NO Review, the blog 2007

first entry this year
first entry about NaNoWriMo, or "Why all the posts about word counts?" and "What novel?"
first blog entry


December 31, 2007

    Last day of 2007.  My last entry on this page.  Sometime in the next few hours I will skip ahead and it will be tomorrow.  Perhaps I should have set an alarm to go off on the hour so I could celebrate the passage to the New Year's wherever it was appropriate.  The Netherlands celebrated (loudly I'm sure) about two and a half hours ago and midnight is creeping across the globe as we fly in the opposite direction.  We will land before Seattle celebrates.  I will probably hold off on any celebration of my own until the completion of the trip is actually completed and all six of us are in our house.
    Today started poorly.  Last night I stayed late with friends, which was wonderful.  I spent some time talking to one couple who had spent a couple of years in Scotland and were excited for us and encouraging.  Another couple helped take care of all the remainders that were in our house and alleviated a couple of errands we weren't (definitely weren't) going to have time for this morning.  After saying goodbyes (and by then my contacts were thoroughly cloudy and a pain to wear; a common consequence for me of tearing up, which I did over the course of goodbyes to others as well by then), we went to pick up the dog and drop him at the house.  He was very excited to see us.  Then we returned to the hotel and I packed all the clothes up while C blogged.  By then it was 2 am and the kids had apparenly already spent their best sleeping hours.  It didn't feel like I got a consecutive twenty minutes of sleep for the next five hours between one child or another waking, coughing, wiggling, poking, needing the bathroom, needing medicine or otherwise waking me up.  Exhausting.  I set my alarm but didn't hear it.  Fortunately C's was set for only 15 minutes later.  We got up and I showered.  I let the water run on maximum hot for a couple of minutes before it held any warmth.  Since that was what happened the day before, I wasn't worried and activated the spray.  Unfortunately, almost the entirety of my shower was under tepid water.  I sent up fervent pleas that this was not a sign of things to come, and began composing a most unpleasant blog entry in my head.  Fortunately, the hot water did finally kick in, however.  We got breakfast, loaded the car and went to the house.  I finished packing all the bags and made a last run-through of the house and C loaded up the car with all our stuff.  That is, 2 adults, 2 children, 1 excited dog, 1 angry cat, 6 large bags, 2 booster seats, a dog crate, a cat carrier, 3 backpacks, 2 computer bags, 2 camera bags, four jackets and a purse.
    It didn't include our missing 24 discs and carrier.  We paid for the eight library movies, including three expensive ones (who knew Bill Nye the Science Guy was so valuable?) and shelled out over $150.  We kept the cases and if they do return to us somehow we can either return them to the library and get our money back, or keep them.  I have to remember to let our property manager know to let us know if the cleaners find them in a place I somehow didn't look, though I don't know how that's possible.  I looked everywhere several times.  It's hard to hide in an empty house, but I checked the washer, dryer, oven, and all the other drawers I never would have opened.  But I digress...
    We stopped at the roadside to let A throw up, though he didn't have to once he was out there with me.  We stopped at the cell phone waiting lot to try to let the dog go one last time.  We returned the rental and I went up a floor to find the two carts we needed for all the stuff (the dog had to be in his large crate in the terminal), put together the crate, and loaded the carts.  We then waited in a long line and chatted to all the folks wondering where we were going and wanting to share their pet travel experiences (though the in-flight, explosive cat diarrhea tale from our friend sets the bar high for that sort of thing).  The dog got checked in and they ensured that he wasn't a dog bomb and I met the rest of the family at security.  Security was faster than I really had time to prepare for so I dumped the bottles into recycling I was going to empty and didn't manage to put my contacts in with the bottle of saline solution in my backpack.  Either airport security took pity on us and didn't challenge the small amounts of liquids in big bottles (kid medicines don't come in bottles smaller than 4 ounces), were distracted by the cat, or the whole liquid thing is a crock.  Or some bits of all of the above, of course.  We reassembled our belongings and hurried to our gate.  They did the warning about off-loading luggage of folks who hadn't yet boarded our flight as we were going up the escalator to the gate.  So, I didn't re-fill my water bottle, but we all got aboard and seated.  The cat is still angry and hasn't stopped meowing for very long.  Fortunately there isn't anyone in the seat just above her and the plane noise masks most of her meows.  I bought the tray and brought the litter, but haven't tried to get her to use the makeshift litterbox yet.  Let's see how that goes...  Well, she didn't use the litterbox, but she was happy to get out it seemed, despite her unceasing meows - and she even climbed back into her carrier herself!
    I watched Ratatouille with the kids and B has pretty much watched movies straight, though he played a bit of Reversi as well both handily beating and getting beaten handily by the computer.  A, fortunately, has been getting some sleep.  C has at least had his eyes closed a few times, and now would probably be a good time for me to sleep too.  I will finish this and give it a try.  The redness of my eyes at least has been telling me that that shouldn't be a problem, though I have been running on some sort of fuel (anxiety?  excitement?  stuff to do?) that has been masking how tired I feel.

    How do I feel?  I am excited.  I am apprehensive.  I am sad.  I am resigned and happy and interested and all mixed up together in a ball of not much different.  In some ways, I feel like A seems to feel, and am just going along with whatever the plan is.  I feel adaptable.  Mostly I want to be with my family and will be content with the adventures and challenges that come my way whether they be finding dinner in a box of organic vegetables and fruits, or navigating a foreign city in a car without more than a rudimentary understanding of the street signs and language.  It doesn't take much to make me happy with my life, and my family satisfies a lot of that.  Like all of us, there are things I appreciate more after I've gone without, such as health, sleep, my spouse and good tasting water.  I believe this stint in The Netherlands will highlight some of the things that I take for granted, some of the things I am good at, and some of the things I need to work on.  It is my hope that I can get better at those things I need to work on, that I can blossom in the things I show skill at, appreciate more the things that I take for granted, and become more me.
    Some of the advice I've been given that makes the most sense is to be myself.  I am not Dutch and will never be Dutch.  I should accept the Dutch for who they are and try neither to become them nor resent or change them.  Their culture is different from mine and it isn't wrong just because it is different.  At the same time, I am an American and trying to cram myself into their ideal of what a good Dutch woman should be isn't what I want to do either.  So my goal is to investigate a little bit more deeply who it is I am and want to be, and to become more fully myself.  There's a resolution that's hard to measure.  I would also like to write every day for at least ten minutes.  And there's a more concrete resolution.
    With those, I think I will end this entry and attempt to go to sleep.  I have long said that it's not tomorrow until after I've slept, so I will apply that arbitrary definition to this long plane trip, and wake up tomorrow to the new year.
    Best wishes to you and yours.  I think of you often.  Cheers!

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December 29, 2007

    Last night I really needed to blog, but could stay awake only long enough to stumble to the bed.  So, tonight it is.  The family is sleeping, and I'd like to join them, so this may be shorter than I'd like.
    Somehow, I lost the handy dandy 24 disc CD case into which I slipped all of the essential kid movies, games, Quicken CD, and 8 movies from the library for the Michigan trip/hotel stay.  I remember packing it up the evening that we left for Michigan.  We stopped at a friend's house on the way with the contents of our freezer and some extra spices and alcohol.  There is some possibility it slid in with those boxes, but they haven't found it.  There is some possibility it was left in the rental car, though I did check it, but their lost and found isn't open until Monday (I left a message).  There is some possibility it got left at SeaTac airport, though I checked all our bins going through security to make sure we didn't leave anything; their lost and found is also not open until Monday (I filed an online report).  There is some possibility it is somewhere in C's parents' house, but they also looked and didn't find it.  I thought that I was going to find it in our almost completely empty house where I packed it full of library DVDs and zipped it up (my last memory of handling it), but I have been through the house several times opening empty drawers over and over without success.  It has to be SOMEWHERE, but I don't know where and am quite preoccupied with it.  That is, worried and stressed, and constantly trying to think where it could be.  It would be SO helpful if it was found and returned before we left on Monday, but it is looking less and less likely.  C points out that worse come to worst, we just buy replacements for all 24 discs.  It's only money (I think anyway; there's a possibility that some of that content is out of print now), but after selling both of our cars at thousands less than we'd have liked to, it feels like we are draining money lately.  And I know it's out there SOMEWHERE if I could only think where and find it.  expletive.
    All of the pennies I rolled (and nickels, dimes and quarters) need to be deposited, but there is some question about whether they will be accepted at the kids' bank.  I don't know if we can find out before Monday morning.  And our back-up plan doesn't yet exist, though hauling it to our credit union if THEY accept them might be in order.  Also not something we can find out until Monday morning.  Our Monday morning is going to be quite a bit more hectic than I'd like considering that we HAVE TO BOARD THE PLANE. sigh.
    I went by the pet store this evening since they sold our dog a crate without the fasteners we will need.  Silly me for buying the one with the zip ties broken.  To give me the missing fasteners they broke the zip ties on another one in the store and fished them out for me.  Obviously I wasn't the first one in that chain.  I also tried to purchase an item I'd read about on one of the travel with your pet sites, a folding litter box.  They didn't have one and hadn't heard of one, though they had disposable trays (which weren't particularly small or convenient).  I didn't buy that since I'm all about space right now, and just now surfed the net trying to find out where I could get one (in the next 24 hours).  Ha.  No such luck.  I found them here, but they are not as common as I'd thought so picking one up on my way somewhere is not looking likely.  Given our cat and what I think I'm going to need (that is, her on a leash in a place she can not go outside being forced to use litter instead of our garden but willing enough given the length of the flight plus time on both ends), I will make do with a grocery store aluminum foil roasting pan I can fold the sides down and in half if needed and a zip lock bag of kitty litter.  I will also restrict her food tomorrow and take it away early Monday so there is less need.  We took the dog and the cat to the vet today for their paperwork and the dog's microchip so they are good to go I think.  The cat meowed a lot.  The kids sometimes use the seats in front of them as a launching pad, and between the kids behind them and the meowing cat under them, I am already apologizing to the folks in front of us and I haven't even started our trip.
    Of course, in many ways, we're already well underway on our trip.  It is definitely too late to change our minds and stay, tempting as that is.  I've been feeling like I just want to go home for a while now.  It started in Michigan while visiting in-laws and has dissipated a bit since we've come back to Seattle.  But I want to spend more time detangling exactly what things or experiences will satisfy that desire.  I know it isn't just having our family together, because we've got that (though that is certainly one requirement).  I doubt it is my physical bed.  It might be my cooking, though I have yet to test that theory.  It might be Seattle, but I have had other homes in other places I am sure would satisfy this need as well.  A place I am familiar with?  Belongings?  Someplace I can be naked?  Snack food in the kitchen?  Somewhere I can navigate in the dark?  A house I can feel comfortable parenting in?  Confidence in my ability to satisfy my kids' needs and my own?  Mail in the mailbox?  Clothes in drawers instead of suitcases?  I suspect we all have our own requirements for "home" and this is one of those many learning experiences I will have about my own requirements.  I'll keep you posted.
    Well, tomorrow is to be our day of fun and relaxation, at least after we run some more errands, finish painting the basement panel C replaced yesterday and today, delay the library for another couple of weeks and hope that our discs show up, and finish compressing our belongings and packing before 11 am when dear friends will meet us at the house and take us away from it all to the zoo for a last member trip and to their home for dinner and games and hugs and conversation.  I am looking forward to it as an island sandwiched in between two mornings worth of everything else.  Maybe I can stop thinking about the 24 missing discs.
    Well, I know I am going to need my sleep, so I suppose I'd better try to get some.

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December 25, 2007

    Merry Christmas.  We're in Michigan with C's family having a nice time.  C is putting the boys to bed late because they are still adjusting to the time change.  There are lots of time changes to adjust to for us all.  In a week's time we will be in The Netherlands.  Our house is empty but for our cat and other assorted things we will take overseas that we didn't need in Michigan, and all those things that we acquired after the movers came and hauled away all of our stuff, including memory books from school, locker clean-outs, lunchboxes, and presents from the last several days.  I suspect we will end up with another piece of luggage we need to buy to haul it all over.  We've rented an SUV (shudder!) for the few days we'll be back in Seattle so we won't have to worry about hauling bags, bodies, and pets to the airport.  We'll just have to worry about getting it all from the airport in Schipol to our house in Hilversum.  The dog crate in particular is cumbersome even though it can come apart and nest and the dog can ride in his seatbelt between the boys.  The mass of details are mostly taken care of and I am starting to take some time for the emotional part of this move.
    I know already some of the things I'm going to miss for the next several weeks.  My own bed.  My closets.  I'm sure I'm going to get tired of the clothes I brought with me and wish for the rest of my wardrobe.  Knowing where to buy organic milk etc. (and being able to buy organic milk, etc.).  Friends and family.
    I need to upload the Dutch language lessons onto my iPod and start them.  Although I would like to learn Dutch to function in our new community and because it just seems wrong not to know the politenesses in a country we plan to live in, I think I need the written Dutch language somewhat more for websites, ingredients, street signs and newspapers.
    There's one more thing I'll miss: scanning and reading a printed comics page.  I've had a list of comics on my webpage I like to follow in addition to the ones I read in the paper, but the only one I actually did follow with any regularity was Girl Genius.  Now they are all in that category and navigating them is a lot trickier than reading them in a certain order while making breakfast.  I may finally become a person who turns on the computer every day without fail, just to get my comics.  We shall see.
    Mostly I am glad we're back together as a family.  Anything can be borne and anything seems possible starting with that.  Happy Holidays to you and your family too.

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December 19, 2007

    I should know by now that one should never blog about colds one hasn't caught.  I am not superstitious enough to actually believe that doing so made me catch the one I have now, but I am conscious of the thick irony and that suddenly what's been posted is now wrong, wrong, wrong.  Yes indeed, I woke up hours after my last post with a firm grip on the cold that has been bothering A.  So did B.  I am not surprised, since our whole family has been stressed and I have been operating on fumes of late.  Mostly I was surprised as of the 12th that I hadn't caught it yet and concluded (wrongly) that I must have had it already or I certainly would have been sick already.
    A lot has happened since my last post.  The kids and I went to the dentist; we're going to have to find an orthodontist soon after we get to The Netherlands so B can get his extra tooth removed - it has turned his left front permanent tooth 90 degrees and it is coming down crooked (that's where B's first wiggly baby tooth is, of course).  C came home safely and on time though without his visa (HOORAY!).  We hosted a final game night and got to see a bunch of our friends one last time.  I got to play some Boggle and some hearts, and we got rid of some food and wine.  The ficus finally went to a good home for a while.  It fit quite nicely into the car with the passenger seat all the way back and the plant leaning back into the back window.  I needed some help getting it out again, and hope it doesn't grow too much bigger while we're away or we won't be able to get it back home again without tree surgery.  We sorted 8 full file cabinets worth of files and compressed the personal ones (including the requisite 7 years worth of taxes) into six inches of papers which are resting in a piece of luggage at the moment.  Some are going in the main shipment (the ones we want but don't have our social security number or personal information on them) and some are going into storage, but we recycled and shredded a whole lot of old files.  Our recycling is full and we're out of town when they pick it up, so a very kind neighbor will be putting them at the curb for us.  We sorted and labeled and sorted and labeled and dealt with the little piles in all of the rooms that needed to be dealt with.  The night before they came to pack us up (Monday night) I got about 2 and a half hours of sleep.  Saturday and Sunday nights I got a little more, but not enough to help my cold disappear.  Tuesday, with the kids in school and the packers playing country music, bantering, boxing and taping, I packed.  I'm going to get by with a little over a week's worth of clothes that I am sure I will be thoroughly sick of by the time our shipment arrives sometime in February.  The boys I packed more generously since they seem to go through their clothes at a remarkable rate.  [Some of that is due to an occasional potty accident, some is from messy eating, playing in dirt, and snotty sleeves (use a Kleenex, A!), but most is probably a perception issue - there are two of them wearing the same size, so it is reasonable that there would be twice as many clothes that size than any other.]  I packed up the dog stuff, the cat stuff, the entertain the boys during plane flights, hotel stays and hanging out in our new house times.  I packed toiletries.  I made sure that the air shipment had the things I was going to need there but wouldn't need in Michigan.  I packed snow clothes and gifts, and papers and books.  We have commandeered our linen closet as a do not pack zone and some of our stuff is there, some is at the hotel, and some is still to be packed up (like the cat and her things, the router and a phone).
    Tuesday they got most of the main/surface/sea shipment packed up and were gone by 3.  Wednesday (today) they loaded the truck with the whole of the main shipment and the air shipment and packed most of the rest of the house up for storage.  Tomorrow they will finish getting everything packed and sent for storage.  I have been doing a lot of looking in cupboards and making sure that things went in the right places.  We did a lot of labeling and sorting and the head guy was impressed and complimentary.  Still, there have been at least three instances of things going in the shipment:  the sheepskin that I was going to let the cat sleep on while we were out of the house and then let the dog have in his crate for the trip over got packed in a box for storage, a Kleenex box and the paper bag that we'd been putting used tissues into for the compost got packed into a box for storage (THAT'll be fun to find again -- Ooh, petrified snot!), and half of my T-shirts that I had intended for storage got packed in the main shipment.  Oh well.
    Our mail carrier came by the house today to hand us our forwarding forms, tell us that they couldn't forward our mail internationally and to call the branch office.  This despite information on the USPS web site addressing international mail forwarding and how to sign up for it and what can and can't be forwarded.  Now I've got "Rob" at the branch office telling me that oh, whatever the web site says is fine, they must have updated it and not told them, but yes, I'll have to fill out the forms again, but that it will be fine.  I don't have a lot of confidence that it will be fine.  What's to stop the next someone from deciding that since they've never dealt with international mail forwarding that the post office must not be able to do it, mark my form "NO" in yellow highlighter again, and fail to forward my mail?  Growl.  I'll have to go stand in line with a bunch of holiday packages tomorrow just to talk to someone; I'm thinking of taking my laptop with the two relevant pages loaded on-screen in hopes that will help.  This was an unexpected wrinkle I don't want to deal with.
    The movers can't store money of any kind so I've got to find a friend to watch over the kids' coin collections and my square pig(gy bank).  I spent a fair bit of time today sorting through and rolling pennies.  We have a big deposit to make in their school saver accounts so that the dollars and cents earn some interest while we use euros and eurocents.
    Still to do this week are shepherding the movers to get everything, buying new running shoes and putting the desiccant in the box freezer before it goes to storage, teaching a new recruit at the elementary school to repair books, watching B get an award at the virtues assembly, taking pictures at same, buying treats for and showing up for going away parties for B and for A, dinner with friends x2, selling the cars, deliver some things to charity, tidy the garden, and deal with whatever else comes up I can't see yet.  I had thought initially that this week would be more relaxing than the week before.  I was right about that, but the contrast is not as great as I had hoped.  There is still a lot of stuff going on.  Still, at least C is here and we can do it together. 
    Now I should join the three slumbering bodies in this hotel room in sleep.

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December 12, 2007

    I am thankful.  I am thankful that my kids are satisfied with the dinners I am providing and the activities in the advent calendar this year.  I am thankful for the early box of Christmas that came from my brother's family and has kept A and B excited, occupied and happy all of their waking, non-school/homework hours since it arrived yesterday.  I am thankful for my mom's help.  I am thankful that I was able to gain another day for packing up by asking the right person (they are now coming Tuesday instead of Monday).  I am thankful that the cold bothering A is one I've had before and all the breathing in my face in the wee hours and sloppy kisses at bedtime are not making me sick.
    I am worried.  I am worried that C won't come home when he's supposed to (Saturday) because they've screwed up his visa.  I am worried that I won't get everything done in time.  I am worried that the cars won't sell.  I am worried I'll somehow forget my dentist appointment tomorrow (again).  I am worried that I'm taking too much or not enough or not the right things to the Netherlands with me.  I am worried that the dog won't make the flight with us because it'll be unusually cold.  I am worried that I will disappoint someone for Christmas this year.
    I am making progress.  I got through the laundry room tonight.
    I am tired.  I need to sleep to get more done tomorrow than just visit the dentist.
    I realized that I haven't shared the timeline here yet.  They come to take all of our things to storage or overseas on the 18th, 19th and 20th.  The kids last day of school is the 21st.  Once our beds go, we stay in a hotel until we leave for Michigan on the 22nd, spend Christmas there, and return on the 28th back to the hotel.  We fly out to our new life/home/culture on the 31st of December and arrive (having skipped nine time zones worth of midnights in the air) the morning of the first day of 2008.  Very fitting, I think.  We'll turn a new page here too.  But not yet.  Though the days are blurring a bit from work and worry, there's still a bit of month left in this one.  Oh, I forgot to get the mail today.  Well, it'll wait until daylight.

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December 8, 2007

    I am feeling some obligation to my sometimes ephemeral audience to update my blog from the last post.  Also, I haven't done enough other writing today to justify being gone from here another day.  So, it turns out unsurprisingly that the 4th really was a low point and not just a bump in the slide downwards.  Things are definitely looking more possible to my eyes these days.  There are still two big rooms to tackle sorting through (the garage and the laundry/craft room), in addition to fine tuning all the remaining rooms, and lots of selling online, but if I can power through those, I might be in good shape.  There's still a lot on my list, but at least the pace at which things get added to the lists has slowed and I am still plowing through and putting things in the green done color.
    We had dinner with very good friends this evening (and it was nice; I wasn't panicking underneath that I wasn't getting enough done) and I realized both that I've dropped all of my recreational activities except reading the headlines and the comics, and that the psychoemotional aspects of this move are going to be hitting me harder later because I haven't made room for them yet.  It's going to be hard to leave some families.  It's really the kids, though, that make things difficult.  Not only are our respective lives more wrapped up in them than separate, but they change and grow so much faster than we adults.  Three years to them is HUGE because it really is huge, for some of them a whole lifetime we won't be seeing except in snapshots.  I am intellectually certain that we are making a good decision in going, and that the kids will appreciate it as well, but sometimes it feels wrong to be leaving a place that we love and all of the people that make it our home.
    Because the dollar is so reduced in value compared to the euro (as well as the rest of the world's currencies), we are doing more shopping here on this end than we would if the reverse were the case.  And that is falling largely on me, of course, since I'm the one in this country and we need our stuff to be together to be packed up in a week's time.  Tomorrow the kids go shopping with mom for snow pants that fit their growing bodies and birthday shopping/returns at Top Ten Toys, a great toy store.  I hope to get through a large enough portion of the sorting that I feel comfortable getting the other things on the list later in the week.
    The house is really starting to look different.  The plants are all gone (ficus goes this week), the rug is cleaned and rolled for shipping, and the kid's artwork wall is bare.  It's all still a mess, but that's starting to change and it's becoming simply dirty instead.  And, fortunately, this time (except for our monthly party a week from today), dirty isn't really my problem
    It's all going to be fine.  Time to sleep.

