we went away empty handed. I had book club that night. I have a silent auction I am supposed to be doing work for. I have my first test in geology this week. I want an early bedtime for godsake! I did not have time to make cards that night. Really, what choice did I have; I bought stickers. Stickers on red, pink, and purple construction paper make great valentines. Especially when you are filling them out in the car across the street from the party. I think I may just end up in parenting hell because of this.

The party itself was funny. These children are either three or just barely four and it is so late in the afternoon that all bets are off, yet the mother throwing the party had a very involved schedule that these children were to follow. And if you went astray, look out. At one point she told her own (three year-old daughter) something along the lines of 'if you're not happy with that you can just leave' when her daughter wanted to keep decorating her valentine bag. Not to knock her though, she did have several age-appropriate activities and had the party at her house and provided the snacks. I just wanted to pat her on the shoulder and say, 'it's okay that it doesn't work out exactly as planned; they'll have fun anyway'. Poor woman.

So today Nicholas ate cake and sugar and strawberry yogurt and had strawberry juice. We got a bag full of cards to Nicholas for his bulletin board (and one for me, too) and did some sweatshop style crafts of our own *imagine me standing over two little ones demanding that they apply those stickers faster*. Nicholas helped me make strawberry cupcakes for his daddy and him to have after dinner while I was at school. We played with our friends and I got home early from school. A good day all in all.


Oh, and Joe had his vasectomy consultation today. Look for upcoming outpatient appointment within the next month.

Article in defence of "mommyblogging":

The problem here, I think, is that there is never a clear line between changing a baby and smashing the suburbs; they could be the thin and thick ends of the same wedge. There is never a clear line between being a post-punk indie princess or the Girl Who Found That Band First and being a hausfrau in sweatpants who is obsessed with her child's seeming inability to break a tooth through. It's all part of the enterprise of womanhood, and we are prisms who reflect different surfaces in every moment of the day. If caring for a child-especially a young child-is a part of your daily life, there will be moments in which you are a cool parent with Real Opinions, and there will be moments in which you are brought to your knees by crumbs of playdough and bedtime struggles, and since you must always be the adult around your at-times strange and unpredictable growing children, you will cry out for commiseration wherever you can get it.

- Marrit Ingman

http://www.austinmama.com/momandpopculture.htm

This weekend's Baker's Dozen

1. Every time Nicholas puts on his shoes, they go on the wrong feet

2. No matter how cold it is outside, you have to turn on the air-conditioner sometime during the drive from Austin to San Antonio

3. Dionaea House

4. Thank the stars for TheraFlu

5. Bath time is LUSHious

6. Creamed spinach goes well with pita chips

7. You have to become more than a man to the mind of your opponent

8. 256 pages left in book + Book Group on Monday + busy weekend = impossible

9. I think naan bread tastes like donuts. Also, Joe will eat curry.

10. Grey's Anatomy makes Joe and I sit on the edge of our seat, and stall in putting Nicholas to bed. Who could miss a minute!?

11. Friends have problems that make us worry

12. Nicholas can listen to the same song over and over and over and over . . . and over (la, la, la, la lemon)

13. Our porch has become a lovelier place

I forgot to add, if you're in Austin this weekend, you should check out the Folk Alliance's conference downtown (http://www.folk.org). I loves me some folk music and am sad to miss it, but I'd rather visit the family and friends. We have a full calendar of music this year to look forward to :).

I was oddly nervous about taking Nicholas to school today. I worried that he would sense that I didn't want to be there, that I didn't want him to be there, and that the administration at his school was hesitant about having him there, too. But it all turned out okay. I had a nice chat in the morning with his teacher and I joked with several of the other parents. The director seemed to be avoiding me, but I don't blame her, our conversation didn't go the way that I think either of us hoped it would. Nicholas had a good day, especially considering that it was raining and they spent so little time outside. There were no meltdowns and no phone calls. When I dropped him off, he gave me hugs and told me good-bye without any protest. I needed a good morning like this. I was also able to get a lot done that needed to be done. With all that has been going on, the to-do list was getting sorely neglected. Big sigh of relief here.

This weekend we are heading down to San Antonio to visit Maria and see the new little girls. I'm excited; I have a fondness for the newest little ones. As it turns out, two of the mamas I know in Austin had their babies this week, so I'm going to have my fill of the new baby smell (I think it's akin to warm milk). Despite this adoration, though, I am really looking forward to Joe's appointment next week for his vasectomy consultation. I love the babies of others, but I think our family is complete. Joe is coming around, too. He isn't too keen about the procedure, he won't even let me explain what he is going to go through, but understands the motivation.

"Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasures most dear."

- Orson Scott Card

Since I left the house late this morning, I missed today's Morning Edition on NPR. Turns out I missed a really cool show. There was a story on about how mothers can carry embryonic cells in their bodies for years after they carry a child, maybe their entire lives. Also, researchers are trying to figure out whether or not these cells help fight off infection or disease. Even if they don't cure cancer, I still think it's a neat idea that I will always have Nicholas with me. If you missed it, you should check it out here:

Babies' Cells Linger, May Protect Mothers

Monday morning Nicholas woke up with a low-grade fever, so I decided to keep him home from school for the day. I'm worried now about the probability, with all of the problems he has had recently with allergies, that he might have a sinus infection. I kept him home, though, because he didn't feel well and I don't want him away from those who can comfort him when he isn't feeling up to it. Because of keeping him home, I missed the meeting with the director of his preschool. Today, I had to go up to the school to drop off some paperwork and check-in with the fundraising committee since I have a lot of work to do for them that I have fallen behind on. I was hoping to be able to leave Nicholas for a little bit while I caught up on some school work, but it just wasn't in the cards for us today.

While we were making our dramatic, tantruming exit, the director met up with me and asked for a few minutes of my time to talk. So I agreed to have the talk with her that I have been dreading for weeks, the "what to do with Nicholas next year" talk. I explained to her how Nicholas doctor thinks that holding him back would not be a good idea for him developmentally and how his therapist thinks that holding him back will not do anything at all to solve his problems. She is coming from a different place, it seems, than we are. She doesn't just have Nicholas to consider, after all, and suggested that we either hold Nicholas back for the year or have him not attend school next year. I understand her position, she is quite right that the school is not able to give Nicholas the individual attention that he needs to make it through the next year and that his class will have more students in it and the teacher will have more constraints put upon her time. She did agree to leave it open to discussion until we have him observed by his therapist while he is in school, so that we have a better idea of where he is going and what he is going to need.

So now, more waiting. I think that now, more than anything, I just want this to be resolved. As it is, Joe and I are both being consumed with this problem. We don't know exactly where we stand or what to do next. I wish that there was an easy solution to it all, but it just seems that there isn't. I'm looking forward to the day when this isn't what I think about all the time.

The Bakers Dozen weekend wrap-up. Kay reminded me of this lovely little meme that I haven't done in over a year. Apparently the creator is no longer maintaining it, which saddens me, but that doesn't mean I can't still do it. The rules go like this:

You have to come up with twelve thoughts and one picture (totaling 13) to describe your weekend. Try using quotes, events, links to blog entries and websites, etc.

So now, my weekend:

1. Late night always seems to equal early morning when you have a little boy

2. Bags of mulch are very heavy and seem to get heavier the more of them you lift

3. Phone call from my mom where she demands another grandchild and we talk about our future trip to Costa Rica and how my brother is doing

4. One should never enter a grocery store the day before the Super*Bowl. Especially with a grumpy toddler

5. Memoirs of a Geisha is a good movie, but no where near as good as the book

6. When friends come over for dinner I should be finished with the cooking by the time they get here, not an hour later. Also a good idea considering the exponential increase in grumpy toddler

7. I love it when my dad visits because we get mad about the same things

8. The pizza at Craigo's is not as good as their baked spinach ziti

9. Nicholas loves going to the park with friends, especially when one of those said friends has a power wheel jeep

10. My son is much more social in outdoor settings with small groups of children

11. Nicholas loves cinnamon bagels with strawberry cream cheese

12. A person should never have to suffer through the agony of running out of coffee after only sleeping for four hours

13. Over scheduled:

Nicholas seems to have gotten hit with the allergy bug again this week. We keep giving him his allergy medication, but it doesn't seem to be able to keep up these last few days. He is waking up in the middle of the night sneezing and coughing, so I am waking up in the middle of the night to take care of him. Because of that, neither of us is in too great of a mood. Next year, I think we are going to try the homeopathic allergy treatment for this area. There has to be something out there that will actually work. I kept Nicholas home from school this morning because I didn't want them to have to deal with it. He was also running a low-grade fever this morning, but I think it was because of the sleep-deprivation and all of the coughing. My poor tired guy spent most of the day laying around in weird positions.



