Friday was my older son's kindergarten screening. When did I get old enough to have a kindergartner? At this rate, my nursing home screening is right around the corner.
The Big Giraffe took OS to his appointment where he was give an explanation sheet of the screening that once again stressed that was not an intelligence test. There must be a lot of confusion over this because that's about the millioneth time we had heard it. Apparently they do the screening to make sure there are not an undiagnosed disabilities. If your child has a problem they contact you for further screening. OS was in a happy mood and proudly introduced himself to the woman giving the screening. Then off he went. He must have confused it with a screening for the CIA because all I got out of him was that "birds fly: fish swim".
I did the reasonable thing and emailed a friend of mine whose daughter is in the class. As long as I asked OS specifically about the tasks that I knew he did from his friend, he answered my questions. It was definitely on a need to know basis though. Let's help that this attitude gets better before his teenage years or at the very least doesn't get worse!
Saturday we went to this awesome one day event called Woolapolooza. I got to witness a sheep being sheared for the first time. I've been amazed at the number of people who seem to think that Chicago is filled with farms. Really and truly, this is the first time I ever saw a sheep being sheared. No, I did not grow up on a farm. We got to watch a sheep herding demo with border collies and we got to see how the wool gets turned into yarn. It was a lot of fun. The best part was definitely though seeing a lamb born. We just happened to be there when it happened. The boys were a lot more interested in the beach towels that were used to dry off the lamb.
On Sunday we went to a one day space exhibit at the New England Air Museum. Normally the Giraffe family does not have intentionally jammed packed weekends like this but again these were one day only events. OS is very into space these days so he really wanted to go and...well no suprise here...Woolapolooza was for me. The boys got to try on real NASA space suits. They also got to hold a meteorite as well as a moon rock. OS got to do a "lab" on identifiying moon rocks which he enjoyed. By far both of their favorite parts was the plane simulator that they got to ride. I was actually pleased when they told me that since we waited an hour in line. I think possibly the longest hour of my life I might add! At first OS told me that his favorite part was the gift shop but then he quickly changed his mind. Perhaps it was the look on my face.
How can I forget the most important part? I saw Twilight on Thursday night and then both the Big Giraffe and I watched it on Sunday. It was truly terrible and I thought it was fantastic!
Hey, I can fill ya in on what they do at screening. i preformed probably a hundred of them, so I can tell ya what he was asked to do. :) We will chat on Friday! Hugs!! Lisa
The Commonwealth of MA must just love me because I've gotten called yet again for jury duty. They can call you every three years. Three years to the day, baby! Unfortunately MA is one of the states where taking care of small children is not an exemption. In fact, there was even a paragraph in my juror handbook entitled "Parents" saying that I needed to come in on my assigned day. However, if I am the primary caregiver for an elder person, I am exempt. I take consolation in knowing that if I serve four or more days I can collect $50 a day. You know because that will make a small dent in my bill to the lady next door who runs an in-home daycare whom I am most likely going to have to hire to watch my kids if my husband can't take off of work. I have no idea how I would get OS to and from preschool. Not that I'm bitter about the situation or anything. Actually the funniest thing is that for years I wanted to be on a jury but I was never served.
In other news, if I ever get to the point with knitting where I show up at the Y in a knitted workout shawl with a pocket for my iPod like the woman I saw at the Y today please get me help. That surely is a crime!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Massachusetts considers caring for the elderly more important than caring for children.
I got called when my son was just a few weeks old. I was able to postpone for a year. Then I never had to actually go to the courthouse. I guess I was lucky.
I woke up on Friday morning for spinning class. It was raining out, and I debated going back to bed. I figured I would get up and look outside to determine whether it was safe. Since things looked okay, I drove to class without thinking too much about it. It was raining out, and there were a heavy puddles along the way. One person who was in the class commented that her alarm didn't go off because of the power outage. The rest of us were surprised. What power outage? We had no idea.
In fact it wasn't until I drove back from the gym that I heard on the radio that schools were being closed and that there were major power outages. It was actually raining hard enough to make me uncomfortable driving. That's pretty rare for me, but it left me relieved that school was cancelled. I later saw on TV that a state of emergency had been declared for MA. The Big Giraffe has many colleagues who live in Northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire who had no power, heat, or (worst of all) internet. I hadn't realized how bad things were closer to home until today, when calls started to come in from local friends who didn't or in many cases still don't have heat or electricity. We have offered to let people we know stay with us, and we also had one very nice couple call us assuming we didn't have electricity and ask if we would like to stay with them. We went to a mall on Friday night and it was jam packed. In hindsight, we realized the crowds were there probably because people were looking for a place to stay warm.