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December 4, 2007

    I hope to goddess this is a low point because I don't think I can survive the strain if it turns out to be just part of the slide down.  I've had a drumbeat of an expletive playing in my head all day since the dentist's office called to find out why I wasn't there.  I am not doing a good job of holding it all together.  There's so much that I need to be doing all at the same time that I am losing track of what I'm supposed to be doing at any one moment.  So, obviously, I missed my dental appointment, and am fortunate that I could reschedule for next week.  The kids and I all go in on that day for clean teeth.  I'm going to have to bring something to do so I don't blow a gasket and actually spew the obscenity that's circling my head.
    I've got my mom helping out, but she is waiting on me for a bunch of tasks that I have to decide on or deal with before she can help.  The kids seem to be mis-behaving more with her than they were doing playing by themselves last week (possibly because they are feeling their own- and my- stress about the move that is coming closer and closer), but it also means that I keep having to step in and deal.  The kids had a winter concert this evening so that killed a useful hour and a half.  It was enjoyable music and it was fun to see my kids in their fancy clothes looking so sharp, but with all of the second, first and kindergartners on stage at once, they were packed in such that I could only catch glimpses.   My mother thinks our relationship is broken because I couldn't manage small talk before the concert.  One of my camera settings has been changed that I've never seen before and I will have to read the manual in order to change it back.  My husband was going to help by calling the airlines and dealing with the pets flight, but I ended up having to do it myself.  During which phone call (after getting hung up on twice) the kids exploded again.  A won't fall asleep with mom.
    I'm tired and hormonal and my right wrist has been bothering me for a couple of weeks now.  I keep trying to change how I push on the stroller and lift cast iron pots and things, but it hasn't gotten better.  Beyond hoping and making adjustments, I am ignoring it for the moment (to the point that this is the first mention I've made of it to anyone) because I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS RIGHT NOW!
    Expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive....
    I really, really hate this part.  I miss C and want for us all to be in the same house together.  Eleven more days until he's here, and eleven more days until I have to have the bulk of the things on my list done.  Earlier today I planned to stay up (as I've been doing) and work on things, but after the boys went to sleep and I returned to the computer and the Gargantuan List, I couldn't think of which thing I had planned to do.  Nor could I muster the energy.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.  Hope so.  Because this totally sucks.

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December 1, 2007

    Eventful day.  I was up until 4 am last night doing e-mail triage and the kids got to bed late since I was the Friday night sitter and our guests didn't leave until after 11.  So it was a late morning.  I thought I was going to have time to make a batch of zucchini bread before we were to head to a Dutch neighbor's house for a play date and talk about The Netherlands, but I didn't have time to bake it.  Nevertheless, breakfast was eaten and zucchini bread into pans, and we were dressed and out the door by 10:45.  I carried the pans (without spilling) on the walk while the boys ran ahead and we spent a very pleasant time scented by the smell of cinnamon and vanilla.  M_____ asked what, besides providing us with names and addresses of people in Holland, she could do for us.  I didn't have a good answer.  What do I wish to know about our stay there?  Much of the cultural expectations were addressed by our cultural awareness training and some of the things M______ told me echoed that training or what I saw there.  I guess I want to know the language already.  It feels very wrong to enter a country and not have practiced the language even a little.  I want to know that we will be happy or ways to help A and B adjust and not miss their friends.
    B was pretty sad the other day and said "I don't want to move.  I won't see my friends for three years."  I held him and told him that there were times that I didn't want to move either, times that his daddy didn't want to move.  I told him that his new best friend was probably asleep right then.  Why? he asked.  Because it was 5:30 in the morning in The Netherlands.  He will make good new fiends and then he will be able to come back to his old friends too.  The outburst was triggered also by my exasperation with the boys having to tell them repeatedly to sit down and eat or take care of their plates, and then to do their homework.  Before B cried, I had said that I had a lot to do towards the move and I didn't want to spend my evening telling them the same things over and over.  I think he was feeling the pinch of my being more unavailable to him because of the move and if the move didn't happen, then I would be able to play more games with him and let him stay up late.
    On our walk back to the house it started to snow.  Little flakes that were few and far between and we had to look ahead or behind a whole block just to see if it was still snowing.  By the time we were home and inside and Skyping with C, it had turned into a real snowstorm with thick flakes and real accumulation.  The kids spent a lot of time outside playing in it, in the back yard in the afternoon and in the front yard after dark once my mom arrived from across the state.  Their snow pants are a bit too small for them anymore, but still wearable.  They keep growing.  B was very sad at bedtime that he couldn't go out and play in it because I'd put all of their coats and snow things into the washer (and because it was bedtime).  Mom tried to make him feel better about it by pointing out that it wasn't snowing any longer and that it was melting; there wasn't really any more snow out there.  Since he was sad it was melting and he wouldn't have a chance to go out in it again before it did, this unfortunately made it worse.  It's now raining and I suspect not cold enough to make ice.  I promised it would snow again (though I didn't promise a time frame).
    The kids got a new game for B's birthday, called Labyrinth.  We have all enjoyed playing it and it is enough of a turn-taking strategy game that I don't have to be there until it's my turn.  So I can do other work and still play the game with them.  I have started to work on sorting their toys.  I took apart the dollhouse since that will go into storage.  It doesn't really collapse as much as I thought it would, though even with furniture and dolls and stairs and roof all stacked together it takes up a lot less space than it would put together.  Since we can't put batteries into our main shipment (short, spark, fire, etc.) and it doesn't make sense to leave them in toys in storage, we are removing a bunch of batteries.  I suspect there will be more than I think even when I'm thinking big.  The toy sorting helps me feel like I'm making progress towards being ready for the movers.  I've been spending so much time this week getting other things in order (which were more important and urgent, granted) that I was getting worried again that I wouldn't have time to GET sorted out.  I made so many promises at our survey: "That goes in the main shipment, that goes to storage, that will disappear," and I'm not sure when all of that disappearing is going to happen.  I hope that having mom here helps enough that I can be more comfortable with my pace.
    Still, I need to get to sleep to be optimally functional tomorrow.  I was going to get up early to put the advent calendar up (a day late, obviously) before the boys got up.  We'll see how well that goes.  I don't know if I put it away in a smart place when I was packing up Christmas last year, or not.
    Ok now really.  To bed.

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November 27, 2007

    How the heck does this keep happening?  I snuggle in between the kids and fall asleep with them for about an hour and get up bleary and light-sensitive.  I get a drink of water and confirm that the house is ready to go to bed (lights, locks, food), and feeling a bit more awake, sit down at the computer to blog a bit, after all it's only 11 pm or so.  Then suddenly it's after 1 am and I'm only now starting to write.  Granted I've been doing useful things toward the move on the computer and not lost in an Internet whirlpool or some Solitaire hell, but still.  How'd it get so late?  Ahem.  Anyway.
    In what I suspect will be a pattern over the next three weeks, I spent until dinner time on move stuff (that gargantuan list) with the exception of my run to the school and shower afterwards.  Then I fix dinner (tonight was yummy flank steak and tomato soup from the tomatoes we grew in the garden) and deal with kid stuff until bedtime.  We finished up the bulk of the thank yous tonight after homework, which seems to involve getting each gift out and playing with it or reading it so as to better write a thank you.  We did a better job of reading books tonight and both of the kids are just speeding ahead with their reading.  A read some books to me tonight and his delivery is smoother and he's getting tricky words without any stumbling.  B has been reading silently to himself and is finishing long chapter books with an occasional "what does _____ spell?"  In addition to the evenings, B has been reading at the dinner and breakfast table, with the book spread on the seat next to him, and while he's getting ready for school.  Needless to say, this does not make mealtimes or getting out the door especially speedy or efficient times, but is so like me that I don't mind.  I will encourage him to eat over his plate instead of the library book, and help him put a bookmark in until his shoes are on, but I haven't barred him from reading at the table or taken his books away.  I think our decision to take all of the kid books with us is a wise one.  Even if the mover guy sees lots of folks take a bunch of heavy books with them overseas and not read them, I don't think that will be true of those two bookcases.
    I have greatly expanded an Excel spreadsheet that C started and turned it into my gargantuan list.  Maybe I should capitalize that now: Gargantuan List.  Anyway, I've color coded the action items- pink for my responsibility, yellow for C's, orange for shared, green for done and purple for awaiting someone else's action.  I turned a good number purple and green today, and have ready a prioritized list of items to tackle tomorrow.  My mom is going to come back out and help as well, though I'm not exactly sure when this week she will arrive.  I anticipate she will be a great help now that I have a better idea of what tasks to set in front of her.  Besides, I need help eating up all of the leftovers.
    Everyone keeps reassuring me that this move will go smoothly or that their priority is to make the move easy and worry-free.  Oddly enough, it IS helping.  I am confident that this will happen and maybe not be quite as painful as I anticipated.  A friend at school shared her experience of having her mail packed and her coffeepot arrive still with coffee in it, and since I'm confident I can keep from having those paricular things happen, I feel better.  It does, however, still feel odd to me to use money so freely to fix problems, even when the money isn't ours and the company is paying for problems that we wouldn't have encountered without their sponsoring this opportunity/adventure.  I may have liked my old roommate's saying that all she really needed to travel was her ID, her contraception and her credit card, but I never really adopted that attitude.  I guess (looking at my Gargantuan List again), I still haven't.

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November 26, 2007

    Yikes.  I spent Thanksgiving week without running or writing and I am just starting to recover from the lack.  Of course, I have just noticed that it's quite late and the work on my gargantuan list of things to do has left little time for writing (or sleeping I guess), so this may be a shorter entry than I intended as well.
    Trying to balance my work on the gargantuan to do list with what the kids need has been tricky.  They need me to fix breakfast and dinner, make lunches, and get them to bed with clean teeth when it's bedtime.  I need to purchase groceries for said meals.  They need me to be near them when they do their homework.  I've checked their heads for lice and though fortunately there are no signs of that headache, I apparently haven't gotten the last of the cradle crap off and need to oil and scrub some of that out in a bath tomorrow.  B needed me to throw him a birthday party and now needs me to help him write thank yous to those that gave him gifts.  I need to keep checking on and celebrate with B his first wiggly tooth that showed up yesterday (his front left).  It's not just kid needs, of course.  I need to get exercise to keep sane and healthy so have started back in running to get the kids from school (apparently the dog needed it too - he was actually running ahead of me when we started out while his usual position is behind me at the end of his leash).  Fortunately the houseplants have all gone to my mother's house so I have only the big ficus to remember to water.  I have decided that cleaning my shower (no matter how pink it gets or how much I will cringe if I see the person who must clean it after me) has fallen off my list.  I can't make doing the dishes fall off my list, but it is certainly near the bottom of my priorities and so will pile very high before I tackle them.  Another thing that fell off my list was a big stack of Seattle Times Ticket sections I was going to go through the movie reviews to update the list of movies I want to see.  I had my list up to date up to the time I'd started saving them.  C says I can use iMDB filters for compiling that, but it doesn't have the known reviewer comments that I want.  Well, I guess I would need another mechanism for that while I'm gone anyway.
    I spent today doing miscellaneous bits on my computer, Skyping with C (who left again yesterday very early), talking with Honda about possible purchase of our cars, and of course, the balance thing with the kids.  It was nice to Skype with C.  After an initial touching base phone call-like period, we were essentially working in the same room even though we were on different continents since we were working on our computers doing separate things and occasionally commenting.  The car valuation makes me bummed.  I was quoted numbers much lower than C's company valued them at, so I'm not sure whether to eat the difference, try to dicker, pursue another avenue in trying to sell the cars, or what.  Since we purchased three years ago one of the cars used from the same place that quoted me numbers, and for double the quote, I know that they are going to jack the price when they sell it to someone else.  How much do we choose expedience over the money we leave on the table?  It certainly turns the shopping around I do into dust.  sigh.
    There is more I want to write, but it's too deep into the a.m. for me to delve into it now.  Fortunately I have a list.
    Lots of lists.
    Go to bed, already.
    Going.

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November 15, 2007

    I only have a few more minutes of battery time on the plane.  The kids were busy half-watching Max and Ruby over and over again while they played with their individual screens, until I woke up to the fact that they weren't using my computer anymore.  They've now just started Aristocats and Cars, and I should either take a nap or watch a movie myself.  I should nap.  This will be a long flight.  Fortunately, I am sitting next to my kids.  They were surrounded by two gentlemen, both of whom declined to switch seats with me.  One of them was nice about it and offered to try a three-way switch, but needed leg room because of his height.  The other wasn't and claimed he had a five-year-old and would be happy to sit next to my kids.  I was pretty unhappy and willing to send my kids scrambling over him every time they needed anything; if he has a five year old, I doubt he lives with one.  Apparently some folks didn't make the flight for one reason or another, because though they were oversold, there were a few seats that weren't filled, and the nice gentleman on the left sat in another aisle seat two rows up and I joined my kids.  So far A has climbed over two seats to get out and use the loo during dinner service.  That would not have gone well if I hadn't been sitting next to them.  Anyway...
    I wanted to write about some of the differences between the States and The Netherlands.  The kids noticed the different license plates straight off.  Lots of different types of cars on the road than we are used to.  We didn't see any Hondas parked anywhere or on the road, nor any Toyotas either, so are now a little reluctant to bring our hybrid over.  There were surprisingly a lot of American cars there.  I found those two observations odd in combination.  There were a lot of bicycles, which I expected, but they were all much more slow and tolerant of traffic than bicyclists in the States.  I didn't see any helmets or biking "gear" at all, but suits and nice clothes were common.  I guess if you're not going fast there's no need to shower at the end of your trip.  It seems much more a mode of transport than a sport.
    C told me that one needed to bring one's own bag to the grocery since they didn't give you anything (though they would sell you a bag/basket), but that didn't prepare me for the complete lack of plastic bags.  I would have picked up the litter on the sidewalk if I had seen one blowing around, or been given one at any point in my journey, but there was nary a one.  And there were practically no plastic bottles either.  Most of the "bottled water" was in glass.  I know that glass is much more recyclable than plastic since it just melts down and is re-formed again and again and again without problem, but it was still a surprise to see so few.  I wonder why we in the States are seemingly so much more willing to accept dirty plastic squashed drink containers by the side of the road than glass.  I know I am annoyed when I have to use the dustpan and brush I have in my jogger when I find broken glass on the sidewalk in the States, but am not sure why broken glass isn't a problem in the Netherlands.  I didn't see any, though.
    My list of things I wanted to write about is in my bag under my feet, so I will try to finish this later today.

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November 14, 2007

    We looked at houses today and think we've found one we will be very happy in.  It's empty and available, but there is still a process to go through before we are approved and the details are finalized.  The lack of posts being actually posted and my lack of availability on Skype is because I haven't been connected to the Internet on this computer since we arrived.  I've checked mail on C's work computer because he has an account set up through channels, but haven't been as in touch as I thought I would be.  It was so easy for C to be connected to me when he was here and I was in the States, I blindly assumed that it would be fairly easy for me to be so as well.  But, of course, a fast connection in our new digs is going to be a high priority that C will be working on when he arrives back here after Thanksgiving. 
    It was interesting to look at houses.  We went around in two cars and split the boys and the adults and the representatives from the relocation agency up equally.  It worked well.  C and I both took notes.  The boys were busy in the car with games and mazes, but busy and active when they got together again at each house, but not excessively so.  We saw eight.  The first one was not in an ideal location, but it was nice enough and very encouraging.  We saw at least one stinker (#3) that was quite a bit below our price, and not at all what we wanted.  There was no yard and it looked out over a mini-mall (or shopping center, I think the Dutch called it); it was furnished (which someone in the chain thought we required) and one bed had a bedspread and pillowcases with a five foot motorcyclist with 80's metal rocker hair done in sepia/black and white -- ooh, baby!  It was numbers 4 and 5 that really caught our interest.  Number 5 is too above our price range and though it had a couple features that #4 did not (like carpeted stairs to the more finished attic and a big carpeted three room basement), its garden wasn't as nice, and it wasn't across from a playground or have some other English-speaking children in the neighborhood.  Number 4 felt very nice.  I think we will be happy there.  B doesn't believe me.  He wants to pay all of his money (which of course isn't close to the 400 Euros per month, and is in some sense money that started out as ours anyway) so we can get #5.  He seems to really want an attic; he said "this is what I've always wanted!" to the attics in #4, #5, and #7.  Number 4 had an attic, 5 a more finished attic, and 7 an attic with a push-up entrance to close off the stairs and walk over when up in the attic/loft.  I asked him if he likes the house we're living in now in Seattle, knowing that he wants to live there forever.  At his solemn nod, I reminded him that it wasn't his first choice either, that he wanted a brick house.  I asked him to trust his dad and I to make a good choice and get something that we would all be happy with.  He couldn't.  I suspect it will be fine eventually, but I don't expect him to forget that (if we get it this house) it was his second choice.
    So we now have the heavy lifting out of the way and the kids and I head back home tomorrow.  It will be a long flight.  Perhaps I will nap while the boys watch a movie just so I can safely drive them home from the airport.  C follows in a couple of days and gets to stay a week with us before he returns here.  Tonight was a flurry of packing and his decisions about what to take home versus leave in a big suitcase here in Amsterdam.  Now I should go to bed and snuggle with my husband before we part again tomorrow.

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November 13, 2007

    Fate lent a hand today in my goal to keep my kids ignorant of and out of a McDonalds restaurant until they are old enough to work there (at which point they can make their own decision).  The nice thing about their not knowing anything about the golden arches is that they don't recognize them when they see them.  There is a McDonalds here in Bussum, and it was just outside the library where we spent a large part of our morning getting a map from the VVV and reading books from their English section.  We read a nice little stack of books, and most of the books we looked at were ones we weren't familiar with, and had English rather than American spellings (Elmer's Colours, for instance, which A read).  Then it was time to search out lunch.  We walked through a bunch of interweaving streets looking for some food.  I think the thing that has me the most worried on this trip is making sure the boys get fed and aren't miserable.  When I lived in France for six months my tastes were much narrower than they are now, and I remember the anxiety I felt then when attempting to eat anywhere but in the villa with food I had purchased and could prepare myself.  I didn't eat salad dressing, or mix my foods much, drink alcohol or eat cheese, and the reason that's the time in my life when I gained any non-pregnancy weight of significance (and bumped up a shoe size), is that I ate a lot of bread and chocolate.  Since that's not a route I'm eager to have the boys travel during the days/months/years we stay here, I've been trying to get them some healthy food they will eat.  Breakfast hasn't been a problem, since it's supplied every morning at the hotel, but lunch and dinner have been adventures.  The hotel's dinner service was too nice for our kids' manners and too sophisticated a menu for their tastes.  I can't watch B tear his bacon apart to get to the meat but leave the fat behind at breakfast (or the dinner we had in their elegant restaurant).  It would be easier if I could read Dutch, of course.  We located a Thai place for dinner through a Dutch colleague in Seattle because he was able to do an Internet search and read the results.  We'll try it tonight since it was closed yesterday (common on a Monday; we found a pizzeria yesterday in which the black pepper was too spicy for the kids but the calzone were good).
    Anyway, we walked through the narrow streets, holding hands and looking out for bikes.  It was cold and drizzly and the kids had their hoods up and were wearing the two pair of gloves I keep in my jacket pockets for myself.  We passed a sandwich place with lots of cold thick sausages being laid out on bread that didn't look promising.  We stopped at a pet store to look at the bunnies and check out what might be available for the dog and cat.  We passed a yummy-smelling stall near the fountain with racks of pastries and what looked and smelled like big beignets which we tagged as a place to go back to for dessert.  We went into a place that looked like it might have chicken nuggets in one of their cases, but seemed to be dominated by fish and the smell of fish.  "Ooh, yuck!  Fish!" was A's comment.  We headed back out, but I did remind A that he liked fish.  With nothing promising, I decided to see if there was some way I could cave and get them the breaded chicken pieces they have come to expect when eating out but somehow keep them in the dark about the whole McD's thing.  We headed around the block back toward the golden arches and I was not feeling very good about my choice, but somewhat trapped.  Well, temptation was removed because they are remodeling the McDonalds here and it was closed, closed, closed.
    We looked some more and I found a brasserie that had a menu outside.  I studied it and the only Dutch I could translate were things that wouldn't appeal to them (though I would clearly be fine) and USA hamburgers.  We discussed it outside a long time, and they were not happy, but willing to try.  A really wanted something that he knew, and wasn't feeling adventurous.  B wanted to eat bits of Parmesean like he did at lunch the day before.  We went in and it was wonderful.  They had an English menu (C told me later that most all of the restaurants have at least one), and the server brought the kids a piece of paper and a box of colored pencils.  I had mushroom soup and some good brown bread, B had pasta bolognese, and A had chicken satay (though he didn't want it until I translated it into kidspeak "chicken-on-a-stick.")  All of it was excellent.  The kids were happy; I was happy.  I'm glad I avoided the mega chain fast food vortex.  I hope that if I can avoid it successfully now, I will be able to avoid it even more easily in the future.

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November 12, 2007

    Today we went to look at schools for the boys.  We looked at three public international schools in the communitites we are looking at living in.  We've essentially made our decision, but we haven't done anything furher with it yet.  I'm sure we have to do some more to let folks know what our decision is and make sure our job is done in that respect, but we've already applied and officially been accepted, so it will happen and we'll start when we come over in January.
    The first one (we'll call it X) was split into two buildings and we had to deal with construction and imperfect directions to get there, so we were a little late.  They were very welcoming and friendly.  A and B were a bit nervous and shy, but warmed up a bit as the visit continued.  We met with two administrators and a special needs teacher who had the time to take us around.  We visited the boys' classrooms and got looked over by the kids (between 10-20 kids per class).  A didn't even venture into the classroom, but B did, and I pointed out some of the work they had on the walls.  The size of the gym in the building they would start in was disappointing, especially to B, but I pointed out that not only would he be going to the other gym in the other building next year, but there were also clubs and activities we could take part in that were not at the school itself.  There seemed to be an active parental component to the school's workings and my volunteering there would be clearly welcomed.  This is the school where they want us to hyphenate the kids' names, however, to make it easier for them.  I guess I'm willing to try it, but I am finding myself more reluctant than enthusiastic about it.
    The second school (we'll call it Y) housed a whole bunch of kids from age 4 to 18.  We were a little early and witnessed a number of school yard incidents among the older kids from harrasment and defense to hiding in the bus stop shelter and smoking outside the view of adults.  We circled the school and finally got the attention of an adult who opened the front door for us.  This school was rather abrupt with us and though the administrator showed us around the school, they did not have room for A as there are a lot of siblings of that age that must be accommodated before admitting us.  They had three rooms worth for ages 4-12; one for pre-K and K, one for 1st to 3rd grade, and one for 4th to 6th, each about 12 - 20 kids per class.  I kind of liked the idea of grouping the grades into one classroom, but not enough to overcome the hurdles this school placed.  We would have to wait to start B and wait until the next year to start A at the school; the discipline issues were clearly not being addressed and the kids were not only unsupervised, but clearly not learning about values nor any techniques for dealing with bullies; and there was very little warmth shown - to us as potential visitors, and to the kids of their own school they addressed by name but always in a polite, but corrective manner.  I saw and heard no evidence of parents at the school at any time.
    The third school (we'll call it Z) was also very difficult to get into.  We walked clear around the building looking for a way in before we encountered someone who had a key and would let us in and lead us to the right office for our appointment with the headmaster.  There's clearly a cultural difference at work here about access to the places where people entrust their children.  A had fallen asleep in the car and so I ended up holding him during our meeting and carrying him for the tour.  B fell asleep during the meeting so C carried him throughout the tour as well.  This school had a different cirriculum than the other two and is clearly a growing school.  They had lots of space for our kids and while they are working towards having 15-20 students per class, they hadn't started approaching those numbers yet.  I liked the program as it was described and the amount of interaction between the Dutch department and the international department.  I think A and B would do well there, but the surrounding area was a little mind-numbing in its architecture and housing options.  It is a bunch of new development (reclaimed from the ocean and resting below sea level) and while that would give us more space for our Euro, our objective in moving to The Netherlands is to expand our cultural opportunities, not get the biggest house.  Avoiding any ecological disasters is only a plus.
    So we're going with school brand X.  It was the school the kids liked the best (though they didn't really see school Z) despite their initial shyness and I think it will be good. They have one short day a week (for club sports off campus that start early, I guess), so we'll start the kids on that day, and I plan to be close by for at least the first day, and find a way to volunteer on some regular basis as well.
    I hope our search for housing in a couple days goes as well as our school search did today.