In addition to laying around, we had our first meeting with Nicholas' therapist. Joe had to go with us because the doctor wanted to speak with me alone first to establish goals and define the problems we're having. I have never met a calmer person in my life. The entire time we were talking I was very disconcerted with the breathy, new age inflection he had. He would ask me a question and I would go on and on and on because I was so terrified to leave a break in the conversation. Then he wanted to meet with Nicholas. Amazingly, my perfect-example-of-separation-anxiety willingly went with the doctor, alone, into the treatment room. I have to say they have some cool stuff in that treatment room. They spent about thirty minutes together and the doctor came out and told us they had had a good session and that he advises us to go in once a week until further notice. We are also not to expect results right away, of course. As it turns out, he is not going to discuss every session with us and instead we will be meeting again in a couple of months to discuss progress and areas that he thinks we need to focus on. But damn, I wanna know now!! For now, it looks like I am going to be driving all the way across town once a week to sit in the lobby and hope that my son is getting something out of this.

The meeting with Nicholas' doctor went well. I'm so glad I picked a non-alarmist and low-intervention doctor when Nicholas was born. We arrived just in time for the appointment expecting Joe to be there with his arms folded, looking bored. When he wasn't there I called his cell phone and found out that the car we bought two weeks ago, the albatross, had started smoking heavily and Joe didn't want to drive it because if it was the serpentine belt, driving it would ruin the engine. Because of the car from hell, I was going to have to handle the appointment by myself. Fine. So we waited for the doctor. And waited. And 45 minutes after our scheduled appointment time, the nurse called us back into the treatment room. Then we waited some more. Finally, our very apologetic doctor came into the room. She asked questions, I answered them. She watched Nicholas color in his notebook and asked him to perform simple tasks like picking up the yellow marker and shaking her hand. He did really well and she told us right away that she didn't think he had autism. Instead, she thinks he has . . . Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She says he might have ADD, but his OCD is such that we wouldn't be able to tell until he has that under control. Basically, my son's social problems arise from the fact that he believes there is a certain order to everything in the world and if another child steps across those boundaries, Nicholas can't handle it. So he doesn't play with other kids. We were advised to put him in 'play' therapy so that he can learn that if another kid stacks their blocks differently, it's not the end of the world. We're also supposed to have more playdates with other children, so he can learn to interact with them in a one-on-one type setting. The doctor says that this problem is not going to be solved overnight either and that Nicholas will probably be in therapy for years.

In two hours, Nicholas and I are leaving for his pediatrician's office for his behavioral analysis. Of course, he won't take a nap and is especially high strung, so I have a feeling this is going to go great *ha*. I think that after I finish this and start some laundry, we'll spend the rest of the afternoon doing art projects and reading and that should calm him down a little. Mentioning laundry, can someone explain to me why the hell I have three times the amount of laundry if I don't do a load each day like normal? I have about six loads of laundry that need to be done today and I can't figure out where they came from. Did they multiply in the night?! Have I mentioned how laundry is the bane of my existence?

This morning I bought my swimsuit and am now horrified with the shape I'm in. I don't run anymore, nor do I swim, I stopped yoga, and I stopped going to the gym . . . six months ago. Something (like the view of myself under fluorescent lights in almost nothing) tells me I need to start working on this problem. The dilemma is that I am inherently lazy and I love food so much. The exchange for eating whatever I want is that I have to exercise at least three times a week. You know what, though; it does make me feel so much better and generates a lot of extra energy in me (something desperately needed). Now why can't I get off the computer or the couch in the evenings?

When I signed up for geology, I figured that it would be a little difficult, but I've gotten through Anatomy and Physiology and Molecular Biology, I would surely have no trouble keeping up. What I failed to realize was that I have been out of science classes for eight years and that I have a three year-old who doesn't care that I have to memorize the difference between plagioclase feldspar and potassium feldspar and the relative hardness rating of minerals. Wow is this stuff a lot of work. I don't know if my brain will be able to absorb this much new information; all of it is completely novel to me as I've never been exposed to that many of the Earth Sciences. I should be studying now, but looking at the information freaks me out a little bit. I do gain some comfort in knowing that everyone else in my class that I've spoken to is also lost.

Last night Jon, my brother-in-law, came over for dinner. I made Eggplant Parmesan and we talked about economics and submarines, separately of course. Jon was supposed to stay and watch 'Life' with us, but flaked out early and left before Nicholas went to bed. Good thing he stayed a little after dinner, though, because otherwise he might have missed one of Nicholas' funniest lines ever. Bored with our conversation, Nicholas went into our bedroom and stripped himself completely naked. He then ran out into our front room and started bouncing on the couch. When I asked him why he was naked, he replied:

"I'm naked because I'm drunk."

I have no idea where he got that from, really. For some reason I feel the need to make the disclaimer that he was, in fact, not drunk. He has to wait until he's fourteen like I did.