Stink Weed

We went to the wedding rehearsal tonight. Robert, in his third trip down the aisle as a Best Man, seems unflappable. Harrison, poised to be the “Ring Barrier,” is pure excitement. Looks to be a good show tomorrow. :)

The girl is getting huge. Here she is in her ‘coming home from the hospital outfit.’ She is, I believe, three days old. I’ve slept since then (not a lot, but still…), so I’m not entirely sure.  I made this wrap-back dress with the intention of her being able to wear it beyond her first month or so, which most newborn clothing doesn’t get to do. She was swamped in it, but beautiful, nonetheless.

Here she is today, two hundred forty-nine days old (or eight months—whatever), in the same dress, which is now being worn as a tunic with brown leggings and the Mary Jane socks she also wore home from the hospital. The socks were huge on her then. They do not so much fit now, but I still shove them down on her feet because 1) they fit better than the infant socks she has completely outgrown and 2) I’m harboring the dream that she’ll be able to wear them forever since they are so stinkin’ cute!

And the gratuitious ‘Mommy ‘n’ Me’ shot at the wedding rehearsal.

Dang, it’s tough having such cute kids.

Random

Much as I hated hearing teenagers say how random something was two years ago (thank God that verbal tic has passed!), I figured a random gathering of my thoughts would be better than me spending a lot of time fleshing out one idea.

What? I’m lazy.

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I wonder if the actors on Heroes (from which I am taking a very short break to meet my self-imposed deadline of midnight for posting) feel silly when they’re filming a scene where they have to use their power and they have to make ‘the face’ (Hiro’s poo grunt, Matt’s crazy eye stare, etc) without the help of the ‘mood’ music that accompanies the shot in the final version. I would totally feel like a doof if I had to do that. Guess it’s good then that I’m an art teacher and not an actor.

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My favorite students are often my special ed students. They are, hands down, the most enthusiastic people in the school. What they lack in skill, they are overloaded in gumption and just-plain-HAPPY! The best part is that actually want to be there, as opposed to the ‘regular’ kids who feel duty-bound to tell you on a regular basis, “I’m only here for the credit, miss. I hate art.”

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The boy had to do extra pushups and sit-ups at karate tonight. I didn’t feel a bit of sympathy—in fact, when he told his teacher that he had been bad at school today and she suggested the pushups, I’m the one who suggested she tack on the sit-ups as well. Evil mom, maybe. He knows, though, that aside from his classroom teacher and Mommy and Daddy keeping an eye on him and his behavior, his karate teacher is doing the same. It really does take a village to raise a child and I’m making use of every resource I’ve got.

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Tomorrow’s Friday. At the risk of sounding like every other yahoo out there who TGIFs their way through life, I’m really glad. It’s going to be a busy weekend—we’ve got a wedding Saturday, so we’ve got rehearsal dinner tomorrow night—but I’m just ready for the break. More importantly, I’m ready for the Thanksgiving break in a few weeks.

All in good time….

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G’night!

Miracle Oil

I’m not terribly crunchy, by nature. I mean, sure I recycle and try to conserve as much paper/water/whatever as the next person, but I don’t go out of my way to be ‘green.’ My kid wears disposable diapers—both of them did, in fact—and they were both formula fed. (That’s a whole other ball of wax there—time-wise, the breastfeeding thing just didn’t happen before I was set to go back to work and so I figured any food in my babies’ tummies was better than no food. I was not—and am not—going to kick myself over one comparatively insignificant aspect of my parenting. Besides which, my almost exclusively formula fed boy is a phenomenal reader at the age of five and he’s got no health issues. I don’t think that the breast milk would have made him any better than he is right now.)

Anyhoo, the long and short of it is that I went through my ‘let’s recycle all the cans and send the resulting money to Greenpeace’ phase when I was thirteen. Back when I harbored dreams of having a pony and marrying the New Kids on the Block. (Yes, all of them. Shut up.)

The point of this is that I recycle and try to be responsible about what I use, but I don’t go out of my way to do things that are ‘better for me.’ I don’t worry about the chemicals in my shampoo and laundry detergent. I don’t get myself into a huff over using the dryer to dry my clothes. I’m probably just still asleep in the Matrix, but I can live with that.

What I do get excited about, however, is stuff that works and makes me feel good. One of those things is washing my face with oil. It seems crazy and like it shouldn’t work. I’ve only been doing this for a few days, but my skin is soft and seems….I don’t know….better. I don’t have quantitative data on this. I didn’t do extensive scientific research, but it just feels good. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I don’t have to use moisturizer after I’m done washing my face, which is something of a minor miracle, especially if you consider how lazy I am.

I won’t go into a lot of detail at how it works—Simple Mom has done that quite extensively and much more convincingly than I have. I will say that I expected to be pretty greasy when I got done, but by and large, the vast majority of the oil is absorbed by the time my wet rag gets cold and I start to wipe up. I’m using a one to three ratio of castor oil to olive oil, but I suggest playing around and finding your mix. If you’ve been thinking of giving this a try, I totally recommend it. The ingredients are cheap, the mix is easy and if you don’t like it you can always go back to your old chemical ways. I think I’m going to stick with it, myself.

Hard

Laura is in the middle of a screaming wall-eyed fit. I know how she feels.

Some nights, it’s kind of hard to come up with something for the blessing jar. I mean, it’s not that I’ve had a bad day, specifically. I wouldn’t even say the tenor of the day has been bad. I’m just weary. I’m tired at work, ready for a break. I’m tired at home, ready for my desk to be returned to it’s regular state of disarray. I’m tired of seeing the piles of laundry that I know I should be disseminating to their respective homes, all the while searching every morning for clean underwear in the bottom of baskets.  I’m tired of hearing Harrison chatter non-stop, even as I know that in ten years he’ll barely speak to me and I’ll be wishing for the days when he talked nonstop.

I’m just tired.

I feel terrible whining about this, because I know there are people who have legitimate problems. They’re not just hung over from Daylight Savings Time. They have actual problems.

I just want to be able to throw the same kind of fit that Laura is throwing intermittently, through the filter of her nightly bottle. I don’t think she’s teething, I don’t think she’s sick. I think she’s just tired, just as I am tired, just as Robert as tired, just as we all are tired.

It sometimes seems unfair that the youngest among us are the only ones allowed to fully express their frustrations with the world.

I wonder if, after a real screamer like she’s been having tonight, I’d feel any better. I bet it’s pretty cathartic.

Wish I knew the neighbors wouldn’t call the cops if I let loose.

Office is in shambles. Robert's desk finally came in--he ordered it at least a month ago and after being in backorder purgatory for what seems like forever, we're FINALLY able to get the room swapped around. I got the bigger rolltop back (yay!) and Harrison got the smaller rolltop. We're planning to set him a (very basic) computer up in the living room so he can play his www.pbskids.org in peace. Also, my sewing area is getting more streamlined and will be more functional.
Good stuff, all around.

Karate Kid

Harrison won at his Karate tournament today! I mean, it was a white belt match, and, grand scheme of things, he would have come home with a trophy even if he didn’t win, but regardless, I was still really proud of him. He has his trophy on his dresser right now, under threat of me taking it away if he tries to sleep with it, so I expect there will be lots of getting up to look at it (but not take it to bed with him—I hope) episodes tonight.

There was going to be a Youtube link here, but Windows Live Writer/Blogger are being doody heads, so I’m just posting a hyperlink to the video instead. Sorry.

Wonder Baby

Posted on Wanna Share a Needle?