Four gifts

This is the year I decided to try the four gifts thing I've seen on Pinterest. I thought it would be a good way to organize their presents from us and also provide some structure. I'm hoping this is an idea that will stick around. And since I'm in charge of most of the gifting around here, it probably will. Santa is bringing them each 3 presents, 1 big and 2 small, and a gift for the family. So it should be a successful Christmas. 
When I first ran the idea past BT, he seemed suspicious. His family is fairly intense about Christmas. As long as it doesn't include Santa presents then he was fine with it. The Something They Want, Wear and Read was easy. I had them circle the toy catalogs when they came in for Santa presents and picked something out for the Want. Clothes, they always need especially as they both had growth spurts recently. And, of course, I have the Read covered (Bub is getting the illustrated Harry Potter and I am super excited about it). It was the Need that stumped me. After all, if they need something I usually just buy it. I did an internet search for ideas and didn't really find many. Bub has ended up with a soccer goal and Button with shoes. Both things they need in different ways and I'm hoping having his own goals will inspire him to practice more.

I should start making a list of Needs all year round so I 'll have ideas for next year. It was after I finished the list that I thought that rain boots would have been a cute idea for the two of them and maybe rain coats. Oh well. There's always the Easter bunny.

Pants on Fire

So I didn't follow through at all on the BEDN. Oh well. I didn't really try. That's okay. I'm trying out the motto "It is what it is." It seems applicable to so many things these days. The truth is I've been dealing with a lot of anxiety these days including having some panic attacks. This is a new thing for me. I've always been a worrier but never had such physical symptoms. Don't worry. I'm going to see a doctor next week. It could be related to the tinnitus I've been experiencing for the same amount of time or the tinnitus could be a result of the anxiety. I don't know. I'm working on it. I'm trying to figure out what the triggers are. Feelings of losing something seem to play a part in all of it. Lose of job and income or losing friends have become an general worry for me despite the fact that there is almost no need to worry about any of it. Whatever happens happens and all those clichés. So those are some of the things I didn't want to talk about before. I'm not one to open up about these types of things. It's not in my nature but it's nice to admit them in the open even to the 3 people that may or may not read this. It sucks in a way to need constant reassurance from others that they love me or need me or whatever. It feels needy. But I think everyone wants to hear it sometimes and sometimes you need it more than others. I told my friend, who is going through a rough time, the other day that she was awesome. She said that she hasn't been lately but I'm awesome for saying it. And I replied "We all have things. You just have one right now." It seems I'm having a thing right now too. But everything is going to be okay. I firmly believe that.

Something something

Not doing too well on this BEDN, am I? I can't seem to find the motivation for much these days. I did start working on my 2016 calendar so that's a good creative outlet. Tomorrow I'll try for a real post. Maybe I can mine something I've done in the past for ideas.

BEDN

I had thought I would blog everyday in November. I don't do NaNoWriMo but I can blog. But I missed yesterday so oops. I don't really have a topic for today but as I said last week I'd like to pick up a few things I've been missing lately. We had a lot of rainy weather this weekend continuing into today and that always makes me feel blah. It's incredibly quiet around my office and I think I need some noise or something.

We had a fun Halloween. On Friday, in what is becoming an annual thing, we hung out at the across-the-street neighbor's house with her, her daughters, grandchildren and a few of the other neighbors going trick-or-treating and then hanging outside. It was a good time. Then it started raining on Saturday and hasn't stopped. Bub was suppose to have a soccer tournament but it got pushed back. It was a quiet weekend and I watched 4 movies on Sunday which is almost unheard of but it was very relaxing. I think I needed a relaxing day and torrents of rain will do that. I'm looking forward to some sunshine whenever that comes around again.

Doing something

I realized today that it had been a few months since I've written anything. It's not that nothing has been going on. It's just that I didn't want to talk about it. There's been some ups and downs as most people have but it coupled with some seasonal depression that I'm still working on getting over. Most days are fine, some are bad, and the rest are good. I have managed to continue working out and eating healthy (or healthier) and am feeling better about my physical self. The other good thing is that it's finally feeling nice outside so I can get some sun without sweating to death. Right now we are a long stretch between Labor Day and Thanksgiving and there are no built in days off. I mean, I've taken days off but they are not holidays and it's not the same when you have to use up your own vacation time.

