I'm a big cliche

Firstly, I've been reflecting a lot on motherhood lately and started pounding out a huge manuscript on the topic. After some reflection, I have decided to break it up into different posts. Saturday I watched FoodInc, a really insightful documentary on issues in the food industry. After that, Netflix realized I like documentaries and it recommended more in spades. It seems NEtlfix knows me better than I thought. One recommendation was a documentary called "Babies". Here is the trailer: It follows four babies from different parts of the world (Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and the USA). It was very charming and cute although I found myself tearing up/crying all through it. This is the theme in my life lately I see. Dads in the mall wearing baby Bjorns make me teary. I see a smiling pregnant woman in the grocery store and I feel physical pangs of jealousy. And yes, I am well aware that this makes me sound psychotic but I guess it is safe to say as I creep closer and closer to thirty my biological clock is pounding in my ears. I think I feel more anxious to find "the one" less from a desire to not be alone, but because my desire to have another baby before it's too late. The average 30 year old only has 12% of her eggs left. I am terrified that I won't ever meet someone who wants to have kids, or that by the time I do, I won't be able to anymore. And I'm not the only one apparently. There's even an acronym for people who feel this way: SADFABs (single and desperate for a baby). Which, isn't that the most depressing label ever? My pregnancy with Isaac was unexpected and a time of high stress, shame, and anxiety. It was not something I savored, it was something I detached myself from and endured. I was hit with a barrage of messages that I would have to sacrifice all my dreams and goals, that I would end up collecting welfare, that my kid would be maladjusted, When Isaac came, he became the light of my life. For all of the turmoil of the pregnancy, I can state with absolute certainty that Isaac is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Although a major theme of my blogging over the years has been my regret and guilt at how quickly his infancy passed in a the delurium of working full time, grad school, field experiences, student teaching, etc. Now all of a sudden he is this grown little boy with no traces of babyhood left. Selfishly, I want to do it all again when I can really delight in the experience of it. Also, I feel a lot of sorrow that Isaac will not have the experience of having a sibling close to him in age. My siblings are all two years apart and I am very close with each of them. Anyways, I certainly do not want to a rush a relationship forward toward love and marriage as a result of these overpowering maternal feelings. Seriously. But it is sort of hard when you imagine things in your life unfolding a certain way and all of a sudden you are almost 30 and nothing is the way you envisioned it. Stayed tuned for more thoughts on motherhood including recent conversations on dating a single mom, and the annoying tendency of childless people to compare having children to having a pet.

A few new things

I actually took this down yesterday. It's very cute (made it myself!) but I have had enough snow. Perhaps something Valentine's related will go up in it's place.

This cute pear bowl found when I was thrifting with my mom...

Also, I finally got some curtains for the living room (although every picture I tried to take of them was too dark or too light).

Sarah's Key

The story is set in Paris and has two interweaving stories revolving around the French roundup of Jews in World War II. One is told from the point of view of a 10 year old Jewish girl Sarah. She is awoken one morning by French police and taken with her parents. Thinking she will be back in a few hours, she locks her four year old brother in a closet. She is taken to an internment camp in a sports arena for several days and then to a work camp and the reader wonders if she will be able to escape and what will become of her brother. You can probably imagine the awful gut-wrenching places her story goes. The other story is set in the present and is narrated by a (two dimensional) American woman, Julia, who lives in Paris in an unhappy marriage. She is writing a newspaper article on the events detailed above and becomes (oddly) obsessed with Sarah's story. Unfortuneatly, about halfway through the novel, the author reveals the brother's fate and fades Sarah away. Julia is a less engaging narrator and the second half of the novel felt a little bit like a letdown. Although the plot at some points really makes no sense, it was a page turner. I had a snow day and knocked it out in 24 hours. I was definitely ignorant of the specific events that took place in France. A major theme of the novel is remembering horrific events, not simply sweeping away past history. It's a compelling story, even if the writing is a little weak.

