Walking Backwards

Okay, buried seems to be a bit of an understatement. Coming back from vacation is weird, you realize that life does go on without you there and that you need to take care of that life stuff. I forgot when I wrote on Tuesday that I had class. Then, yesterday, I had carpool and it was Joe's birthday and I forgot to get him a gift or a card or anything. It turned out okay because we decided that with all that is going on that we are going to put off his birthday celebration until Friday (he also had his game yesterday and didn't come home until late last night). He'll be convalescing on the couch after his vasectomy, but he'll be home and I'll be home and I'll have a chance for gift getting. So, this weekend's Baker's Dozen so I can get to writing out a grocery list and start dinner for the two guys tonight since I have to go to school early for a study group.

1. Atlanta has some of the worst traffic I've ever seen. In the end I would have paid the extra $100 for a ticket closer to our destination.

2. Mel and Rob are the nicest people. We arrive and had piles of snacks and a stocked fridge waiting for us in the guest house. They know what is important to us.

3. Always double check your toiletries before going on vacation lest you forget toothpaste and shampoo and conditioner and floss and your sleeping pills.

4. Oak Ridge was the site of the "Manhattan Project". The real one, not the movie.

5. I much prefer eating at home to going out.

6. Going into Walmart makes me feel really uncomfortable. I mean physically uncomfortable. I think it's the lighting.

7. Nicholas got his portraits done. Now we can have something on the wall of him older than four months. And clothed.

8. I didn't get to go to Memphis and see Sun Records or Graceland. I really wanted to go, but there was no time.

9. Mel and Rob have traveled all over the world and I am insanely jealous. Now I am going to try to convince Joe to not be such a homebody, because they told us how they did it and it might be feasible for us.

10. We took the entire day to get to the airport for our return flight, stopping at little museums and stopping to eat. I still missed my flight because we didn't arrive in time to check bags.

11. We had to amuse ourselves in the airport for five hours. Amazingly, we did. I thank the gods that the Atlanta airport is so huge.

12. Nicholas was super well behaved. It was as if he were someone else's child.

13. Picture forthcoming. I'll edit to add it this afternoon.

Back from Tennessee, but buried under a mountain of laundry and unpacking. Later today I'll do my weekend Baker's Dozen to cover all of the highlights. It was fun and peaceful and stressful and calming, all in different bits. I didn't take many pictures, but we had someone else take pictures of us. Nico's first portraits in awhile. We missed our return flight and didn't get home until one in the morning. Nicholas was great. More later.

See, it does exist. AND it's funny, right? I'm not crazy here!?



In other news, I leave tomorrow morning for Tennessee. I am going to see my mother's birth daughter and her newly adopted little girl. I'll also get to catch up with friends I haven't seen since Italy. Just not looking forward to the plane ride by myself with the little guy. I'm sure this three hour flight and one layover is going to be a piece of cake since the last trip (eighteen hour flight with Nico pretty much by myself), but it's never known that he'll be good. At least they serve drinks.

On the local parent message board we have been discussing the subject of friendships and I never realized before what a sore spot that is for me. I'm not the most social creature in the world, but I like the camaraderie of being around like-minded individuals who will listen to your problems and all that. However, since Nicholas has been born and especially since I've started school and we've had problems with the preschool, I have no life. Maintaining friendships has become exponentially harder and the restrictions that are placed on them are difficult to overcome. Schedules have to be worked around and there is always so much else to do. On that note, though, the friendships I have I feel are very strong. When I do make an effort to reschedule my day/life, it is because, even though I have less time to give, the time I have to give is evidence of a great effort and sacrifice on my part and illustrates that I find that person important and worthy. Maybe I'll figure out how to make it easier one day.

Now I'm off to pack. Hopefully I won't forget too much :)

Today I was cleaning my house, which is a never ending process around here really, and I realized that since having my son and starting school again and watching kids, that I have really let a lot of things go that I thought were important before. I used to be freakish about having everything clean and even though it bothers me now not to have everything spotless, I'm okay with my dirt. I also have come to accept that with children comes clutter. I've relaxed my standards and I'm coming to accept it. I never thought I would give my child candy, but now he gets some form of it most days if you include his vitamins. If you don't include his Yummie Bears, he gets candy at least twice a week. I now have days where I don't shower and don't notice it. I used to get manicures because it would keep me from biting my nails, now all I have left are stumps for fingers. I used to run and do pilates and ballet, now I sit on the couch and eat cookies. Instead of going to film society functions we go to preschool birthday parties now. Amazing that I'm happier with life than I've been in awhile, but I am.

