Some Pictures to Go Along With The January Recap January 31, 2011

The Big Slide

We’ve started walking to the park a lot, or better yet, we stop at the park on our way home from walking to Trader Joe’s. Seamus loves the slides, and he’s getting really good at running all over the equipment all by himself.

The Jumperoo

Gil loves this thing, more than Seamus ever did. He can entertain himself for a long time. I used to wonder why my friend called it the “Neglectomatic” because S didn’t really like being in it if you weren’t there to cheer him on and encourage him to jump. And I do clap for Gil, and he gets so excited to be cheered for. He also turns when called by name now.

Seamus at Work

Seamus loves the computer. It’s where he works, but he’s also naughty by getting into too much!

Gil's new Duds

My mom made Gil this cute sweater/hat combo. He’s hanging out in the Omni! Just a cool baby.

January January 31, 2011

January had been a great month for those of us in the West! We’ve had almost nothing but sunny 50 degree days. Sorry for all of you battling snow up to your eyebrows.

I’m so behind on my stuff I’m just going to do a quick recap of the month, maybe adding some pictures later today.

Jan 4-9 Gil and I joined my parents, my twin Erin, and my delightful friend J. Indigo in LA for the circus that is the MLA. I had a couple of interviews that seemed to go well. I went to some great panels, and I’ll tell you having my parents care for Gilbert made it just great. (It didn’t hurt that Patrick and his mom were taking good care of Seamus at the time.) They carried him around in the Ergo, and if you have large babies, the Ergo is the only way to go, which he loved. I saw the Westin Bonaventure–the hotel of the horse and motorcycle scene from True Lies.

The 10-14 is kind of a blur because I was transitioning G to daycare which made me happy and sad at the same time. It also was a giant headache, because they do transition in the morning and G will only be going to pm daycare, like Seamus. The problem was that I didn’t have anywhere to leave S during G’s transition, so one day my friend J came through and watched both his son X and S. And you know, I didn’t think at all that he was a predator out to destroy my child.

MLK Jr weekend was so fun, especially because we began “Breakfastpalooza” which involved breakfast burritos, biscuits, babies, and mimosas. I got to meet a friend’s baby who is the snuggliest little six month old imaginable! I wish we could do that every weekend.

School starting has been good for me in that I’m loving being back in the classroom, teaching world lit, but I’m also realizing how much work there is yet to do before I graduate and trying to budget my time to get it all in. I still want to blog about some of the material I’m working with, but I’ll have to wait until things settle down. When I do though, hoo boy, there are some amazingly fun and interesting texts in this Bedford Anthology of world lit.

Seamus Says:

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

“Hot coffee. Mama’s hot coffee.”

“New diaper. Pink diaper. Purple diaper” Me: “Green diaper” S: “PINK diaper”

“Shhh. Baby Sleeping. Night night baby” (This would be sweeter if it wasn’t at the top of his lungs!)

Last night, he was still talking to himself while we were watching True Lies and P thought he was crying so I went to check on him. He was talking to himself, “Mac n cheese. Mac n cheese. Cottage cheese.”

Gilbert does:

Love playing in the jumperoo.

Sit up a little, until S tries to push him over.

Sleep pretty well.

Love going out shopping all afternoon with mom.

I hope your January was great!

PS I also had a birthday, and thanks to my friend who pointed it out, I am in the “Prime” of life. A prime number that is. I won’t be one again for six years. It was a great birthday. We got tickets for Wicked for next weekend!

Is there Bad in Here? January 21, 2011

One of my friends called me out a few weeks ago with a comment that my blog makes it seem like I am handling all of this (parenting, school, job search, exercise, eating, travel, writing, teaching) without any problems. She said it was a little intimidating. I get this a lot. But I still won’t allow myself to come clean if things are really getting me down. Sure, on this blog, we have the complaints about lack of sleep, miscommunication, nerves, etc., but you’ll notice that I rarely talk about what’s going on with my job search, my dissertation, or personal issues, partly because I don’t want to reveal too much in such a public forum, but also because I’m too nervous to really talk about it.

