getting ready

I’ve been organizing and getting ready for school. I just donated a bunch of clothes that I don’t wear, which means that my closet is virtually empty. (Peter Walsh claims that the average person only wears about 20% of what s/he owns--or something like that--and I have found that to be true in my own closet. So I have purged, though I’m still not satisfied that I will indeed wear all that I’ve kept.) This purge has made me realize I need some more work clothes, especially since I will likely be going in much more than I previously thought. The administrative work that was supposed to happen, but then didn’t, is now once again happening.

Other things... since we don’t yet have money to fully renovate the bathroom (nor the stomach for it--kitchen renovations were pretty tough earlier this year), P did great work painting the woodwork and cabinets white and it looks much cleaner and more open in there.

Our next house improvement is to get a bed. As some of you know, we’ve been sleeping on a mattress on the floor since we moved into our house in PA over two years ago. On move-in day, we realized that the boxspring wouldn’t fit up the stairs, so out to the curb it went. (I tried to Freecycle it for a while, but no one seemed to want a boxspring with no mattress.) Anyway, we’ve been sleeping on the floor since. I don’t really mind it, but I do miss being able to, say, sit on the bed to put on my socks. I think it would also cut down on the abrupt wake-ups from j, who just this morning ran and jumped on me, saying, “I made some coffee.” Though I was hopeful, this was unfortunately not true. However, j *has* been “helping” make coffee with me lately, which used to involve just pushing the button on the coffeemaker and shouting “Here it comes!” as the coffee began to drip. Lately, though, he wants to actually scoop the coffee into the maker, and this experience has become more and more harrowing since he doesn’t want me to touch him as he wields an overflowing scoop of ground coffee, some of which lands in the intended filter, while some gets sprinkled all over the counter, the floor, and the chair on which he stands. I try to help, but he admonishes me to “go see Daddy,” which is--as I should know--code for “I need some space, dude.”

j and I went to a lovely playdate yesterday hosted by a mom in our village who has access to a private beach on the lake. All the kids were younger than j, but he had a great time, focusing on all the sand toys. This is somewhat unusual for him, but I have seen some more focus in the last few weeks, even in the art room.
These are a few pictures of his obsession with putting eyes on bagels. I think I did this once to make him laugh and then he insisted all clay bagels must have eyes.

phelps returns

Only a few more days of the Olympics left: you can tell because Michael Phelps is on his way home.

birthday boy

The Olympics are exhausting me. Others get injuries from participating in sports; I get injured from watching them. Today I woke up with the worst kink in my neck from falling asleep on the couch trying to get my Olympics fix.

j has been making me play his birthday video over and over. It’s the one where we’re all in Northern MI and everyone sings “Happy Birthday” to him and then he blows out the candles on his birthday pie--which, as you can see, he does quite nicely. This picture was taken before the candles were even lit, so this was essentially taken during a trial run, but I assure you that he blew out the candles like a pro. I credit the training provided by aunts and cousins during extreme bubble sessions. :)

That Michigan cherry one was his first of two birthday pies. The second one was an apple one I made using a Bittman recipe I hadn’t tried before. It was nice: really subtle and not too sugary. For j, it was pie, so it was good. The next day I reminded p and my mom (visiting for a few days) that we “have some leftover P.I.E.” j perked up and said, “Mama, I love P.I.E.” I’m going to need to bake desserts with longer names.


We’re giving in to his musical side. For a while there I had banned j’s “dance playlist” because he was growling “Good Morning Starshine” over and over. However, we’re realizing that the music can calm him, too. It’s a hard balance, but essentially if music is not playing, he’ll make it play himself, growling and stomping whatever his favorite song happens to be. In the last few days he’s done this wearing a new winter hat he got for his birthday. He seems to love this hat, which is strange since he usually hates wearing hats... but he actually napped wearing it the other day. I took this picture just after he woke up; he's wearing the hat and holding a new bat he also got for his birthday.

No official word on where he’ll be for preschool this September. I would love it if he could go back to the child development center at my work, but I just don’t think he’s ready--ok, I don’t think the other kids are ready--for that yet. I am hopefully that after he’s in this early intervention program for a bit (maybe a semester? Maybe a year?), he can return to the other school. I’d like to write more about all the hand-wringing and inconsistent evaluations that have gone into this process, but I’m a little too fragile right now. More later...

laptops, books, bubbles

Hooray! After a few days, the wonderful techie-dudes at work located my lost files and pictures and hooked me up with a new laptop. I like this new PC is nice, which is good since I don’t have a choice anyway. Going Mac isn’t an option unless we buy one for personal use once our home desktop finally dies... but I have to admit feeling a bit of computer-envy when I look over at P’s Mac from work.

Over vacation I only got to 3 books this year: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (good), Bel Canto (good), and Saturday (great). I’m updating my Shelfari now, but M’s post and my conversation with N last month are making me think I should also check out Goodreads. Is the interface better than Shelfari?

We’ve had a pretty good week over here. j and I have been playing with the birthday presents. From Grandma and Grandpa: a fantastic dollhouse with people who, according to j, like to eat a red flower for every sit-down meal. From the cousins and aunts: a birthday bubble set, complete with food coloring, soap, glycerin, and mixer. Those neon colors are sweet, guys. Thanks--j and his mama love them.

s'mores club

My laptop has exploded. After our return from two great weeks in Michigan, I attempted to turn on my laptop Sunday night only to find that it refuses to load Windows. Screens in DOS never looked scary when I used them to type college papers, but now they are most unwelcome.

The good news is that I'll finally be getting the much-needed new laptop I've been requesting for months. However, I am now at the mercy of the great guys in our IT department, who have given only vague promises that they can reclaim the 15+ hours worth of course prep I did and about half of the pictures I took in Northern Michigan (sob!). As most of you know, I love taking and sorting pictures, so the possibility that I've lost many of them is pretty devastating to me. We'll see what kind of magic they can work this week.

It may therefore be a while before I can post a vacation picture. In the meantime, I encourage anyone reading this to go and vote for the first caption for this cartoon in The New Yorker's weekly contest. How can that first one not win?


"The first rule of s'mores club is you do not talk about s'mores club."