random, shmandom

Okay, not to be a negative Nancy here, but I'm pretty much over the snowy weather. I'm also over my school district's unwillingness to ever give in a give us a snow day. When it's my time to go, I would rather it not be on my way in work on the sidestreets of Pottstown's North End thankyouverymuch. I like one or two big snowstorms, enough to use a few snow days, and then that's it. No more. For a girl who never picked up a snow shovel until last year, I have become a snow shoveling expert. I'm over it. There is a crapload of snow on the ground already and it's still coming down. Both of our districts have called for a delay, so I guess there is more shoveling in the near future. Booooooo. Here is the pile of work I took home with me from our 12:00 dismissal, ever the optimist that I would sit at home and continue forging on with lesson plans, IEPs and progress notes. Yeah right. It hasn't been touched and probably won't be unless we end up with a snowday tomorrow. We're also going slightly stir crazy. I am totally content to waste away a snowy weekend laid up in bed with a cup of lemon tea and a good book*. Isaac, not so much. There is only so many hours we can log on the wii or enduring the tedium that is Scrabble Jr. Even when we are not snowbound it is a struggle to come up with fun (and cheap/free) things to do in the winter. If anyone had any ideas I would love to hear them. *Incidently, I finally started Sarah's Key for book club. It's very riveting but might be too emotionally heavy to plow in a hurry. It might have to be one that I break up, like I did with Three Cups of Tea. I can't remember if I blogged about this yet or not, but I had a lovely time in Lancaster shopping till I dropped with my mom. I returned home and tried to make plans again with friends but again no one was around. I was determined not to sit in my house alone for the second night in a row on my weekend "off". I ended up texting WJM to see if he wanted to meet up somewhere. Turns out, he was out at his parent's house (like ten mins away) and said he would come over in about an hour and a half. That was the impetus I needed to get my house whipped into shape after turning a blind eye to the clutter and dishes for several days. I ran around like a crazy person and totally cleaned my house from top to bottom, even doing crazy stuff I knew he wouldn't even see like corralling the laundry in my closet and changing Isaac's sheets. It was lovely to wake up Sunday morning to a totally clean house. It was funny too because when I opened the door he was all, "Who shovelled this walk?!". I'm like "I shovel now!!" He came over for a little bit and then we went out to the Epicurean in Phoenixville for a bit, which was one of our old haunts. The conversation again was good. Equal parts reminiscing and catching up. I know I have written this before, but it is a very weird thing to hang out with him: a stranger who knows all about your past. It was actually nice though and better than staying home watching Netflix. Anyways, enough about that. This page fell out of Isaac's Kidwriting Journal at school so he brought it at home. I love, love, love, to read his writing. I just wish I could get him using more lowercase, especially for his name. "I saw a rainbow and there was a pot of gold and a leprachaun". Lastly, a friend recommended Ellie Goulding and I have been loving everything of hers. Here is her cover of one of my favorite songs. Hope things are well for all of you. Leave a comment if it's snowing where you are!

monday, monday

Hey, thanks to everyone who commented, e-mailed, talked to me in person or sent me private messages with your thoughts and advice on my previous post. I sincerely appreciate it. M is a good dad. He may not be very demonstrative but I know he loves Isaac very much and really wants Isaac to enjoy coming to his house for visits. I wish kids came with instruction manuals. It seems like there are so many potential ways to screw them up. Being a rather catastrophic thinker, I always tend to envision Isaac on a couch in a shrink's office in his early 20s recounting the endless mistakes I made during the formative years of his life. It's a hard pill to swallow that certain things that influence him (like the fact that he is shuttled between two households) are completely out of my control. In other news, I made it to yoga tonight for the first time in ages and it totally did a number on me. I was already so sore it hurt to even laugh a bit stiff from pilates yesterday. By the end of class my legs were shaking from trying to hold the poses that were so easy for me all summer. I should get back in the habit of going weekly again. It's so good for your body and your mind. It's so easy to find reasons not to go, but I when push away the excuses and just do it, I wonder why I don't make time for it more often. I wish I could learn that lesson for good. Taking it a step further, there are so many things in my life I dread and actively avoid and when I bite the bullet and just do them they are not nearly as awful/time consuming/scary as I built them up to be. I must be hardheaded because it never seems to sink in. My mom was here tonight and Isaac was reading books out loud to her. Not like "See Jane run" either. It's like all of a sudden he is a real reader and I couldn't be MORE proud. Anyways, I'm about out of things to say and I have my last Emily Griffin book calling to me from my nightstand. Good night all!