I like to share good gossip. In fact, secrets about new babies, surprise parties, big awards, and other accomplishments are some of the most difficult for me to keep. When people tell me horrifying secrets, I have no trouble filing those far back in my brain and never mentioning them again. I want everybody around me to be accomplishing good things and to be happy. I want this for myself too, so I find it really difficult to put out there when something isn’t making me happy or going the way I want it to. (Just to know: The job search is going fine; I’m right where I need/expect to be right now.)

I realize this may not make my blog as honest as it could be, and I also realize that people reading blogs want to hear honesty from the person they invest the time to read. However, as I look back over journals that I kept in high school and college, I mostly only recorded really unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and events–you’d think all I did at those times was brood. When I was happy and things were going well (which was most of the time) I didn’t write at all. The blog is kind of the opposite. I look back, and the times when I was not happy (February of last year when we were all so sick for the entire month) I didn’t write much. But this is only a loose correlation itself. Sometimes I didn’t write much when I was too busy having a good time visiting family or friends, hosting family or friends, or churning out chapters.

I think the public nature of a blog means that I’m likely to record events that I hope (maybe too optimistically?) other people will find interesting. And when I’m bored with my own internal griping, I can assure you that you would tire of it quickly as well.

There are dark moments. In class the other day (BTW, I’m loving teaching again, and I have a post planned soon for letting you in on some of the awesome thoughts that this World Lit class has already generated), a student said that perhaps the theme of the reading for the day was that “Once you imagine something, it’s there, you can’t unimagine it.” I don’t want my blog to be like those journals, where I look back and feel only the disgruntlement. I want there to be fun stories, and cute pictures, but I also want there to be honesty about what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling.

I was thinking about all this last night as I lay in bed, in between getting up to tend to Seamus and his belly-ache, Seamus and his teething, Gilbert and his hunger, and my own need to get up for a drink of water. This morning was rough after all that. I’ve been trying to figure out why, even with the wake-ups, I’m more exhausted after a few hours of being with Seamus than Gilbert. It comes down to this: S is going through major mood swings these days, and it’s really hard to stay level in the midst of all that. Things are hard (especially getting used to being back in the classroom, balancing that teaching time with writing, adjusting to sending Gil to daycare, spending more mornings a week with the boys, and helping Seamus enjoy and learn) but I have lots of fun stories for you for the future. I’m trying to get caught up on the blogging–including a recap of the LA trip, Breakfastpalooza, and the Cordelia Fine lecture I went to last night.

Moral: I don’t think I’m perfectly handling all this, or that I’m all that impressive. I’ve got a lot of loose ends to loop together, and I’m less likely to muse about them publicly until they’re tied. I think that I wouldn’t be handling anything if I didn’t have such good support of family, friends, daycare, colleagues, and strangers (who are so friendly to me when I’m out by myself with the boys). Thanks.

True Grit January 20, 2011

Patrick and I got out to the movies this weekend! I can share with you that if you are on the fence about seeing True Grit, get down off of it and go see it! In the last year, I’ve seen four movies in the theater. Seriously. That’s actually a lot, come to think of it. Last Christmas, Patrick and I saw Up in the Air, which was the first movie we’d seen since S was born. In May, I saw SATC2 which was kind of a disappointment, and then last month P and I went to see HP7P1 which wasn’t a disappointment because the film was pretty good, but it wasn’t very exciting as in I knew everything that was going to happen.

I deliberately did not read too much about True Grit before going to see it and I’m so glad, but not that it would have mattered much anyway. My brain is so fogged up these days that I am not remembering much of anything. (Side note: Today I told a friend that I still have to rework a section of Chapter 2, and he said well, at least you have a draft, and I said, “I have to read the novels again” and he realized how much my brain has shut down.) So the movie. I remember reading that Matt Damon was in it, but when the movie was over and P and I were talking about it, and he commented on Matt Damon’s role, I was thunderstruck to realize that I hadn’t even realized that was him the entire time I was watching the movie! And the girl playing Mattie is so good. And Jeff Bridges was great.