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November 11, 2007

    Oy.  Well, we're here anyway, and it's very good to be a family together again.  But, oy again.  It was a difficult journey.
    Saturday was the plane trip.  We got up early and had waffles.  They wanted to watch the videos that we borrowed from friends and the library for the trip, but I convinced them that they needed to get packed up first with the stuff they wanted for the plane, and eat breakfast.  Unsurprisingly, they ran out of time before they had a chance to turn on the computer, but I promised them we could do that at the airport while we waited to get on our plane.  Late Friday night I made our parking reservation and I had checked in the afternoon before.  C had reassured me that it was the flight back from Amsterdam in which I was going to need to negotiate a seat next to the boys since it is during the week instead of Saturday (during the week, the aisle seats (on a 2-4-2 seat plane) get to pay extra for "business class" fares).  So I felt ready for the airport.  My goal was to set out about 9 am, and we were only about 10 minutes off the mark.
    At the airport I nearly forgot the kids' booster seats in the car, but successfully remembered before the van left the parking lot and ran to get them.  We are packed in two small bags we'll check, the kids are wearing their backpacks, and I have the camera, my purse, the laptop bag with extra space (and stuff), and the booster seats.  Security was a pain as we had seven or eight bins plus two seats for the conveyor belt and only one adult to manage them all through the x-ray machine.  I got chastised for putting one bin with the laptop bag on top of another bin with the laptop pulled out separately.  Yeah, yeah, there's only so much space in which to line up those silly bins and push them through.  I apologized, but I wasn't particularly sorry.  Once through security and off the train to the gate, we parked all our stuff near our gate and waited.  The kids got to watch some Max and Ruby and I found us some water and some lunch.
    C had said that sleeping on the plane would be possible.  He said that they turn the cabin lights off and if he didn't actually say it would be easy, that's what I heard.  He did it easily.  He said to be sure to try to get them as much sleep as possible.  I really, really tried.  Obviously, since the plane left about 1 in the afternoon, I was going to let them watch a movie first before trying to get them to nap.  The cabin lights were on and there was sun outside the windows then.  They watched on my laptop with headphones and I watched an inflight movie (the Bee Season).  Dinner came in there somewhere, we negotiated the bathroom any number of times, a snack, and it's all now blurring together.  Every seat had a screen to watch set into the seat in front of it, plus there were two more larger ones visible that continuously showed the time, time left, outside temperature, wind speed, km flown, km left, and traced a path on a map from Seattle to Amsterdam.  This got to be very discouraging as time went on and nobody slept.  It was very hard for A and B to sleep in the middle of their day with so many toys around them.  Even when I had put away the laptop and their screens had turned off, the screens of the people around and in front of them were still going.  There was a teenage boy in front of us who played Bejeweled, watched the Simpsons movie, and Transformers, and the Fantastic Four.  I gave up for a while and let us all start a game of Bejeweled (since it was a game that they knew; I refused to teach B solitaire or figure out the controls enough to help him with another game).  This was a mistake, partly since I was exhausted and completely ready to nap myself, and partly because I was awake enough to play the game without losing.  Finally, after level 12 or so I just quit the game.  ("Are you sure you want to quit?"  YES!)  Just as I was making a little bit of headway with my urges to "just try to go to sleep, here lean against me," we returned from the bathroom to find the cabin lights on again and breakfast coming around.  It was all over after that.
    Actually, A did sleep a little -- seven minutes before touch down (at just after 10 pm Seattle time and 7 am Europe time) he fell asleep.  Of course, I had to wake him up to get off the plane.  There was no way I could carry all our stuff and A too, so there was no option, but it was quite a challenge just the same.  It's rather a brutal flight because the time difference eats your sleep time almost exactly and you kind of skip a night.
    Immigration was as simple as possible (how long are you staying? five days; A?  B? they looked up appropriately and that was it), and we proceeded to baggage claim.  We spotted C through the glass doors and he waved enthusiastically.  A was now awake and they were both a big giddy and needing to move.  We collected our two bags, proceeded through some bored looking folks next to an automatic door marked "Nothing to declare" and that was customs.  We greeted C (hooray!) and the kids ran around (quite literally) while we rented a car and I yawned ferociously.  We drove to the hotel and A fell asleep on the way.  It was only a surprise that B didn't as well.  We tried to wake him up for breakfast in the hotel, but it didn't take and he spent the whole meal with his head on his hands on the table.  The rest of us had food, though and then went upstairs.  B and I crashed from about 10 until 2 while C took a walk around the town.  We'll call that Saturday.
    Today (Sunday) it was SO hard to wake up.  I kept trying to stretch my face so my eyes wouldn't drift shut again, but couldn't move it that far.  I'm sure I looked ridiculous.  It was even harder to wake the kids though.  C opened the curtains so the sunshine streamed in on us, but it was still the middle of the night as far as we could tell.  Knowing that being outside was key to re-adjusting, we planned to walk to a park in the sun.  Unfortunately, by the time we got outside it was cold and rainy.  Complaints from the kids had us going to the car instead to find some food for A (who hadn't had breakfast) and then the park to eat the kipnuggets (chicken nuggets) in.  B was pretty miserable, but A was more awake.  He did get more sleep than his brother, so I understand why.  We found the park wet and cold - it had a small canal through it and some signs for keeping your "honden" on a "lijn" though we saw several dogs, none of which were on leash.  We found the last rays of the sun for a couple of minutes that we went and stood in, but it seemed a paltry thing to throw at our jet lag.  After that we came back and the kids watched more movies.
    A crashed again just in time for dinner.  Watching A eat and sleep at dinner tonight was pretty comical.  He had his head on his arms on the tablecloth when the bread course came and we woke him up, but not entirely successfully.  C helped hold A's head so it didn't bump against the back of his chair as it wobbled.  A would squint his eyes open a crack and take a bite of bread.  Then he would close his eyes and his head would flop over or nod, but he would keep chewing the whole time.  Then he would get another bite and chew until he needed another.  Sometimes he would accept a drink of water, and at times his frequency would slow down, but he was clearly asleep over half of the time he was actually eating.  He woke up further by the time dinner came.  He didn't even know he'd had any bread already.
    B has adjusted much better to the time difference.  We'll see if it lasts and what effects it has on our return trip.

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November 9, 2007

    Our house feels very empty, though I'm sure that it is not nearly as empty as it will be within the next two months.  First, mom packed all of the plants in my house (except our huge ficus) up into her car to plant-sit them until our return.  That's 31 pots including the lemon tree; her car looked verily like a jungle and it was good she left in the evening since the only thing she was going to be able to see through her back window (or any direction but up and left), was headlights.  The ficus we will farm out locally since it's really too big to go far in this weather.  Next, mom left and I dropped kids off at babysitting.  I did successfully do something besides pack during my sitting time, as I spent the evening at the mall getting essentials, deciding I'd wait to get to Amsterdam to buy another pair of jeans, and finding only one of the three books I want available.  Then, I picked up the dog and dropped him off.  After the kids were asleep, it was only the cat and me staying up late and getting everything packed up and ready to go.  I forget until it's missing how much sound the dog makes just moving around with his collar and doggy sighs.  And the house looks very odd without its interior greenery.  When we loan out our ficus it will be even more dramatic -- that thing has been a little bit in people's way since we put it in the dining room.
    Tomorrow's the big long short day.  I kept the kids up late and will get them up early in hopes that they sleep on the plane.  Since we're essentially flying through all of the kids' 9 sleep hours on our way east, it will be a very very long day unless they sleep some.

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November 8, 2007

    Today I'm worried about the pets.  If we're packed up, have an empty house, and are living in a hotel for the kids' last week of school here, on to the in-laws for Christmas and then to our new home, what happens to the dog and cat?  Since they need to have their international pet certificate signed by our vet within 10 days of their flight, obviously we're coming back to collect them after the in-laws.  That also has some other potential advantages with last minute details here.  But that still begs the question of what happens to them.  What happens to them from the time the movers come to spread boxes? ("Ooh, boxes!" says the cat, and we DON'T want her packed in a box for storage or even container shipping to The Netherlands, no matter how many birds she releases in the house.)  Do we split them up?  Where do they stay?  What about the flight?  How does that work?  And if we board the kitty (a dedicated outdoor indoor animal) will she hate us and run away by the time she comes to live with us in a new city where it's not nearly as hot and dry as she would like it, I'm sure?  Is this a one way trip for our 10-year-old dog?
    Tomorrow I have to take the animals to the vet for their rabies shots (over 30 days and less than a year from move date), get cash for the painter already, pick a stain color for the wood trim and let painter guy do the interior work before I leave, clean out the refrigerator, say good-bye to mom, pack up everything I'm going to need, get our neighbor to look in on the house, drop off the dog at his sitter's, make sure the cat has enough food and water, take the compost out, check in for our flight, and do something for myself in honor of having babysitting and a newly minted birthday (but will probably turn into packing anyway).  Oh, and sleep because the next day is going to be very short and very long.
    I get a lot of questions answered today, though of course new ones pop up after mowing down the current crop like mushrooms in the rain.  Nevertheless, I haven't had the time to think about my first trip to The Netherlands, and the place I will be living for the next three years, except in the sense of surviving the plane flight with kids, making sure I have done everything I'm supposed to, and looking forward to seeing my husband again.  "Amsterdam?  I'm sure it will be fine.  Let me get a look at the inside of some stores and a likely place to live so I can plan better," I seem to be saying.  Which is a shame, probably.  It was going and looking at a castle that helped C feel more relaxed about the move, after all.  On the other hand, I'm sure it WILL be fine.  A most excellent adventure, even, and a great opportunity for the kids.  I'll mostly just be very happy to be all together again, reunited and with plans to stay that way.
    At least we'll get temporarily reunited in about 47 hours time.  Not that I'm counting.

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November 7, 2007

    I spent last night struggling with B's birthday invitations.  Because our digital pictures have overwhelmed this laptop's memory, I started undertaking the process of moving them to an external drive.  Unfortunately, it has caused any number of problems that I'm not sure how to fix and still keep the work that we've invested in organizing and tagging them.  I ran into the problem last night when trying to create and print B's cards.  I beat my head against that wall for a while and then printed the picture I wanted 42 times, made a word document with the information, and decorated them with blue splashes of poster paint and his picture glued on the fronts.  This morning I wrote in the time of the party which I had forgotten to include on all 42.  Since the party space only has room for 40 bodies, I am perversely hoping that a bunch of folks will be out of town all Thanksgiving weekend and send their regrets.  Fixing our photo files is going to have to take a back seat for a while.
    Also I have to spend some time this morning getting a large amount of cash for our painter.  Maybe I can get my mom to take Halloween decorations down.
...
    I have to remember to eat lunch.  It makes a big enough difference that you'd think I would remember, but I don't.  Maybe I need an alarm.  Talked to C today and that helped a lot too.  The option of shipping stuff without sorting it until we get there does exist, and C is looking into whether it makes sense for us to ship over the hybrid.  Our couches are staying for certain, and our king-size bed, under the belief that they are too big for either or both the doorways and the rooms.  It will make me sad to leave our couches and a big snuggly bed for three years, but there's really no way for them to fit.  They barely fit our doorways.  I did finish the kitchen, though there are some attached kitchen bits (other side of the peninsula, china cupboard in the dining room) that still remain.  I have questions about foodstuffs and what can go or not, but I'll get those answered soon, I hope.
    C stayed up late so the boys could talk to him on Skype after school.  It seemed to help B quite a lot.  It's not too long before we visit, after all, even though it feels like it sometimes.  I just realized a few minutes ago that I have a lot of food that won't necessarily last until I return.  I've been concentrating on using up the freezer instead of using up the refrigerator, and now I'm going to be sending produce home with mom.  I got some rutabagas in the organic produce box today, partly because they have become somewhat of a joke word in our house, but they will last until I return, I'm sure.
    Oops, kid woke up.

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November 6, 2007

    B cried a lot at bedtime today, clutching a teddy bear that used to be C's when he was little that has very little stuffing and a scar around its neck.  He really misses his daddy.  I miss C too.  It seems like it just keeps getting harder and harder.  The length of time C is away gets longer, and while there is a respite coming up, it's at the end of a ten hour flight with two kids and I don't have a seat next to them yet.  I had a pleasant number of birthday calls today, but they were interspersed with solicitation calls, voting pleas, and a Skype call with C in which I had to remind him what day it was.  I have been urged to take time for myself one of these days to celebrate somehow, I'm not sure how or when I can squeeze that in.  I am still sorting the kitchen and there is still the garage, closets, bookshelves, and the kids' toys and clothes to go through.  I am feeling overwhelmed and tired and sad.  While all of these are understandable given my situation, they are also right on time for hormone-induced craziness.
    Okay, I can't do this tonight and be a good mother or daughter tomorrow.  I've got to go to bed.

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November 5, 2007

    I realized today that the sorting process needs to take precedence over the projects I'd like to get done.  And that getting ready for the trip we're taking in five days trumps that too.  The deadline for sorting out what goes is the 21st and I'm gone for a week before that.  While mom is tackled the mending, I finished sorting my closets, paring down and dedicating an area to storage, and an area to the donations I will be making.  I found that sorting my t-shirts to be the most mentally difficult process to start of all my clothing.  I have enjoyed having a (very large) drawer all for my t-shirts and rotate through them regularly, but since there's no way I'm taking 60 t-shirts with me to Europe, I needed to store some.  But I didn't want to.  I did it, though.  I guess I'll wear the ones I'm storing until we pack our suitcases and they pack our boxes to go.  I still have a lot of questions about how that process is going to work and the timing of our plans, but they will wait a little bit.  At least until I have other questions answered, like what sort of house are we going to end up in and what does that mean for what we're taking versus storing.  Since mom is kindly washing dishes this evening, I think I will tackle the kitchen tomorrow.
    I went and got my new passport pictures today and am (surprisingly) very pleased with how they came out.  And C will be very happy that his (birth certificate) apostille came in the mail today.  That means that he can get his work visa and his official start date of December 1 is not endangered.  (I know, he's over there working now, but while he's working at his new job, his old branch is paying him and he's legally on a business trip.)  Now we're just awaiting that darn California.
    Mostly I am very, very sleepy, so will bag it for this evening.  Lots to do tomorrow.

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November 4, 2007

    I have moved through a massive amount of paper and information in the last day and a half.  My goal has been to get together a complete list of questions I have about the move and a complete list of things I need to do (or have done).  It has been somewhat slow in coming because I have been working on completing some of the action items as I go along.  There is something inefficient in taking in the information and not doing anything with it (and having to review it again later).  For instance, instead of just putting "renew my passport" on the list, I put get passport pix on the PDA to do list for this week, downloaded the right form, filled it out online, and now all I have to do is await the pictures and my return from Amsterdam.  Although somewhat slow (but thorough!), I'm making real progress and it feels pretty good.  I hope to be done with this important part tomorrow and can get to more of the projects that involve sorting or mom can help me with.
    While I was working on this stuff, the kids took advantage of mom's single status (and her desire to stay connected to her many suitors while she is away from home) and managed to get injured.  After returning from a bike ride together, mom came in and left them playing happily in the front driveway.  They came inside a few times, and once when I ran downstairs to the printer, they took some hammering tools outside.  Mom said, "Oh, I know what those are for," so I let it be.  Then in a bit, B ran inside yelling for grandma to help A, who was in the back yard with his fingers pinched and caught between two boards of the fence between front and back.  B had pried them apart in an attempt to destroy the fence and A had put his fingers in the gap from the other side.  While I took care of A, I directed B to bring the bikes back to the garage, and mom went out to talk to him.  When A was ready to do something besides deal with his fingers and play more on the computer, B was alone outside in the front driveway again.  They don't usually get to play outside in the front yard without supervision (I usually take the opportunity to weed or prune) and I don't think they're likely to get many more chances from me.  When I asked B some curiosity questions about what he was doing, he (unsurprisingly) had been exploring his world of tools and deteriorating boards without thinking about consequences for the fence or the dog getting out or someone getting hurt.  He's six.  I don't expect him to anticipate such sophisticated consequences to his explorations; it's part of my job to help him through those thoughts until he CAN do it by himself.  I anticipate helping him and his brother navigate some of those thought processes for years and years given what scientists know about brain maturation these days.  A's (left) middle finger looks like it might have blood blisters on the tip, and he said it still hurt before bed tonight, but he suffers no other after-effects.  Of course, when I asked B at dinner what he learned today, his reply was, "Don't jump on Grandma," neatly avoiding my arched eyebrow, so there's a slight possibility B might not suffer any after-effects (like learning) either, though when I asked him earlier what he would do differently next time he said "Don't do it," so it is slight.
    Well, I shouldn't squander last night's daylight savings double hour by staying up too late tonight.  Poor C missed it since Europe went off daylight savings time before he left and we went off while he was still there.  He says it's his favorite day of the whole year, which says something, though not perhaps exactly that it really is.  I spent my hour up later instead of sleeping (especially since the cat woke me up earlier than the sun), which is apparently not unusual, so need to get to bed.

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November 3, 2007

    I have discovered the ideal outfit with an iPod in the cool temperatures we keep our house to be a turtleneck with a pocketed flannel shirt over top.  My birthday iPod is wonderful, but C has it in Amsterdam and I have his since the iTrip module only fits his and the car is here with me.  The neoprene armband he has for running will fit, but is annoying if you want to look at the screen and rate music or check titles for playlists, so a pocket on my upper body seems to be working the best.  It's funny how minutia like this comes out of my fingers when I sit down to write.  Is it just easier to grasp and so is picked up first in my head?  Perhaps.  Maybe if I pick up enough of them I will start to get to the more substantive ideas and words.
    Somehow yesterday passed without an entry.  Mom was much later arriving than expected, and it was good to actually experience sitting the five kids in our tri-family Friday rotation alone without any problems or unhappiness.  I was glad that she was here by bedtime so I could lay down with my boys while she entertained the remaining kid (who stayed awake for another hour), but even if that were to happen while I was on my own, I'm sure I could manage to make it work.  While waiting for C to wake up so we could Skype (it didn't happen--he stayed up until 4 am playing computer games and slept until noon), mom and I finished cataloging the remaining kid books into LibraryThing.
    I've started through the many piles of paper atop various surfaces in this house to try and make some order, and to help me make a list of the things I need to do and the questions I need to have answered.  There are a bunch of folks lined up by (or in) C's company who have been talking to him but have been directed to me and will start calling me.  I have let C be in charge of all the details of this move for too long without much involvement and it is time for me to step up and make sure that I have the information I need to make this go smoothly.  While I can pass on the mending and some of the other wrapping up tasks to my mother while she is here, this organization process is what I see as my first task.  I admit taking some time today to catch up on my xkcd reading, checking my mail, chatting with C on Skype (ending with my Wait a minute!! What are you doing up (at 3 am)??), and reading the paper, but I can't be expected to spend ALL my time getting ready for this move, can I?  Of course, I really should do a bit more winnowing and listing before I head to bed, so I will finish up writing here and tackle this surface.  Weightier thoughts will have to wait a bit longer, sorry.

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November 1, 2007

    I found the organiztion for all my old business clothes, Dress for Success.  I'm not one of the sizes they need the most, (except possibly my big shoes), but it feels like a better place for my interview suits than Goodwill or Value Village.  I went through a bunch of my closets yesterday and discovered clothing that has been hanging there for years that does not fit me anymore and never will (not much I can -or care to- do about the bone movement associated with birthing two babies).  I also discovered clothing that fits that I had forgotten about and have started to wear again, which is nice too.  I have done a preliminary purge, but I haven't made final decisions on all of them about taking them with me or putting them in storage.  I may well have a better idea after I visit The Netherlands, at least I hope so.
    Halloween was all right.  Judging from the bowl of candy being mostly still full when we returned to our house, it seems there was not much trick-or-treating that happened in our neighborhood.  The neighborhood we traveled to to trick-or-treat (around their school) was quite crowded, on the other hand.  Next time I must remember to insist that they go to the bathroom before we set out.  The amount of time my kids spend dancing the potty dance and denying that they have to go is incredible to me.  Oy.  The kids have plastic pumpkins that are stuffed to the brim, though I'm quite sure that they don't like all of the candy in there.  I guess I'll do trades for the undesirables with lollies (which we now have an excess of) and figure out who to give the candy to.  I don't want it either.  A went as Batman during the day (his school party) and a snow leopard at night, and B went as Batman at night, though his utility belt and cape came off by the end.  I had thought it was going to be easy to find a black mask at the thrift store on Halloween, but ended up decorating a brimless black QFC hat with duct tape ears colored black.  Ah well, the bat symbol was easy and it came together pretty quickly.
    It's a new month with a lot going on.  I am taking tomorrow morning for a haircut and massage, my mom comes to help for a week, I must vote, I turn 38, I take the kids to Amsterdam, C comes back for a week, there's a game night, Thanksgiving, B's birthday, cultural awareness training, school conferences, meeting with the company booked to move our stuff, the outside of our house gets painted, and lots of sorting, donating, and cleaning out.  Phew.  Cleaning house has fallen near the bottom of the list a little too often and our house is truly a pit.  At least I washed the dishes this morning so I can use the kitchen instead of avoiding it like the plague it was.
    Skype really helps me feel closer to C than has been the case on other business trips.  I can see him and hear him in with an almost imperceptible delay and it has really helped.  I can't touch him, however, and there's no one to tell me to go to bed, but it's better than just cell phones. 
    Well, gymnastics is over and I need to return to the regularly scheduled broadcast.

    Poop-a-doop and a half.  There's nothing to motivate one to vacuum like the shredded feathers off a bird the cursed cat brought inside.  The kids were very unhappy to hear that we would be picking up all the myriad toys in the basement until we found the bird -- and very relieved when I found it before they really had to start.  Oregon junco.  I don't know why I'm always so surprised to find them so light in my hand.  I give them the weight of terrestrial objects instead of beings that can take wing and fly away.  I do wish this one had escaped the terrestrial cat.  sigh.  Now that the kids have done their homework, gotten their nails clipped, and trundled off to bed, I am off to pick up and vacuum.