School tonight was murder and my house smells of cilantro, so I think I am going to sit on the couch and watch television and eat green curry soup and be happy with where I am and write more later or tomorrow.

This weekend's Baker's Dozen:

1. In preparation for our trip on Friday to Tennessee, Nicholas and I went shopping for things to keep him entertained on the plane. We bought a View Master and several reels, stickers, an AquaDoodle notepad, and some sequencing puzzles. I got myself another pair of gaucho pants. I couldn't help it.

2. http://www.peepresearch.org/

3. Joe worked from ten at night on Saturday to six in the morning on Sunday. We need more family time with him awake.

4. My dad took us all out to lunch for my birthday. The food wasn't that great and I hate to go to a crowded restaurant with a wait with Nico, but I really enjoyed getting to go out with my dad.

5. I got a Starbuck's giftcard for my birthday from my dad. After this weekend it is already almost half gone.

6. Saturday evening I tutored a girl in my geology class, proving once and for all that I should not tutor anyone outside of the fields of English and history.

7. The end of spring break is always capped off with a mad dash to read my assigned work which is usually capped off with me falling asleep after about half an hour.

8. I found vitamins Nicholas will eat: Yummie Bears Whole Food Supplement

9. I haven't been inspired to cook at all lately, so Joe and I have been heating up stuff from the freezer. I don't know what is causing it. We are going to run out of premade meals this week, so I better get out of this funk immediately.

10. South by Southwest finally, FINALLY ends. Good riddance. Now I can finally find a parking space and get a bagel at my favorite spot.

11. O Tofutti, Tofutti kline-ine-ine

12. I've been looking into rejoining Netflix this summer since I'm going to be out of school. I've already started a list of what I'm going to put in my queue.

13. This is the back play area of his preschool. I took it today, but I still count it as a reflections of our weekend. In fact, several reflections. The end of vaccation.

I've been feeling so boring lately. All I really have to talk about are the problems we've been having with Nico's school and the general sense of being overwhelmed that I have a tendancy to feel from time to time. I don't even seem to be able to make interesting anecdotes about all the little day to day stuff that happens around here. I'm in stasis, I'm happy, we don't really have that many problems, and we've been so busy keeping up with my school and our normal routine that I haven't gotten into much exciting stuff. Damn it. Hope to be more interesting soon.

In leiu of interestingness on my part, I have to post about the funniest easter gift item I've seen: an easter peep s'mores set. I saw it at Target and thought it was so great that I pointed it out to three sets of strangers who pretended to ignore me. I
can't find a link to it online, so I think I'm going to have to have a recon mission to our local store with my camera in hand.

Tomorrow is our last day of vacation. Monday marks when our lives go back to their normal, over-scheduled selves. Monday also marks our return to Nicholas' school after the last conflict we have had with them and I'm kind of dreading it. Over the break, Joe and I have basically decided that we are going to pull Nico out of school and try to find another preschool for him to go to this last year before he starts kindergarten. I'm tired of the struggle. The other option we have is to become active in our local homeschooling group, but I'd like him to have the structure before he is forced into it by our public education system (we're too poor for private school and I can't say home with him for financial and sanity reasons). Nicholas loves the school and I hate to take him out, but they are at the point of refusing to listen to our doctors or respecting our wishes in regards to our son's education. They do not have my son's best wishes in mind, so they gotta go. It's crappy. However, I have to say that spending so much time with him has been great. I love to just hang out and be able to do what we want most days. Who knew that I would say that one day, that I would rather have my son spend all of his time home with me than send him to school so I can read and study and do my own thing. Maybe homeschooling wouldn't be too bad.

Right now I am so tired that I am going to have to cut this entry short without going into the usual late night rambling that I'm prone to. I keep having to rewrite sentences and correct misspellings and unclear phrasings. MMMMMMMmmmmmmm, nap.

Well, Blogger is down (again!) it seems, so no more posting for tonight. I think I am going to give their servers a break and not hit republish every three seconds. Night all.

Last night Joe had his game. Joe plays D&D every other week after work and doesn't get home until around 11. I'm usually asleep by the time he gets home and Nicholas always is. It shouldn't be too bad, it's only every two weeks, but I really dislike it. I feel I shouldn't begrudge him this little time he has to himself, especially considering that I also take time off every couple of weeks as well, but I do. I can't believe how hard it is to handle the baby/little boy from sun-up to sun-down and how hard it is to handle the next day as well. Right now I just want to go to bed, but the house is suffering from two days of my exhausted neglect and, now that spring break is almost over, I really should get to the mountain of homework that has been sitting on my desk for so long. Plus, since the Mr. next to me is on call, he is working instead of massaging my feet while dusting and doing the dishes. F-ing responsibility. I think I am going to lay in bed with a tub of cake icing and my new book. Who needs to clean up the cornbread off of the floor; one of our friends is bringing her dog over tomorrow morning?

