Monkeyball, and other games

This is the first weekday in two weeks that I haven’t had a kale smoothie for breakfast. I didn’t get to the grocery store so I’m out of bananas AND kale (I had just a little left) (also out of eggs, cheese, butter, and pretty much everything else really) so I made myself an egg white scramble (kale and tomatoes, with no cheese, sob). We also finished up the leftover green grits on Saturday so there wasn’t anything even slightly decadent. There’s a piece of Ezekiel bread in it for me (we have butter at work, hallelujah).

 But there’s nothing like digressing before you even start, right? It was a good weekend. I did everything I thought I would do (except laundry) and got two runs in. We went out to Animal Kingdom Sunday and got Henry on Dinosaur, which is 40” height requirement. He’s never been tall enough for any of the “big kid” rides, and I think he liked it, but he also didn’t want to go on it again. There’s a lot of darkness and realistic angry dinosaurs, and general jerkiness – I hope he goes again. It’s so exciting to have a new thing to do with him!

Spencer went on Everest too, which he went on about 6 months ago but then refused to go on it again because it was “too scary” (he went twice! Once with each of us!).

We left in the mid-afternoon because C wanted to watch the 3pm football game, so we had lunch/dinner where we could watch a little. We felt a little weird about just hanging out there for 3 hours (although I was fine, they had excellent sangria) so we went over to Downtown Disney and I took the boys to Disney Quest while C had a beer at a restaurant bar and watched the rest of the game. It really worked out well – the kids weren’t bored (maybe I was, but that’s because I can’t actually PLAY anything while watching the kids bounce between games).

Tonight is trampoline aerobics, which I’m excited for. Last week I couldn’t work out for days (I wasn’t “can’t move” sore, but certainly “don’t plan on using those muscles” sore for three days afterward). My main beef with TrampoLEAN really is that Mondays were my time before. I got a couple hours to sit on the couch and watch my shows that no one else watches, have a glass of wine and not have to deal with anything or anyone else. It was my choice to fill that time with an aerobics class, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.

So instead of wine and tv, tonight I need to a) do my grocery shopping b) start dinner so it’s ready when I get home c) start a load of laundry so I have some pants d) hope I have some yoga capris for class. It’s looking like the bulk of the week is going to have pretty crummy weather so I may as well go all out so I can’t work out for another three days.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Jen has decided to make this a weekly thing, and while I don’t know that I’m in the mind space of anything becoming a weekly thing, I feel like I can at least get into it TODAY.

Yesterday I:

n  Participated in a court thing that I’m a part of for the next six months. I’ve mentioned it on Facebook and twitter, but since I can’t exactly lock down the readership of this (well, I could but won’t) and can’t know exactly who’s reading this, I’ll leave it at that. It’s interesting and I’m glad I’m doing it, but I was supposed to be back at work by noon and didn’t get there until 2:30pm. I leave work at 4pm. And I didn’t get lunch – I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some soup that I ate at my desk. But I did get to take the kids to school, which I never get to do and I was really kind of excited about it even though neither of them even bother to say goodbye before jumping out of the car (even the daycare one that is so upset every morning about me going to school).

n  Took the kids and an extra kid from after care to Family Reading Night. I feel like maybe I can’t do this every month though, because the two older ones who are the ones supposed to be reading instead run around saying hello to their friends, and since I’m sitting reading to the three year old, I can’t police them the way I might normally. They were so good the first time, but it’s unraveling. Maybe it’s me that’s unraveling.

n  Wanted to run, but it’s so cold right now (I know you in Michigan are cursing my “cold”, but let me tell you – 46 degrees is cold here). I planned on going right when I got home because it was sunny and 54 degrees, but C went into the office for the day and didn’t get home until 6pm, at which time it was dark and colder and I had to leave to take the kids to reading night.

n  Skipped my meal plan dinner to have breakfast for dinner for the second night in a row. I made these grits on a whim, and they were so delicious I heated some up and dropped a poached egg on top for dinner. Effing fantastic. I skimped on the cheese and used skim milk – I bet they’re even more decadent with the recipe as written.

(don't judge a grit by its picture - I have poor lighting in my house, and the filters don't do it justice)

n  Was so exhausted I fell asleep on the couch last night and my husband had to lead me to bed at 10:30p when he went in. I think it was about 9:15p, but I was out. I don’t actually remember going to bed.