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October 30, 2007

    Skype is great!  I just finished my first conversation with C on it.  It's nice to talk without any pressure (it's free), it's great to see him and be seen (we both have cameras), and it's totally easy to use.  I look forward to using it from there to folks here (hint, hint).  He's eight hours different since Europe went off daylight savings time and we have another week of it still.  It will be interesting to see what that does to Halloween trick-or-treating since it won't be dark as soon as it usually is.  I'm still figuring out what we're doing for the evening exactly and where.  I'd like to take the kids out with the same friends in the same neighborhood as we did last year, but I haven't talked to M___ about it yet.  The kids haven't completely settled on a costume yet either.  And I need to undecorate a bit today so that the pressure washing of our house can begin tomorrow and we can get our house painted before we go.
    I now have a deadline by which I need to be able to point to things and say what goes with us and what goes into storage: November 21.  I guess I had better get busy sorting...

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October 29, 2007

    Somehow today seems to be the start of this whole Amsterdam adventure.  I took C to the airport today (and then, unfortunately, he ended up waiting during a 2 hour delay) and took the opportunity to learn the back route there and back, and actually, the route back to the main highway when I decided my errands would be best concluded from there.  It wasn't difficult, by any means, but it was something I hadn't done.  Well, hadn't done successfully, that is.  Now I feel capable of getting to the airport no matter which artery is clogged with traffic -- just in time to leave the city and adjust to a new one.  I am seeing this foreign adventure as an opportunity to feel better about making mistakes, take on challenges, stretch my brain, learn things, admit when I don't know $%@!, and increase my willingness to try new things.  Somehow, admitting to C that I didn't know how to get to the airport the back way (with him to help navigate since he's done it a zillion times) qualified to me as a step in that direction.
    I was worried I lost my PDA today.  That is, I DID lose my PDA today, but I successfully recovered it.  I ran to get kids (as usual) today and since I had time, I did the extra loops (both of them) that I add in to increase the distance.  I didn't sufficiently zip the pocket in the jogger into which I put the PDA, phone(s), and keys into, and possibly since I am carrying C's phone around in addition (it's no use to him over there and I can better direct his calls if I've got it), but mostly because I foolishly didn't zip it up, the PDA fell out somewhere on the route between home and school.  Naturally, once I retrieved kids, I backtracked my route, this time with an additional 100 pounds.  It was on the second extra loop (fortunately not too far in) that I found it in the grass near a curb, untouched and unhurt.  Thank you, PDA gods!  I have been backing up with some regularity since I am not sure how much life this one still has in it, but I am glad nonetheless not to have to replace it right now.  Since the grade is slight going up compared to some of the monster hills I DO go up and down, I hadn't noticed how many hills I go up on the route I usually run.  Yay me.
    When the kids and I returned home they wanted to go around the block on their bikes and asked if C was going to go with them instead of me.  They quickly got accustomed to having him around last week, but he really is gone.  I pulled up the shade on the little window next to his side of the bed he needs closed to get to sleep, I tossed his pillow, his towel, and all his remaining clothes hanging about into the laundry, and stretched out my towel over both towel racks in the bathroom.  I have to deal with all the mail myself, and can toss the paper in the recycling when I am done with it instead of checking to see if he's done, but while I will do the Sunday Sudoku puzzle, I won't touch the crossword puzzles we do together in competing pen colors.  Homework, dinner, reading, and bedtime all went fine by myself.  I've responded to most of the mail C sent me while he was waiting for his flight to depart, and I've cleared a space in the art room for my laptop tricked out with camera for Skype for when he's on the ground.  Another family (friends from kids' school) is going through something similar but much more dire since K__ left for Iraq this morning and won't return until January.  He's a diplomat rather than a soldier so I hope that offers him some protection, but my thoughts are with them all.  Not that I am ready to, but the idea of whining about my circumstance gets stomped on in comparison.

    We've come to an interesting dilemma, and the first fall-out from our decision to surname A and B differently.  [B shares C's last name and A shares mine.  Why?  Well, why not?  Because I wasn't happy changing my name when we married, and because the possible combinations of our hyphenated names sounds either like an adjective-noun or a noun-verb, we knew that any future members of the family were not going to match last names with both of their parents.  While adopting a new family name is a possibility two sets of our friends have done successfully, it wasn't a matter of taking his name that was uncomfortable for me, but changing my own in the first place, so that wasn't an option for us either.  Since C is the only son of an only son (and his sisters were incredibly unlikely to keep their last names AND pass them on to children), it was somewhat important to the family that our first boy share C's last name.  Since B was first, he does.  And, since we planned to have two, our second was to share my surname, male or female.  A does.]  One of the schools we are applying to said that since A and B don't share a last name, "our school database will unfortunately not recognize both boys as coming from the same family, which may have some unwanted effects e.g. with school/home mail, invoices, parent/teacher conferences etc. etc." and suggested that "we use both names hyphenated instead of using separate names for each boy."  I don't really have a problem with it if it's mainly for the computer system and nobody is making the kids write their own names differently.  We've used the adjective-noun form ourselves somewhat in a playful manner for family things like webpages.  It's too bad, though.  I LIKE sharing my last name with A.  Somehow it makes me feel more like a part of the family and that the family is a unit.  Besides, it evens out the pairings.  C and I are the adults, A & B the kids; C and B share a name, A and I another; and C and A share a birth month, B and I another.  We all have a uniqueness as well: C is the only one with sisters, I am the only female, B is the only one born in this state, and A is the only one not a first-born.  Those are all the possible alignments for four.
    Well, it's getting late and I need to sleep so I can get a bunch done tomorrow.

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October 28, 2007

    Tomorrow's the big day for C.  I have helped pack his suitcases tightly (but not so tightly that his suits crease immutably) and he is pretty ready.  Not that he feels ready.  Nor do I really, but since it wouldn't help for me to fall apart the same time that he is, I try not to.  We can't think of a time since we've been married lo these dozen years that we've been apart for so long.  Week-long trips have been somewhat frequent, but two and three week trips haven't been at all.  It's very strange to think that the next time I see him will be in another country.  There are so many logistical hurdles between there and now that I suspect it seems longer than it will actually turn out to be.  Nevertheless, I think time takes longer when it stretches, so it actually will be as long as it seems.
    This is a great opportunity to purge some of the stuff from our lives that we don't need and contributes to our psychic obesity.  At the same time, however, I have had a very hard time throwing anything away.  If it can be recycled, or reused, I am so much more willing to get it out of my house.  There was a call for craft supplies a couple of weekends ago, and I went through the drawer in which I had been throwing the little bits and pieces that kids could work into sculptures and/or might be useful someday.  That was totally easy because I knew someone else would find some value in it when I gave it all to them.  But throwing away worn out holey underwear is not something I want to do because the cloth still has some use.  I can find a dozen sites telling me how to make rag rugs in a one minute search online, for instance.  I take seriously the part of my footprint that involves throwing stuff into a landfill.  I guess I need to build time into my schedule to deal with disposing of the things we want to get rid of in a "proper" manner, meaning something I am comfortable with and is ecologically and logistically sound.  Just as I will be donating the curry paste and the other perishables in my refrigerator and freezer to friends who actually cook, I would like the clothes my kids have outgrown to go to kids who need it, the professional clothes I am discarding to go to poor or homeless women in need of good interview clothes, et cetera.  And if I need to box up the thrift store rejects for a rag rug project on my return, at least they're paying the storage and I don't HAVE to throw them away this month.  When I return in three years, perhaps I will make a different decision.  Another message to take from this whole mess is that I ought to get rid of the clothes before they completely fall to pieces and present me with this dilemma.  Except that (apart from underwear which is solely an inertia problem) most of the clothes that completely fall to pieces do so because they are well-loved and wore out because they're worn.
    Okay.  Well, like Frederick, I need to store up some of C for the coming winter, so I'm going to wrap up here and go do other more interactive things than sit across the table from him and work on our separate blogs.
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October 23, 2007

    If I start an entry for today, I'm more likely to finish one, since I've invested the tag and typing the date.  But there is a lot to do that I should be doing as well.  Too bad I can't work simultaneously on some of these projects, I wish I didn't need to sleep, and I hate that the stupid ones take so darn long.
    C is out with friends from work, A is asleep (fighting a cold, he zonked out on the floor and slept through the transfer to bed), and B is watching videos downstairs.  C and I met with our lawyer about our will, started sorting categories (electronics and stereo equipment; one of the easy ones) into storing and bringing with us, and transferred all of our belongings from the car we are selling soon to the one we will be selling when we are ready to leave.  The dishes need doing from game night, I need to get dinner, water plants, and my e-mail is a huge backlogged mess again.
    The craft fair went well, though I didn't sell out by any stretch of the imagination.  It was mostly fun rather than a money-maker.  A friend suggested I needed a web site with which to sell my bags, and pictures, etc., but while that is a great idea, that is more work in the wrong direction than I am prepared to expend at this moment.  It certainly seemed possible to dive into the craft fair routine and spend all of my weekends around the holidays sitting on my bum and listening to people's empty promises that this was their scouting day and tomorrow they would buy.  Sounds delightful, no?  I suspect that a web site would be better than that, at least, but it also will need to wait for my return.  I'm fairly certain I can't sell in The Netherlands.
    Things are coming together as far as figuring out what's what with the trip.  C has a bunch of numbers and names and they are all in the process of not getting back to him and answering his many questions.  But we do know some things about what they will pay for and what they won't.  Still, we need to pick a school before we can pick a place to live.  Once we pick a place to live, we will know how much space we have and can make some better decisions about what goes and stays.  We may be able to go over on a scouting trip after C starts and before we head over, but details of that are still fuzzy too.
    And my neighbor came over with a writing challenge for the two of us, a notebook page of writing every day for three years, November 1 to November 1, 2010.  While I gamely accepted, I have doubts about my abilities to follow through with exactly what she wanted.  Writing during those three years, yes.  Every day?  Oy.  I barely manage to do anything every day.  And writing a page takes longer than brushing my teeth.  Ah well, we shall see.  I've responded to writing challenges successfully and recently in the past, so who knows.  It'd be good for my blog, I'm sure.
    Ha.  And with that, I am going to wrap it up and hie to bed.  I'm exhausted and those dishes are just going to have to pile higher.
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October 4, 2007

    Well, we've started to see the paperwork, though so far all the real information we have is the commitment we have made to the process of moving to take this job in Amsterdam, C's start date of November 1, and that it is a three year posting (not two with the option for another year).  All of the remaining (and to me, most important for planning) details have yet to be communicated to us.  Which is frustrating.
    B has been less bored in school of late, which is very good, and I haven't heard any "I don't want/have to go to school today" statements in a while.  We didn't actually do any agitation for change with the teachers, partly because we were refining our message and partly because we don't really feel comfortable making too big a stink for what amounts to be three months.  Now he wants me to explain how to do double digit multiplication and has very much enjoyed my stop-gap suggestion to take a protractor to his math group, draw polygons, measure the interior angles and sum them up.  The total should be the (number of sides - 2) * 180.  On Tuesday that was his favorite part of the day (he did an octagon and came up with 1085, which is impressively only 5 degrees off considering the short and somewhat wavy lines he was using to measure).
    A dove into kindergarten and is enjoying himself immensely.  He is taking chances in his reading and attempting things he isn't yet ready for.  Still, he often succeeds and is happy to put a bookmark in the book and tackle more the next evening when he gets tired (or frustrated).  He would like some spelling homework like his brother and did very well at the words I had him spell last night, only missing "bruther."  I have volunteered in the classroom a couple of times so far and it is interesting watching him.  He is much more attuned to his peers than his brother (who is more attuned to adults and could be counted on by his teacher not to be engaged or distracted by his neighbors).  A follows what his neighbors are doing much more closely.  While this doesn't yet appear to be an insurmountable problem, it will be interesting to see how it develops as he gets older.
    I am gearing up to sell cloth gift bags at the school arts and craft fair fundraiser in a week and a half.  It's my first attempt at selling them so we'll see how it goes.  I mostly envisioned exhausting my stock of bags, but since I have a bunch of cloth purchased for just this purpose, and given the paucity of my current supplies, I am sewing a bunch more.  Of course, I don't know if I will be left with nothing at the end of the fair, or if I will have a whole bunch for our family to use for the next few years.  As well as judging demand and the supplies needed, pricing them is also mostly a stab in the dark.  Well, even if I don't sell any, at least I will spread the idea a bit further.  It has certainly transformed our Christmases.  It is so convenient and easy to pick the appropriate size, bag the gift, tie it closed and tag it and be done.  We don't end up with a mountain of paper to recycle or burn, the bags get reused year after year, and it makes for a quieter Christmas.  The only possible down side is my brother's propensity for guessing what is in the package by feel, though this can be thwarted by putting the present in a disguising box first.  Ecological and beautiful too.
    Now I really need to get into high gear on this whole move thing.  It has been hard to wrap my head around all that needs to be done partly because there is still so much we don't know.  Now that we have a date for C's leaving, we really need to get scheduled the things that we need him here for.  My mom is likely to come out and help in November, which will help me empty the freezer.  I find it hard to cook the meals it will take to empty it if I am just feeding me and the kids.  And lots of people seem to want to get together with us and wish us well (our realtor called us yesterday and wants to take us to dinner) so scheduling those will complicate our evenings as well.  I need to start packing, taking inventory, and making a lot of decisions about what to do with a lot of our things.  If life would stop so I can work on this project, I'm sure it would go more smoothly, but that's not going to happen, so bumpy it will be.  I am looking forward to having more information with which to work.

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September 27, 2007

    Bleaugh!!  It has been crazy around here.  Even now I feel like I am stealing time from other things I ought to be doing RIGHT NOW to be writing here.  I've been spending some time tackling some projects that have been on my plate literally for years, and I screwed up the Latin translation on one and don't know whether to scrap all my work (and the $$) and re-do it or fix it somehow or just leave it incorrect.  School has been crazy busy and B has been having a hard time because it is too easy for him; we've been scrambling to find ways to fix that for the few months that we are here.  C is out of town again, this time, unfortunately, because his grandmother died and he's across the country for her funeral.  He's also trying to renew his passport before they want him back in The Netherlands again.  As for that, it is almost certainly a go, and though we still haven't seen paper, it is in the hands of his HR department.  The most likely scenario is that he start work in Amsterdam in November and we follow and move the family after Christmas.  There is almost certainly some travel back and forth for him before we move, and he has a strong wish not to leave me in charge of everything, but it's not yet clear how much or when.  [Back in '98 when we moved to the Bay Area he skipped off ahead and left me to finish painting the outside of the house and pack everything in a week of 100 degree heat.  Now we have two kids and a cat in addition to the dog, and we're not driving a few hundred miles.  I understand and appreciate his desire to help this time, but I'm not sure how helpful he can be given that he's likely to be on another continent for a long while.]
    And there are hundreds of thousands of decisions that need to be made.  Do we take things, leave things, purge things, store things (for each separate "thing")?  Do we get the comfort kits that we are supposed to pack for school emergencies back if we leave in the middle of the year?  How much can we stir for change on behalf of B's education and current lack of challenge?  What sort of school do we put them in when we move?  Do I have time to start this or that project?  What about our online space?  Do we need to pack up and move our blogs, pictures, and kid pages as well as our physical things?   When do we ask for help and what kind of help do we need specifically?  We need to do an inventory; how do we want to do that?  What about my book, which I finally got into partial shape though still no one has read it, where does that fit in?  It feels kind of schizophrenic because not only is there this constant equation in my head of questions relating what I'm doing to the move, but we really don't have any contract yet and there are things that need to happen regardless - A and B need school to be a pleasant place, we need good food to eat, we need to maintain some routines and rituals, we need to be with friends and each other and have fun.  So, I recently canned 56 pounds of pears.  But I couldn't just can pears.  I had to decide that even if we weren't going to take the pears that it was pear season and since that's all that A is willing to take in his lunches for fruit right now we needed to can them anyway, and we could store them in a dark and cool place for two to three years and they would be just fine when we returned, or we could take them with us in these canning boxes and these boxes would need some cardboard liner in between the jars ideally and I could do it in this way, and C knows that there are pear trees in Amsterdam and I could certainly take my canner and some supplies and can there next summer, but I don't know yet how much room we are going to have and how much we can take and find space for over there, and I could put the lids on all of the jars (full or empty) as that would save some space, and how fast does he go through a jar of pears anyway, let's see, and oh my gosh I just found three boxes of empty jars in this cupboard and I feel stupid for buying more jars last year for applesauce instead of finding these, and am I ever going to use all of these jars, what should I do with them?  There's a lot of extra mental energy going in to every single thing and it's wearying.
    A routine for me has bounced between hard to find and non-existent.  At least the kids have school and gymnastics and reading and regular times for things.  I have missed a few days but have generally run either to or from school with boys in the jogger, most often to pick them up and have included some extra laps around blocks to stretch the run out.  The dog has always wanted to come and hasn't hid under the futon once, not even after C came home early one day and we all three went to pick up the boys.  I have canned, and painted ceramic wedding gifts for weddings long since past, and volunteered at the school, and uploaded pictures from the summer, and cleaned and organized, and shredded old taxes and receipts, and slept, and visited with friends, and okay now I'm thinking about all the things I need to do today and I can't keep writing here today.  Perhaps if I keep to shorter updates and don't bother with the comments for a while, I can come back here more frequently.  Seemed to work for the book writing month.  Of course, then I was sure to be on the computer at least once a day and this current "project" has little to do with being in front of my laptop.  We'll see.  I do know I can think better if I can write regularly.  Okay, off to the lists.

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September 5, 2007

    Today was the kids first day of school.  A started kindergarten and B first grade.  It was my first day with them both in the same school for so many hours.  I think this time will present some new challenges and opportunities for all of us.  While the kids are in school I'd like to spend some time every day writing, working on the computer, and working on projects that need to be completed whether we leave overseas or not.  B has been worried about first grade and apparently, talking to other parents, his kindergarten teacher told the class a couple things that impressed them: 1, you have to really WORK in first grade, and 2, it's a lot easier to get into trouble in first grade.  We have tried talking about these with him, but probably only time will convince him that he is up for the challenge or doing the work and staying out of trouble.  A was so comfortable in his room (it was the same room B was in so he was very familiar with it) that when he went to his locker for his lunch box, he went to where B's locker had been instead of where his is.  He blew kisses and waved and was good to go without any sign of fear or anxiety at all.
    One of the things I had to do today was spend some time in the grocery store walking the aisles alone making a list on my pda of all the things I could eat for lunch.  When I am alone, I tend not to be very good at feeding myself unless it's dramatically easy (that is, there are leftovers I want to eat).  Since I am not a cheese, bean, or hot dog fan, I have been both envious and frustrated (okay, I admit to being a little smug too) about not eating the default lunches a lot of my friends have enjoyed.  Fortunately, I came up with a sizeable list that doesn't require me to do too much extra shopping and ensures I don't end up eating poorly or eating out every day we don't have leftovers.  Unfortunately, though the chow mein was good, the orange chicken at the Safeway deli was pretty inedible and ended up in the garbage.
    Another change today was my run.  Somehow the whole summer slipped away without me getting much concentrated exercise.  Gosh it felt good to go running again and get back into my groove!  I realize, however, that my groove has been halved (since A is now at the same location as B instead of a mile in the opposite direction) and I need to do something to lengthen it.  Today I just left early and circled some blocks, which confused the poor dog a bit.  I hope to run the route both coming and going to school at some point, but that has some negative points as well, the strongest an odiferous one since I don't want to take two showers every day yet there are six hours separating my hypothetical runs.  It may be that I need to combine my run to get kids with another errand, or, like today, find a route that is long enough for my health that culminates in picking up kids.  And while they both seem content to ride in the jogger while they finish their lunches and then run ahead, that may change and I may be tempering my pace for little legs wearing backpacks on the return trip.  Regardless, I am glad that picking them up on foot is an established habit of ours.
    The kids had a great day at school.  B didn't have enough desks in his classroom and there may be some upheaval within the next month as the number of kids in the two classes convinces the district offices that we really do need another teacher, portable space, etc.   Apparently it is a bit like overbooking airlines and the district won't give the principals resources based on projected numbers since they say not everyone will come.  And they don't consider students "there" yet until the beginning of October.  Meanwhile, there are a lot of kids crammed into classrooms as the school has been growing in popularity and respect.  I'm not that worried about either of my kids though.  I am confident that they can extract what they need even in a crowded classroom and I have been impressed with the amount of differentiation at their school as well as the skill with which most of the teachers practice it.  Nevertheless, having kids shuffled around after a month together will be disruptive and it's not clear to me whether a K-1 split or a 1-2 split is a likely next step.  Since B is in the gifted program, I doubt he would be put into a K-1 split, but either or both of my kids may well be affected by this "overbooking."  And then there is the spectre of another disruption in a few months time as we move closer to a final go-ahead on our plans to work abroad...

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August 22, 2007

    As I was going through the paper today, B wanted to look more closely at one of the ads, probably because it had a gecko on it.  His brother wanted him to come downstairs, but he had to get paper and a pencil first.  When I turned around he had written geico.com on the piece of paper.  I asked about it and he pointed at and read aloud the text that said: "...have you ever made $500 cents [sic] in 15 minutes?  Go to geico.com."  Hoo boy.
    First I explained to him about insurance, and that we had recently done just that and gotten a much better rate than we had been getting, but that it was as low as it could go now since insurance companies were trying to make money and they couldn't do that if every time you talked to them they lowered what you paid them.  And then I got to the meat of the issue.  I told him that I didn't want him entering addresses and exploring the Internet, going to new places without either his dad or me next to him or helping him.  I answered his "Why?" by telling him that there was a lot out there that he could get to with stuff that could hurt him, stuff we didn't like, stuff where other people were getting hurt, and a lot of stuff that wasn't what he was looking for.  I reiterated that anything on our home pages was fine to click on.  "I can go to YOUR home page?" he asked.  Sure, I said, and he got all excited about exploring that terra incognito.  Not that he's done so yet, though, as he wasn't interested enough to stop the other play he was in the middle of.  Next time he's on the computer playing games, I suspect he'll click on my name and expect much more interesting content than a lot of words.  Which is fine with me.  I am happy if he sticks to his page of kid game links and picture albums.
    We very consciously put the computer in a common area.  It is at the bottom of the stairs next to the playroom and when you're sitting at the computer, your back is to the stairs and the monitors can be seen from up the stairs.  It will remain there.  No computers or televisions in private rooms in this house (or any other in, say, Amsterdam).
    They currently do have a lot of freedom on the computer.  Part of that has been because they didn't know to or how to leave the playground I set up for them there.  I made it easy to go to the places that they wanted to go to, they click on their name, come to their own personal home page with a bunch of pictures (and words) for the sites that they like to explore.  They like Sesame Street, Bob the Builder, Kipper and other Hit Entertainment pages, PopCap Games, and more recently (from other kids playing on the public library computers and less enthusiastically on my part because of the relentless advertising and increased violence), Cartoon Network Games, and MiniClip Games.
    Obviously now it gets a bit more tricky.  We're certainly not necessarily far off from a discussion stemming from somebody's older brother suggesting they type in nakedlady.com.  Nakedness, porn, privacy, sex, stereotypes, and objectification are all conversations I'll have with my boys when they make those "couple of clicks away," or even before they do when they are a bit older.  But, I anticipate going along much as before, answering only the questions they ask.  It may very well be that today's explanation is sufficient for a long time.  I think it is inappropriate to dump the bath water on him just because he wrote down the URL of an insurance company offering to save him $500 in 15 minutes.  I do think that I need to have a further talk with B soon about advertising, though.  I just found some web sites that will help I think (MediaLiteracy.com, Media Awareness Network, Center on Media and Child Health, and PBS Kids Don't Buy It), but I do wish that Zillions, the Consumer Reports magazine for kids was still around.  Anybody have good suggestions for books (or other resources) to help kids learn about advertising tricks and become savvy about attempts to sell them things?  Or, for that matter, resources I can use for the other discussions?