two worlds

This weekend I spent a good deal of time out in the Lancaster area with my mom. We had a nice day going from thrift store to thrift store looking for treasure amongst the trash. Partway through our day we stopped at Isaac's, a restaurant (not to be confused with Isaac, my offspring), to grab some lunch. As we were getting out of the car, I observed a man, a woman and a child in the parking lot. I don't think most people would have taken any notice, but I immediately recognized the weekend child swap. The two cars parked next to each other but with an empty spot between them for breathing room. The man was standing in this divide awkwardly hugging and conversing with his daughter, who was maybe seven or eight. The woman had the door open and was busy rummaging around the backseat of her car, arranging bags or reinstalling a carseat. I only saw them for a moment, I didn't have a chance to see how well the girl was able to jump from daddy's world to mommy's world. I wish I did. I want some reassurance that it will somehow get easier. I am very interested to hear of any other takes on this. Isaac has at least four of these transitions a month (he spends every other weekend with his dad) for almost the past four years. When we lived closer together, he would spend time every weekend with his dad, and for a brief period, even some weekday evenings. There have been some times when it was easy, especially when Isaac was a toddler/preschooler. A seamless transition from me to him with him rushing off into his dad's apartment to find his toys, tossing a "Bye mom!" over his shoulder as he ran off. But usually it is not. More along the lines his dad having to hold him back as I left and me hearing his cries even out to the parking lot as I got in my car to pull away. Isaac's dad M. is certainly not a "Disneyland Daddy". Sometimes I think that is almost part of the problem. I think Isaac enjoys the time he spends with his father, but I don't think he especially looks forward to it. Generally I start to remind Isaac on the Monday before that this will be his weekend with Daddy. Usually at some point during the week, he will express that he doesn't want to go to his dad's, he wants to stay here with me. I try to reassure him, but it's hard. The Thursday before he goes, we pack his suitcase and I try to get him to think of things he might want to take along to do, or to show his dad. Generally, he isn't too interested. Friday morning I remind him again that I will pick him from school and we will be going to Daddy's house. When I pick him from school and suddenly he is in that "in between" transitional space and he doesn't do well there. He is almost always upset because I pick him up much earlier than other days and his play time at the Y is disrupted. He will usually start to cry and tantrum as we get in the car, often refusing to put on his seatbelt and screaming that he doesn't want to go or that he hates me. It gets worse when we approach the four way stop by his school and I go straight and not left towards home and he knows it's for real. The good news is that it takes about 25 minutes to get to the Walgreen's near M's work, which is the halfway point and the site of our "exchange". By the time we get there, Isaac is resigned to his fate and will usually get into his dad's car calmly, if not somewhat woodenly. I always remind him before he gets out of my car to say hello to his dad, but most often he won't. He just silently hops into his carseat and lets me kiss him goodbye. When we meet up again in the same spot on Sunday he doesn't generally say good-bye to his dad without prompting and usually he starts on me before we even gets into my car. Take today for example. He gets out of his dad's car and tells me he is thirsty and wants to go into Walgreen's to buy a drink. This is a routine. I will often let him go in and choose a snack or candy or special treat from the store before we head home. In my head, I am helping him with the transition and probably, on some level, trying to prove that I am the fun parent who says "yes" while daddy is the parent who has undoubtedly told him "no" as they sat there waiting for me. (Side note-- his dad is almost always at our swap spot at least fifteen minutes early for no apparent reason. This often results in Isaac perceiving that I am late to get him, when in reality I am right on time. No amount of explaining will convince him otherwise. Drives me crazy). Anyways, today I said no. My budget is tight, and I am trying to cut silly little shopping trips like this out. Isaac became enraged and kicks my car door twice and refuses to get in the car. We are in a stand off, which his dad glances at passively as he pulls away. Finally Isaac gets in the car but refuses to put on his seatbelt, so I have to do it for him. The whole way home, he alternates between screaming/crying ("I'm thirsty!!!"), curling up in a ball with his head on his knees and giving me the silent treatment (such as when I finally pull into a McDonald's drive through to get him a drink and then he refuses to answer me when I ask him what he wants), and giving me snotty, venom filled replies that I would expect to be hurled at me from the lips of a greasy haired teenager, not my precious almost six year old. This goes on for the next 20 minutes or so. He is angry that I won't stop at Target for a toy. Then he has to the bathroom. When I pull over at a Wegman's to let him go, he angrily tells me that this is not a grocery store. He also is furious that I am calling him Isaac, which he now declares is "not his name". I try to joke with him to break him out of his mood but he won't engage. (I know better than to inquire about how his weekend was, or ask what he did at daddy's. He never wants to discuss it in the car or in response to my questioning. Sometimes, he will share with me later on his own terms). When we get into the grocery store, not the place we usually shop and which he has never set foot in, he insists he knows where the bathrooms are and refuses to follow me. On the way to the bathroom he looks up at me disdainfully and says "I have an idea mom. Can you do me a favor and just not talk to me for a while? Yeahthanks." I gritted my teeth, resisting the impulse to slap him, and said "No problem." He then declared he was going into the men's room so that he wouldn't have to be with me anymore. The Wegman's we stopped at is huge. It has a big restaurant inside it, a kids area with a TV and an enormous shopping area with little stands and people offering samples. The ceiling has an enormous train track with a locomotive circling the dairy section. When he emerged from the bathroom and back into the hustle and bustle of the store, he softened somewhat, reached up and took my hand, and said "Mommy, could we stay here for a little bit? Could we shop or get something to eat?" It was like someone had turned a switch and he was suddenly back to my charming little boy again. We wandered around for a bit, people watching, laughing and joking. When we got back into the car, unprompted he shared with me that he had wet himself that morning at his dad's, because it was dark when he woke up and he was too afraid to go by himself down the dark hallway to the bathroom. We talked about how next time I would send along a flashlight to keep there, so that wouldn't happen again. His dad never shares much about their weekends together. He is a man of few words. I don't know if he gets any backlash during the transit between parental worlds, or if I bare the brunt of naughty behavior. I know it must be terribly overwhelming for a five year old to transition back and forth and all of this acting out is his way dealing with his feelings. But there has to be an easier way?? In an ideal world we would meet at a park and Isaac would play for a while before one of us said good-bye, seamlessly transitioning Isaac from one parent to the other. Or his dad would pick him up from school, eliminating me from the entire equation. But that's just not possible. The Walgreen's car switch is pretty much how it needs to be. Anyone out there have any tips or tricks? Brilliant insights? I want to be the caring mom helping transition, but I also don't want to be pushover, throwing treats at him and tolerating his ridiculous behavior.

