Posted on August 8, 2008
I just spent the last two and a half hours trying to get Chloe to go to bed. Was she throwing a fit? No. Was she destroying her room? No. Was she singing, talking, letting me know she was still awake? No.
What was she doing, you ask? READING! I am not kidding. We still have the baby monitor set up in her room, and even though she is VERY quiet when she is reading, every now and then, the red lights that tell me SOMETHING is going on light up. And when I go in there to check on her…she is sitting in the glider with a book in one hand and two next to her, just…perusing.
John and I are, of course, trying to enforce a consistent bed time routine. Bath, stories, brush teeth, sing ABC’s, go to sleep. However, every now and then, Chloe decides she is not ready for bed, and decides to “read” instead. Of course, the book geek in me is BEAMING with pride. I just want to shout it from the roof tops, “MY BABY LOVES BOOKS!” Hrm..as she should, as all kids should.
But, the mommy in me knows that bedtimes should be enforced. That when she doesn’t get her usual 10 hours or so of sleep, she is a bear the next day.
I just can’t put away that memory of myself as a kid, sitting in my walk-in closet, cushioned by a mountain of clothes waiting to be washed (dirty laundry doesn’t sound as romantic) reading until the sun came up. I DEVOURED books as a kid. My mom would get so frustrated with me because we would go to the library and I would check out my allotted amount, and I would have them read by the next day. Which, of course, meant she had to entertain me for another two weeks or so until it was time to go back to the library.
Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way of my insatiable appetite for books. When I REALLY get into one, the house could burn down around me and I probably wouldn’t notice. Which, when you have a kid, makes things a little more difficult. I don’t read as much as I should. I rely on TV and the internet for the “entertainment” I used to get from books.
When you watch TV, play games, and/or blog, you can multitask. I can literally do all three at once. When I read…I read. Period. The end. No other activity allowed. This includes, but is not limited to…TV, music, husband, and toddler. When I really get into a book, John has to point out that I still have to, oh I don’t know…PARENT or something.
I went up to Chloe’s room tonight with a stern face and voice, and told her that it was bedtime and she needed to sleep. But, in my heart of hearts, I was smiling. She may look like John, but that’s MY kid!
Posted on August 4, 2008
I have suffered from a mild form of insomnia since I was a teenager. It’s actually something that runs in my family. It has gotten better over the years, but there have definitely been times when, no matter how tired I was, I just couldn’t fall asleep.
As an adaptable human being, I have discovered different techniques that have helped me go to sleep. The first, reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. This was fine when I was a teenager, and could still function the next day if I happened to read all night. When I got into college and had a TV in my room, I watched a movie I had seen at least 100 times, because I could listen to the movie, see it in my mind, and it would shut my brain off and ease me into sleep.
Another trick I have used through the years, both when I had a tv in my room and when I didn’t, was to tell myself “stories” to help me go so sleep. Now, these stories are based in a reality that is so far removed from my own, that it helps distract me from my day to day worries long enough for my brain to shut down, and I can go to sleep. I have to admit, that my “stories” tend to be the most extreme situations I could ever even possibly imagine. A lot of them are stolen from the tv shows I watch or the books I read.
In these stories, I am either a spy, a super hero of any sort, a villain, or in another time period (Its safe to assume that this time period is in the time Austin. But, occasionally, I am in the future, somewhat similar to when Star Wars took place. OK, YES, I am that much of a dork!) Recently, in my “stories” I have been in the reality TV shows that I obsess over. I will imagine that I am the next American Idol, Design Star, Fashion designer, or I really could dance.
In any way you look at it, this “fantasy world” is beyond the world I live in. It’s possibly the world I could have lived in if I had made different choices. But, It is really the life that is so far different than my own, that it distracts me from the life I am actually leading.
Now, don’t jump to any conclusions that I am not happy or want to be somewhere else. I chose this path, and I am happy to be on it. But, every now and then, I wonder, “what if?” I mean, if I had a proclivity for foreign languages or accents and could be a spy, or what if I actually had super powers (I mean, seriously, how cool would that be!) What if my day wasn’t centered around nap schedules and play dates…What could I be?
In my mind, my options are totally unlimited.
Sometimes, this makes focusing on the “here and now” a bit difficult. When, in your mind, you are a secret agent, or can kick ass, or design the best room EVER, dance better than anyone on the planet, or sing so well that the world wonders, “Why isn’t she famous?” How do you focus on dishes, laundry and dusting? The two year old is esier to appease than your own mind. How do you ground yourself, when the only time you have absolute freedom is in your imagination?
Posted on August 1, 2008
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- DON’T! Especially in the summer, when its 85 degrees outside and MUGGY!
- Four miles may not sound like it’s very far, but it feels like it when you add the heat, mugginess and a new pair of shoes. (Yes, I know, brilliant. But I wanted to break them in!)
- Don’t walk in new shoes, even if you need to break them in.
- If against all advice you walk in new shoes, make sure you have bandaids to cover up the blisters you start to develop after one mile of your four mile hike.
- It’s nearly impossible to take a walk of any substantial length in New Jersey because there’s a serious shortage of side walks. Two of the four miles of my walk were done in the street, and during a large portion of that, I didn’t even have a shoulder. I had to keep pulling the stroller into people’s driveways so cars could pass.