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August 13, 2007

   This is not a lazy summer.  A week ago Monday (that was the beginning of the kids' pottery class I mentioned in the last post) I got a phone call from friends to confirm times for when they were staying with us.  Oops.  I'd forgotten.  It was totally fine and we were thrilled to see them and be able to host, but it did make my Monday mistake at dinner.
    As a result of reading Mindset, we've started a nightly question that we ask of each of us at the dinner table: "What mistake did you make today that you learned from?"  And we've started talking about mistakes in a more positive way, as something to learn from, an opportunity rather than a failure.  I learned that I need to write things down on the calendar when I'm thinking about them or on the phone with someone or I'll forget.
    Anyway, last week was busy.  We had the first of the play dates that I organized at the kids' school to introduce the new families to each other and to last year's kindergarten families, and today was another.  Wednesday through Saturday we had houseguests and activities with them and other friends of theirs in the area.  This week is busy too.  The kids are very excited about their sports camp (basketball, soccer and baseball) which runs the whole week.  B has a dentist appointment on Thursday to check on his extra tooth and develop a plan for it.  There's pottery and gymnastics and two school play dates.  I'm getting ready for a huge annual party we're throwing on Saturday, and C is gone Tuesday through Thursday.  I'm glad it's not the whole week he's gone like it is next week for The Netherlands interview.
    I suspect that we're really going overseas.  Any indication that this Amsterdam job isn't a sure thing has us feeling disappointed.  Which is a good indication that even if this particular position isn't the right fit on both sides, we should perhaps pursue something else in The Netherlands or nearby that might be.  A change in C's job is necessary; two hours of commuting every day is wearing everyone down.  While moving would certainly accomplish this, there are other possibilities here that might involve more working from home or a different workplace.  The idea of living in Europe for a while with the whole family is exciting and the kids are way more open to leaving and coming back than I would ever have expected.  I know that that will change as they get older and more involved with their friends.  I suspect it will be harder to return (and leave their friends) than it would be to go now (and leave their friends) simply because they will be older and more connected to friendships than they are now.  Everyone who has talked to us who has had a similar experience growing up has indicated that it was a wonderful, growing, and positive experience for them.  I am looking forward to the broadening of our kids' worlds that would happen if we moved to Europe for a few years. 
    As for me, I can see that after the initial settling in process that I would have some concentrated time to work on some projects that I would like to do while kids are at school and C is at work.  There are certainly a lot of projects I'd like to fit in, and while a few of them would require some of the things that are HERE, most do not.  I would like to spend more time writing books (revising the NaNoWriMo novel or writing books 2 and 3 I envision following it), for instance.  I'd like to spend more time on my photography, sewing, and beading projects.  And there are crafts and skills I'd like to acquire or develop such as knitting, programming, children's book illustrations, and becoming more politically active.  I understand that the expat partners (that'd be me) often have a hard time adjusting to the move and finding things to do.  Of course, often they are coming from a situation in which they are working and going into one in which they are not allowed to work (at least for any Dutch company).  This obviously does not describe me.  And while my taste for my own projects may indeed pale before I'm ready to come home (though I doubt it), the work that I would like to get back into does not involve going into a workplace.  Since telecommuting can be done from literally anywhere there may be something I can do for someone in the States if I want to go that route.

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August 2, 2007

    What looked like a fairly empty week has turned into a whirlwind.  The day before yesterday the kids and mom came home a day early.  Yesterday we had friends and their new dog over for dinner.  Tonight we have a friend who will soon move to Seattle over for dinner.  Tomorrow we sit five kids including our own two.  The next day we have out of town guests over for the afternoon and while they go to a Mariners game, we go elsewhere for dessert and some scoop on living in Amsterdam.  Sunday our out of town guests leave and we go to a Mariner's game.  Today I did a birthday circle for A so had to pull out or print pictures of him at 1, 2, 3, and 4 early this morning.  Traditionally birthday cupcakes go to school for an after lunch treat for the school, and since A complained that he didn't get a real, homemade cake for his birthday, I'll make that as part of dinner tonight as well, using a recipe for each that uses 1/2 cup of sour cream so we don't have any going bad in our refrigerator.  The cupcakes smell good.  I HAVE to get out the Tie-Dye invite soonest.  I need to shepherd A through his thank you cards.  I have a return I need to make today before it's too late.  There's a book for A&B, and Mindset at the library waiting for me to pick them up.  Gymnastics is today.  I'm marinating the chicken for murg makhani tonight.  I'm supposed to give blood day after tomorrow as well.  And Monday is the start of the kids' art in pottery class.  whew.
    Gotta go.  I plan to come back and write more, but you'll know why if I don't.

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July 30, 2007

    It's Monday (we had a very LONG weekend in a good sense; lots and lots got packed into it, which I will talk about in a bit), and my mom has taken A and B to the coast for a couple of days.  This is their first overnighter without us (with the exception of 5 years ago yesterday after A was born and B stayed the night elsewhere).  We're pretty excited to watch their growing up and take this next step.  They are not so far away that they can't come home if they need to, though I hope that they have enough fun that they won't want to.  Apparently they have to get there first.  I have had three phone calls so far from them (not from my mom), as they are confirming that I am available to talk, but not necessarily to intervene.  The first phone call was the two of them happily announcing how silly thay had been: so silly that Grandma had taken the wrong road, though she had gotten back on the right one, and telling me that they were going to keep being silly.  The second phone call was B to tell me that Grandma was being really mean by not letting them go to a park.  I commiserated, told him how much I loved him, and that was enough for him.  The third call was from A to tell me that it was taking a long time.  I hope they are having too much fun by now to call again until this evening.
    On Friday my mom was here and C was able to leave work in time to see the kids' final performance at theater camp.  In the evening it was someone else's turn to sit the kids (we're just starting up a three family rotation and despite mom here thought we'd better use it before it was our turn next week).  Unfortunately, we didn't do anything exciting.  We ate leftovers, picked up poop, worked on Quicken (me to C: "Are you doing what you want to be doing?" C: "NO! We have a sitter!" Me: "What do you WANT to do?" C: "I don't know!"), and did nothing that warranted a sitter, not even a good conversation with mom.  Oh well, there are the next few days to consider making up for that.  On Saturday, we cleaned house, prepared for and had A's birthday party.  It went well and the pirate ship paper mache that B and I created for A lasted for a LOT of whacks.  Next time I'll create a pinata with a seam in the bottom instead of a cardboard fold.  A opened presents.  I cleaned up the front garden, dead-heading daisies, cutting back persicaria, and pulling out alstromeria stalks in addition to weeding.  We made soup.  C and I watched the entire first Netflix disc we received (the first four episodes of Numb3rs).  Sunday we slept in, did more Quicken, played around with A's new presents, packed and got groceries for the kids' trip, and I got very grouchy waiting for the pizza deliverer to come a second time with my cheeseless pizza they put cheese on the first time.

    I am pondering words today.  I have been at work on my novel last week while the kids were at theater camp trying to get it into a readable form, put the pieces where I want them to go, and get an idea of the holes that need to be filled.  And I may work on it later today as well, but mostly I was just thinking about the words "hopefully" and "nauseous."  I have been very careful over the last several years (decade maybe?) to use the word hopefully correctly ("She looked hopefully at the last cookie") and to use "I hope" when appropriate ("I hope you understand").  I suspect it is way too late to keep the linguistic lemmings from plunging off the cliff with all the other adverbs in a sad death, but since it doesn't hurt anyone else for ME to use care with the language that I write, I will continue.  I'm still fighting over "well" and "good" by correcting people, but I can't seem to help that - the correct word just pops out of my mouth.  I hope I haven't been too rude. 
    "Nauseous," however, is a different story.  I'm not fighting the change at all, nor am I taking care in my own language (though I probably will if there is occasion in my book), though I still do think about it when it comes up.  As I understand it, nauseous things made one nauseated because they were nauseating.  Now "nauseated" has been almost completely replaced by "nauseous."  When people say "I feel nauseous" they mean "I feel nauseated" not "I feel as though I am making others nauseated."  But, so many people say "I'm nauseous" and mean "I feel nauseated," that "nauseous" has come to mean "nauseated" instead of "nauseating".  The boys and I listened to the audiobook of Frindle on our trip to Spokane this month, and this indeed is another instance of the changing of language through common understanding and use.  As I said, I won't fight this one, though I often get a small private chuckle over someone talking about being nauseous.  I have even, upon occasion, used it in the new manner myself.  Fortunately, however, I have not had many occasions to feel nauseated or nauseating, avoiding it in favor of healthier words.

    As I have mentioned here, we have a new fancy electric knife sharpener.  This has been a wonderful, wonderful thing.  The large handbook that comes with it warns repeatedly to use caution since your knives will really be sharp.  We have not had any accidents with our knives since they have acquired their new edges, but I must say with sorrow that grapefruit membranes have not been so lucky.  I may have to refrain from sharpening one before using it on grapefruit again.  With a dull knife, I can cut along both sides of the membrade of each section, and cut each section away from the rind at the outside in individual triangles.  I like this.  This is how I eat a grapefruit (but only if it is the only and first thing in my mouth).  With a sharp knife, I end up cutting through the membrane a great deal of the time, and can't cut each section out, but end up cutting all the sections out away from the rind.  I end up eating too much of the bitter white pith and I don't enjoy bitter much at all.  I'm good with moderate sweet, salty, umami, and sour tastes, but bitter is a horrid thing.
    I read about "super tasters" back in high school and have always believed myself to be one.  In the course of finding a link for this blog, I just tested myself and found I do in fact qualify.  I got a magnifying glass out of the kids' tool drawer, enlarged my hole punched hole until it was 7 mm in diameter, got down the food coloring and retreated to the bathroom mirror.  First of all, blue food coloring is strong stuff and I don't recommend doing this on a night you intend to go out (or stay in).  My lips are bright blue, my teeth are blue, my gums are blue, my whole tongue is blue, and initially the taste buds which were supposed to stay pink, they also turned blue.  Second of all, you don't need blue food coloring to count the taste buds if you look closely anyway (and remember I've got the magnifying glass).  Thirdly, always find more than one source on the Internet.  This link is a more complete and better one, if only because it suggests a way to apply the food coloring without dropping a drop on your tongue as I did, and it also warns you about your plans following the test.
    I have always known that I didn't enjoy bitter, and that the reason I don't care for beer, coffee or coffee flavor, broccoli, endives, lima beans, brussel sprouts, pith, kale, tonic water, tea and other bitter things was because I was tasting those foods in a different way than many other people.  I had known that the gross taste of fat in anything less than skim milk was probably linked to that, but I hadn't realized that I might be tasting sweet or hot differently as well.  I have long maintained (in the face of mockery) that the oatmeal cookie around the chocolate chips was more important and cookies were better without too many chocolate chips, and sympathized with a friend whose mother claimed she must be allergic to chocolate because she didn't love it to the same extent her mother did.   I also have new insight into (and sympathy for) my friend T who unfailingly calls attention to his need to add hot spice to his dishes to make them less wimpy and lame - he can't taste what we can and he may even be a non-taster.  None of which makes my tongue and lips less blue.  Maybe if I brush my teeth...
    Well, my gums and teeth are back to normal, and my lips are only slightly bluish because I very carefully brushed them with the electric toothbrush, but not so carefully that I didn't in fact spatter blue toothpaste on the mirror in the process.  My tongue remains stubbornly blue.  Oh wait, it's not a bug, it's a FEATURE!  Right.
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July 24, 2007

    Well, it looks as if the Amsterdam opportunity is a go, at least on our end.  That is, we had to decide if we were willing to move to The Netherlands for a three year expat post.  Since we are, the next stages are for C to fly out and interview.  If they like him and he likes the job on offer and believes that it will work from a career move standpoint, we start the process of moving.  This apparently takes from three to six months from the signing of the contract.  I am just beginning to explore the kit C brought home and formulating our list of questions and details to straighten out to make this happen in a somewhat smooth manner.  The kids are excited, though cheifly to learn a language that we adults don't know so that they can talk to each other in it without us knowing what they are saying.  We pointed out to them that they could do that with Spanish here, but they are excited to go, apparently without much reservation.  Now that they know we would come back to the same house, their fears seem to be centered around losing our stuff on the slow boat.
    For me, this was not the easiest decision and I was fairly balanced on the should we or shouldn't we fence for a long time.  Other people's enthusiasm was actually pushing me into a corner and the "you'd be crazy not to go" sentiment was very unhelpful.  What was helpful was sitting down with C and, instead of talking about how I was feeling, talking about how he was feeling.  When he enumerated the benefits and the cons as he saw it, it became exciting and possible again.  Somehow I had gotten caught up in the lonely, unmoored feeling from my living in France 17 years ago, and actually forgotten that I wasn't being sent all by myself and that we would all be together.  Oh yeah!
    Really, I can't say that the kids' excitement or fears are any less reasonable or out of whack than my own.  I do know that there will be times that it is hard and difficult and we are sad or missing stuff, people or the simple familiar things like chocolate chips, Costcos, or peanut butter.  I know that (according to what I've read of the expat kit so far) repatriating back here may be even more difficult than the move to The Netherlands.  And I also know that it will be a fantastic learning experience for the kids and for us and that we won't regret the trade of what we will be missing here at home for what we will be gaining on our adventure together.
    So, I've been thinking about some of the nitty gritty details like who we deed over the third Saturday Game Nights and whether to store our new knife sharpener (or house plants, or beds or etc. etc. etc.) or lend it to a good home until our return.  And I'm going to have to use up the contents of the freezer again, aren't I?  All the projects I wanted to do need to either get done, get stored, or get crated up for finishing (no matter what) while I'm there.  Oy, that's a lot, isn't it?  This is a move that will force us to make decisions about what we have and what we want to have, keep, recreate, and toss.  While I know we can technically get all of our stuff into a 22' truck (okay, maybe a 24' truck now), we're not going to want a bunch of things there that don't work (anything that plugs in), are too big for the space we're renting (two queens, a king, two giant couches, and two futons? why?), won't get touched while we're there (woodworking tools, keepsakes, tie-dye supplies) or would be best left behind for someone renting this house (garden hoses, microwave, chest freezer, tools).
    This is currently all only a mental process, though.  C won't go out for another several weeks and only then will things start moving.  Not that I shouldn't finish my mending, but the mental processes will take a while anyway and probably shouldn't be shorted.
    In other news, I've started editing my novel, attacking it today while the kids were at theater camp between bus rides to and from.  They love camp and we're looking forward to their end performance on Friday.  Tomorrow my husband's sister's husband's sister comes to meet us over dinner.  Does that make her my in-law-in-law?  Gotta get ready for A's birthday party (spent part of this afternoon eliciting help from B to make a paper mache pirate ship for the party pinata.  I'll try to remember to post (and take) a picture of the final product.  P-p-p-p-p-p!  Alliteration is my friend.  Which reminds me I need to create A's birthday poem too.  whew.  Let's close that parenthesis, eh?).  And figure out the paint details of the car-painting portion of our Annual to-do and get the invites out so folks can prepare.
    But not tonight.  It's past my bedtime, especially if I'm getting kids up and on the bus on time tomorrow.  G'night.

    Oh yeah, and I found my credit card.  A couple of weeks ago, the kids and a friend who was over for my novel ending celebration dumped the toys in every drawer in the toy towers, and some on the great wall of cabinetry, onto the floor.  This led to a discussion of religion with B, since he was thinking it was not just a catastrophe, but a cataclysm, and because of the wonderful song What Kind of Cat Are You?, in which the next line after "What kind of cat is an even bigger disaster? Cataclysm!" is "What kind of cat rhymes with that and is a long religious recitation? Catechism!" he asked about catechism and that led to religion and God and all kinds of stuff.  Anyway, we cleaned the cataclysm up.  And I did a lot of the sorting back into drawers.  While I was going through the pile of fake credit cards and used up gift cards that are in a particular drawer of "stuff," I found my credit card, my zoo membership card, and a QFC member card.  I'm not sure how they ended up there, but I'm sure they've been there for the last seven months.  Ha ha!  I KNEW no one else had it; I'm glad I decided not to get a new number.
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July 17, 2007

    I've had the devil of a time sitting down and writing here.  It is interesting because it feels the same as parts of writing the novel did when I didn't want to work on the next bit.  That is, I hadn't written myself into a corner, but I didn't want to continue writing the next logical story element next.  The way I worked through that was to pick something else to write about (system of government! mail service and communication! gods, goddesses and religion! make a new character and throw her in!).  And, since I don't want to write about Amsterdam (because I'm not sure what I think yet and the circumstances of the possibility are still in flux and because I just don't want to), I'll have to come back to it another time when writing it will be easier.
    We had a full weekend and there were no birthday disasters for C.  Hooray!
I caught up a bit with some classmates at a picnic for my 20th high school reunion.  It was fun to see folks and their families; some kids are very clearly their parent's children.  And though it was possible to see the faces I remembered (those that I actually remembered - it was a big class) in the current visages of my former classmates, some folks' faces changed much more than others, and sometimes their kids reminded me more of what I remembered than their 20 years older appearance.
The Clambake was fun as always.  This year B and A played with C in the ultimate game, and did very well (B even scored a goal!), bounced a basketball, got wet in the flush tank, played some ping pong, hula hooped, got up in front of everyone and told some jokes, and joined in the limbo contest.  Last year there was a lot more playing in the sand box than active participation.  They're growing up.  It was great to see them interacting with a lot of folks they didn't know or remember and being friendly and independent.  Unfortunately, the evening ended on a sour note for them.  The music and dancing started before they were finished with telling jokes, and the limbo rules were not discussed before it started so when I told B he was out and it ended before A got to go under again, it was very hard for them to bear.  It was very late, so they were tired, and that didn't help.
We also fit in a good conversation with my mom.  We talked some about her possible move, what we hope for her, and what is next (complicated somewhat by our possible move to The Netherlands).  C had a good idea to have her come out and live with us for a month and try out being here - participating in the activities and events that she would want to be involved with here - so that she can envision what it would be like more easily.  I pointed out that though she did move 37 times before she went to college, this would be very unlike any of those moves (which was a new and relieving thought to her).  I hope it happens; the house I grew up in is too full and needy for one person.  I've become a little more aware of the condo market around here as well; a sign caught my eye while driving this morning advertising condos in the "low $200,000's."
    Coming up this week we have my brother coming out for a visit to include a tour of the UW campus by my niece (graduating next year, hooray), a family reunion, and our game night.  Gymnastics continues, the kids need a bath and a haircut, A got his vaccinations for kindergarten today, and it suddenly occurred to me that it would be nice to have our back garden and lawn in shape for the annual Tie-Dye party in August.  I also have to do a lot of planning and organizing for A's birthday party.  The stamps we bought at the post office on Friday we apparently left there while we were messing with getting the kids passport applications in, so I'll have to get more tomorrow.  We had our family meeting and family game night tonight (played Cluzzle) and planned a day to go to a Mariner's game.
    I haven't touched the novel since the end of June.  I will try to sit down and reread and map out a plan for filling the holes and starting the process to get it readable.
    Now, though, I am falling asleep in front of the keyboard and it's time to do so more comfortably.
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July 13, 2007

    7/12: Whew.  I blinked.  There has been so much that has happened in the last few days, from the mundane to the earth shaking.  It is hard to keep up with it all.  I'll try to get at least some of it down now, while I'm watching B at his first day at gymnastics.  A is home (with C) sleeping instead of here because he has a fever and his head and throat hurt.  Yesterday he had the same, but a dose of Tylenol and a nap restored him to normal.  I hope the same remedy works today, but on a more permanent basis.  B has finished his warm-up and is practicing forward and backward rolls on slanty pads.  Now he's bouncing and cart wheeling, and backwards bouncing, and he's got a grin on his face that is humongous!  Now bar work.  Now the rope swing.  That's funny - I've always used my body english to "help" the desired action happen (you should see me watch C play video games) and just used it myself to lean into the right place to let go of the swing.  And then looked up again and saw B doing exactly the same thing for his classmate.  I wonder how much of that is taught and how much innate.
    We've clearly started with the mundane.  I'll work up to the earth-shaking.  We have recently said good-bye to two different families dear to our hearts that we have hosted since July 3.  We love hosting, but we're glad to have our house back to ourselves.  Our youngest guest was just two weeks past one year old.  Quite a cutie, Z is, and I enjoyed interacting with him.  At the same time, I was not having any maternal cravings whatsoever.  I very much enjoyed pregnancy and birth and slinging my babies around, but I very much enjoy their growing into the people they are now.  With our guests we've done the beach, the pool, the zoo, the aquarium, played lots of games (and lots of Boggle, hooray!), ate very well, and stayed up very late.  We had a great time and wish we could do it more often and that both families lived closer than the Bay Area and North Carolina.
    And C has been off work since my last blog entry.  Partly because he needed a vacation like nobody's business, partly because he needed to take some time off or risk losing it, and partly because we had guests.  It has been very nice.  I like being able to have him around for dinner prep, for hanging at the park with the kids after school, for playing host with.  He goes back to work on Monday.

    Now it's Friday the 13th and we hope that despite the superstition surrounding the date, that we have a better trip to the annual Clambake than we did last year at this time.  Last year C spent his birthday with us trying to get out of Moses Lake when our hybrid broke down on this same trip.  It was a series of disasters that got more and more ridiculous, especially as the problem was fixed with only a new 12 volt battery when we eventually got the car all the way to Spokane and in to a dealer..  Needless to say we took our car in for a service check just last week and spent the extra $15 for extended towing protection.  So far so good, but we have yet to get to Moses Lake again.  I suspect we will only breathe easier when we've passed the place.
    The kids have begun their summer activities.  We have a busy summer planned.  This is probably their last session at their montessori, and they jumped at the chance to go back to school this week on Monday when I mentioned the possibility the night before.  They were more than ready for some structure and normality, I guess, after two weeks of novel writing, house guests, and chaos.  I was able to sign up for more camps at a later date than I'd expected, which is fortunate because I hadn't dealt with it before June and I didn't look up from the novel to take care of it until I passed 50,000.  They are taking a break from swimming classes for a while since they showed some signs of fatigue with it on Saturday mornings.  I think we can start back up on afternoons or evenings during the week without C once they become more comfortable using the men's locker room on their own (or we find another way to deal with showers and shampoo).  So we are trying to do some recreational swimming this summer so that their skills don't backslide too much, and we have started them in gymnastics.  That's a definite hit, and will probably continue even after we get swimming back into their schedule.  I was able to sign them both up for a theater camp with the children's theater.  That was partly inspired by B's kindergarten teacher suggesting a drama class for him to help him gain some confidence and learn how to make mistakes.  They are signed up for a sports camp for a week of basketball, baseball, and soccer with a friend who is exactly between them in age.  And they are in a pottery art class as well.  Plus, there are family meetings, game nights, hanging out at the park and beach, this trip to Spokane, the annual tie-dye party, play dates organized at the school for the incoming and outgoing kindergartners, a trip to the coast with their grandma without us parents (!), and reading lots of books for the summer reading program.  Whew.  I suspect we'll all be ready for school to start up again in September.
    None of which qualifies for earth shaking, I admit, but I'm getting to that.  On Wednesday morning, C had a meeting with his bosses away from work and was presented with the opportunity to take a position in Amsterdam, The Netherlands for 2-3 years.