ugh

Did this this morning. The girl is annoying perky but for only ten minutes it was a heck of a workout.

We had a snow day today but Isaac miraculously had school. His district cancels for anything and earlier in the week I had to take him along to work with me when they cancelled and I still had school. Anyways today, I sent him to school, went grocery shopping (a finally remembered to bring all my clipped coupons! I saved a ton), got my eyebrows waxed, etc. I squeezed in a gym trip too which I don't usually get to on Fridays. I ran nearly two miles, which is the furthest I have since I abandoned running this summer and felt incredible. Excercise is the ultimate energy booster. It was a good day. I had a dream about summer dating guy the other night. We were with a group of friends in Phoenixville trying to walk to a venue to see a concert. Except that as we were walking and hurrying we lost our group somehow. Then suddenly we were on rollerblades skating along towards the venue. Then he stopped to play guitars with a homeless person and said he would catch up with me in a minute. I went to venue and saved him a seat and he never came. I don't think you have to be Freud to read between the lines there. ANYWAYS... I don't know if you have heard about this, but here's reason number 309203844 to hate hope that lighting strikes dislike Glenn Beck. I know there is a following of people who subscribe everything he says, but let me assure you people are not being shot or stabbed regularly in Old City. It's a very safe area. It's where the Real World house was, for crying out loud. MTV would not put the Real World kids in the ghetto. Philly doesn't suck Glenn Beck. *YOU* suck. Anyways, despite a productive day, it's been an unproductive evening. I am just chilling at home on a payday Friday night. Isaac is at his dad's house and I am home and bored, laying on a freshly changed flannel sheets and listening to Aimee Mann. I got in touch with exactly five different people to see if anyone wanted to join me for a movie but sometimes it just doesn't work out. I am not opposed to going to the theater alone, but tonight I just didn't feel like it. I debated retail therapy to lift my spirts and even paid my old boyfriend TJ MAXX a visit (although I frequently cheat on him with my other lovers - Ross and Marshall). I oogled some sparkly platform shoes:

and a fushia peacoat but ultimately left empty handed.