- Bring water for myself, not just Chloe. Halfway through I was dehydrated with serious cotton mouth, and Chloe (who was lounging in her stroller during the hike) had already finished her water. (Not like I was going to STEAL her water, but I have to admit I checked to see if I could get a sip.)
- A sleeping toddler is harder to push in a stroller than an awake toddler. I understand why carrying a sleeping child is harder, dead weight and all, but I didn’t think that PUSHING one would have the same effect.
- The scenery is beautiful, the flowers are amazing, the birds are very entertaining (if you’re two), and its fun to point out the different types of plants and flowers to increase your child’s vocabulary.
- It’s still not worth it.
- Don’t, especially in the summer, when its 85 degrees outside and MUGGY! (Did I say this already? It must be the heat stroke.)
Posted on July 18, 2008
I definitely have a love/hate relationship with New Jersey. I hate that it is so far away from my family and friends. I hate the bureaucracy and (“oh my gawd”) the accents. I hate the way people drive, and how brisk everyone is. I hate the humidity mixed with the heat. I hate sweat that doesn’t evaporate, towels that never dry, and not being able to go outside with my child for fear she might get heat stroke.
But there are times, I swear, when I actually love New Jersey. For those of you who have never been here, I think you will be surprised when I tell you that New Jersey is actually really pretty! At least where we live. Because of all that rotten humidity, it is very GREEN here. In the Spring, when flowers bloom, the colors are overwhelming. The flowers have these huge blossoms, and I have never seen so much pink in nature! Today, we went to the reservoir with Ellen and her crew, and even though it was WAY too hot (96 degrees on the car thermometer) we decided to walk to a nearby park. It ended up being more than two miles away. We all melted, and Ellen whined, but it was green and beautiful. We saw huge dragonflies everywhere and vibrant butterflies. The reservoir was created by flooding a valley. As a consequence, there is a forest of dead tree stumps sticking out of the water. It is a sad, melancholy beauty, and I love it. It is so appropriate for New Jersey.
Posted on July 3, 2008
Sigh. Thanks to Sara, I am down of the ledge. I decided (even though I was tempted to delete it) to leave my previous post up. I have gone back and forth on how honest you can be while blogging because I know who reads this, and I don’t want to offend anybody. But, every now and then I have to speak my mind, no matter how ugly it may be and how hurtful it may be for others read.
I am not a bad friend. We all get caught up in our day to day living and sometimes we forget that there are others out there that we can talk to and confide in with the little things as well as the big things. I just found out a lot of things I didn’t know in the last week. Some of these things were directly from the source, and others were told to me by other people, but all the info was old news for everyone but me. And I have to admit that I was hurt. I was far out of the loop.
But, like I said, I am off the ledge and back in the loop. I am letting go of the hurt and the frustration and just accepting that sometimes I am not going to be the first to know.
Posted on July 3, 2008
At some point, and I have no idea when, I stopped being the accessible friend. I am not blaming anybody but myself, but I have to admit that within the last month or so, it has become more and more obvious. People I have known most of my adult life are not telling me things. Not just run of the mill things, but LIFE ALTERING THINGS that happened to them months ago. And yet I am the second, third, fourth, LAST to know. I am not going to pretend that I am always the most accessible. I have a two year old and that limits my ability to just drop everything. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t. AND that certainly doesn’t mean that I won’t. And yet…there is the possibility that I built this “everything is fine” cocoon around me, and people are hesitant to cross that. But COME ON PEOPLE! I can’t say it doesn’t hurt when I discover that you had PPD or were dealing with an hormonal imbalance or were trying to get pregnant and I didn’t know anything about it. I am starting to wonder if these friendships are more important to me than they are to the people I so desperately cling to. I also wonder if I checked out when I got married and had a child, and that I may not be able to repair the damage.
I don’t feel like I am a judgmental person, I don’t feel like people should be afraid/ashamed to tell me things. I also feel like I can be trusted. If you want something to be a secret, I can keep it. (And trust me, there are people who can attest to that.) So, why am I sitting her whining? I miss the friends I had in Colorado. I have made friends in NJ, but it’s different, and I am not sure why. But, I idolized what I had here, and when I return I always assume that all those friendships would just go back where I left off. And yet…
This just reiterates that my loneliness in NJ isn’t just because I moved. But, because I moved, people stopped considering me someone they could talk to, confide in, relate to. And now I am feeling even more lonely, because all the things I look forward to are gone, and just coming back to the place doesn’t mean coming back to the feeling and the idea.
To all those friends that I let down, I am sorry. I am sorry that I got so caught up in my own life you felt like you couldn’t tell me about yours. I am sorry if I ever made you feel like I would judge you or criticize you in any way for the decisions you have made. And I am sorry if I didn’t share enough of my faults and failings to make you feel like you could share yours. I can and will do better if you let me. Please don’t cancel me out of your life. I will be there, no questions asked.
I have alway tried to be a good friend. And, I am, like everyone else on the planet, fallible. But I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt to discover that the friendsips that I hold most dear, are more important to me than to others. I am open to suggestions, please let me know what I could do better, and I will. Just, don’t give up on me. I am lost, but that doesn’t mean that I am lost forever.
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