    So.  We've been through a bunch of different emotions and thoughts on this.  We talked to the kids about it yesterday and encountered tears and resistance, but less than C expected.  A three year posting has always been a possibility, especially after C was recommended for their "high potential" program, and I've been trying to figure out when that would be best if we were to plan it into our lives.  My first choice would probably be during middle school years.  I think high school is just rude to rip them from friends and routines and the usual high school stuff.  When they are old enough to appreciate the worldly experience and yet young enough to have fewer problems learning another language is another consideration, and that seems to be now.  I really am happy with the community that we have here, and there would be no possibility of my saying yes to something longer or to a posting without the assurance of returning.  B has found a lot of friends at his school and I am enjoying volunteering there and making a place for us.  While we both want our kids to grow up less provincially than we did ourselves, we have already accomplished that by living here in Seattle.  If we decide not to take this position, it is unlikely that another would be offered.  And if we decide not to do this now, it is unlikely that we would get less entrenched in the community here and want to do this later (even in middle school years).  We are all quite inertial people.  I feel very comfortable here and part of me wants to continue to go about putting down deep roots and starting and continuing the traditions of our family in this place.  We did the five year plan in the Bay Area, and it was good to be there, but better to get back here.  I have every confidence that we would return here (even to this house) and I'm sure that it would be a great experience for the kids (and us) if we went and lived in The Netherlands for 2-3 years.  Still, they do grow up so fast.  Would what we'd gain be worth the trade for what we would miss?  I don't know.  And C still doesn't have details of the actual job yet, so there is still that to figure out before we continue talking about this.
    Anyway.  That's the shaking news.  It's especially wobbly because we don't know enough yet.  Still, other people's enthusiasm for the prospect has been good for us. (Oh yeah, this could be really cool!).
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June 29, 2007
   
    50,114 words.
    I've done it.  I even checked to see if my title (well, working title) is out there and I can't find it (though I've only looked on alibris, amazon, biblio and wikipedia).  Magical One in Magic Alone, or maybe just In Magic Alone or Magic Alone.  Right now it is still living as novel.doc.  Since I haven't planned dinner for tonight, maybe we'll go out.
    I don't know about this whole thing.  I'm not sure that my inner editor really ever left the building, though I at least refrained from going back and changing things I'd already written five minutes ago and instead just wrote around or on top of them.  And no matter how many words I've written (50,114, yes I know), it doesn't feel done.  Partly because I surpassed 50K in the middle of a conversation I was writing to fill one of the many holes.  Mostly, I think, because it isn't really done.
    I'm not really sure what to do now.  Do I rip into it and start filling the holes I found?  Just keep writing until most of the holes I know about are filled and then rip into it?  Ignore the word count deadline and just keep going until it feels done?  Do I leave it alone for a short time? A long time?  When do I allow readers?  Talk about the book?  Get to find out about (my co-conspirator, friend, and instigator of this month's NaNoWriMo) M's book?  Since it's still so unfinished, do I get a pass on all the things I should have been doing this past month and should pick up again?  (I'm guessing no.)
    I do definitely feel like I need to incorporate book writing as a much more regular part of my day, my week, my months.  I have proved to myself (and I hope my family) that I can do this and still juggle a lot of the regular stuff.  Even if I did get somewhat remiss on some of my projects, that's not necessarily to be blamed on the book.  This has been good.  Perhaps my next book project will be a book that B CAN read.  Hmmm.  Now I'm thinking.  And short chapter books are nowhere near 50,000 words.  I would love to be giggled over as much as Cynthia Rylant.  But I digress.
    Digression from what is not as clear.  My train of thought is not particularly coherent at the moment.  I need some food.
    More thoughts on this whole process later, perhaps after I've been fed.
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June 28, 2007
   
    Phew.  Monster session today threw my day of the week average for Thursday all out of whack.  I wrote 6,161 words today, which is more than a tenth of the darn thing.  At 48,647, I am almost 2,000 words ahead of where I would be if I'd been on a steady pace, and only 73 words behind my original goal.  I would like to break 50,000 words tomorrow, a day ahead of schedule because there are other things I'd like to do in preparation for house guests and getting my life back to normal.  Clearly it is possible, but I don't know how likely it is.
    Today we kicked ourselves out of the house by 10:00 and went to the library and watched Brothers from Different Mothers perform (well, the boys did.  I wrote, of course).  Then they played on the computers for an hour while I typed nearby.  Then B read My Little Sister Ate One Hare to his brother and we found all of the various critters she swallowed on the last page (I didn't get a lot of words written during the book and look).  Had lunch out, picked up some books and a movie from reserve at our own library, and came home.  They watched a movie while I wrote a bunch more, and then it was way past time for dinner (we had leftovers) and I was pretty much done writing for the day.  The kids adored the comedy juggling act and kept telling C and I all about the different parts of it.  I hadn't quite figured out the "Alex caught a horse on his face" part until I saw the video on their page - that'd be a stick horse like you'd play pretend riding into the sunset on, not a small toy.  It makes much more sense when the boys tell me that he caught the hat the horse was wearing on his own head.  It was their favorite part of their day.
    As for the book, it feels mostly written.  That is, I have down what happens in the book in some form, but there are a bunch of holes to fill with the actual words that go there.  It is hard to do that part without letting the inner editor back in to help me figure out where the holes really are.  I have so far resisted, by picking a character and filling in parts that I know are thin (or missing).  A lot of this is going to have to come in a more focused revision, though.  I am going to make 50,000 words, and I will of course say that I've written a novel, but it won't really feel like I've written a novel until it is in a form that someone can actually read, and without periodic comments about the writing itself.  For that to occur, I believe this book that I've (almost completely) written will bloom out to be a lot more than 50,000 words.  I still don't have a title.  Maybe if I finish those last 1353 words tomorrow (really?  cool.  that IS all that's left!), I'll spend some time coming up with a title.  Somehow that will make it much more complete than just continuing to be "novel.doc" even if it's completely a sleight of mind.
    Anyway, I've got to get to bed.  C is awaiting and I need to get my sleep so I can attack those 1353 tomorrow!
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June 25, 2007

    I had a lot of trouble this evening writing the last six hundred words I needed to write to stay on pace.  I've decided I should at least catch up to where I would be if I were dividing the 30 days into 1667 word equal parts.  The trouble was not that it was hard to write, exactly, but that this is an incredibly comfortable couch that I have fallen into in the living room and I kept falling asleep.  C is undoubtedly asleep in the bed with the kids having fallen asleep putting them down.  And I kept trying again whenever I woke up instead of chucking it and going to bed. 
    I succeeded and am at 41,865 words now.  And now I can chuck it and go to bed.
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June 23, 2007

    Wednesday was good, which is good because Tuesday sucked.  I didn't want to write about anyone and spent the few words I wrote on how I didn't want to write about x or y or z.  I knew when I parked after dropping off the boys Tuesday that I should get the computer and get back in the car, get out of my house to write.  I knew it and didn't do it, and I deserved the results.
    But Wednesday was a productive day.  I reached 35,000 words (exactly).  Once again it was a fortuitous total that happened at the end of a paragraph and natural stopping point.  I crept up to under three days and 5800 words behind my desired pace.
    Thursday wasn't great, but I didn't expect it to be.  I've had evening and afternoon commitments the entire week, and on Thursdays I volunteered at B's school during the day as well.  I wrote in the evening and did better than my 684 words the week before, but didn't make any significant headway.
    Friday was okay because C came home early and I went to the coffee shop at the bottom of the hill to write until C was ready to put the corn on the cob in the water for dinner.  I finished the evening at 37,475 words.
    And now the kids have finished school and we have no plans yet for the coming week, which needs to change, but I haven't done anything about it yet.  I haven't even checked my mail in ages.  It has been an extremely busy week.  I'm not sure that this month was the best choice, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to make it.  B has been very sad about his year ending and we will need to make some efforts to keep in touch with his friends.  I'm not very good at suggesting play dates, but maybe I can email everyone and tell them we'll be at the beach or the park or something and have them call me or just meet us there if it works with their schedules.
    The other meaning to the kids finishing school is that my daily word count goal dropped to 640 from 2040.  I should be able to make up how far "behind" I am just by continuing my pace.  I am 74.95% done now and my daily average (now 1703) projects a total of 51,102 words by the 30th.  Now I just have to figure out if I'm going to have the book written by the time my word count is up.  Well, gotta use this time to write words that count, since C has the boys at their last day of swimming.  More later.
    38,944
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June 18, 2007

    Grrr.  Well, I'm ensconced at a coffee shop (which is busy, being morning) and getting ready to start writing.  I hope to do some more catching up and spend several hours here.  The weekend was problematic.  I got some but not a lot of writing done on Saturday before Game Night started, but Sunday was a wash.  C gave me a lot of time to write, but I frittered most of it away being tired (Game Night was a late one and we didn't get to bed until after 4 am) or just frittering.  I have caffeine before me, which is unusual.  Perhaps it will help fuel the word count.  Today I'm starting at 26,907.
    Not bad.  I'm at 31,781 and I've written 4,874 words today.  If I extrapolate out my average to the end of the month I will have exceeded my 50,000 word goal by almost 3,000 words.  However, I am 2.4 days and 4939 words behind where I wanted to be.  (Ah, the joys of Excel spreadsheet analyses).  So, I'm not sure whether to feel ahead or behind, or what.  I still FEEL behind, though, so I guess I'll continue to mark my progress against my original word count proposal.
    I think I'm knocking off for the day.  C is finally home and it's time for kids to go to bed.  We're trying to watch "House" in the evenings since we received it from the library in a feat of bad timing - I should have put a suspension on my hold for the month of June.  Although we are enjoying the first season, it is often cringe-inducing in the liberties they take with medicine and the law versus real life, and it is noteworthy when a patient in the show doesn't seize.  Gotta go brush some teeth.
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June 15, 2007

    Well, I'm half-way there.  Today is the half-way mark, after all, being the 15th, and I have written a total of 25,731 of my 50,000 total goal.  That's a consolation, though, as my plan was to have most all of it done by the time school let out on the 22nd.   I'm not sure that was the right answer, but it will give me some wiggle room once I am parenting full-time the last week of June if I need it.  Given that advanced schedule, I am 2.4 days and 4869 words behind where I wanted to be now.
    Yesterday stunk.  I volunteered at B's school as usual, then got very little writing done at the library when I took A there between 12:30 and B's pick-up time.  And I didn't get much writing in when we hung out at the playground of B's school afterwards either.  Then C had a late evening work thing so he didn't get back until tooth brushing time.  And I crashed early.  Yesterday's word total was only 684.
    Tomorrow is game night (and prep before hand), so I need to spend the kids' swimming time writing so I don't get too behind.  I'm feeling awfully overwhelmed at the moment and worried about the next couple of weeks.  One day at a time, though.  I'm sure I'll find some coping and writing strategies.
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June 13, 2007

    Zowie, this is good.  I am writing in the library today, accompanied by an amazing number of adults on laptop computers doing stuff while kids are largely absent.  It is a different environment than I am used to at this library.  I usually spend my time hunkered near the kids section either reading a book or making quick jaunts to various shelves to look for books while my kid(s) play games on the library computers.  Today I spent my time next to the big window on a curvy couch with cute little laptop-sized tables and writing words, words, words on my novel.  I have surpassed today's goal already (2171 words today, 21,554 total) and look forward to doing more catching up before I head to bed.  Now I need to get out of here and eat some lunch (and write some more at the neighborhood grocery store/chinese food/coffee shop) before I need to pick up A from school.
    No writing got done once I made it home with B and A, but we did stop over at the park on the way home and they played while I wrote.  I actually cooked a good dinner, worked on getting the house ready for the house cleaner tomorrow, and spent three hours repairing books.  But I have been getting closer to catching up.  I wrote 3451 words today which brings my total to 22,834.  That is only 3686 words and 1.8 days behind.  It is flowing well at the moment.
    C suggested that I not stop when the month is over.  I did point out that there are a bunch of things that I am not doing to support my word count this month, and he suggested reducing the daily dose, but still continuing.  I don't disagree, though we'll see how I feel at the end of the month, and where I want to take this particular project, whether I want to start another similar one, or what exactly.  I am certainly jazzed about the process and the (so far) results.  Last week the principal at B's school told me about a parent at one of his previous schools who went through a tough time, wrote some poetry to get through it, and then with some encouragement started writing novels, mysteries, and is now quite well-known.   He told me, too, about where he was written into Without Due Process, on page 75 as a middle school principal under the name Carl Williams.  So, anyway, maybe I will.
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June 12, 2007

    The progress is slow, but I'm working hard on catching up.  Right now I'm building a new system of government for my world since I'm feeling stuck with my characters.  Well, not stuck exactly, but not hankering to write more about them at the moment.  I have said what I want to about what they do and what happens to them, so though of course it needs much fleshing out, that's not quite calling to me at the moment.  So, government it is.  Words, words, words, are all that are important in this endeavor.  I have to keep reminding myself about that and keep myself from hitting the backspace key too often, or staring into space thinking instead of writing the words to what I'm thinking.  It can all go in if I can get it down.  Ideas that aren't written down don't go anywhere, especially in my poor brain.  Which makes for a sad state of affairs when I'm not writing regularly; I feel like I'm shorting folks, especially my kids, if I don't get down the things (funny, clever, or characteristic) that they say, or the shape of my days on some form of paper.  Because unless I write it down, I'm really not going to be able to remember it very well.  Though this is especially true with the books that I read, as I noted on June 10, it is also true with my own life.  If I don't write them down, I can't remember them well enough to feel them again.  Already their brains are making so many new connections that they can't remember being little, so that's my job.
    Anyway, I've built myself a little Excel spreadsheet that is tracking my word count, average per day, projected total for 30 days given that average, my word count goal for the day, how many words ahead or behind I am, and how many days behind that makes me.  Unsurprisingly, I update this every time I hit Alt-T-W on my computer to check my word count.  I'm currently at 16,710 (7770 words and 3.8 days behind), but I'm not stopping for the day yet, so back to work I go...
    Whew!  I wrote 5,068 words today on my novel.  My total is now 19,383 and I am down to 5097 words and 2.5 days behind.  Woohoo!  And it's not even 1 a.m. yet.  Maybe I shouldn't stop yet.  Ha ha, maybe I should and save myself a hook for tomorrow's session.  Tomorrow is a Wednesday and I have five hours with kids in school to spend writing (and not napping).  Gotta keep rolling.  Perhaps so, but I do need to sleep too.  I'll try to roll tomorrow.   Getting out of the house worked well during the day today, and writing when everyone else is asleep worked well tonight, so we'll try that again tomorrow.
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June 10, 2007

    I've realized (as I spend novel words in creating the panoply of religion and gods) that my extremely poor memory for what I've read serves me well as an author just for my near inability to crib, even unknowingly, another's words.  I like to re-read books and watch movies again because it is just as real the second or third time around.  I often not only fail to remember the character's names, author's name, or plot, but even broad outlines are sometimes missing.  I don't know if this is a function of my reading so fast, or not taking notes (I remember much much better if I write something down), or some sort of character deficit.  It certainly annoys some folks, and constantly amazes my husband.  The number of times that I have only remembered that I've watched a movie by midway through justifiably raises doubt when I posit that I've never seen a film.  Okay, back to work.
    Not so much progress, 13,202; now I'm further behind.  Darn weekend.
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June 8, 2007

    I am at the beach writing on my novel, but had to interrupt myself because I am just overcome with how much I love my boys.  They are friendly, interacting with other families, kids, adults.  They are beautiful with their strong legs and arms, their explorer hats shading their eyes.  They are independent, making up games and finding interesting rocks, sticks, and shells for their sculpture, exploring by themselves and together.  They are wonderful and I love them so so much.  Okay, back to work.
    12,013.
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June 7, 2007

    Busy busy day, but a fruitful one.  Well, the novel writing got hard.  Actually it got difficult starting on June 3 shortly after writing "So far it's been easy."  It's enough to make one superstitious except that it was somewhat expected.  Not only was that my first day trying to write while wrangling two kids on a weekend by myself (C gets back tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, hooray!), but I kept getting to a place where it seemed as though I didn't need to write anymore because it was so clear where the story was going that the reader could just fill it in (and that wasn't necessarily positive; I've decried a lack of tension several times already).  I slogged, slowly and painfully through several days.  I've been a couple days behind for the last three, and am still behind my goal by 3600 words.  However, I broke 10,000 today and am at 10,713.  If the weather co-operates, I will try another park/beach outing tomorrow after school and see if I can creep closer to making up those two stubborn days.  I have so far found a way forward (even if it has sometimes been slow and painful) and hope I can continue to find another angle to come at it from, or another thing to concentrate on when I feel finished or stuck.  I have a hook dangling for tomorrow's beginning to catch and write on, so that's good.
    I spent my writing time today at M's house.  He is the instigator and fellow participant in my NaNoWriMo this June.  His house is much less of a wreck than mine, fortunately, so we let the chilluns play and got down to business increasing our word counts until their clamorings for food kicked us into dinner prep.  There was struggle between our two oldest kids over the pink plastic spoon; I'll have to put writing about "It's not fair" on my list of future musings since I don't think I can work it into the novel and I don't want to spend TOO much time writing stuff I don't get to count towards my 50,000 word goal.  Which reminds me I need to quit and go to bed so I don't spend another writing session taking a two hour nap like I did on Tuesday.  More word counts later.
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June 2, 2007

    So far it's been easy.  I'm at 4241 now.  It makes me think that if it continues to be easy I'm going to feel awfully foolish I didn't do this ages ago.  Of course, it's supposed to be somewhat easy the first week.  Week two is when it's supposed to get hard.  Well, I can't skip ahead, so we'll see when we get there.
    I wrote when the kids were at swimming, sitting in the sun on my porch with ice water and a vitamin C in lieu of better munchies.  I was still writing when the kids came home with their dad.  Several comments from today: "Can I read it?  How about the first two chapters?  Well, then just the first chapter?"  "Have you come to a stopping place yet?"  and "Writing a novel is boring," which meant rather 'you're not doing what I want you to be doing,' I think.  Ah well.
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June 1, 2007

    Well here it is my first day of novel writing.  I just finished 2100 words (exactly, oddly enough.  I was checking infrequently with numbers like 543, 810, 1084, 1477, 1838, when all of a sudden there it was, my goal reached, at the end of a paragraph, and an even 2100).  I have figured that a pace of 2040 for the first 22 days (the kids finish school on the 22nd) will get me through 50,000 by the 30th.  I did not, however, end up doing any writing while both kids were in school today.  I subbed in for another parent in the classroom at 11 and spent the intervening hours shelving non-fiction in the school library.  So, I wrote for an hour after picking up A while he played Backyard Baseball and then spent the afternoon (three hours?) at the park and beach writing while the kids played happily together with the stomp rocket, running adventures using the compass points and some elaborate details I didn't follow, and making sculptures and then building a house out of the wood washed up with three girls their age.  I've set the timer to go home and I need to fix dinner.  Oops, there it goes.
    Dinner is et and C is putting the boys to sleep.  So, how'd it go? C asked.  Well, it went rather slowly.  I think part of this was I was just beginning and I hadn't really worked out just what I was going to write about.  I'm trusting that my characters will come to life, to some extent, and take some initiative in how the story goes.  So, it was hard to get started at the same time I was mapping things out.  Also, my inner editor is still hanging about.  I need to ditch it for the month, but I am finding it much harder to stop using the backspace key on the computer.  When I was notebook writing a la Writing Down the Bones, I got pretty good at not crossing out and just going on around what I wanted to say even if I said it awkwardly the first time and wanted to take a fresh stab at it.  I wasted a lot of words today refining what I was writing without getting on with it.  When I was in college I used to write on the computer dragging the keyboard to the nearby bed and typing blind.  I could correct my typing and spelling mistakes without looking at the screen (which I had turned off for privacy).  Using the backspace key has been pretty ingrained into my brain.  I do it quite unconsciously, even as I am typing these words.  I would more seriously consider ditching the computer except that it's nice to have an electronic file without typing it all again, and I love the Word Count tool.  I couldn't stand counting constantly, and I would hate to estimate and not KNOW how many words I'd written yet.  Still, if I can't shake my limiting head voice, maybe I'll try it.  It was recommended that instead of deleting words or paragraphs or sections that you turn them a different font color so that they still count for your word count but it is clear to you what is intended.  If I can shake my backspace key work, I'll have to try it.  I've since found myself thinking further into the story in anticipation of tomorrow.  June is going to be a crazy month with end of school activities, and summer starting, and C gone for a week starting day after tomorrow.  Writing at the park/beach seemed to work so well today that maybe we'll do it a lot more this month.  So far, so good, but 50,000 and finished is a lofty goal and I've been just past the starting blocks a lot of times before.  Cautious optimism and attack tomorrow.  I'll report back from the trenches.
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May 21, 2007

    I've caught up to the present on B and A's online monthly picture albums and am working on the album with all of us.  I started out the week about 11 months behind, so it feels pretty good.  I also am getting better about letting people know about the photos I have available online for sharing, viewing or buying.  For someone who feels constantly behind all of my self-imposed plans and good intentions, I am impressed by my own progress. 
    As part of Mother's Day this year I sat down and ordered all of the kitchen things that I've kept putting off purchasing and today I got my first couple of boxes (Callebaut cocoa powder, tongs and a replacement refrigerator filter), though the exciting stuff is still on its way (the fancy thermometer and super deluxe knife sharpener).  I have been spending my soccer Mondays re-reading Cooks Illustrated cookbooks and making lists of recipes I want to try, as well as highlighting the best equipment our kitchen is missing.  Yes, when L said on Saturday that he guessed I was officially a soccer mom, I nearly choked on my chicken (not because I deny it or hesitate to embrace the idea, but because I hadn't thought about it quite that way yet).  While it is true that I have kids in soccer and I drive them to practice, I'm not sure that I qualify since we don't own a mini van.  It's kind of like when we lived in California and only had one car between the two of us adults; living in a land of two-four car garages and massive freeways, we joked that they wouldn't let us live there.
    As June gets closer and closer, I'm more and more aware of the fact that I made a commitment that will eat my life for the month.  (I'm doing a NaNoWriMo with a friend).  The idea is not to try to write a novel within the month, but to be a novelist by the end of June.  Writing has always been my plan.  I've known I wanted to write since writing poetry in elementary and junior high and making up story lines for improved romances in high school.  Since I was interested in learning so many things -- I wanted to be a spy because I thought that way I could be a brain surgeon for three weeks and then a garbage collector and then a paralegal and then..... -- and since dad was a writer, he recommended that I major in one of my other interests in college rather than literature, English, or journalism, and then write about one of the things that interested me.  So, I majored in Human Biology and wrote about health care after graduation.  Unfortunately, my first job was with a woman who was offended when I edited her work (as requested) and was brand new to being an employer.  I was not the best first employee, either, having little confidence and a lot of loneliness led me to spend parts of my unstructured days writing letters instead of articles.  Needless to say, I ended up at Blockbuster (never give them money!) and back in health care via office management.  The first job I got paid for that I wanted to do when I didn't have to was programming.  Being a full-time mother (yes the job I enjoyed at the beginning of the school year has disappeared) has been wonderful as well.  Still, I have envied the people I know who make their living writing (SMR, NV, MB, etc.).  I think it's high time I make a start towards that end.  I have always been glad that writers didn't peak at 13 like gymnasts, but my plan was to get on with it well before I was this old (37).  I'll try to post my word count progress (the goal is 50,000 by June 30), but I have little idea how well I'm going to do at pacing myself and having time for little extras like updating my blog, so we'll see.  Often times being busier is better for getting all kinds of things done, but I have found the limits of that equation before and have no wish to repeat the experience with two little ones dependent on my keeping it together.
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April 24, 2007