Two asides -

I am really starting to get into my craft/house/yard projects again and I think I am going to start posting what I'm accomplishing. Getting to create has been such a source of joy for me. Most of what I've been doing lately here has been venting, but, really, a lot of good stuff has been going on. I think that I am only posting the bad stuff to get it off of my chest and the goodness just doesn't have a chance to push the pile of bitterness over. I just wish I had taken pictures of the last couple of projects I did, including a cool hand-painted bead necklace that I gave as a birthday gift.

I'm thinking about buying a new digital camera and starting to blog off of Flickr. I think it would be easier for me to keep up, but I also think it would be limiting. Not fully decided yet. I'd never give up this place (just passed my 400th post), but I'd focus on pictures for more of 'a day in the life'.

Two new places to check out -

WeeWonderfuls

del.icio.us

Happy Spring Break!!! The flurry of activity that always accompanies this break in our lives has kept me away from the computer for most of the week. So, for now you'll have to settle for a big-ol' bulleted list.

- We went to Houston last weekend to spend time with Joe's family before the epic of family weddings begins in April. We went to the zoo and just hung out. Nicholas loved the carousel, but would not nap no matter how much I begged and cajoled.

- Monday was my birthday and was pretty good all around. Nicholas was well behaved enough in the morning for me to get some much needed housework done (so much more to go) and Joe came home at about 12:30 in the afternoon so that I could go to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned in peace. Joe got me the coffee press I wanted and a piece of my favorite cake (rosemary lemon) and Nicholas made me a really sweet card. I had book group at night and had a great bottle of wine and some good mama conversation. Very fun, all in all.

- Annie and I went to a lovely art exhibit on Tuesday with the small children. They were exceptionally well behaved, but did not seem to appreciate the atmosphere as much as we did. Sadly, I got car sick on the way there and it kind of put a damper on my mood. Curse my motion sickness.

- Today, we went to a birthday party for a friend's daughter who turned three. There was a playscape, so little was seen of Mr. Nicholas. He was able to be coaxed back to the table with the mention of cake, though. After we left, we started shopping for all of the upcoming birthdays and visits and trips to see family and weddings. We ended up buy Nicholas a light-up top and I got a new book. That's it.

- Tonight, Joe has his game and it is just me and a mountain of homework in a dirty house. I suppose I should attend to that.

I'm irked. I had a bad night in class and left confused and frustrated. Sure, I'm making an A, but I would really like to understand this stuff. Rocks are interesting.

As for the conference with the therapist today; we've been advised to go against the school's recommendation that we hold Nicholas back a year. The doctor brought up almost all of the same points we did and told us that he doesn't think Nicholas' problems should be a reason to keep him from advancing to the next grade. He even told me that he saw very little of what the teacher was complaining about. Don't get me wrong, Nicholas has issues and I do see some of the problems that the teacher is telling us about, but they aren't so severe that he can't handle relationships and situations with his peers. Now I just have to convince the school of that.

Today is a big day. Oh yes it is. Today I have a meeting with Nicholas' therapist where we are going to discuss Nicholas temporary diagnosis and decide whether or not to have Nicholas advance a grade at his preschool or be held back a year. Joe and I and everyone else who care for Nicholas have talked about it and have decided that if they want to hold Nicholas back, we are going to take him out of school for the year rather than have him go in with the younger class. While that sounds a lot like picking up our toys and leaving when we aren't getting our way, Joe and I have our reasons not to want to do it. First, I don't want Nicholas to have to watch everyone he knows at school to be moved up a grade and have him left behind in a class with a group of children he has never met and that already have known each other for a year. Second, children tend to mirror the behavior of the group they're in. Nicholas will have no examples of appropriate behavior for his age. Third, my son is cognitively above average for his age group and he will not be in an environment that will foster advancing his learning.

So, we've been thinking about it. I love his school; except for this. And this is coloring my judgment of the school so much, I hate taking him in. I'll keep you apprised of what the therapist says.

We seems to be mired in preschool birthday party land over here. This weekend we have a birthday party for one of Nicholas' classmates and next weekend we have two, back-to-back, on Saturday (one for a set of twins). When I got home this afternoon, I was alerted that another one of Nicholas' friends has a birthday party coming up. Fortunately, my mail program crashed before I could get the details. It is so hard keeping up with my three year-olds burgeoning social life.