I also seem to have lost track of my favorite things to do like reading and making things so I'm working on that. I've been big into re-reads lately. I'm almost done with the Old Kingdom series again (Garth Nix) and managed to fit in The Kid Table (Andrea Seigel) in the middle. I'm in a science fiction mood suddenly so I'm going to go way back to The Rowan (Anne McCaffrey), an old childhood favorite. I'm a little tempted to restart my book blog but I don't want to get ahead of myself on that. Maybe next year with a new name. Who knows? 

But I feel like I've been in my own head way too long and I'd like to start doing things again. So here I am. Doing something.

The end of The Little Bookworm

If you didn't know I ran a fairly "successful" book blog for many years, 6 to be exact. And Wednesday I officially shut it down. I hadn't blogged over there since May and I've only blogged sporadically since I had Button. I always thought I'd go back and pick it back up but the truth is I got out of the habit of book blogging and dealing with that whole world. I started it as an outlet for all the books I was reading without understanding that there is a whole community. And then I got involved in that community and met some wonderful people and generally had a good time. But like most things, I just couldn't get up with the pace and I stopped reading altogether for a long time. I've always been a reader so the fact that I didn't want to pick up a book was alarming to me. I know it had more to do with having a newborn and a school-age child than the idea of having to review but the truth is that was a contributing factor. And if your hobby is stopping you from doing something you love, then it's not a good hobby anymore. Still I tried because I loved it and I still doing on some level. It just started to feel like more of a burden than a hobby. So after not blogging or even looking at it for 3 months I decided to just call it quits. One day I might pick it back up. After all my consistency is here is not always the best but I keep coming back (for 7 years now). But as I said over there, today is not that day. I'm thinking one day in a year or two that I might go back. But for now I'm happy that I made it official.

Good Habits

I started working out again a few weeks ago. But this is not really about that. Because the 5 people who read this are probably like same song, same verse. I've been through this before. I'm not saying it's going to stick. I'm not saying it won't. I just need to try. It seems to be going well though. MyFitnessPal and I are BFF now. My plan is not to change anything in this new routine until it actually is a routine. That's where I trip up most of the time.

Anyway. Bub woke up early the first day I started again, and asked if I was exercising. I thought, okay this is good. He can see me trying to create a good habit. After all, like it or not, pretty much everything I do is an example for my kids. Sometimes I get tired of being that example. I just want to eat 6 cupcakes and curse like a sailor. But choices and all that. I really want my daughter to see me creating this good habit too but I'm not going to wake her up at 5:30 in the morning. I'm not crazy.

He starts school tomorrow so our routine is going to revert back to that. So I have to see how it all works together. Still I am making no goals, no concrete promises to myself. I'm just going to try.

140 decibels

My daughter is loud. She is loud in a way that BT and I are not. He pointed it out to me one day. "Have you noticed how loud is she?" And then I did. It's not that BT and I are incapable of being loud, but we generally are not. I suppose she comes by it honest anyway because his family is loud and my father's family is loud though I didn't know that loudness was a genetic trait. Bub, I would say, falls in the general regular loudness scale, when he is excited, etc. But just regular talking, not so much. But she is just very outspoken and at top volume. I asked if she knew what an inside voice is. "No," she said. I told her it was when you are inside so you talk quieter. She thought about it for a moment. "No," she said. No, that's okay, apparently I'm cool with using an outside voice at all times is what I assume she meant. It seems though she is not like this with everyone. At daycare they are surprised when we pick her up and she exhibits her most three year old behaviors (me first! me do it! NO ME!). They think she is a quiet, sweet, angel baby. She has them snowed. We know the truth at home.