    Crap.  The worst part of a bad haircut is when it's your own fault. 
    It was someone new cutting my hair (because I stayed at the place where I have a sizable Mother's Day gift card to use up), and she didn't ask many questions, or talk much at all.  I told her what I wanted, but didn't emphasize it or make absolutely certain she understood.  In addition, I didn't do the safe thing and have her take only a little off.  Oh no, I went from shoulder-length to mid-jaw, and my directive to lose most of the layers did not translate.  When it was blown straight and styled at the salon I thought I looked a bit like a mushroom.  After I ran and showered and let it dry it looked a little more like me in the mirror, but still not great.  This morning when I got up...  Ugh (shudder).
    The only slightly reassuring part of the whole process is that no one seems to have noticed that I've gotten my hair cut.  Part of this is because I had the top half in a pony tail when I picked up the boys from school and took them to soccer yesterday, and when I dropped them at school this morning.  (I suspect I'm going to do a lot of that until it grows out some more, and not just because I'm running.)  But still, I had to point out to B and A that my hair was shorter.  Either my hair is not that different (and I look this bad all the time), or, contrary to what I thought, other people aren't much better than I am at noticing things like this.
    So, hair clips, pony tails and hats.  Sigh.  And there's no one here to console me by kissing my more easily accessible neck until late Saturday.  Double sigh.
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April 22, 2007

    Well, I hadn't thought it was quite that long since I've written here, but I guess it has.  There was a lot I thought about writing here that didn't make it.  I have made some serious inroads into my email backlog, so my memory of writing some of it is accurate, but the forum is wrong.  Ah well.  Rather than try to recreate what I was going to write about, I'll just start with today.
    C left very early this morning for Chicago for training.  I resent the company taking two of our weekend days away (he doesn't return until late Saturday) and am missing him already.  Still.  I find it odd that I do as well as I do single parenting for a week.  It sure seems that I need C to help spell me, give me relief from the kids, or give me time when he is here.  When he is late coming home from work are hard evenings to manage.  Yet, when it's just me, I just seem to do it.  It's not fair to extrapolate from one weekend day to a long week, but his other business trips have also gone better than I expect they ought.  I think the change in my and the kids' expectations is the largest part of it.  I don't expect to make the same quality dinners as I do when C is home.  I don't expect him to be here.  I don't expect anyone to pick up after me.  I don't expect to have help managing bedtime kid wrangling.  Disappointed expectations are much harder to deal with than the actual work of whatever it is.
    Today A never got out of his pajamas, and he and his brother played very, very well together the whole day.  There was one time I brought B up to his corner because he called his brother stupid (after I had told him I would if he did it again), but that was just before lunch.  While they were playing downstairs, I repaired a huge stack of books.  A few of them were from B's school library where I volunteer, but most of them were stacked in a cabinet for just such a repairing frenzy.  I would go now and count all of them, but that would entail getting up out of this warm bed and turning on lights, so I won't.  Nevertheless, I worked on them from breakfast to dinner and got all of them finished!  I repaired loose hinges and broken hinges, missing spines, torn pages, unstapled magazines, pop-ups that wouldn't, and a grasshopper that wouldn't hop through its book.  Some of them were A and B's, some of them were C's or mine when we were little, and at least one was my mom's when she was little.  It feels really good to fix something that was broken or worn so that it can be used (gently) again.  And it feels really good to get through the whole pile.  I am very glad I bought my book repair kit (from Brodart) and I especially like the flexible plastic adhesive I can paint on torn pages, press between bits of waxed paper and meld the tear back together without any tape.  It's magical.
    After dinner, instead of the next Chronicle of Narnia book (we've recently finished the second volume, Prince Caspian), I thought I would finish up some of the other books we're in the middle of.  We finished reading Fudge-a-Mania, and got another chapter further in By the Shores of Silver Lake tonight.  I'll go back to the Narnia books, I'm sure, but it seems as though it is hard for them to figure out what is going on more than I remember.  And they're much shorter than I remember too, which probably tells me something about how long A and B think they are now.  When we start back on the Dawn Treader, I'll have to ask them if they want me to explain stuff as we go along or if they'd rather I didn't.  [And whoever decided to re-order the Chronicles of Narnia from how they were written and packaged in my day makes me absolutely furious.  Starting with the Magician's Nephew is just wrong; it certainly isn't the best Narnia book, and it's a lousy entrance to the stories.  Kids who are being first introduced to Narnia should read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Then Prince Caspian and then the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Once you have read all seven books and are familiar with them, then fine, order them how you like.  Re-read them chronologically if you like, or backwards, or in order of your most to least favorite, or however you like.  But to stamp volume Two on what C.S. Lewis wrote to be Volume One is just wrong.]  I'm thinking about buying Book Crush by Nancy Pearl to help fill the holes between what we know/remember/own, and what we stumble upon in the library.  We've found a bunch of wonderful writers for the kids that weren't around when we were their ages, but I know there are a bunch more I don't know about yet.
    On another book-related topic, I have committed to doing a NaNoWriMo this June with a friend.  This may be nuts, or a flop, or practice for November, or just the thing, but I hope that I can manage the expectation/parenting part of my life so as to have a long string of days similar to today (but with C here!).  Want to join me?
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March 29, 2007

    I was right about not eliminating the homework battles with B.  There was a lot of sentence writing in this week's homework that I didn't change, and I got a lot of resistance.  I responded to the "I can write sentences as well as you can" comment by gently laughing and talking up practicing, but what I should have done in addition was point out that I am still practicing writing sentences as well.  I guess I still can.  I'm hoping for some real help from the Mindset book.
    B is all ready for the science fair tomorrow evening.  He built his robot, went through the tutorial on programming it, programmed it with two programs, and made up his poster display board.  The robot is in a big box and is ready to either go back and forth a random number of times between 1 and 10, or go forward until it hits a barrier, beep, back up, turn, and go forward again (until it hits a barrier again).  We've got extra batteries and I think we're all ready.  Both he and his brother are very excited ("can't wait") and B's favorite thing he did today was work on his science project.
    I have to say that I am very glad that B's school does so much cool stuff.  Some of the after school activities (and in-school journalism) that intrigue him aren't available for another couple of years, but it still seems as though he's constantly busy.  They've had spirit Fridays this month and until the end of the year (tomorrow is crazy hair day, last week was pajama day), he has gym every other day (and I have watched him become more sure-footed and coordinated; had someone tell me that B is the best runner in his age group that he's seen), and library the others, he has art (though with someone in addition to his teacher coming to the classroom only half the year), he has Spanish and music.  His class is doing a play (Peter Rabbit) and B is playing Peter.  There was the over night field trip to the aquarium.  We participated in the cake-decorating contest, and went to the sock hop where they had them as prizes.  There was a celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Family Math Night.  Tomorrow is the Science Fair.  I completed training for the Junior Great Books program to be a parent volunteer with that curriculum and have spent an hour a week in the classroom listening to the kids read books to me all year long.  I'm glad to be where we are.
    In other news, we received 7 grapefruit in our box of delivered organic produce this week.  Seven!  And we already had three in our fruit drawer.  It was quite the mix-up (five of them were supposed to be apples), especially because I thought I had successfully switched us to every other week delivery and weren't getting anything this week (and so didn't modify the order at all).  I have started to have trouble filling the produce box lately.  Part of this is because I know I can get cheaper organic produce at Greenwood Market where I buy our organic meat.  Using Pioneer Organics has definitely been a good exercise.  It has been good to eat vegetables and fruits more seasonally and locally, funding less food transport energy costs.  And it is nice to have it delivered.  On the other hand, GM isn't so far that I can't bike or walk, and if I'm going there anyway for meat and other grocery items, it only makes sense that I can do some produce shopping at the same time.  So, we're now set for delivery every other week.  The surplus strawberries left over from Game Night made fine strawberry jam, but grapefruit don't exactly lend themselves to jam, shortcake or chocolate dipping like strawberries do.  I also can't eat grapefruit unless they are the first thing I consume in a meal because otherwise the sour is too offensive.  Want one?
    Well, to bed with me.
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March 26, 2007

    I have made a new determination to change B's kindergarten homework to eliminate the struggles and battles, and stop the "I hate this!" comments.  I just read an article in the wonderful magazine Brain, Child called "One Good Year" by Laura Brodie about parents opting to homeschool for one year and then return to the public school system. 
    "In the end, I believe in supporting public education in America, especially in districts like ours, where the schools are small and safe. But in return, the public schools should be supporting America's families, not filling our children's family time with more schoolwork. While I am willing to leave my daughter's education in the hands of the public schools until three o'clock each day, after-school hours should be devoted to exercise, art, music, and unstructured play--all of the highly educational activities that many schools, in their test-bound shackles, have cut to the bare bones. When excessive homework gets in the way of family time--time for long conversations, as well as visits to museums and parks and concerts--that's when the schools have crossed my line in the sand."
    This helped clarify my belief that learning we do outside the classroom is just as valuable and important to my kids' growth and development.  It is certainly not as if B's homework isn't already structured to be fairly flexible (it has always had an "Optional Enrichment Activity" area to describe or attach papers to) or that his teacher wouldn't be fully supportive (she has said many times that homework is practice, that B didn't need it, and that we could circular file any part we didn't want to do).  So I aim to change it quite a bit, but not eliminate it completely.  He is definitely getting better with practice, at things like drawing, creating sentences, and making his letters and numbers faster and more beautiful.  He has been recently fascinated by making his name "fancy" - that is, I showed him some bubble letters and he has started making his letters and numbers fat.  So, today we're going to do his name and date with fancy writing.  And, since he is interested, I'll show him some other ways of fancy writing (calligraphy, cursive, 3-D, etc.) that he can practice as well. 
    I would like to get at the root of the homework assignments and instead of doing stuff he already knows, exploring those key ideas with more depth.  Instead of just picking four "et" family words and illustrating, for instance, do the rhyming and talk about parts of speech and drawing nouns versus verbs, and explore the meanings of words he hasn't met yet.  Getting some good drawing books from the library and practicing a few things.  Talking about the books he reads and coming up with a sentence to demonstrate his reading comprehension, though perhaps not just "the place."  We've already made a habit of stretching his adding and subtracting to multiplying and dividing, and circles and triangles to spheres and pyramids.  I will document what we do and how we've tweaked his homework.
    I will also document the myriad things we do together that contain other lessons.  The baking and board games, the estimating red cars, and the reading.  He has been creating and programming a robot for the science fair on Friday.  It makes no sense that we've been struggling to get through the regular homework to have time to do robot stuff with his dad.
    So, we'll change it.  I suspect it is foolish to project too far into the future and fight battles in my head that haven't materialized, but I am at least secure in my belief that assigned homework is not sacrosanct, immutable, or superior to the work he does at home with us.  We will work with the teachers in the coming years and it will all be fine.  I should also remember that the learning he does accidentally or by having struggles with teachers with contrary styles, is valuable too.
    I don't expect my new emphasis to eliminate the homework battles, however.  He needs more practice in writing, but doesn't want to do it. 
    In fact, another article, this time in the Stanford Magazine, about Carol Dweck's work on mindsets, has me wanting to buy the book (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success) and read it, but also to work hard on changing B's mindset in particular.  The gist of the article on her work is that having the belief that intelligence and/or ability is innate leads to the desire to look smart/capable, avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as worthless, ignore useful negative feedback, feel threatened by others' success, and thereby not live up to their full potential.  Having the belief that intelligence and/or ability can be developed leads to the desire to learn, embrace challenges, be persistent, see effort as the path to success, learn from criticism, find lessons and inspiration in others' success, and thereby reach ever-higher levels of achievement.  Moreover, Dweck's work has shown that the fixed mindset can be changed to the growth mindset.  More details on how to do that is why I need the book (aside from the fact that this stuff is really interesting by itself) because B does exhibit a lot of the tendencies that make me concerned.  I recognize a lot of me in that too, certainly in my school years, and I'm sure I could benefit from some of the self-same lessons I want to impart to B.
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March 12, 2007
 
    My mom has called recently to start a conversation about the possibility of coming to live with us.  I did mention at some point in the past that it would be handy to have her as a nanny in the house if I went back to work full time.  And she is coming to the point of being mentally ready to move.
    I fully support her desire/need to move out of the house she's in.  It is the one I grew up in, so she has been in it for about 36 years now.  It is too big and overwhelming for one person, no matter how fit and on the ball.  It has big gardens, lots of things to repair, rooms to maintain, and unfinished projects lurking on shelves.  When I visit I think about all of the things I would do to fix it up, but she has neither the time nor the money nor the workforce to do the things on her lists, let alone mine.  In hearing her talk I was all set to go over for a week (spring break) and help her get it ready to sell.  She has said that it would be okay if all the things that attach her to the house go to someone who will use them or take joy in them.  I believe her.  I can see her in a smaller house or condo and I think she would really benefit from moving to Seattle.  There are more opportunities for her here, I think, not only employment, communities and contacts, organic food, politics, and culture, but dating too.  And we would very much like for her to be near by.  There are kids in B's class who have a grandma in Seattle that they see regularly or who volunteer in his class and I envy that.  I would like to see and spend more time with mom than I am able to with her across the state.  I am also very bad at calling her, which is particularly horrid because she has been very lonely since the divorce four years ago.  I envision her moved here and very quickly getting immersed in a busy life with new friends and a new church and new places to go.
    I don't think I need a nanny anymore, though.  I don't have any desire ever to go back to a nine plus hour work day out of the house.  I would be lonely for my kids and my house and the things I like to do.  The jobs I find most intriguing anyway, are some that can be done from home.  While living with us would help solve mom's loneliness problems, and while I'm more than willing to host her for a period of time (even months, say, while she was searching for a place to live) the idea of having her live with us until the end of her life in some 40 some years is a little bit terrifying.  I want to spend my home life with my new family.  While it is easy to have either my or C's mom here for a visit, and I enjoy the help with housework and kid wrangling, it is a bit of a relief when they are gone.  C finds this to be even more true than I because he hates having to close the door to the bathroom all the time.  Having another person in the house is hard because there is so much that needs to be shared, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  My mom especially has a special power to yank my chain and I behave incredibly badly and out-of-character in relation to her.  I suspect I have a special power to annoy her as well, since my brother and I installed those buttons I keep pressing.  We would have to do a lot of interpersonal work and I am having enough trouble making the changes I want to make for my kids that I don't know if I want to try to make even more changes at the same time, or if I can even do it.
    But the question has made me think a lot more about what I do want to do with my life, with my time, with my career.  What if I had more time?  Especially now that my hours at my paying job have tanked and I am at looser ends than I'd have expected a couple months ago.  I'm not to the point where I can formulate thoughts enough to put them down yet, even here, but I'm thinking.
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March 5, 2007

    The kids were very, very sad that grandma had to leave tonight back to Michigan.  She took the red-eye and it didn't help that we only got to play one game of Rat-a-Tat-Cat in between her printing boarding passes and getting everything in the right place.  I did get some good pictures of the boys cuddling with their grandma, but not as many as I'd have liked.  When she finally left there was sadness so collapsing that there was wailing and falling down on the stairs and curling up into a ball.  B was the loudest and most in need of holding, so I held him and patted A and acknowledged how sad they were, that it was okay to be really, really sad, but it didn't always feel good.  A said he wanted her to stay another "da-week!" suddenly realizing that if he was going to wish for more time to visit, that he might as well ask for a week instead of a day.  Mostly they weren't ready to say good-bye, they were tired and sad.  We waved good-bye and blew kisses out the window and then I did a lot of holding.
    B picked her a big bunch of long-stemmed dandelions for her to take home with her.  I don't know if they made it onto the plane, but it was important to B, so we packed them up for her.
    It was a good visit.  I do wish they lived closer, but they are in the thick of caring for their parents and can't consider a move for a while yet.  And now A and B have another cousin, C, who lives a few hours drive away from them as well, so there is competition for that hypothetical and potential proximity.
    Well, I've had a long day as well.  I spent hours outside yesterday weeding the garden, and it was a beautiful day today.  Mom and I wore sunglasses on our walk to pick up A.  I am looking forward to doing some volunteering at B's school shelving books tomorrow, and I'll be running the Sudoku room at an upcoming Family Math Night there too.  I need to make a menu, sew a couple slings, and finish mending some jeans.  Time for bed now.
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February 21, 2007

    Whoops, somehow almost a whole month slipped by there.  Our whole family was ill with a cold for a while.  This tipped me over the edge a bit in feeling overwhelmed by all my responsibilities.  I decided to step down my commitment to be a La Leche League Leader and have been convinced to take a leave of absence from the process instead of quitting entirely.  That way, instead of starting completely over if I decide it IS something I want to do, I can just pick up where I left off close to the finish line.  Ironically, in a fit of "I can do everything" hormones, I recently flirted with the idea of sprinting to the finish.  Also ironically, I missed our monthly meeting this morning because the kids have mid-winter break and my mother-in-law is visiting.  sigh.
    I have also been spending time updating my regular home page photo albums.  I had let a whole year go by without updating those.  Now I'm into June of 2006 and hope to get more done soon.  They're such cute kids.  I have spent an inordinate amount of time just looking at the collection of pictures of them stretching back to their birth.  My favorite album is a collection of the boys together and family pictures as well.  All the good ones of them hugging and mugging for the camera are in there.
    And I made a discovery about jeans.  The tight look has returned and I have been avoiding these since I remember what they felt like.  However, mindful of an article in the paper in the last year about the dreaded "mom jeans," I tried on a few new pairs at Value Village recently and have become a convert.  They stretch!  They bend!  I didn't have to struggle to get them on!  They're comfortable!  Of course, now I REALLY need new underwear, and I have discovered several shirt/jean combinations that show off a little much of my belly for wearing to volunteer at B's school, for instance.  But they're fun and supply my "jeans without holes in the knees" need until I can actually get to the mending.
    As I mentioned, C's mom is visiting for two weeks.  This morning B said he knew how someone could have only one grandma and grandpa.  He was right (a brother and sister marry and have kids).  He also prompted a conversation about the illegality of marrying your siblings and cousins, and mutations.  I didn't get too deep into genetics and the benefits of meiosis, but I did talk a bit about how you didn't want the mom and dad's genes to be too alike.  I also didn't go down the road of what else is not legally a marriage, partially because it is my hope that by the time they are teens the ability of homosexual couples to marry will be happily resolved.
    Well, it is my hope that having C's mom here will free up some time for me to come back to blogging as a habit again and I can return and write about how much geography the kids have forgotten or about sleeping with the fishes (recent school field trip overnight at the aquarium).  But not tonight.
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January 29, 2007

    I finished a book I really liked and would recommend, I Do, But I Don't: Walking Down the Aisle Without Losing Your Mind, by Kamy Wicoff, about examining the way in which we marry.  The author is the wife of a former classmate, and the way she told her wedding story made me really want to compare notes, or share my own story as well.  One of her basic contentions is that examining the clash between the social construct of wedding traditions and ourselves and our relationships BEFORE we wed helps to make the marriage stronger.  I can't help feeling fortunate (okay, and a big smug) about doing just that (though certainly I did not examine or reflect on them to the depth that she did).  I was very conscious of the history and symbolism behind all of the pageantry, and so changed a lot of our journey towards and into matrimony in reflection of that knowledge.
    To start with, I proposed to C with a poem and engraved watch, brownies and hot chocolate on a cold bench overlooking the water.  We shopped together for an engagement ring for me which did not cost three months salary.  Because we wanted to spend time with our wedding guests, we held "Camp Wedding" at a campgrounds used to hosting football teams for weeks at a time, occupying the bunk beds and communal bathrooms (some had private houses and some camped on the lawn) from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.  It was fantastic - we all had fun playing lots of games and staying up late.  There was an ultimate game going on just before the ceremony.  We avoided most of the outfitting expense ridiculousness by leaving the clothing of our best people (we each had one of each gender standing up for and with us) up to them, buying a good suit for C, and borrowing my grandmother's wedding dress (no veil) for me.  We had a flower girl and a flower boy (my niece and nephew) each strewing flowers ahead of one of us as we walked up the side aisles at the same time and we exited together.  We wrote our own vows.  I kept my name (and now one of my sons shares it with me).  We didn't have a bachelorette party, though there was a shower, and C's bachelor's party didn't include any strippers.  We traveled down the Oregon coast for our honeymoon and ended up coming back a day early because we were pining for home-cooked food.
    We thought and talked a lot about the process, about the symbolism, about what we wanted to represent with our own wedding.  We learned a lot about each other and stepped forward knowing more and being more secure in each other.  It was a good thing.
    I have to think about who needs this book so that I can buy them copies.  You don't have to be near the wedding itself to benefit from it or enjoy it (we married eleven years ago), and I would recommend it to anyone.
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January 27, 2007

    I went shopping for bras today.  Aside from the sports bras I run in, and one I got while I was pregnant with B (over six years ago), all of the other bras I owned were several years older, falling apart, and ill-fitting all at once.  While I did wear nursing bras for a few years, they got old fairly quickly, and it was equally easy to slip a regular one up if I needed to nurse; I put them away a few years ago.  Knowing I needed new undergarments, I decided several years ago that I would get new ones when I stopped nursing.  It wasn't to be a reward exactly, but I did want to be done with the physical changes.  Since I'm wearing some of the bras I bought over a decade ago and the kids nurse so little anymore that I am confident that this is not an issue.  And I had a gift card from Christmas 2005 to spend.
    Like more women than I can count, I hate shopping for bras.  This is not shocking since I dislike shopping in general, but there is a special venom for this particular errand because it has gone so poorly in the past.  First of all, I was late in the development department and I didn't need a bra until eighth grade.  I was always self-conscious of needing less and that later than most everyone else.  Then there was the perception I absorbed that any padding was cheating of the worst sort.  This was not a stricture I followed with ease, but it is one I followed.  I couldn't buy any bras with any shape to them because my shape was so different.  Needless to say, this made me feel like a freak.  It also made me stuck with the "pointy-outy bits" as C calls them, showing to some extent through most all of my clothes because they were restrained by a thin, stretchy layer.  I tired of feeling like I needed to wear Band-Aids on cold days.  I hadn't been fitted by a professional partly because I hate bra shopping in general and because it was/is hard sometimes for me to ask for help.  I'm sure this is part of why most of my bras fit so poorly: I was wearing the wrong size.
    Today I went directly for help from the beginning, and the whole outing went amazingly well.  I came away with 4 styles and 8 total bras, ensuring that I won't have to do this again in a hurry, even though it was painless enough that I could.  And they fit!  I did try on some klunkers, of course, but all the ones that gapped, caved in, or made me laugh didn't make the cut.  It is actually hard these days to find bras without any padding at all, and I was finished with worries about "cheating," so I'm through with pokey-outy bits as well.  Having a chest that was so much more impressive for a while when B was first born was fun for both C and I.  I wouldn't mind having that back for an evening or two, but I was not actually able to find any of those kind of bras in my size.  Apparently women with ribs my size are expected to be at least a C cup.  I find this ironic since it seems to me the folks that are Bs (or As for heaven's sake) would benefit more from a sexy velvet push-up bra than those with bigger cup sizes.  Ah, well, I'm satisfied.  Not a feeling I'm used to after undergarment shopping, mind you, but it makes me hopeful for the underwear trip I need to make even more desperately than I did the bras.  The bras, at least, didn't have holes.
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January 22, 2007