Mentioning which, decided on a date for Miss Fi's birthday party yet, Maria?

So I didn't post last night; I was tired.

I've been wondering today what food group chicken nuggets fall under. And that if it falls into the group with other meats, is my son not a vegetarian anymore? Nicholas will only eat chicken in nugget form and has great disdain for all other preparations of poultry. He won't even look at beef, pork, or fish. Not that I'm complaining that what is taking me forever to instill in my husband has come naturally to my son, it is just weird. What makes the nugget different? Why is it that nuggets are acceptable and that grilled chicken is something so vile that Nicholas acts as if we are forcing cough syrup down his throat?

Speaking of chicken; if you live in Texas please have a care and write to your legislature about a new law that is going to have a huge impact on small, locally owned farms. This law will require all farm animals to be chipped and given a separate id number. Every illness, death, birth, and movement of these birds must be recorded. This is only going to have a major effect on small farms because larger, factory farms are going to be permitted to record their animals as one lot. Urban farms and people who keep chickens in their backyard can be fined by the day or incident for not complying. This will have little impact on disease control because it will not monitor the places where there are conditions that foster disease. Basically, they are going to be eliminating most of our small local sources of food because they are the people who would be unable to shoulder the cost. For more information, visit the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

Because I don't have much time for in depth content right now, although I sorely want to write, here is this weekend's Baker's Dozen. I'm going to write more tonight after the munchkin is out, but for now I have to keep Mr. No-Nap-Man happy and keep this short.

1. Another meeting of Fight Club. I made super-lavender shave soap for one of Joe's co-workers and tea tree oil soap for my brother-in-law. Next time I am going to make some citrus shave soap for myself.

2. While at fight club we debated the best form to buy curry. It was determined that the green curry paste rocks the world, but I still have a soft spot for the fresh vindaloo paste (not exactly curry, I suppose). Powdered curry was designated a 'to be used in slow cooker recipes only'.

3. I went to the grocery store FOUR TIMES this weekend.

4. My mother called me and told me she has booked me and Nicholas a flight to go with her to Tennessee. Hmmmm, I guess I am going to Tennessee.

5. Joe's allergies are bad and when that happens Joe loses his voice. As cruel as it is, it is hilarious to watch him try to talk on the phone. I kept telling him he had to call people.

6. I am about halfway done with my first scarf of the year. After that, I am going to make my first ever stripey one. This year we are really going to stick to the idea of making all of our Christmas gifts.

7. Joe and I are SO broke I pulled out my old copy of The Tightwad Gazette (which is awesome) and started reading. We need to get back to our thrifty lifestyle again. We kind of gave it up after we had saved up enough to buy the house.

8. Joe, Nicholas, and I went to the Austin Kite Festival this weekend with some friends. It was a kite flying extravaganza :)!

9. Nicholas got his face painted for the first time. It was a gecko. For some reason there was glitter involved.

10. Nicholas also discovered the joys of cotton candy by snatching my bag from me on the shuttle bus back to our car. I thought I was safe because he had always been freaked out by the texture before. It is all downhill from here.

11. Spring is in the air and we have started to set up our garden. This year we are hoping to add an herb patch in the corner of the yard, two oak trees in the back, and new bedding plants in the front beds.

12. I still have not cleared out our guest room, but I did get some accomplished this weekend. Now all of my Christmas stuff is in the attic. The Chanukah stuff is still on the floor.

13.

Two Things

1. Yesterday, Nicholas and I met with Annie and others at a local farm stand/farm. Nicholas loved feeding the chickens some broken up pecans that we found. I didn't know that chickens love pecans, but it turns out that they like them a lot. As we were wandering around the property, Nicholas made his first ever pun. It went something like this: "Hey . . . Hay!!!! HaHaHaHa . . . ."

2. I have to ask all of the parents out there, is your house ever clean? I mean really clean? We keep our place picked up as best we can, but it is pretty dirty. I need to wash my floors and dust and I haven't done my windows since I moved in. I tried that Flylady program, but let's just say it wasn't my cup of tea. I think after the third e-mail I was thinking of where she could put that feather duster she is always pushing. I can't stand having an icky house, so it is driving me up the wall, but I have no idea when or how to go about the deep cleaning stuff. We're pretty much done decluttering everything except the attic and bedroom closet, now I just want to not ick out when I'm walking on my floor barefoot. Any suggestions would be appreciated.