with benefits

Reasons I loved my job today:
1. I attended my first appointment (HVAC man to do maintenance) in my pajamas and the other party could say nothing about my stripey pj pants and lack of mascara. It's my house and I am the employer, I'll wear whatever I feel like.
2. I work in one of the sunshiney-est buildings I have ever been inside. Especially in the morning there are floods of sunshine everywhere. Heaven.
3. My job requires dancing, playing, imagining, singing, and first aid, all of which I am good at.
4. My other tasks can be done in whatever order I deem appropriate and usually don't have a firm deadline.
5. My friends can and often do visit me at work. Any time one does we put on a pot of tea (or diet coke with lots of ice) and can chat for as long as I feel like (or until someone has to be picked up from preschool)
6. My work environment reeks of me. Art I love, colors I love, furniture I love and when there is something I don't like I can change it any way I like. Also, I get to choose all the smells, For example right now my whole house smells like pumpkin pie all the time. Because I love pumpkin pie and I think it's seasonally germane.
7. We get to read stories all the time.
8. On beautiful, 75 degrees October days I can choose to spend much of my workday at the playground and get brownie points for doing so.
9.Every single day of my life includes tickling and laughing, out loud.
10. Tommy thinks I know everything and am almost always right.
11. There is nothing like coming home from the park to a house that smells of chicken roasted in red wine and garlic and mushrooms that did not magically appear out of nowhere.
12. I have 100% job security.
13. The satisfaction that comes from vacuuming in straight rows.
14. A dress code that allows for skinny jeans and scarves (oh how I love scarves) and new silver python ballet flats (remember when I said I was taking a break from buying bfs-it was a dirty, dirty lie)
15. The fact that my job description includes finding the perfect apothecary jars for the mantle.

designer genes

Remember in high school biology when you learned about genetic traits. You learned that the ability to roll your tongue or flip it upside down were determind by genes. I can roll my tongue, Ty can flip his upside down. Johnny hit the jackpot, here he is shown flipping and rolling at the same time. Can your kid do that? I think not.

smoking with a ghost

We are dancing in the kitchen this morning. Tommy's current favorite dancing song is "Walking with a Ghost" by Tegan and Sarah. They have a British accent so Tommy thinks they are smoking with a ghost. He is insistent. I don't think he even knows what "smoking" is but he is singing at the top of his lungs in the early sunshine. Johnny is playing accompaniment on butter knife and wood floor.

cheater, cheater, cookie-eater

Much to my own chagrin, even after running a flipping marathon, I still have ten pounds of baby-weight to lose. (I see you rolling your eyes, Julie!) I am not fat and I know it, but I would like to be back to where I started. I felt really good about my body and I miss it. I'd really like to lose 15 but Julie is probably right when she insists that might be a bit unrealistic. Anyhow, after chatting with the same Julie yesterday whose own baby weight is falling off at an alarming speed I decided it was time to get serious. In the past I have always had some success with the South Beach diet and so back on the bandwagon I go. Breakfast went great, feeling pretty good about myself and off to a mommy meeting. Where I ate a cookie. Cookies are soooo not allowed. I totally forgot. I can't even remember that I'm dieting for two hours. Good grief. By lunch, I am back on the wagon. But this better work because I love a good cookie.

26.2

I finished. I wasn't very fast. I was not last. My hip and knee gave me some problems, especially at the end but hopefully my physical therapist can help me avoid that next time. It was really hard, harder than I thought, but I still did it. And if you had asked me yesterday I would have said differently, but today I am already planning for the next one. I read somewhere that only 1 in 100,000 people will complete a marathon in their lifetime. Don't tell anyone, but I'm feeling pretty proud of my self.

productive

So last week I was really nervous for the marathon over the weekend. For the first part of the week my dear friend Tanya was visiting. Together we cleaned out every cupboard in my kitchen and laundry room and several other odd closets through out the house. It was wonderful. After she left the nervous energy and spirit of productivity remained. I painted the dining room a color I actually like and I finally painted my hideous brass chandeliers and now I love them. At the end of the week I was still a nervous wreck but I got a lot done.

betrayal

Today I took the boys for flu shots. I was thrilled because Tommy, at four, was eligible for the mist rather than the actual shot. Wrong. My little asthma sufferer will always have to have the shot. To help him not feel too nervous I got the shot as well and I went first, see how brave Mommy can be? When it was Tommy's turn he sat quite still and waited because I had told him that it would only hurt a little. Everything is relative. He was shocked at the pain and that fact that I had allowed someone to do such a thing to him. Johnny was next- this elicited even more tears because, and I quote," I don't want anyone to hurt my Johnny!" I could see the accusation on his face. How could I? Johnny cried for only a moment but Tommy was scandalized. we talked about how flu shots keep us from getting sick and are very important. Tommy remains skeptical, he will be watching me closely for the next little while, I am sure.

pee-yew

This is Tommy's friend Caden. Caden has a thing for skunks. Today he insisted his mother bring all three of his skunk costumes to playgroup. He just knew that everyone would want one. He was absolutely right.

It was only a few moments before everyone was appropriately attired.

This was the view we had of our little boys for the next hour and a half. They ran up, down and around, all in their costumes.

Tommy is now in the bath. Much to his approval, Caden decided to leave the costume that Tommy was wearing at our house. Tommy has asked if he can wear it to bed,

and school.

can you say...

The scene: Bella Luna restaurant

The Players: Tommy, his parents, Mommy's friend Tanya, the waitress

Tommy: Do you know about the atmosphere?