Potty trained

I wrote back in January that Button was 95% potty trained and I'm honestly not sure when it happened but one day I realized she was 100% trained. I hadn't changed dirty underwear for quite sometime and just like that I had two regular undiapered kids. It's pretty amazing. I can't say that I did anything amazing to facilitate this other than constantly remind her to use the potty and when she had an accident say over and over again that "it's okay but big girls use the potty and where does poop go? In the potty." It's been my constant refrain for a long time. Her daycare teacher had a lot to do with it and she was amazing. Mostly I think it was Button's constant need to be like big brother that did it.

I feel like we had a lot less struggle with Button than we did with Bub but that's hardly apples to apples. Bub = first born boy, Button = second born girl. I'm not saying that she hasn't had a few setbacks now and again. When she's sick she tends to wet the bed and she had a hard time at my in-laws' new house since their toilets are really high and she couldn't go by herself. But things like that are too be expected.  I'm just happy for no more diapers ever again!

Free style summer

I never knew how much parents looked forward to summer until my kid started school. Although I'm guessing that same statement might not apply to stay at home parents. But it does for this mom. No more homework or car rider lines or worrying about AR tests and conduct grades and unexcused absences! This summer is going to shape up much like last year with Bub at summer camp at Button's daycare. He has a good time there. We don't have any summer plans for vacation or anything. We could never quite work it out. I'm calling it our free-stylin' summer since I think we are just going to see how it goes. The kids have swim lessons later in June and that's the extent of our current plans. We visited BT's parent's new house in Florida for Memorial Day weekend and I think we'll go back either before Bub goes back to school or for his fall break.

Bub's last day was Wednesday so my dad had him yesterday and I have today. He is going to start summer camp on Monday and I thought I'd give him a couple of days off before he started that (and save that money to be frank). I ended up keeping Button home and we are going to the public library's summer reading kick-off to have some fun over there and sign-up for the program. One of my plans this summer is to have at least 15 minutes of quiet reading a day. I'm looking forward to having a quiet summer in general.

Arts and other creative things

Bub goes to the arts & technology elementary school in our parish (county to the rest of the U.S.) and they take 7 arts for K-2. At the end of 2nd grade each child has to chose 3 arts to take in the 3rd grade and then narrow it down to 1 from those for 4th and 5th grades. It's kind of like choosing a major only they give you 4 years to try them out and pick. The goal is to be able to get into the arts middle school program with your chosen art. I'm not sure at this point if he wants to do that or go to the science middle school. I'm fine with either. So this year he was highly recommended for piano, which is great because we recently acquired BT's parents' piano. He was recommended for drama, dance, visual art, strings and band. The only one not on the list was vocal and it's easy to see why. He sings like I do, full of emotion but lacking in tune and/or pitch. So he ended up choosing piano, drama and dance which is perfect for him with band as his alternate. I'm not sure when they send out the final schedule of which ones they were assigned. But hopefully he gets the ones he chose. Dance is perfect since he needs all the physical motion he can get and drama is perfect because, well, he is a very dramatic child. Although I'm not entirely convinced that he understands the concept of drama equals plays, but I guess he'll find out.

Party like it's my birthday

Because it is!  My birthday, I mean. Yes today I'm turning the crusty old age of 37. My plans for today including going to work, taking my son to school, going back to work, working, and then leaving early and going to the movies to see Pitch Perfect 2. I'm pretty excited. Maybe not for the work part but the movies sound pretty good. My coworker mentioned lunch but I think I just want to eat movie nachos and chill. It's not exciting but then I've never been inclined toward the exciting so it suits me just fine. I may even buy myself a book and the drink a margarita with the fajitas my husband is gong to make me.

I kind of can't believe that I am 37. You ever have one of the those moments when you suddenly realize how old you are. Yeah, that's me. I had a moment the other day when I was suddenly surprised to find that I was 36 and a mother of two. It was weird but it was a moment of just supreme awareness. And I know that 37 is nowhere near old but I keep thinking about how close to 40 I am. Turning 30 didn't bother me and 35 was whatever but I have a feeling I'm going to take 40 hard especially judging by the way I'm dwelling on 37. But a coworker asked me what more I wanted to accomplish in life?Nothing, really. I have a beautiful family, a good career and a nice house. I think I've done pretty well for myself. So it's not that. It's just a weird thing.