Anyways, my house is a big cluttery mess but I am just sitting wasting time reading and screwing around on the computer. I did take the time to go through my blog reader though and pair down my subscriptions to 84 blogs. That is reducing virtual clutter at least.

Tomorrow I have plans to get lunch with my mom and do some thrift store shopping. Hopefully I will have some good loot to show off after that trip. I really miss Isaac. I look forward to my weekends "off" but it is always sad to have him gone and always good to have him back home.

Anyways, now I'm just rambling. Have a lovely weekend all!

Finally

A Will.i.am song I can get behind. My friend Mandy posted this in honor of her little boy. It might become my new themesong. Positive self-talk is important for everyone, old and young!

Music for a Monday

This is making the rounds on the interwebs. I figured I would share it here if you haven't seen it. It's pretty much the most adorable thing ever. I love when she goes "Someday I'm going to whistle?"

Saturday update

I just used this tutorial to make my new blog header. I know it looks pretty basic, but not too bad for my first try I think. New year, new look. I think it captures the basic elements of my lack of domesticity. Except I couldn't come up with an image that represents "perpetually single". =P I'm up ridiculously early for a Saturday. Isaac came in before seven o'clock. I love how during the week I have to drag him out of bed at that time to get ready for school but on Saturdays he is bright eyed and bushy tailed, climbing into bed with me. I kept laying there with my eyes closed, determined to drift back off, but my neighbor's car alarm was going off repeatedly. At about seven o'clock I gave up officially. My dad should be coming over today. I got curtains for my living room way back in November for my birthday and they have been sitting in a box in my kitchen ever since. My mom is in California visiting her sister so I managed to convinced my dad to make the drive from the Lanc to come and put them up and hang out for a while. I think it would go a long way to making my house look more cozy and homelike. After living here nearly two years, I have hardly any curtains up anywhere. I've almost knocked out Something Blue by Emily Griffin which will bring my total of books read since Christmas to 3. Some of my friends/co-workers are forming a book club, so I need to pick up the book and get working on that. I love discussing books with other people, but I haven't had a forum to do that since college. I hope everyone takes it as seriously as I plan to. The book is Sarah's Key. Anyone ever read it? I can't remember the author offhand. As much as I love my fluffy chick lit, I think I am ready to shift gears into something more meaningful. Anyways, I should clean my house before my dad gets here so he doesn't faint when he sees the state of my bathroom. I'm also trying to squeeze in a trip to the gym this morning. We made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last night and I need to do something to try to counterbalance the five or six I have eaten since then. Plus, I am (very slowly) getting back into the groove of running again, and I am sort of looking forward to getting on the treadmill and pushing myself more. Hope your Saturday is fabulous!!

Emily Griffin

My girlfriend Jami just gave me a whole stack of Emily Griffin books.

I just finished:

Now onto: It's light, fluffy, easy chick lit, which seems to be what I am in the mood for right now. What are you reading?

Useful for PA people...

Yoga for Snow Shoveling

Phulladulphia, Leannic Ciy

A friend shared this on facebook. I love it. This is why I can't get my students to spell things correctly. You tell them to say the word outloud and write the sounds they hear. Yikes

Okay, I finally updated last years goals/progress page. I'm not sure how I want to handle this year's goals yet.

live music is good for the soul

I saw Mary Fahl last night at the Tin Angel in Philly, a little venue in Old City. She is from the old band October Project and now she is doing her own solo thing. She's a cross between a slightly edgier Enya and Joni Mitchell. We were the youngest in the audience by about 20 years I would say. I really wanted to see her, and the only other person I know who would be interest was WJM (old college bf). He is the one that introduced me to October Project and we saw her once a long time ago when we were dating. Anyways, it actually wasn't awkward to see him again. It's so odd to hang out with him in person again, because it is like we are strangers getting to know each other now, but we know everything about each other's past. I think a concert was a good environment too. Not too much time for talking. But at any rate, I enjoyed myself. Mary's voice is incredible. She sang everything from Italian Arias to folk covers. Afterwards we waited around to talk to her, and WJM started talking to her about how he seen October Project on Prism when he was a kid. He was actually being really heartfelt and complimentary, but as soon as she realized we weren't about to purchase her 40 dollar cd (a Dark Side of the Moon cover album) she didn't have much time for us. We were like "Okay, then". Here's a few videos. This one is October Project. I don't know why it is weird random pictures in a slideshow though. That's youtube for you. This is one that she wrote to be the soundtrack in a movie about 9-11 firefighters.