Today we went to a birthday party at one of those kids' birthday party places. The kids had a fantastic time. Many of the parents did not seem as upbeat. As we chatted, we learned that we were the only people there who had electricity! Worse, none of them were expecting to get power back until Monday.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: New England storms affect the whole region.
My mom asked me how you were faring and whether we'd be able to visit you this weekend, as she heard that the problems in your area were bad. Glad that you were spared!
that ice storm ad its problems was on the news here. I'd panic if I had no electricity in winter. it must be awefull to have children and not have heating. And all the food in the freezer is going bad. Oh gosh....is all electricity back now?
New England is a fairly dense region...can't they make investements in underground electricity cables??
I was going to post about this yesterday but every time I got near the computer, the Big Giraffe would crack some sort of joke about it. In fact he even put up a line about it on his Facebook status. Nice. As I've been telling the kids, Big Giraffe, Santa Claus is watching!
Anyhow, my younger son (YS) has really been giving me a run for my money. He is just into anything and everything. Yesterday he managed to get a hold of a friend's Macy's gift certificate while we were at her house and was about to rip it before I confiscated it. Yes, I gave it back!
Between the Eucerin, lipstick, toothpaste and Vaseline, he was been getting more than his fair share of baths and I think he just may be in the running for title of World's Cleanest Kid. He's also been taking things and putting then in a top secret location that I suspect is a vault hidden in the floor that he built himself during naptime. That is the only plausible explanation for why I couldn't find my deodorant on Monday morning. I looked everywhere before resorting to using the Big Giraffe's deodorant. Whoops! I don't think I mentioned that to you, Big Giraffe.
The other night I went upstairs to get ready for bed. This was the evening of the Vaseline incident. I noticed that my retainer case was on the floor next to YS's bed. No doubt that he had tried to open it, but that is one item that actually is hard to open as opposed to all our childproof items that my kids have mastered but that I have still yet to learn.
I grabbed it and took it to the bathroom with me. I also wiped my hand on my jeans because the case was smeared with Vaseline. There sitting on the bathroom counter was my deodorant which also was covered in Vaseline. For the record the Vaseline, toothpaste etc are now all locked up although I'm beginning to wonder if I need a vault hidden under the floor. I looked for my toothbrush, but it was no where in site. I went and searched my room and the boys' room. No luck. I called the Big Giraffe and he helped me look. We must have looked for a good 15 minutes. YS began to stir so I gently asked him if he took my toothbrush. He said yes. I asked if it was in his bed. He said yes. The Big Giraffe and I searched through the bed while YS slept peacefully. The toothbrush was nowhere.
The Big Giraffe then asked if the toothbrush was in Colorado* and YS replied yes. Great. Fortunately the Big Giraffe had bought toothbrush replacement heads the day before and fortunately I am also lazy and hadn't replaced mine yet. I asked him to please grab me one from downstairs and I would just use it on his Sonicare toothbrush until we eventually found mine.
A moment later the Big Giraffe was upstairs and laughing. I was getting irritated because it was late and I was tired. I didn't see what was so amusing about YS taking my toothbrush. The Big Giraffe asked for confirmation that YS had indeed taken my toothbrush. Then he pulled out the toothbrush from behind his back. Apparently it was in the downstairs bathroom. Apparently I am also losing my mind because I had put there when I brushed my teeth that morning before heading out to the gym. All last evening the Big Giraffe was cracking little jokes about losing things and suggesting that we wake up YS to ask him about it.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Kids really do drive you crazy!
This weekend is off to a good start. Suzanne arrived yesterday after all. That was a little bit of adventure that left me briefly wondering whether or not I had truly lost my mind. Alright, I confess that ever since I first became a parent I have often wondered that, but this time I actually had proof. I showed up at the bus station where I had taken the bus several times to NYC only to find that the bus station was now a car rental place. Of course the kids were whining, the traffic was pretty congested and the first thought in my mind was not "This is no longer a bus station," but rather "I've lost my mind! I must be on the wrong street!" A slight panic set in as well as a slight layer of sweat.
