at peace, asleep
I realize I’ve been posting a lot of pictures lately, but I had to post this one, even though the photo quality isn’t that great since I took the picture with my phone.
On Saturday night, I developed the vapors and took to my bed. The Potato decided to come and keep me company, and when it was time for him to go to bed, he said, “Mom, can I just go get changed into my pajamas and brush my teeth and then come back in here with you?”
Of course, I said yes.
And here he is, asleep next to me.
The thing I love about this picture is that the curve of his cheek makes him look like he did when he was a baby. He’s become such a big boy now, but when he’s sleeping, I can still remember what it was like to have a newborn Potato in the bed.
nails
It’s not just me who has been practicing self-improvement this year. The Bee has been making a very concerted effort to stop biting her fingernails. She had fingernails that exposed her nailbeds, and her cuticles were a disaster—not like, “oh, those are ugly” disastrous, more like, “oh those are festering sores!” disastrous. Ugh.
I made a deal with her in January that if she stopped biting her nails & let them grow out, I would take her for a real manicure at a salon. She’s been a fan of nail polish since she was old enough to know what it was, and has been really into painting her nails lately. So today was the day!
I wasn’t planning on getting mine done—the only other time I’ve ever had a manicure was for my wedding—but she insisted. Here are hers:
And mine:
fatigue
I’ve got a variety of types of fatigues these days, starting of course with the ubiquitous snow fatigue. That might be, more generically, winter fatigue.
I’ve just been on the road for three days, and in addition to massive driving fatigue, I’m also faced with a huge email backlog, from the email I didn’t read while I was at a bunch of meetings. What I really want to do this weekend is veg out, but I think I’m doomed to spend some portion of it doing work, if I’m to start next week in a decent place.
I’ve also got a fair amount of diet fatigue right now.
I’ve been eating less in a controlled way (I prefer not to call it dieting) since June. I downloaded a calorie counter for my phone, and I’ve lost about 30 pounds through a combination of being much more conscious about what I put in my mouth, and just generally doing more exercise.
At this point, I’m really tired of the things that are healthy to eat. Especially since it’s winter, and the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in our diet has dropped precipitously. It’s a lot easier to eat more salads and things when you can just go to the farmers’ market every week and pick them up.
What are you tired of, right now?
sometimes, these kids do me proud
The Bee came home today after school and told me that she had to go to the PTA meeting tonight. I groaned with anguish, because I have to go on a trip tomorrow morning that involves leaving the house at 6 a.m. and then driving about 300 miles. So tonight, what I really wanted to do was pack, maybe watch a movie, drink one small glass of wine, and go to bed early.
And besides, I have been to my share of PTA meetings in my life. Being as I was the f’ing PTA president. I was even feeling really over myself, because I was one of only three first grade parents who made it in for the Valentine’s Day party today.
So I whined at my kid, “why do you have to go to this meeting? Why can’t someone else go?”
She looked at me levelly and said, “because someone has to go talk to the PTA about our bake sale for Haiti, and none of the other kids’ parents will take them.”
Ouch.
“Okay, I guess I’m going to the PTA meeting.”
So we went to the PTA meeting, and the Bee & her best friend, the Peony, who along with two other fifth graders are organizing this bake sale, went up to their classroom to practice what they wanted to say. Then they came in and showed us the posters they have already made for the bake sale, and talked about their plans to sell pretzels & bottled water at the annual Talent Show.
The Bee is a more confident public speaker than many adults that I know. I could not be more proud of her than I am right now.
things that are predictable
If I say to the Bee & the SP: “kids, we will go to the movies tomorrow after you write the first draft of your report, Bee, and you do your chore, SP,” they will invariably agree to the plan.
But when it comes time to do the actual work? They are nowhere to be found.
Guess I’ll be going to the movies alone :).
snowpocalypse 2
We were hit by another big storm on Tuesday night. They closed school for Wednesday before the storm had even started on Tuesday, and when I woke up Tuesday morning to only a couple of inches, I thought that was a mistake. But it just kept coming…
…and yes, I’m ready for spring now.
snowpocalypse
We celebrated our second major blizzard of this winter by sitting around in our pajamas till noon. Play practice was canceled, and our friends who were flying in from Chicago for the weekend got grounded there, so we didn’t go to our planned brunch. Instead, there was Wii, and unaccustomed Saturday morning TV watching.
The Bee walked to a friend’s house in the afternoon, and landisdad was forced by my physical therapist to dig out the driveway solo this time. The Potato and I played some games, and then he sat on the floor and built things out of legos while I sewed for a while.
Mid-afternoon, the Potato and I managed to get dressed, and we went outside where I pulled him around on the sled a little bit. He also decided that he had to clean off our cars–which mostly consisted of him shoveling snow using only his arm.
We’re supposed to go to another brunch tomorrow, but it’s in a Neighborhood That Never Gets Plowed in our nearby city, so I’m not sure we’ll make it, or if we do make it, if we’ll be able to park the car. Maybe we’ll just stay in our PJs till noon again…
BBSP at five years
Sometime in the near future, this blog is going to reach 100,000 hits. I know that’s nothing, compared to some big (and even not-so-big) blogs, but if you had asked me five years ago if I’d be close to hitting that mark, I would have laughed.
I thought it would be interesting to look at a retrospective of the last five years. Well, it’s interesting to me. It’s divided into two parts: today’s is most popular posts, and tomorrow’s will be landismom’s top ten. The popular posts is a little deceptive, because I did move my blog from blogger to wordpress, and therefore the posts from the early years might not have as many hits. I’m just working with the tools I’ve been given, y’know. But hey, now that I think about it, that means I’m over 100,000 hits! Break out the bubbly!
Most Popular Posts (and my guesses as to why they’re popular)
#10–The Bad Side of Genetics. Not really sure about this one. I was actually surprised to see that it made the top ten. I think it must be the thing about fused baby teeth–I get a couple of searches a week for that term.
#9–Beware the Basement. Is everyone afraid of their own basement? It seems this is a far more prevalent problem than I ever suspected.
#8–Even Little Girls Named Ruthie. Again with the teeth?
#7–Top Ten Toys. This tends to trend very heavily around Christmas. Guess it’s all those aunts and uncles and grandparents looking for suggestions. Not very helpful, I’m afraid. Although you can’t go wrong with Mad Libs. Or D & D books.
#6–Teaching Values Through Literature. On my worst days, I’m afraid that the people who are searching for advice on this topic are really looking for James Dobson. This ain’t it.
#5–Book Trading. Yay, people want to trade books! So glad about this one.
#4–We’re All Happy Hair. Is it the same people who want to read about my kids’ teeth?
#3–Carnival of Feminists #32. I’m pretty sure I got in on the tail end of carnival hosting. At least, I can’t remember the last time I saw one on a blog I read.
#2–“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”. This is 100% people searching this term. For papers, I imagine. How befuddled they must be, when they get to my blog.
And now…drum roll please…
#1–Betrayed by the Skin I’m In. Wow, there are a lot of people out there in the world who have random itchiness. Also? A severe allergy to Tide seems to crop up now and again. Ironically, the “medical mystery” story in last week’s Times magazine was about a guy with severe cold allergy, so they’ll probably be stealing all my hits.