here's another one

Sorry, I'm sure these are not interesting to anyone but me, but they make me laugh. That was such a different time in my life working full time, grad school full time, parenting a young child. Isaac is so easy and managable now. August 2007 So today I wake up. My clock reads 7:08. I completely panic, as I supposed to be at work at 7 and I am already in a bit of trouble with attendance, so I can't be late and I am pretty sure a new person will be in my house and I should be there to help them out, and now I will hit traffic so who knows when I will get in.... I call the overnight supervisor, frantically shout at him that I overslept but that I am on my way, and hang up before he can really respond while pulling on clothes and simultaneously brushing my teeth. I am running through a mental list of what I need to grab before I run out the door and I am like,okay, I have school today, I need to remember to grab my schoolbag. Then I remember, if I have school today, I must need to turn my final in, which I know I haven't done. Why haven't I done it??? OH BECAUSE TODAY IS SUNDAY. I call the overnight supervisor back and he is just laughing at me like, "Yeah Lisa, I will see you tomorrow, take your time coming in". I'm losing it people. I really am. This one was entitled "The saga of getting ready." From July of 2007. My mom must have been out of town. So I am trying to get ready to get out the door. Why is life with a toddler one step forward, two steps back? Here is the story of my morning: Open closet. Look for skirt. Put skirt on. Ponder shirt. Hear Isaac in bathroom (never a good thing!) He has found the bleach bottle I carelessly left on the counter and is spraying it on himself. I clean him up, get him distracted by brushing his teeth and set off to find the shirt. Can't find the shirt, but I slip on my shoes. He sees my shoes are on, and wants to put his shoes on too. I want to throw some sandals on him, but he insists on the nearly impossible to put on (though terribly stylish) camo hightops. Almost ten minutes lost jamming the darn things on him. I set him up with a movie, back to search for the shirt. Decide I look fat in the shirt. Glance in on Isaac. He has found my purse and is dumping the contents everywhere and his legs are somehow covered in magic marker. I take my wallet from him (I can't tell you how many times I have gone to pay for something or show ID only to have the card missing because he has gleefully dumped my wallet earlier that day). He starts to cry, hanging on me and trying to grab the wallet and then starts coughing like crazy. I decide to get him some cough medicine since he has been coughing all morning. Twenty minutes go by trying to persuade him to take it. Spray self (and Isaac, at his insistance) with perfume. Set him up in front of Youtube. Set off to look for specific flattering black shirt that may or may not be clean. Find shirt. Put it on. Ignore crashing sounds coming from Isaac's room. Brush hair. Isaac is comes in crying because "My shoes are too hard". Take shoes off him. Send him on his way. He returns a minute later because his "Yips hurt". Can't find any chapstick or clear lipgloss. Put pink lipgloss on him to appease him. Send him on his way. Make mental note to wipe off lipgloss before we get to Daddy's. Decide to attempt eyeliner. Line one eye. In the reflection in the mirror near a pile of discarded clothes on the floor I notice something suspicious. Is that? It can't be? When would it have happened? I almost can't even bring myself to look. Yes, confirm that there is a large chunk of poo sitting proudly on my white carpet. Ponder how and when the poo could have been left there without me noticing as I find paper towel (not hard, as the whole roll has been unwound on the bathroom floor when Isaac was brushing his teeth). Scoop up poop. Flush away. Clean floor. Enter Isaac with a pair of scissors in his hand "Mommy-- hair cut?" Take scissors away to the office and while passing by his room observe that earlier crashing noise was Isaac overturning his toybox everywhere. Hear bathtub water turning on and find Isaac giving his stuffed dog a "Baf!" Glance at self in the mirror. Realize only one eye is lined... Need I go on? Man I am exhausted. Thank God my mother is coming home today!