After circling around the neighborhood several times, I finally pulled into the car rental place and confirmed that it had indeed used to be a bus station. Phew! I wasn't going crazy. However, that left me with another big question, "Where was the bus station?". How weird is that the bus station was suddenly gone? It's not exactly like it was a restaurant where it wouldn't be a big surprise to see a new one in its place. It's a bus station. What's the turnover rate for the average bus station? I checked the sky for aliens. Fortunately I got directions from a teenage girl walking down the street and a few stoplights, one way streets and perhaps a muttered swear word or two later, I found the the bus station and was able to pick up Suzanne.
We all watched my older son's (OS) Tae Kwon Do class as well as YS's ensuing temper tantrum during it. We also spent a short amount of time trying to figure out life's big puzzle of the day: Where did YS's giant bump over his right I come from and how long had he had it for? Then we went to a restaurant where it appears that Suzanne was mistaken for a child and offered a children's menu. I'll let you read that on her blog. Now I'm hanging out at the BlogHer Boston conference. So far so good. I'll post more later.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: If you haven't been some place in a while, it's not a bad idea to check the address particularly if someone is waiting for you.
You Just Never Know Who's Going to Be at Your Door
No, it wasn't Publishers Clearing House telling me that I had one a prize. I was on the phone with my triathlon training buddy telling her about the home improvement projects we are going to be doing. After 7 years of trying to handle it on our own, we have realized that the Secret Garden look we have going on outside is just way more than we can handle. Thus, we have been getting bids all week for landscapers to tidy up our front yard. I'm jokingly saying tidy it because the work is going to involve big machines to dig up various weeds, bushes and vine "trees" that we have growing all over the place. We also need to have two small dead trees removed. I was in the midst of explaining all this when I saw someone in our driveway. It was our realtor (more on that later) wearing ladies sunglasses and carrying a saw on a giant pole. No, this wasn't a planned visit. He came over to chop down some branches to save us money and since I was home give me a lesson in tree branch cutting so I could save even more money. After removing at least a half dozen good size tree branches (many of which were dead), he loaned me his saw and I removed some more branches this evening. Again, how is it that I've been training for a triathlon, but yet cutting down branches made me feel like I had just completed about three triathlons?
I was really debating going back to sleep this morning after the alarm went off. I love watching the Olympics, but it has definitely thrown off my sleep schedule. Sure I could Tivo it. There's two problems with that 1)It's just not the same. 2) Inevitably I will see the results when I log into the computer or turn on the radio all of which happen before I would get around to watching the recordings in the evening which is the Big Giraffe and my usual TV time. My eyes burned this morning as I reset my alarm clock for a couple hours later and climbed back into bed. Instead of falling asleep though I thought about how I really should go workout. Plus my car was almost on empty and I definitely needed to stop at the gas station. A couple of the grocery stores out here have a program where if you get the free store card and spend x amount of money you get x amount of money off per gallon at the gas station associated with the grocery store. I was up to 50 cents off per gallon.
Sounds great right? The problem is that my store card doesn't work at the pump like it should. I guess it's pretty common. In order to take advantage of this program I need to go inside the gas station store, drop off the card, have the attendant turn on the pump, fill up and then go back inside and pay for the gas. It's a real pain in the neck if I have the kids with me so I try to do it before I go to the gym in the morning. In fact it was this image of trying to do this with my kids that was enough to get me back out of bed and moving.
I arrived at the gas station and did exactly what I described above except when I went to pay for the gas, I got a very pleasant surprise. Due to a malfunction at the pump, the gas came up as already having been purchased. I asked if there was any way to pay for it and the attendant laughed and told me to just enjoy it. It isn't every morning that I can save $46 for getting up early and going to the gym!
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Who knew that cutting back on sleep could save money?
The night before last we had thunder storms. Nothing to worry about, right? Well it depends on how addicted you are to your internet. The storm took out our internet. I know! The horror! On top of that, my IT professional, aka my husband, had to work late. Alas, over 24 hours without internet. It turns out the lightening reset our router back to the factory settings.
The irony of all of this was that Wed. is my day to post for New England Mamas. My post was written in draft form on Tuesday night, but I lost our connection before I could edit it much less be able to post it the next day. I forgot about it until lunch yesterday when I just happened to be at a blogger event at Mom Central with none other than 5 New England Mamas.