Today I:

n  Am so very happy it’s Friday. I’m just so tired lately, and I get enough sleep but TIRED. I just want to get up when I want to get up, even though that’s not any later than 6:30 really, and get dressed when I want to get dressed and don’t have to fight with the littlest one over going to daycare and me leaving for work.

n  Had to listen to/comfort a heartbroken child because I had to get ready for work. “Don’t Leeeeeeaavvvee” while choking sobs. Seriously kid. Yesterday (okay this should be in a bullet point above) I went to get the mail and he flipped out because I left and came in through the front door and he looked for me from the garage door and couldn’t find me. He was inconsolable. I don’t know what to do. Phase, right? Phase. Anyhow, today was more of the same, meltdowns over going to daycare, over me leaving for work. It’s exhausting (oh, there’s the reason I’m tired! Lightbulb!)

n  Really want to go for a run after work. Really.

n  Am doing the usual Friday night for the kids – movie night, popcorn and fruit and yogurt (maybe a grilled cheese) for dinner. I’m making thai ginger soup for C and I, which I’m pretty excited about (recommended by one of my fabulous twitter friends) and I plan on curling up with a book and ignoring the world for just a little while.

Tomorrow I:

n  Will probably have more green grits with breakfast – not gonna lie. Maybe blueberry pancakes for the kiddos. I’m not a big pancake fan, or waffles, or breakfast pastries. I’m much more for savory breakfast – eggs, meat, toast. This is my happy place.

n  Have a birthday party to take the kids to - a dual party for my friend’s six year old and one year old. I got the younger a Hallie the Hippo stuffed animal and a board book (Chica Chica Boom Boom), and the older a Boulder toy (Rescuebots) and a Where’s Waldo travel book. I’m pretty happy with the choices, and that I bought them on Amazon and didn’t have to last-minute Target shop the morning of the party. Spencer has grown up with the six year old (birthdays are 3 weeks apart, so they’ve known each other pretty much their whole lives) and even though they don’t live close, it’s a huge exciting deal when he gets to see Nathan. It’s adorable.

n  Need to do some laundry and some overall house cleaning (this seems to be an ongoing Saturday morning thing) but otherwise I’m hoping for it to be a pretty laidback day.

n  Wanted very much to go out with a friend for birthday drinks, but I put off finding a babysitter and now I don’t think I can really find a babysitter. Or I could, but I feel bad asking short notice and and and and and … well, I’m just not a good friend all the time. OH CRAP. And as I was typing this I realized the get together is TONIGHT and so yeah. I’m a terrible friend.

Velcro boy

Since he was an infant, Henry has always preferred the company of his daddy. I was quite alright with this, as Spencer has always been momma’s boy, and I honestly didn’t think I could handle two children who are attached by crazy glue to my hip.

The apocalypse is nigh.

For the last several months, Henry has become one of those children that just can’t get enough of mommy. On one hand, it’s a serious tug at the heart strings when he comes bounding to you when you get home “MOOOOOOMMMMMYYY!!!” and hugs your thigh. On the other hand, any separation leads to meltdowns and sobs and my husband dragging a screaming child away from me.

But mommy, I’ll MISS YOU (cue lower lip out as far as possible)

Don’t go running! I want to come with you!!! I’ll ride my bike!

I don’t want to go to Tita’s! (meltdown city, this is daycare)

I don’t want you to go to work! I’ll miss you!

I want to ride Dumbo with YOU!

(and unfortunately frequently) I love you and Bubba. Only.

It’s been tough, guys. I love my children. Love them with the fire of a thousand suns. BUT. When your child gives you a guilt trip every time you try to leave the room, it’s hard.

This is Henry sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for me to take a shower. It wanes, right? This is just the ebb before the flow?

Books I read: November and December

Somehow I missed posting about the books I read in November. Spoiler: It wasn’t many. But I would be remiss if I didn’t finish this up, so I’m combining my poor-showing November with my strong-finish December. I made it to 96 books (well, the last two I started in 2013 and finished in 2014, but the bulk was read in December so I'm counting it there). Not my best, but I’m not as disappointed in it as I thought I would be. I’m excited for 201 reading. I’m going to reread all the books I want, without worrying about numbers. I’m going to read new when I want and I’m going to keep track still, although I don’t know if I’m going to keep track in two separate lists or combine for total numbers. But this year the pressure’s off. Reading is back to just enjoying myself. I really do love to read. A friend put up a goal of 100 books for herself for this year, and asked for recommendations. I think including all series I suggested about 50 books.

November

78 The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater Not as good as the first in the series, but not bad. I felt like she was trying to go too many different ways. I wanted more focus.