Mommy: What do you mean?

Tommy: If we didn't have an atmosphere there would be no life on earth (pronounced "erf")

Mommy: That's right, where did you learn that?

Tommy: Oh, the tv was talking about it (they discuss it in his space shuttle movie). Can you say "atmosphere"?

Mommy: Atmosphere

Tommy; (to Tanya) Can you say "atmosphere"?

Tanya: Atmosphere

Tommy: (to waitress) Can you say "atmosphere"?

Waitress: (laughing out loud) Atmosphere.

Tommy: (to Daddy) Can you say "atmosphere"?

Daddy: Nope.

Silence

Tommy: Please!?

Daddy: Atmosphere.

here's why

I feel the need to explain yesterday's post. This week I decided to try to wean off my post-partum anti-depressant. Perhaps not the best week to do so. We were late everywhere we went. On Wednesday, I never did get around to drying my hair, which was fine because the baby later vomited in it, twice. On Tuesday I took Johnny to have a Radiologist watch him drink Barium through an x-ray machine. He didn't tell me anything. I can't sleep, so I'm tired. I'm tired so I'm grouchy and I sort of want to cry all the time. I seldom see Mara anymore (she lives in Vienna for Heavens' sake) but in the last few weeks I have had more contact with her than usual. I read an essay she wrote on the same day that my little boy sobbed in front of an x-ray machine. Her littlest has had many more tests than mine, and they have yet to receive a definitive answer. She wrote about the experience for her and for both of her children. It helped. I didn't feel quite so crazy for insisting that they figure out what is going on with my baby. I didn't feel so alone. She is still full of grace and ideas, so maybe I can be too. Of course, that is assuming that I pick up my prescription this morning, I (to my great disappointment) am not quite ready to regulate my own hormones. But for today I will wear my purple shoes and think of my far away friend who has already done what I am doing and is not only ok, but thriving.

ode to maralise

(photo "borrowed" from http://www.mlphotodesign.com/blog/)

A few days ago I received a package. It was a print by a fabulous photographer that I won in one of the auctions for Nienie. I was thrilled and it was stunning. The photographer was my dear friend Mara whom I have known for 16 years(!). As long as I have known her Mara has exuded calm, cool, collected-ness. Even at sixteen something about her just screamed "naturally hip and awesome". I sometimes wonder how she tolerated the rest of us insecure teenagers. She was present on many of my favorite high school adventures. I always secretly wanted to be just like her, I even had a semi-secret crush on her best friend/now husband Matt, you know, the guy she swore she'd never marry. Mara has become a lovely, graceful, thoughtful woman. She is just about to have some of her photographic work included in a gallery showing in her current home city of Vienna and she recently had a beautiful essay published in a lovely book about motherhood that I will be giving as a gift for the next little while (sorry to spoil the surprise). She also has a fabulous blog that you can check out here. She writes in a raw, honest, lyrical way that makes me weep with admiration. She is just as hard on herself as I am, possibly worse. She is a lovely mother and friend and an amazing woman. I hope she doesn't mind, but this week I found her to be an absolute inspiration.

so you won't be fooled

In case anyone tries to tell you otherwise, when you are running, 20 miles is a really long way. Also, ice baths are highly unpleasant.

cake-part II

New pics of Johnny here!

a case for johnny

Tommy: Mom, Johnny is lower-case because he is small.

Mom: Oh.I suppose you're right.

Tommy: Mom, what case are you, are you upper-case?

Mom: I guess I am.

Tommy: I'm upper-case too, we are upper-case together because we are big.

focus and control

You may have noticed that my posts lately have contained a preponderance of exclamation points. I have also been using language that I really shouldn't. Suffice it to say that lately I have been a bit overwrought. In a crisis, I'm your girl. I am calm, cool and collected. I am the one who will not lose my head. I will save the day. Every day life is a different story. The details make me feel just a little bit manic. The silly, little, unimportant things make me crazy. I have this going list in my head of what my life is supposed to look like (you know clean closets, home cooked meals, obedient tendons in my legs, shiny floors, unique and special art projects, sparkly clean car, impressive race finishing times, promptly sent thank you notes, etc.) and when I can't make it fit my mold, I get anxious. Intellectually I know that this is stupid but apparently this is not enough to make me stop doing it. Luckily my life is full of people who for reasons beyond my comprehension, not only put up with my wackiness but embrace me and encourage me. Maybe they think I'm funny. I kind of hope so. Friends who perform pt diagnoses on family room couches, friends who listen to me ramble about whatever I am currently freaking out about, friends who ask my advice, friends who keep inviting me, who love my children and laugh with me, who tell me I'm right and tolerate and even sanction my excesses. I have a husband whom I adore and who will hold me in the middle of our kitchen when I am a little teary and not ask why, who wants to spend time with only me and can't even comprehend that there could be a better match for him in the world besides me and tells me so often. I am pretty good at the mom thing. We dance in the living room and finger paint on the windows, we play in the mud and and shoot stomp rockets off in the house just to see what will happen. I love it and I can laugh at it and myself doing it. I don't know why this attitude doesn't translate to the rest of my life. I feel like I am always searching for balance and I just don't get there. How did my life fill up with all this goodness? I certainly didn't earn it, but I am oh so grateful. Maybe I will get better at focusing on what matters and letting everything else go or maybe I will just get everything else under control. I vote for the latter, I just can't seem to help it.