Yesterday was a fun day. I really enjoyed meeting other bloggers and my older son (OS) acted like getting picked up by a friend's mom from preschool and taken to the friend's house for a playdate with my younger son (YS) was the equivalent of going to Disney World. YS seemed to be in good spirits too. After baths and an early bedtime, let me just say early bedtime again because I couldn't get over my good luck, I settled down on the couch to do some blog reading. Alas I still couldn't! Fortunately, later on in the evening So You Think You Can Dance was on and although normally I would wait for the Big Giraffe, I decided to go ahead and watch. Yeah, I know I could have read a book, cleaned the house, made bread from scratch while sewing homemade clothes for my kids in the meantime, but I just wanted to relax. What did people do before the internet? What did I do before the internet because it sure wasn't washing the floor with toothbrushes. I had internet for the first time in college so I before then, I'm pretty sure I spent large amounts of time on the phone.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: It's amazing how something that is a convenience can become so important.
Thanks for coming to our lunch yesterday--it was so great to meet you! You are so welcome back to Mom Central anytime and we look forward to getting to know guys in the coming months! Make sure you email me if you're interested in those Ringling Brothers tickets! Abbey :)
i remember using the internet for e-mail, but otherwise thinking it was too hard to find anything worthwhile. Enter google and high speed connections... and that was it!
They had to go next door and talk to their neighbors. My mother had only one car and my father took it to work. When I talk to her about her life as the mother of 4 - she spent a lot of time going back and forth between her house and the neighbor ladies.
Last night I had a great conversation with my aunt. We spent a while catching up on what was going on with us: her daughter's new house, the boys, my triathlon etc. Eventually we got on the topic of relationships. She reminded me of a piece of wisdom that she has shared with me before: Friendships are not just important just for themselves, but they are also the foundation for relationships with significant others later on in life.
My aunt has two daughters so she was speaking from a female perspective. Her point was that women don't learn how to be a friend from our boyfriends. We learn how to be a friend from our girlfriends. Through our girlfriends we learn how to care for another person and through our girlfriends we learn what it means to have a relationship whether through helping a friend move or being there for a friend crying over a broken heart. We learn how to disagree and still care about each other from our girlfriends. We also learn to take and give constructive criticism from our girlfriends. In fact, when a relationship ends with a boyfriend, we learn so much in that time between from our girlfriends that we go into the next relationship not just with new knowledge and insight from the relationship that ended, but from the cups of coffee and late night phone calls we've had with our girlfriends. In that way, when we are ready to be in a serious relationship with a significant other, we have laid down a really good foundation because our significant others are really our best friends.
My Aunt's Lesson Learned: Friendships are not just important just for themselves, but they are also the foundation for relationships with significant others later on in life.
I think part of this, too, is that women tend to be more able to communicate, be empathetic, etc. I'm not meaning to be sexist, just repeating current research, etc.
I think that's very true. And many of those late-night conversations are with friends who'll be honest with us about our behavior in those relationships as well. We can learn from that.
Seriously, I don't know what I would do without my friends. I need them as much as I need my hubby, and when a few of them moved out of NYC in the past few years, I was just devastated. And still am. I'm just so lucky to have friends like you, and I often think about how much I would love it if I lived closer to you. I'm so looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks.
When I was a kid, I really enjoyed reading the book The Secret Garden, and I vividly imagined what the garden looked like. Fast forward 15+ years later. When I saw my current house, I felt like I was at home, because, for some reason, the yard felt really familiar.
Last night we met with a realtor. I sort of felt like I was dating again. Relax, Big Giraffe! What I mean to say is that I was really nervous about what the realtor would think of our house. We had a different realtor offer his opinion last year, but I wasn't sure if this realtor would agree. I ran around like a lunatic trying to get everything together. Plus earlier that day I gave a complete house tour to two of my friends. Talk about cementing my friendships with them forever; hey I don't just show anyone my closets and basement!
The realtor arrived and he had nothing but wonderful things to say about our house. Phew! I felt very proud. The fact of the matter is that the Big Giraffe and I have worked hard to do at least one home improvement project every year. One year it was remodeling our kitchen. Another year it was replacing a single toilet, but still that toilet was an improvement! He said the same things that the other realtor said too.
Before you think my head is starting to swell with pride, I can share another point of agreement between the two realtors...our yard looks like something out of the Secret Garden. As the realtor last night put it, most people have to invest some money in their house to put in up on the market (fresh paint on the walls, fixing any cracks in the walls or floor etc.) We're good on that. We need to put all the improvement money into our yard. He also clarified that this was not something that we can handle alone (that's not the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth time that we've heard that.) We need machines.
We're going to be exploring different options for this, but we know that it's inevitable that we need to hire someone. Unlike us, I don't think most people would consider "looks just like The Secret Garden" to be a selling point!