blog flashback

Sometimes it's fun to look back at my old blog, when I was in the thick of things with Isaac as a toddler and living at home with my folks. Here is one from Sept. 2007 when Isaac was about 2. Oh speaking of sports games. The past two weeks Isaac has had major regression in bedtime and I don't know what to do. He has not gone to bed before TEN o'clock and he is getting up either at the crack of dawn (5:30) or throughout the night. It's killing me. I am a zombie and I need that evening alone time to regroup. I don't want to be looking at him at 10:30. Anyways, last night I had just HAD it. I so wanted to watch the Ugly Betty DVD with my mom and he just kept coming down and coming down. At about 9:15 my dad said he would put him down for us. In the past, he has always had a special magical power over Isaac so I was confident. Well, we finish the show, chitchat a little and around 10:30 I go to look in on them. My dad is sitting on the rug in Isaac's room intently watching the TV. Isaac sees me and gleefully yells "Mom, we're watching FOOTBALL!". So much for my dad putting the smack down. Bwhahaha. Not much has changed.

and now back to your regularly scheduled life

• Ugh back to work tomorrow. Part of me looks forward to the return to routine, but part of me knows that it will be a disaster since Isaac and I have been staying up and waking up way too late. I have enjoyed the long lazy days, but a lack of structure definitely takes its toll. Too much TV, too much wii, too much junk food, etc.
• I did get all of the Christmas decorations taken down, do some crafting, read some books, excercise a fair amount and finally catch up on laundry. Usually I just root through the laundry baskets and pull out socks, underwear, pajamas and workpants to wash. When we were briefly snowed in I did load after load of laundry. It got to the point where the drawers were totally full and there was still more to be put away. I counted, and I have 27 clean and ironed pairs of workpants in my closet! I was shocked. I mean, I only work five days a week and I frequently wear skirts or dresses too.
• This inspired me to go through and get rid of clothes that are worn, faded, stained, just don't fit right, etc. I also managed to get Isaac to sort through a bin box of toys that have been in the basement for over a year now. I was reluctant to let some of them go, but he didn't seem to mind as much as me. Now I have a huge bag to take over to Goodwill this week.
• I have quite a bit to look forward to this week though. I know some of my friends get annoyed by my insistence of planning ahead for social activities, but this is how I survive. I know that if I can hang in there x days, then I will get to do something fun. This week I am having dinner with a friend on Wednesday night, Friday I am hopping on a train to Philly to celebrate my girl Becca's birthday with some close girlfriends. We tend to celebrate our birthdays by dinners out and then going to dance clubs and/or piano bars in the Gayborhood. I believe that is the exact agenda for Friday, so I am looking forward to that.
• Saturday I will be getting my car inspected (the brakes are really squeeling which is not good) and then going back into the city to see Mary Fahl in concert at the Tin Angel. I saw her in concert when I was hugely pregnant and sort of fell in love with her. I listened to her cds over and over during that time in my life, and her music takes me right back.
• So looking forward to fun things should help me get through what will likely be a rough week back at school.
• I will report on last year's goals soon and identify some new ones. I haven't updated that tab in ages. I didn't get to everything, but I did get to quite a bit.
• Someone must have heard my rant because today they announced that our weekly FHE's are going to be replaced with monthly service projects. Now that I can handle. It might mean I can occasionally make it to Monday night yoga. I've sure missed it! They also asked me to speak in church next week, and asked me to sub for the Sunday School teacher. I will be very busy preparing for all of that.
• I managed to remember to register Isaac for spring soccer. Thank goodness after the fall season fiasco. He is old enough now that he will have a practice on a weekday in addition to a Saturday game.
• I think I'm getting the hang of Twitter. Although, I don't really need another social networking site to engage in heavy cyberstalking waste time. I decided I must become active on it though to prove that I am still young and relevant. It makes me feel so old to not understand it.
• I ended up actually having a very enjoyable New Year's Eve, despite my prediction that it would be another unmemorable one. A few of my friends got together for a small party. The girls who hosted had their nephew there who is a year older than Isaac, so it worked out well to bring him along. I figured we would just drop by briefly, but Isaac was so well behaved we ended up staying till after 12. I was honestly impressed he could stay up so late. It was low key but very enjoyable.
• Anyways, I should get off the computer and do lunches, lay out clothes, pack up bags for tomorrow. Have a lovely week!

help!

Anyone out there use twitter and can help me understand it? It makes me feel so old that I am baffled by it.