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Thursday, August 28, 2003

What They Never Tell You

C has just made a picture of a ducky for me. She is 3 which means that while the picture is adorable, I certainly needed her to tell me it was a ducky, know what I mean? Of course once she's named it I can see its legs and feet and body and head and bill. Nobody told me being a mom would be this much fun. I mean, I knew it would be nice having a baby, and I knew it would be nice having little children who grew up into big people, but all the little details like ducky pictures and stuck-on kisses and favorite storybooks requested over and over -- they more than make up for all the little stresses.


As you can tell I am back to my chipper self. Whether this has anything to do with the fact that I am ANOTHER POUND DOWN (woo hoo!), I leave to you to decide. I really don't think it is. I think it is a relief from all these agitating hormones that have been bouncing around inside me for a week, making me feel easily stressed and frustrated and bored and sleepy and mindless.



I am supposed to be going to the valley and going shopping, but I put that off until tomorrow. I did get lesson plans worked up for next week, as well as a lot of long-range school year plans done. However, I did not clean the school room. You see, all summer it's been the play room, and right now LT has the floor covered in army men, all set up and waiting for T to have time to have a battle with him. This weekend is going to be crazy-busy, but I think I can pencil in about three hours on Sunday evening to clean that room -- so they'd better have the battle done by then.



Another aspect of motherhood nobody tells you about, right? Scheduling your housekeeping around your son's militaristic tendencies (gee, wonder where he got THOSE).


I spent most of this morning chauffeuring around my neighbors. They are two little old ladies who were finally convinced by their chiropractor (funny how people who see chiropractors with regularity frequently come to see them as God-figures who are all-knowing, isn't it?) to give up driving. This is a good thing since neither of them sees or hears very well. They have lived together for years; they used to run a children's Christian camp in the mountains near here but when they retired from that and sold it, they bought the house next to ours to spend their quieter years. One is very deaf but moves around OK; the other hears slightly better but takes literally ten minutes to walk thirty yards. Or rather, to shuffle thirty yards. So understandably, taking them anywhere is an exercise in patience, as well as an adventure. Small errands turn into two- or three-hour affairs. It's VERY good for the kids to be around them; they enjoy each other, and the kids are learning patience and respect for a generation that will soon be gone. I love old people; I love talking with them. They have seen so much. I mean, I feel all mature when I meet a college student whom I knew as a newborn; these ladies were already old before I was born. They lived through times I've only read about in historical articles and school history texts. So it is definitely worth the time and effort of helping them, just to listen to them talk.


Another website I've been meaning to post about in here is BookCrossing so I'm doing it before I forget. It's a really neat concept, and the website does a better job of explaining it than I can, but basically, you "release" books in public places and then the person who finds them will ideally go online (thanks to a bookmark or bookplate or whatever that you leave in the book, with instructions), post their thoughts about the book, and then "release" it again somewhere else. So far, I have released three books which were never posted about again. :(. But I shall keep trying.



I finished reading Silas Marner and now I'm buried in Pride and Prejudice again. I LOVE THIS BOOK. This means, according to some diehard Jane Austen fans (of which I actually consider myself one) that I am not as mature a fan as someone who has Emma or Persuasion or even maybe Mansfield Park for a favorite. Too darn bad, this is a wonderful story, delightfully told. Not that the others aren't. But I suppose they're deeper, while P&P is "just" romantic. Sigh. Perfectly romantic, if you ask me. [flutter flutter]

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