Take me out of the ball game

Sportsball. So Bub has been playing soccer since he was 3 and baseball since he was 4. We are big supporters of team sports around my house. I'm pretty much of the mind that it's good for my kids to do something. Sports is a good something but I would accept music or art or something similar. Just get out and do something. And while he still likes soccer, baseball has become a struggle. I don't know if it's because they play so many more games (18 this season) or if it's because he's not as good at baseball as he is as soccer. He lacks focus and baseball is not a game where the action is non-stop so I think that is a contributing factor. If he practiced more I know he could be better but we are struggling just to get him to go to a game. He wanted to quit basically after baseball started. But the lesson I think he should learn is that if you tell someone you are going to do something for them, you have to finish it out. He signed up for this, he has a team so he has to play out this season for his team. It's the right thing to do. Right now I'm thinking that he is going to sit out next year. That even if he says he really really wants to play, I'm not going to let him. I rarely deny my kids this kind of thing. Like I said, I want him to get out and do something. But I want it to be something that he loves. And he doesn't love baseball. If, after sitting out a season, he thinks he wants to play again then fine. But I want him to want to do it. I'm not going to make him. We can always look into other things to do.

There is no clever title available right now

It's been a while. The thing is I haven't had the brain space for a long while to keep up with anything other than a stupid app game on my iPad. It's like when I was young and I'd visit my (future) in-laws and I'd play The Sims all the time but worse because I own this so can play it whenever I want. I'm trying though to get back to reading and writing and doing things I use to love. But everything is so busy lately, work being incredibly stressful as of late and multiple sports things happening with Bub. But now that he is down to one sport and the big project I am in charge settling down into a rhythm I might be able to get my head together.

I've had several blog topic ideas lately but I've forgotten them right now, of course. I'm not sure anyone is interested in the struggles of a Collection Development Librarian or in my latest management difficulties. But I'm going to try to get back into doing the things I use to like doing. 

Reluctant reader

I'm working the Reference Desk this afternoon.  I had 3 questions right away and then almost nothing for the rest of the time. I still have 1 1/2 hour left to go. I was thinking I'd write something. But I don't know what. I don't have a real topic. Mostly I'm just bored. So let's see.

I haven't been reading. That's unusual for me. I've read everyday since I learned how. But lately I've been playing games on my iPad rather than picking up a book. I've all but outright abandoned my book blog and sooner or later I need to either just shut it down or review something again. Maybe micro-reviews rather than the full ones or something. I just know that the actual act of picking up a book hasn't been happening. I read over Christmas break. I read 2 books and that felt good. Honestly this kind of reading impedance is confusing for me. I'll work it out.

I have still been listening to audio books on the commute and now I have Bub hooked on them. We've listened to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, Floors, 3 Below, and Peter and the Starcatchers. I liked that he is enjoying books. I hope that one day he can read them himself with as much enjoyment. In the meantime, I'm listening to his books when he is with me and then my own when he is not. I'm on my 4th or 5th listen of To Say Nothing of the Dog, Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump At Last, one of my absolute favorites. At least that's something.

This is not a resolution

I decided not to make any resolutions this year related to health and/or weight loss. I don't need that kind of pressure anymore. But I would like to take up exercising again. It's something that has been in the back of my mind for a while now.

So the university rec center has started a promotion that if you take 20 classes in the next 4 weeks then you get a free t-shirt. This is something I could never hope to accomplish as that is one class everyday for 4 weeks and I don't have that kind of time. However one of my coworkers is highly motivated for this free t-shirt and so she is going for it. I, in turn, have become inspired to at least try the rec center once a week. So yesterday I went to the barre workout with her. I was nervous because while she is 27 and looks like a college student, I'm fairly certain no one is mistaking me for one. She assured me that the students don't care and they aren't going to judge me as the "old lady." And she was right. Mostly they were trying to keep up and figure out the moves same as me.