But the music. I would almost pay for the movie again just to hear the music and see the scenery. Parts of it were filmed in New Mexico. I guess I could just go and hike and see the scenery for myself, but I wouldn’t have that great music. Beautiful.

If you’ve seen it, what did you think? Worth being one of four movies in a year?

Shamelessly Materialistic January 20, 2011

A few weeks ago, it snowed a lot. Patrick and I were very excited to go skiing on Sandia,but when we got to the other side of the mountain, we discovered that the lifts were closed. What a bummer, especially since we had a sitter until one! So we did what any sane people would do and turned around and had breakfast out and went shopping.

In Nob Hill, we found some clothes for the boys that were themed with Eastern Europe. As an undergrad, I did my study abroad in Romania, and I still would love to go back to the mountains there again. (I also enjoyed Bucharest,dirty and smoggy though it was.) The little boys’ clothes were so evocative of those colors, that we just had to get some. Side note: It’s good that we don’t have a girl because I would be broke from the adorable clothes.

Here’s Seamus modeling the “Ski Romania” shirt and trousers:

Seamus in Romania

I call this post shamelessly materialistic because these clothes are the preppy designer who chooses to focus on one region of the world every year to design a collection. I’m so glad we picked up some of the Romania collection (in many sizes so they’ll be decked out for years to come). The collection is doing Spain next year. I guess I’ll have to go to Spain and make some memories that I want to behold on my boys’ bodies…

Transitions January 13, 2011

Once, not too long ago, I was talking about making sure that S and G are a year apart in school and that more importantly, if we live in a small town, that they have different teachers. They do look a lot alike, but we’re hoping that because they’re different people, their individuality can come through without trying to overshadow the other. (All of you with brothers or sisters are probably shaking your heads–of course, siblings try to overshadow each other, competition is why we have brothers and sisters!)

Gilbert starts daycare (at the same place Seamus goes) afternoons only next week. We’d been in LA, and S had been sick, so we hadn’t made as many trips to daycare as we usually do. However, I was surprised to learn that Seamus’s teacher (a friend of mine) was moving rooms and would soon be Gilbert’s teacher. So much for having different teachers at the same stages of life! Don’t get me wrong, I really like and respect M, and I’m delighted that she’ll be Gilbert’s teacher, but it’s funny that one thing I felt so strongly about is already in shambles and the boys aren’t even through a full year of school yet.

Some good things: She already knows how I feel about breastfeeding, and we’ve had good talks about how Gilbert can be soothed. Seamus doesn’t really care as long as he’s playing, eating, and got Shalay to give him attention. Daycare also wears G out! He slept from 5pm to 7:15 am, waking at 8 and 4 to eat!

Time for a walk!

All right, Fess up! January 4, 2011

Whoever stole this baby:

Best Stocking Stuffer Ever!

and replaced him with the non-eating, non-sleeping, AWAKE version was going to be in a lot of trouble.

Luckily, we returned to regularly scheduled cuteness last night. Good one, Gil!

SMART Goals January 3, 2011

I was reading a blog this week, askmoxie, and she was referencing SMART resolutions, in which there’s a word for each of the letters, making it what we call an acronym. Anyway. Here’s the exchange between me and Patrick this morning:

Me: I’m doing my three minutes of abs work today. That is my New Year’s Resolution. It’s a SMART Goal. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and I forget what else.

Patrick: Relevant and Timely.

Me: What? Are you just making stuff up?

Patrick: No.

Me: You know about SMART goals?

Patrick: Yeah, we use them all the time at work.

And here I was thinking I had discovered something original. Now you may think three minutes of abs work ought to be too easy to make a resolution about, but I’m telling you, it meets those parameters neatly. Specific=abs not general “exercise”; Measureable=3 minutes is non-negotiable; Attainable=not likely to undertake more than three minutes; Relevant=Yeah, the abs need work after two babies; Timely=As my favorite musical points out, No day but today.

That’s the resolution. I might think of another one this year, but you can bet, it’s going to be another SMART goal. The nebulous ones get out of control. Like last year’s: Being more present in my interactions. Hmm, not SMART at all! But a good goal nonetheless, and I did learn from it.