79 Fall of Giants - Ken Follett This is why I read so few books in November – this book took me a LONG TIME. I liked it though! I’m going to read the second, I’m just not going to freak when it takes me nearly another three weeks. I’m not a big history fan so the war stuff (2/3 of the total book) took me a long time, but I did enjoy. The relationships reminded me a lot of Downton Abbey.

80 Tell the Wolves I'm Home - Carol Riftka Brunt This was so lovely and … frail. I loved it.

81 Honey, Baby, Sweetheart - Deb Caletti I needed some light fiction after the past two books. This was meh, but it did the job.

82 The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce I nearly quit this at the beginning due to boredom, but I persevered and I enjoyed it. Not a raging compliment, there, but it was decent.

December

83 Seraphina - Rachel Hartman Obviously a book about dragons that take human form is not something I would have tried without a recommendation. I like fantasy but THAT is out there. This was quite delicious, and I can’t wait for the next one.

84 The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson I was so into this at the beginning – it was utterly readable and for a text about North Korea, for me, that’s saying a lot. Unfortunately the second part took a nose dive and I couldn’t get anywhere with the second person narration. Abandoned.

85 Allegiant - Veronica Roth I loved it, and I loved how it ended and I can’t wait to dive back into the whole trilogy this year.

86 Selection - Kiera Cass This was recommended when I needed something light. It’s light, and I enjoyed it, but dude. It’s like the Bachelor set in a kingdom. With whiny teenagers. So exactly like the Bachelor.

87 Elite - Kiera Cass Second book, same as the first.

88 Prince - Kiera Cass Novella from the Bachelor’s perspective. I think I enjoyed it. It was okay. It was short, which was a plus.

89 The Favor - Megan Hart I picked this up when I was picking up something else from the library. It was just okay – I wanted a light romance and this was a little more complicated but not any more believable and the ending came way out of left field for me.

90 Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter Parts of this were beautiful, but the three stories intermingled didn’t really give enough of any one story.

91 Mystery of Mercy Close - Marian Keyes I love Marian Keyes; it’s been quite a while since I’ve read any of her books so I had a hard time remembering some of these characters as they related to each other (she likes to write about a family of five sisters so that each book is its own, but basically exist in the same “world” so you see a lot of the same characters). I might go back and read the others too.

92 Fiery Heart - Richelle Mead Not as good as past books, but I’m still at a point where it doesn’t matter to me – Mead has my heart. And the end of this one sets up what I hope is a fantastic next book.

93 The Sword and Salt Collection Tales 1-3 - Lindsay Buroker Ahh, Lindsay. You had me at hello. This was a group of short stories that appear to be setting up her next series, in the same world as Emporer’s Edge. Happy me.

94 Death of Santini - Pat Conroy This memoir was like learning a magician’s tricks. I was interested, but saddened to find so many of the bits of my favorite books lifted directly from his life with no real changes, even. It also highlighted for me something I learned when in my fiction classes: writing directly from your memory creates a character that is truly unbelievable to the reader. You have to add humanity to one who seems to have none for anyone to believe that person is real.

95 The Midwife's Here - Linda Fairley Interesting but far too rosy to seem real. Even the tragedies were upbeat. See what I did there? This might be exactly how she remembers it, but it just didn’t feel true.

96 Children and Fire - Ursula Hegi One day in the Nazi uprising. Not my usual cup of tea but pretty darn good. Not really at all about the Nazis, just as a backdrop.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig into Hunger Games again (edit: no, I won't because I wandered into the bedroom to do so and C was laying on the bed reading it. The man doesn't read, and decided to start the same day I wanted to reread it. Here I go over to Harry Potter then!). Happy day.

A mixed start

Yesterday can’t count toward the New Year, because everyone’s still celebrating. Also, because I ate terrible – I had a healthy egg scramble but with a ton of cheese, fast food for lunch, and dinner at Chuy’s (amazing, but not remotely healthy even if it was a salad … and sangria).

We had a quiet night in for NYE: grilled steaks and wine for dinner, prosecco and board games, jazz music and that amazing Aggies/Duke game on tv. Henry passed out at 9:15pm (naturally after insisting he wasn’t tired) but Spencer made it to midnight. I wanted very much to have him pass out at 11pm at least so I could go to bed, but no dice.