    C is putting the boys to sleep now on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I was going to spend my evening playing Pool of Radiance while he did that, but C has that computer converting some of our music files to a more useful format.  It has taken over an hour, and though it converts each song quickly, he had a whole lot queued up.  Sigh.  I'll keep checking.
    We have been eagerly awaiting B's advanced placement test results, which we will hear about "at the end of January."  I just found out this evening that he did in fact already have individual testing in both reading and math sometime in the last month in addition to the cognitive development group testing he had done in December.  Apparently B was willing to tell me about these tests if I asked him about them, but hadn't volunteered up 'til now.  I guess that my current questions about his day are not specific or probing or interested enough to elicit these rather unusual occurrences.  Also, probably, I didn't communicate my curiosity about the testing process well enough to him that he wanted to share the information.
    It is a very different world when your kids are away from you for so long during the day.  There is so much that goes on that is hard to know about.  A and B aren't very practiced at telling.  I know to ask specific questions about the routines in their days ("What kind of music did you listen to before Bring and Brag?"), but we don't yet have those conversations built into our days yet.  It's frustrating because I know it is important, and I know that practice and routine conversation will help our ability to talk throughout the rest of their school years and adulthood.  Yet it is still something I haven't done well yet.  We have started to talk at the dinner table, and while that seems to be hitting the highlights only, at least it is better than having one or both of the adults reading at the table.  I don't want to be surprised by missing the important stuff, whether that is about advanced placement testing, or school yard friendships, or the emotions that populate their lives.
    Anyone have ideas?
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January 15, 2007

    I've spent the last couple of hours organizing and straightening up around my work area in the art room (a long counter that has been the catch all for kid school papers, to do lists, calendar items, keepsakes and kid projects of all stripes), checking my jacket pockets and the top of the dresser in our room.  It is too cold and dark to spend much time in the garage or outside looking on the floor and between the seats.  Unfortunately, I haven't found my credit card.  Sigh.  I don't believe anyone else has it (at least no one has used it since I lost it on December 29th), which would lead me to believe that it is here in the house somewhere, darn it.  I don't really want to learn a new number, but I will acquiesce to my husband's nervousness if I don't find it tomorrow in the car or after triple-checking my purse.
    I spent the day in a communications session learning new things.  One which I hadn't encountered before is called "empathic confrontation" in which you have noticed in someone else, behavior you don't think they're aware of and is injuring them, their relationship or something they value, and in a case where it does not truly matter whether they accept or reject your input, how to give that input and when to back off.  I could use some more practice at it, but I can see a few situations in which I might want to employ it.
    Cooked a new dish this evening which was a hit, skillet lasagna.  I know, I don't like cheese.  It had Parmesan in it and C believes it would be even better with ricotta melted atop some portions.  I can do that, I guess, though it really throws me back to being 14 again and scooping my spaghetti sauce from the communal pot before mom added the cheddar slices.
    I have nothing to rant about today (well, I do, but since it is about the behavior of a friend who may one day be reading this, I am going to pause for a while in quiet contemplation before I commit rant to page), so I'll have to come back tomorrow better prepared.  I guess there's always the weather: I wish the darn snow would melt.  It's right crazy weather we've been having here with multiple wind storms and snow days. Lately we've had temperature spreads of only 4-5 degrees and highs below freezing for a week.  Very unusual for Seattle, or at least it has been unusual up to this point in history.  Thank heavens for my corn critters.  I have two, one filled with buckwheat and lavender and the other with feed corn, which I microwave and use to warm my icy feet and hands in bed.  C wants to get an energy expert in to our house to figure out just where the leaks are and what to do about them.  He's tempted to rip all the basement walls and floors down and Xypex the concrete and insulate above them.  It's hard to argue with that when you can feel the cold flowing onto your feet from the laundry room cupboards whenever they're opened.  And now, since the thermostat is set to 60 after eleven, I'm going to go wave my corn critters and go to bed warm.
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January 14, 2007

    Longing for bed should have been a clue.  I have been taken down recently by my "seasonal" hormonal malady.  I'm still working on pin-pointing exactly when in my cycle it hits, what remedies actually work, and why it hits me in such a way.  The symptoms, however, I am getting fairly good at describing, though no better at avoiding.  The symptoms are thus:  1. My ability to avoid my sleep debt goes way down.  That is, usually, I can get by on a less than ideal amount of sleep, but when this hits, I can't.  I long for bed, I take naps, I go to bed at a reasonable hour, and I get more sleep because my body won't let me avoid it.  2. My unrealistic, rosy idea of what I can accomplish does a nose-dive.  Faced with the same number of tasks, responsibilities, and shoulds, instead of feeling energized or at least competent and resolved, I feel overwhelmed and want to run and hide.  I know I can't do all the things on my list, or even most, so I might as well not do any.  This is when I'm most vulnerable to books, solitaire, and slightly insane minutiae-involved tasks whose value would normally be considered just shy of nil (like Thursday, instead of throwing away the pieces of foam art paper my kids cut and stretched into pieces, cutting them into shapes that would be more likely to get used in a project).  This is when things like cassette tapes or stamps get alphabetized or organized; I think it is an attempt at working through being overwhelmed by doing SOMETHING productive instead of burying my head.  Actual headway on the list of things that are on my plate is slow, agonizing, and laborious.  3. I am cold, and/or hungry for something I often can't identify and certainly don't have around.  This time it was oatmeal cookie dough, which I didn't whip up in ten minutes because C doesn't want it in the house to tempt him and it's not really good for me and it would take too much energy and I'm cold.  I turn the heat all the way up to 69 and look in cupboards and refrigerators a lot without taking anything out.  4. I am sad.  Often this is a feeling searching for a focus.  Usually I know this on some meta level and can realize the ridiculousness of having to search out things to be sad about.  I know that the focus picked is not really the issue, and "fixing" it is not only unnecessary but also futile - my sadness will pick a different focus if nudged.  I'm just sad is a less than satisfactory reply to the query what are you sad about, but more true than having to search out an answer, rifling through my brain for something on which to hang the sadness.
    If I get depressed, and this constellation of symptoms sometimes leads me towards that state more often than not, this is when.  Fortunately, it doesn't usually last very long.  My hormones do their shift and time goes by and then I'm back to rosy again.  It's not that I usually believe I can actually do everything on my list (I'm not insane), but rather that it is all stuff I want to get done and I believe I can do most of it (okay, a little insane), and whatever gets done is good and I'll cope regardless.  It is recrimination for the stalled period that I am learning to avoid. 
    Exercise helps temper it, and C has suggested more sex as a remedy as well.  Often this is difficult to achieve exactly because of the same symptoms this may or may not help combat.  Nevertheless, it is worth a scientific experiment, right?  I don't know if I can still be considered in the middle of this malady (I'm going to have to come up with a good moniker for this, and PMS doesn't fit and isn't on the list), but we'll put that aside for now.  Goodnight.
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January 10, 2007

    I'm exhausted and longing for bed.  That doesn't actually happen very often.  My relationship with sleep is usually a reluctant one.  Nevertheless, I've been pushing it until wee hours and then dragging in the morning most of this year.  ...  Ah, heck, this isn't working.  If I'm not opining about pining for bed, I'm staring blankly at this screen and cracking my jaw with huge yawns.  To bed I go.  If the urge overcomes me before sleep does, I can always creep back.  I'm using my ftp capacity to port pictures at the moment anyway, and I don't believe anyone is yet awaiting my missives with bated breath, so it isn't as though I can't do more in the morning and then post it.
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January 9, 2007

    I had my phone interview with the life/disability insurance folks (we're getting more for both of us while the kids are still at home) and realized that I may feel and act perfectly healthy, but my history is not as blemish-free as I usually remember it to be.  We started off with "ever had chest pains?"  Well, yes, back in 1989 when I went to the University's student health for chest pain and trouble swallowing, when they gave me an EKG, and a chest x-ray and had me drink Lidocaine and sent me back to the dorm with the oh-so-reassuring, "We don't know what it is, but it probably won't kill you," eventually diagnosed as pleurisy caused by incomplete swallowing of the tetracycline I was taking.  This may be interesting and a truthful answer to the question, it is not the chest pain they seek.  Same with the heart murmur that my doctor (still a resident) thought she heard so sent me for an echocardiogram.  Nobody else could hear it, and the echo was unsurprisingly, completely normal.  But I've got a "heart murmur" in my medical record just the same.  I remembered a UTI that I'd forgotten, and a ruptured cervical disc (oh, yeah), and the LEEP I had for HGSIL.  The LEEP still makes me mad; risk factors for HPV include multiple partners, but I've only ever had one.  I had myself tested for all the other STDs over a decade ago, and to be hit with this now makes me think there are vectors that are more complicated or at least less-publicized than the party line would indicate, or that HPV was suspected but unconfirmed, or that it was a strain that is not usually found there.  There's certainly no new partner to blame.

    I've been working on getting my photos backed up online and the push is on to finally tell the relevant folks where to find pictures of themselves, their weddings, their hikes, and us.  As we got our digital camera in mid-2004, there are a lot of photos.  Fortunately, all but the last few months are organized and ready for viewing.  I just didn't finish the publicizing several months ago when it was all up to date.  Nevertheless, I hope to send out a bunch of emails with the specifics, or attachments as appropriate, very soon.
    We're going to move to "Going to bed with Daddy nights" on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.  All of us are ready for C and me to be interchangeable as needs decide.  I will need to change when I ask them for the favorite thing they did that day (which I usually do when the light is off and before it's time to close mouths and eyes and belly-buttons).  It is impetus to finally getting their bedtime routine to a better, more regular one that includes some individual talking time.
    Ah, it's late and I've got the photos ftp-ing up, so it's time to go to bed.
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January 8, 2007

    We've finished the CSI and returned it to the library only a few days late.  We now must wait for the next season to come out on DVD if we want to watch more.  Since we are watching after kids are in bed, while in bed, and just before we retire, C is voting for a series or show that is more of a turn-on than a turn-off, like Coupling was.  While I don't disagree, necessarily, I'm wary.  It is kind of like finding good restaurants for us; we don't want to spend a lot of time, money, and energy on mediocre food while searching for something we really like.  So, since we don't eat out very often, we have an Indian place we like, a Thai place, etc., not necessarily close to where we live anymore.  Likewise, television.  Generally, unless it is something we watched regularly back when we owned a t.v., a friend will need to own it, recommend it and lend it (which is how we found Firefly).  Even that doesn't always work; T&V lent us Wonderfalls for several months and we didn't even pull it out.

    Between them, A and B have had three dentist appointments in the past five days, filling nine cavities.  Their dentist has a technique that relies heavily on competition.  Lots of pumping the kid up about whatever they're doing (playing games on my Palm) and telling them that she surely wouldn't be able to do so well, exclaiming to her assistant about how good/skilled/smart he is, races between him and her (he has meds in a cup, she has water, who gets done first), lots of certainty that his brother wouldn't be able to do as well, lots of "perfect."  It works for her and yet I'm tempted to warn her off the tactic before she has kids of her own.  I believe that the short times they spend with her will not hurt their relationship with each other, but I am not willing to bring them in to the office together again.  It seems easier to brush it off if the brother she is trying to get one to compete with is not there.  I try to KEEP my kids from competing with each other. 
    I want the messages that they are hearing to be: the love, the recognition, the favor that you get from your parents is not a finite resource.  You can not win more of it by being "more" than your brother.  You are not necessarily bigger, stronger, smarter, faster, neater, cuter, or better than your brother because you are older/younger.  If you become bigger, stronger, faster, neater than your brother it doesn't really matter.  What is important is not how much you have in relation to someone else, but in relation to what you need; I won't buy you shoes because your brother needs new shoes, and I will give you more waffles if you want more waffles.  Competing against yourself is okay and I fully sanction beating personal bests at anything from getting dressed to jumping rope without missing.  I have come to a place finally where it is okay with me if you race your brother to the stroller on the way up the hill from school and it is okay with me if you lose and are disappointed, but it is not okay with me if you hurt him because you think you should always get there first. 
    For the most part, I think we're doing a pretty good job in communicating these.  I get frustrated when I hear them getting messages that equate their worth with how they rank against others, be it classmates or siblings.  I believe that part of the reason that A has so many similar first-born type skills and traits as his brother is because we haven't assigned roles to them and made them compete against each other for our love/recognition/favor/encouragement.  I certainly don't want him to give up on reading or swimming or school or anything else just because it is something his brother is good at already.  Fortunately, neither of the boys has.  There has been some squawking about getting one pancake or waffle dressed before the brother's, which I haven't successfully figured out how to deal with yet, aside from encouraging them to dress their own, but there has not been a lot of interest in what is fair or equal.  Thank heavens.
    We are not perfect parents by any means, and we know that our kids will be needing therapy for something or other down the road, but we're glad to be missing some of the big rocks on this rutted path.
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January 4, 2007

    Once again I find myself in the dark of the night, technically early morning, drawn to write on these wavery electronic pages.  This is a wonder to me not only because it's after one a.m. and I have a warm body in my bed, but because I am in the middle of a book(!), and yet here I am.  This still feels too fragile to call it a habit or a success, but I am glad of the compulsion and my filling of it.
    We watched more CSI this evening.  We are trying to finish the season before it is due back at the library.  This is likely impossible as the disks are due tomorrow and we still have five episodes to watch and not that many kid-sleeping hours in which to do so.  Still, I'm glad they changed the lending period to two weeks from one.  Late fees would rival renting the whole thing for a seven disk set.
    We saw the one in which one boy, at his best friend's urging, turns on a laundromat dryer with him inside it.  One of the lessons I realized I REALLY want my kids to learn is that if they somehow suddenly find themselves in a stupid situation or acting foolishly, that they can ASK FOR HELP.  How in heaven's name do I convey this?  The pre-teen boy who accidentally killed his friend and didn't know what to do, threw up when it was all baldly laid out that he'd walked away.  I really felt for him.  (Okay, I know it's a character and a fictitious situation; my suspension of disbelief is incredibly high when I watch tv or movies, k?)  I can imagine myself, any kid, my kid getting into a situation like that and not knowing how to get out.  I don't want that to be my kid.
    I am not good at asking for help.  I am downright awful at admitting I don't know something I feel I should know already, however unreasonable.  These are not new faults.  These are recognized, bemoaned, but very well-entrenched faults.  Once again, modeling behavior I want A and B to do requires remaking myself and is not something I'm sure I can do well, or in time, or at all.
    I think my main tactic will have to be observation and discussion of the things that we see together, be it stories depicted in books/movies/tv, or memories, or the real lives of them and their friends.  Well, and good.  I think I can find some help in books; among others, I am looking forward to reading Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown in reference to giving kids more options about who to be.  Nevertheless, I am grimly certain that these conversations and observations need to be started now or already, and I don't feel ready.  Discussions about food, sleep, and sex I feel moderately prepared for, but stupidity?  Not so much.
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January 3, 2007

    I'm so afraid for B.  C and I just watched a CSI episode in which the older brother kills his younger brother because he told everyone about the eldest's bed-wetting problem.  I don't fear a replication of the circumstances, or anything obvious, but I worry all the same.
    I worry that he's so little and he feels things so intensely.  I worry that he lashes out and is in a period when he really doesn't like his brother a lot of the time.  I worry that I am not giving him what he needs to deal with his emotions, worry that I am doing things to make it worse.  It feels like a minefield, that he could turn into a really scary person, or someone who snaps in a school yard somewhere, unless I do the right things now as a mom.  C suggests I not pin it all on me, reminds me that he's a great kid, reassures me that he won't be a scary person, remembers being the same little boy where everything turns out different than you want it to and yet worse, since C was spanked all the time: because he was mad, because he was sad, because his sister tattled on him.
    At least I am doing some things right, but there are things I want to do differently.  I need somehow to get him some time with us separate from his brother, time that is his to share with us and do what he wants to do part of the week.  Maybe part of every day too, start staggering bedtimes again, or at least finding a time sometime when he can tell me how he doesn't like his brother and I can listen without A listening too.
    He's so little and so fragile.  It would be so easy for the world to squash him and then I don't know what shape he would be in anymore.  I worry that school will do that to him.  I wonder if maybe B and A should be in separate schools.  I love him so much and I am afraid for him.
    He is taking steps toward controlling his anger, expressing with a raised fist instead of punching with it.  But still, I want him to express it with words or pictures or something else.  I don't want the threats, but I prefer them to actual violence.  I am not the best model at dealing with anger, C isn't either, and I need him to have one.  Where do we find one?  How can we change ourselves quickly enough to help our kids?
    His kindergarten teacher suggested that the school might not be a good fit for him, suggested that we look into acting classes.  We haven't done that yet (more guilt), and I am reluctant to jump into the school search again this year without certainty it would be a good idea.  I think selling him on a different school would be a big challenge; he loves his teacher, is making friends and fitting himself into the community and the idea of tearing those connections away from him hurts my heart as much as having him be squashed.  Yet I don't want him to drop out of school or the excitement of learning because he's smothered in paper and can't work fast enough because he wants to do his best job all the time.
    I know that I can't make everything right for him.  I know that I can't protect him from everything all the time, including myself.  But I want to.  I love him so much and I see that beautiful, caring, intelligent, funny, kind and wonderful spirit so clearly.  I'm afraid for him and I don't know how not to be.
    Sometimes being a mom sucks.  And he hasn't even done anything yet to break my heart but be.
    Please, Lord, watch over this little person, give him strength, keep him whole.
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January 2, 2007

    Well, I've begun the process of separating out the blog from the rest of my pages.  In thinking about security, I have gone through and changed all identifying names to initials, gotten a separate yahoo account for the blogging (hoping for comments someday), and will soon move all of the blog pages and all that they link to, to a separate URL as well.  I would like to be able to publicize these writings more than I feel comfortable doing now, and the only way to do that is to separate them from all of the pictures and personal information that is currently attached to these pages via my personal home page.  I still want folks that know me to be able to access my favorite photos of the boys, and read what I've been up to, but I don't want those that don't know me access to my personal details from perusing these pages.  I'm sure someone determined enough may find ways around my current solution, but I hope that this ounce of prevention will produce its pound of cure.
    It has been interesting going through the last eleven years worth of electronic NO Reviews.  I've seen some themes: finding time for my writing; being periodically overwhelmed with the things I imagine I need to do; being happy with my life, my family, my choices; and the gentle arc of newly married, then home owners, then dog-owners, then parents of one, cat-owners, and then parents of two babies, then toddlers, then pre-schoolers, and now school-age kids.  I see wisdom spelled out again and again as I reiterate it to myself because I still haven't incorporated it into my life.  I am reminded that I learn in a spiral and just because some things look the same doesn't mean that I'm in the same place as I was before.
    The kids are back at school and as one dad remarked on the way out of the classroom, step one on the way back to normality has been achieved.  It's not normal I am looking forward to, but a routine in which to insert the changes we want to make.  Earlier dinner times now that swimming has moved to weekends, a new kid class or two (I've compiled a list for us to peruse tonight), better homework and bedtime routines, scheduled outings (skiing, hiking, dates, camping), and more regular writing.  I am also looking forward to resuming my four-mile daily trek picking up kids.  It's rainy and wet, but that only makes me feel more virtuous and determined.  On the other hand, I didn't receive a water-proof top for Christmas, so I'll have to get one for myself soon to avoid the interesting wet spots on my under layers.
    I've noticed a trend of crankiness in B (but not A) in the mornings.  I intend to play with the variables (breakfast contents, bedtime, hours asleep, method awakened) to see if I can get a happier morning child.  I'm not expecting sunny and excited, necessarily, but he's acting a bit like he needs his morning coffee before he's human and I want to avoid surly and combative if I can.  My first suspicion is that he's not getting enough sleep.  He stayed up until 1 a.m. on New Year's Eve and this vacation played havoc with bedtimes in general, so although we pushed dinner earlier yesterday, he still wasn't asleep until 9 p.m. last night, giving him only 11 hours.
    Well, on to the errands, paid work, and minutia.
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January 1, 2007

    Fresh page, fresh day, fresh year.  Same dirt. 
    Progress can be measured in fits and starts.  And more starts.  The whole family is cranky from too little sleep and no napping, so there are more tears than usual.  We're looking forward to an early bedtime tonight before we re-enter the swing of school and work and swimming and dentist appointments.  All of which leaves little time for that progress to be made.
    I have been forced to pare my recreational computer use down to checking out Girl Genius and my mail a couple of times a week.  I was going to have time to actually respond to some of that mail while I was at my mom's for Christmas this year, but wasn't able to open any of my messages without being connected to my network printer.  Now that I'm home it is exhibiting no signs of trouble, but all that time I was going to be reading and writing mail already disappeared.  There are a lot of things I would like to keep abreast of much better, and this blog is one of them.  My mail, and my digital photos, and the rest of my web site, my recipes and my garden map are all somewhere in that circle.  If I didn't have paying work filling up the time I wasn't full-time momming, I might actually be more on top of them. 
    One thing C gently suggested is putting more monetary value to my time so that I was doing a little less time-intensive homemade gift-making and more thoughtful gift-purchasing.  He did say that doing too much evaluation of that sort can suck your soul, but I doubt I'm in any danger of that.  I'm still not quite cognizant of the money that I'm bringing in, partially because I haven't been doing the Quicken, partially because the weekly paychecks aren't as large as they would be if they were less frequently, and partially because it's been so long since bread winning wasn't solely on C's shoulders.  Also, I really do enjoy canning and making jam, candy, and cookies at the same time that I really dislike shopping.  Nevertheless, I agree with the sentiment.  I haven't changed my ways very much to correspond to our family's fortunes.  I grew up without a lot of money to spend on gifts and made a lot of the ones I gave, and while this is not a BAD habit, when I freak out now about how much I have to do and how little time I have to do it, it does make sense to drop some of my self-imposed responsibility to do things the way I always have.  Sensical, however, doesn't mean easy.
    Resolutions aren't as interesting to me as goals, goals for the near and far future aren't as much a January first thing as a constant, and the fresh start concept is one I try to use throughout the year.  In combination, however, and with the power of multitudes of newly resolved people behind me, perhaps this will be a beginning that sticks.  We'll see.
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