Mostly when I work out at home I do walking or aerobic workouts and nothing is ever strenuous because I'm a toe in the water kind of person. Not that the barre workout was strenuous. It just worked my muscles groups (my legs mostly) in a way that they are not use to. Which is good but also oww. It was a lot of ballet moves (as expected) with some push-ups throw in at the end. I enjoyed the class and was happy I went even if I'm sore today. I'm definitely going to try to go once a week while she is working on her t-shirt and maybe even after. I'm hoping that it motivates me to do some workouts at home. But mostly it was nice to 1. do something that did not involve my children and 2. do something just for me.

Potty training {The End}

Since I've written extensively (probably too extensively) about Button's potty training journey, I thought an update was in order. I'm happy to report that she's about 95% trained. In fact, she's slept in underwear the last 2 nights and woken up dry so most of the battle has been fought. There's still a #2 issue but that is being slowly resolved. She wears big girl underwear and doesn't want to put pull-ups on anymore. So I have a whole stack of pull-ups since we had some at the house and then the daycare sent their supply home too. I told BT last night how excited I am to never have to buy diapers again. I'd like to take credit for this miracle of a child potty-trained before the age of 3 but her daycare teachers had a lot to do with it. I honestly think they did most of the work and their consistency in taking her to the potty and getting her to where she is now is mostly to their credit. So I am very grateful to them for that. We still haven't done any big outings with her in underwear but as long as she is kept aware, I think she will do just fine. Potty trained before the age of 3! So exciting.  

Happy 2015 or something

Holy smokes! I didn't realize how much time had gone by since I last wrote. I hope your New Year got off to a great start. Ours was less than ideal.

The end of 2014 was brutal health-wise. Button has gotten the worst of it getting both strep throat and RSV at the end of November. I followed up by catching something from her. My guess is RSV but officially it was a sinus infection. That lasted essentially the month of December. Button then came down with the flu right before Christmas. And I have to say that the flu was the only thing that managed to keep that child down. Everything and everyone was looking better until Wednesday when her face started to swell and she began running fever. Had she just had the fever I probably wouldn't have worried so much but the swelling freaked me out. So yesterday I took her to Urgent Care after calling the on-call doctor who didn't really seem to know what to do. The Urgent Care doctor didn't know either sending us to the children's hospital ER. So that was a waste of an hour and a co-pay.

The ER doctor was more helpful but in the end I'm not convinced she entirely knew herself. Anyway, it was not a fun day at all. Traumatizing is the word I believe. At least BT was off to stay home with Bub because I could not have dealt with him too. Poor baby Button had to have an IV and a CT scan because they were afraid her glands might be abscessing. The CT scan was pretty horrible for us both. They had to wrap her up papoose style and strap her down so she would be still and she's crying and I'm crying and it was not okay. She calm down when they started and there were some stickers in the machine that interested her. They also drew a lot of blood so they placed a catheter in her hand for that and also to give her fluids. They seemed pretty convinced that she wasn't eating or drinking but they were wrong. Her appetite is essentially the same as usual.  Anyway, something kept going wrong when they tested the blood drawn out of her hand so the phlebotomist came in and drew some blood out of her arm. All in all, Button filled 9 vials for the hospital. Finally the doctor came back and said she thought it was parotiditis, the swelling of the salivary gland. Somehow Button managed to get an infection and that is what is causing the swelling. They think. 2 doses of intravenous antibodics and we were good to go. Well, that and a lot of tears and 1 interrupted nap and 5 hours.

Button was pretty much a champ about the whole thing. There was the breakdown about the IV and the one about the CT scan but who can blame her? It's scary enough for a lot of adults much less a 2 year old. But she handled it pretty well all in all. She didn't say much though most of the day which is unusual but once we got home she was herself again. To say she was not a fan of the hospital is an understatement. She was pretty cheerful leaving saying bye to everyone we meet on the way out. It helped that BT and Bub had come at the end and she had her big brother with her. So it looks like she's on the mend again. She'll have a follow-up with her regular doctor on Monday so she's out of daycare for the next 4 days. Hopefully this is it for my poor baby girl. I just hope that this is not an omen for 2015. It's definitely not how I pictured spending the first day of a new year.