New Year’s Day I was in a rotten mood but we hit up on sale and I got pj pants, a bunch of unders and two $11 maxi skirts. The sale put me in a worse mood because of all those wacky cranky bargain hunters. It was very much like you see on tv actually – women dashing to be the first person to the aisle, no room for actual movement. We then moved on to Epcot which was finally not raining but was awfully dreary and still super busy. We did some things that we never get around to doing and finally forced Spencer to watch Captain EO (he was impressed once he actually sat down for it; he’s been scared to go since we got our passes). We ran into my aunt and uncle (small world, right?) and had dinner at Chuy’s (seriously, that stuff is amazing).

 

We ran out of Henry’s allergy medicine and decided to skip it – a decision we’ll be regretting until 2015. He was up most of the night, and at 3am C took him to the store to pick up said medicine and drive him around until he fell asleep. We were all so tired this morning that I turned off my alarm and was an hour late to work, and when I left Spencer was JUST getting up and C and Henry were still asleep. Thankfully none of my New Year’s resolutions involved being on time to work, but I did manage to brew myself a cup of tea and made an egg white scramble for breakfast, all to take with me. Today’s scramble had a maple turkey sausage link, collard greens, black eye peas, onions and just a sprinkling of cheese and 1/4 avocado on top.

I did forget to take the stairs at work, but it’s early – maybe I’ll take the stairs just to get away for a minute.

So anyhow – 2014: A mixed bag so far, but still with promise. I hope yours is fabulous!

Happy New Year, my friends

I keep meaning to blog and it doesn’t happen, and now here it is the last day of the year and I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of catching up. End of month, end of year …

We’ve had a good year this year. I wasn’t sure, the beginning was crap. But somehow we’ve pulled it together and had just a great year (although I know so many people who want to kick 2013 in the seat of its pants on the way out).

I don’t have time for the usual survey but here’s what I can remember of the questions: I’m fatter, slightly richer, and happier. My uncle Gene died, my cousin Grant’s wife had a baby.

I can’t remember if I gave myself goals last year, I’m sure I didn’t meet them. But I think overall it’s just the way things are.

This coming year I’d like to work on my health – I’ve gained about half the weight back that I lost in 2011 and I’m not happy with how I look or feel. I know I can do it; I just need to lay off the sugar and concentrate on the exercise. I have a goal weight but it’s not important. The baby steps are important. Just like before, I’m not cutting anything out. I thoroughly believe that moderation is the key (although I’m going to try for 30 days of no added sugar, because I have a pretty serious sugar addiction and sugar makes my tummy hurt – it’s a vicious and tasty cycle) and I also should cut down on my cheese intake.

 My other goals are related to my family – I’d like to commit to 12 dates with my husband because we don’t get that many, and six of them including movies because he loves the movies. I’d like to have three kid dates with each kid – some time alone mano-y-mano. I want to stop taking work home in my head (and on my phone). I want to go to bed at 10pm at the latest through the week so I feel more rested, and turn off the tv earlier so I wind down easier. I’d like to work on my temper and my yelling and my patience. I think every parent feels they are not 100% for their kids, and there’s no way we can hold ourselves up to the standards in our head. I’d like to just be a little more present. Play with them more. Not yell so much. Explain myself when things get annoying and I want to snap.

So this is for the look ahead, and for the glance behind. Let’s make 2014 brilliant, yes?

Full Disclosure

The other day Spencer was going to the bathroom while I was getting ready for work. This happens a lot because once he sits down he likes to ruminate a bit before he deigns to move on (men, seriously). I went to say goodbye (still on toilet) and noticed that his lips were chapped. I grabbed one of my chapsticks and slathered it on, and he said “Maybe I’ll have my own chapstick. Oh! I need to put it on my Christmas list!”

I said, “Sure, maybe Santa will bring you some!”

And then he said (still on toilet, mind you), “Yeah, Santa can always see and hear us.”

Spencer’s been in trouble at school the past couple days. Not huge things, but certainly things that need to be addressed. He’s a follower and has a need to be liked by his peers. So a little girl tells him to do something they think is funny and soon he’s cutting the erasers off the pencils. The first day he got a stern talking to, we took away a television show. We didn’t expect it to happen again the very next day. I’m at a loss as to how to handle it – we talked to him about doing what is right and not what his friends tell him to do. We told him the importance of respecting your teacher and other people’s property. I have never, ever threatened my children with Santa/lack of presents, but I said this:

You know Christmas is coming, right? Maybe you should try to be good.

We took away the evening’s Advent activities (hot chocolate and a Christmas movie) and tv, and wouldn’t let him watch daddy play video games (gasp). Instead he settled down with the collected works of Curious George.

I hope it works. Sometimes this whole parenting is a floundering-in-the-dark sort of feeling.