I know I'm way behind in my blog reading. I've been fighting a cold since the end of last week. Fortunately I'm well on the mend.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Murphy's law is right; even if you haven't been sick all year, you are likely to get sick the week of your first triathlon.
I would love a house like that. I remember the descriptions of them working the ground and the little green bits starting to come up. I've always wanted to find a garden that needed that type of love!
Yes, we over in the Elliot household are getting a little wild. First it was the $3 zester. That was unbudgeted item. Alright maybe, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but this next item certainly was an unforeseen expense. Perhaps if we had acknowledged it a little earlier, it wouldn't have been unexpected.
The moaning groaning had been going on for about a year now. Every time we had a sitter, we would need to tell her not to think she needed to call the police or Ghostbusters if she heard it. Honestly at the beginning it would wake the boys up at night...not to mention me. The Big Giraffe is a deep sleeper so it didn't seem to bother him too much. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, so I sought help. The problem was actually solved, but a new one arose. It just couldn't be satisfied. It became so time consuming that I had just about had it. Until there was a flood. That was the final straw.
Today we are the proud new owners of a brand-new toilet. That's right. For the amount we spent on this toilet (which was the cheapest one we could find that had a good reputation) we could have bought a ton of zesters.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: If your toilet is moaning and groaning it's probably time to call in a plumber.
We may be heading that way ourselves. The aqua (yes, aqua) 1960s edition clunker in our main bathroom seems to be groaning it's way into toilet history...
I am jealous of your aqua and baby blue toilets. My in-laws have a black toilet, which I do not recommend for a variety of reasons. My parents have a peach toilet with a grossly mismatched lid because the original one broke and no one makes peach colored toilets any more. Husband and I have a plain white one, albeit with a ridiculous clear plastic lid embedded with fake money.
Anyway, congrats on your new member of the household. May you use it in good health!
Today a team of eight from my moms group participated in Habitat for Humanity Women Build. The idea behind it is having houses built by teams of women (although men may also participate.) I thought I knew what I was in for. After all, I spent a week doing Habitat in college, and I have fond clear memories of spackling walls, hanging installation, and helping to build a porch. In fact I had even helped with the wiring.
My day started out at 5 am. I was psyched because I got to sleep in an additional ten minutes. I was able to take my time this morning, eat a little breakfast, and even check my email before I left. About 5 minutes into my trip to meet my carpool in a local Walmart parking lot, I realized that I had left my cat bed sweatshirt in the computer room at home. Since I figured that the heating situation in a partially built house would be poor at best, I turned around to retrieve it from its apparent resting spot on the floor of the computer room. Since, I almost never wear this particular sweatshirt, I wouldn't be too upset if it got ruined. (The cats might feel differently.)
The carpool quickly assembled and, after a stop at Dunkin Donuts, where the world's slowest teenaged workers appeared to find the idea of giving change to be a novel concept, we headed out out to Providence, RI. We had a brief introduction, and then we split into two groups of four.
Our group was assigned to hang drywall. I was a little nervous about it, but things initially went well. We just had to cut basically standard rectangular pieces. The only problem was my sweatshirt. I knew it was used extensively by the cats. I had not realized that a large golden retriever in desperate need of a bath had also been using it. As a result, I felt enveloped by the scent of dirty dog. While others may have been shielding their eyes from debris and their mouths from dust, I spent a lot of time shielding my nose from the smell of my own sweatshirt and hoping that everyone around me either was doing the same or had a cold. I'm such a nice person.
The drywall continued to go well, although things became less rectangular. I was particularly pleased with a tiny triangle that we cut out that perfectly filled a gap in the wall. Then we went to work hanging drywall over the studs on either side of two staircases. My grand plan had been to completely avoid any staircases, much less two of them. Unfortunately, two women in our group (other than me) were asked to work on another part of the house. That left me and a friend whom I will call Jane, as in Jane Austin since she's an avid reader, to handle all the drywall that required tricky angles. The list of items that we were required to bring today did not include a Masters in Engineering. Further, while math and science are normally my strengths, there is one big glaring exception to that: geometry. Guess what branch of math is a prerequisite to putting up drywall on a staircase...geometry. At least in my opinion. And no, we weren't asked to bring a degree in Math today either.
The first side of the staircase did appeared to go well. I would like to claim that was because of my brilliant insight, but the truth is that Jane totally took control of the situation, much to my relief. In fact, I would have had more luck assembling a jet airplane in the backyard. The area was measured, and the drywall was cut. Then we put it up to make sure it fit. It did not.
