I never seem to have substantive posts anymore…
It’s an hour earlier than my usual insomnia witching hour but I guess it makes sense to give in to it now rather than laying in bed tossing and turning for another hour before doing so. I think I’m up tonight because I had salty, salty pizza for dinner and so my body feels dehydrated and overheated just enough to disrupt my usual blissful slumber. I am so sensitive to being dry and overheated at night! Or rather, I am so sensitive to the feel of the comforter-turned-burlap against my dry, hot feet. Usually getting up to run cold water over my feet (yep, one foot in the bathroom sink at a time) and then making sure my comforter falls no lower than my calves when I return to bed helps, or getting up and staying up for a while, until my body has a chance to get nice and chilled, at which point returning to the burlap is a welcomed change. I already tried the former to no avail, so now I’m working on the latter.
Tomorrow morning (well, this morning actually) we leave on our trip. Somehow I managed to have my shit together enough that my house is clean (or will be) and my yard is freshly mowed/weeded, so I will be greeted upon my return later this week with nothing to do. That’s particularly nice in light of the fact that I took an extra day off from work (but not from childcare) so I will have a play day just for me. Of course, I’m sure I’ll have find plenty of less-than-fun tasks with which to occupy that day, but at least it won’t be the usual obvious drudge.
I am kind of excited to be away from work for a few days. I always like going to work but I am really tired of dealing with the guy they hired to replace me in my last position. Finally my boss is going to be the one he comes to when he can’t (as always) meet his deadlines, and my boss will be the one to have to pick up his slack. It’s not that my boss is ignorant of the problems, but he’s been away for several weeks and has little more than my incessant bitching as immediate evidence, and I think that he and I are both tired of my bitching. It will be good for him to have some first hand experience with the issues at hand.
In other news, I signed my five year old up for swimming lessons and soccer this week and I’m struggling with whether or not to continue with ballet. He definitely likes ballet but it’s more than four times more expensive than, say, soccer, and I worry that he might like something else better, something else that he’s going to miss out on because I don’t think I can manage more than one activity at a time (swimming lessons start the end of this month and go until the end of summer; soccer starts when those end). I also worry that ballet is too “refined” for him, that his exuberant energy outweighs his prancing grace and that he might be better off in something like gymnastics. Or maybe swimming and soccer are enough and I should instead focus on his recent requests to learn violin (no idea where that one is coming from)…although I have a really hard time imagining that as the best extracurricular activity for a very, very active five year old. I just want him to have the opportunity to find the things he likes so that he can pursue them but there are so many things and he likes pretty much everything. It’s so stressful to decide what should stay and what should go and what else we should add to the plate. And of course, he is just five (thank god I have three more years before dealing with this for my two year old. Perhaps I will have gained some wisdom by then).
In final news, my children both look like someone has beaten on them pretty severely and I’m feeling terribly paranoid that everyone (who questions us about it over and over and over and over) is casting suspicious eyes toward me as the likely culprit…or at least a strong supporting character.
My five year old gave himself a truly horrendous looking black eye when he fell from our rickety piano bench (no, we don’t have a piano) while trying to reach a toy he had hidden from his brother atop a bookcase. I don’t know what he he hit (as I was making dinner at the time…or doing dishes…something in the kitchen anyway), I just came running at the screams. At first it merely looked like a small reddish bruise on his cheekbone, but it grew to a full black eye that stretches from eyebrow to cheekbone and from nose to hairline.
Then, on Friday, my boys were playing outside when my two year old took a nose dive off the top of our porch steps and landed face first on the concrete walkway below, resulting in a huge bruise on his forehead and a wide, bloody scrape that stretches diagonally from his eyebrow to his hairline.
Everyone, every single person we encounter, asks how the boys got their terrible new markings and I find myself very anxious that they aren’t going to believe me, that maybe I sound a little too desperate as I cling to their shirts and plead, “You believe me, don’t you?? Don’t you???” And now that they both have been damaged, it looks so much worse. Truly, they either look like they’ve been in a serious car accident or were beaten up. Of course, they are pleased as punch with their terrible owies and don’t hesitate to display them proudly.
And then one last little bit: tonight before going to bed, my two year old asked if he could use his potty when I was changing his diaper. He walked naked down the hallway, giggling anxiously (very nervous about trying new things, that one) and then happily sat down on his little potty and chatted it up with his brother. Of course, the potty functioned as nothing more than a not-terribly-comfortable chair, but it’s very exciting that he initiated that step all by himself and even asked for it by name.