We started to panic. I could still smell the dog funk on me even though my sweatshirt was in another part of the house. The woman in charge suggested that we try the piece on the upstairs side of the banister. It didn't fit there either. The big piece of cut drywall appeared to be wasted. Well, maybe not totally wasted, as we could cut it up and use smaller pieces, but the beauty of one large perfectly cut piece was lost. Or so we thought. Then we realized we had cut it right in the first place; it was just backwards. Given that I was involved, I was surprised that it was even the right shape.
Vowing not to make that mistake again, we then did the other side of the first staircase. It was fine. I felt as proud as when I finished organic chemistry. Well, maybe almost as proud. My only regret was that I didn't have a camera to take a picture for my blog. Yeah right. Like I was thinking about photography. I just thought of the picture now. The point is I really felt a sense of accomplishment. We finished drywalling both sides of the first staircase. It did involve cutting many smaller pieces of drywall and using the Rasper tool on excess drywall. We got a lot of positive feedback.
I felt like we were on a roll, and I was looking forward to finishing the second staircase and being done with angles. We measured the final area that we needed to cover, took the last big piece of drywall, and double checked our measurements. I assured Jane that we wouldn't mess up. Everything would be fine. I had my mental Pythagoras hat, glasses and beard. Maybe not the beard. Except that what we really needed was Pythagoras himself. This time the piece really was backwards. Our piece would have to be cut into smaller pieces to be used.
I really enjoyed the experience of Habitat and yes even the drywalling! It was great to be able to help someone out and to be able to see the difference that our groups and others made. We got to meet the woman who would be living in the house. I really liked the concept of Women Build. It was really fun, and I would like to do it again.
Despite the mistakes, I was really pleased with what we accomplished. We covered both sides of the first staircase and the wall behind it. We also finished the walls at right angles to the back walls (I had to be able to take at least a little geometry away with me) and a good part of the area on one side of the second staircase. Everything that we did screw in looked good and fit well. Even better, now I think I really know how to cut sheet rock for the area next to a staircase. In fact, I almost feel like running out to Home Depot right now and grabbing some dry wall so I can seal up our banisters. Next time I'll know to immediately run to the outhouse if assigned drywall and to sneak in and join another group instead what I'm doing.
A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Smell any work clothes that you may plan to wear before leaving the house.
HA! At least there wasn't pee on it...that would have been sick! I bet it felt good to take a shower when you got home. Sounds like you all had fun, I'm sad to have missed out!
I remember my lab partner in genetics freaking out that her sweatshirt smelled. Seriously I couldn't smell anything. She spent the whole lab being totally concerned about it. After it was over, she went to change into a spare shirt that someone had and it turned out that her cat had peed on the back of her sweatshirt at some point.
Soccer Mom in Denial is declaring January 10, 2008 to be a very important day. She's right. It's my 32nd birthday! Alright, that isn't the part that she is declaring special. She is declaring it to be A Day to Read and no, reading blogs is not included.
It's supposed to be a day to pick up a book or magazine and do some good old-fashioned non-electronic reading. The point is that in our busy lives, it can become so easy to forget about reading. We encourage our kids to read, but when was the last time we picked up a book and read it? That's not actually a good question for me because one of my eccentricities, I know you're shocked that I have them, is that I can't fall asleep unless I read for at least a half hour before bed. Unless of course I am babysitting for the babysitting cult co-op, in which case I will manage to dose off at someone's house once the kids are asleep after reading for about 10 minutes until I drop the book on the floor and it wakes me up. I don't know what's up with this except that it's happened to me two sits in a row now. My only theory is that I was pretty cold during them, so I was bundled up on the couch in my winter coat, which is very similar to being curled up with a blanket and reading.
Have no fear, those who use me as a babysitter. I am a very light sleeper, so if someone were to tackle a sibling, turn the stove on, or decide to go for a midnight stroll, I would immediately wake up. Really I am responsible!
All that said, I am not going to promise not to blog on my birthday, but I absolutely plan to read a real book on that day as well. I invite you to join me.
SMID's Lesson Learned: On January 10, 2008, "take part of your blogging time to read. A book. A magazine. The newspaper."
Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 5 year old and a 2 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.
Hey, I can fill ya in on what they do at screening. i preformed probably a hundred of them, so I can tell ya what he was asked to do. :) We will chat on Friday! Hugs!! Lisa