Planning

I've spent a good deal of the last year planning to be pregnant/ have another baby. 'I probably can't do that/ go there/ plan this' because of the impending arrival of someone who hasn't come. I've decided, instead, to now plan for not being pregnant in 5 months. If I do get pregnant, it will be a happy ands joyous reason to cancel my plans (or do it anyway), but unless and until that happens, I'm going to live my life as a regular old non-nursing, non-pregnant mom of one and train for a half marathon. I can't imagine having the time to train for a full again for quite some time, but a half I think I can do. And I think I could do it slowly even if I do get pregnant. But we'll see. It feels good to make a plan in advance, have something top train for and look forward to, and have some sort of personal satisfaction that's just me. I feel like so much of my pride rides on others: Solomon reflects how I feel as a mom, my kids at work and their progress reflect how I'm doing professionally. But this will be just me: the good and the bad of it. And I'm ready. I'm only starting from a place of doing 2 or 3 miles comfortably, so I have a ways to go. But it's much easier for me to run consistently when I have a training schedule to adhere to and a goal to meet. My goal is not lofty: under 2 hours, which I've done with ease, running several miles afterward on marathon training runs. But, I suspect the most I can hope to actually run is 3-4 times a week, and at the place I m starting at, under 2 hours seems like a good mix of attainable, while still requiring effort on my part. It also is just easier to think of and ay than some random specific number. Anyway, the race is in September.

Possible disrupting my training plans before they can even start is the fact I leave tomorrow for a trip back south. I'll be doing an Atlants-Nashville-Snellville-Monroe cycle. In the heat. In the 90s!! I can't in my wildest dreams imagine being able to run outside at any time of day in Georgia in June, although I know I've done it innumerable times in my younger years. But I suspect I'll be logging in a lot of hours doing yoga and cardio DVDs in the AC instead of good old fashioned running, so we'll see how that turns out.

I had an overwhelming amount of work to do at work before vacation. So I just didn't do it. Will be fun to see how much that bites me in the ass when I get in trouble upon my return. The packing and flight out are anxiety-provoking enough for the time being. You know how they have Mommy and Me movie times to go watch a flick with your nursing and/or loud kids and everyone is supposed to be tolerant? This really, really needs to be extended to airlines. This is a multibillion dollar idea, but I think it might require a bit more expertise and investment than I can front at the time being.

Projects

I've been meaning to make this post for forever--- but better late than never, right?? I have a couple more undocumented projects, including my two favorites, but you'll just have to be ont he lookout for those on another date! Intriguing, yes??

One of my first projects from several months ago. Probably Christmas-time. It's a box. With a hole. And we spend lots of time figuring out what treasures might fit in the hole, and by what means we can get them out again. Best recycle ever.

A poster mailing tube, which is the perfect size to shoot these little balls through.

A little trivet I picked up at Big Lots. We weave yarn through it (which I taped at both ends to help ease it through the holes).

Dying rice and pasta for our sensory table! Turned out so well I think.

Solly helping to mix the purple penne.

Practicing soaking up water with a sponge, then squeezing it out again. And fun to see the bowls alternate between full and empty!

The intended activity of practicing with clothespins.

The actual activity of breaking them into pieces.

Putting toothpicks through a spice jar! I let him do it for 5 minutes to make sure he liked it, then I quickly retrieved the materials, as I'm saving it for a plane activity! Small, quiet and light!

Potty Party Time

So, I think Solly is house trained. Meaning, he's potty trained decently well in the house, while naked or in undies. But I'm not convinced he can hold it for more than the 5 seconds it takes to rush him to the potty after he says he has to go. So, I'm not convinced we can actually take him anywhere without a diaper. But for right now, I'll take my small victory.

We'd been giving him a couple minutes to play on my iPad as a reward after successfully producing something on the toilet. Which worked in many regards because I really didn't want to use a food reward, but he dislikes stickers, and I couldn't think of another reward that he'd consistently care about (though I wish I would've done something movement-based like when we help him jump really high, or spin around in circles, or something like that, which anyone can do anywhere without any props). Anyway, this presented a slight problem, because we won't always have the iPad around when we're out and about, and obviously he won't have it at daycare. It also often creates the problem of trying to take it away at some point before he has to pee again. I can often distract him with something else and sneak the iPad away, but it has caused more than one tantrum when I have to take it away. So yesterday and today I started to try to mix up the reward system while simultaneously weaning. So, the expectation is that something good will happen, but it's not necessarily always the same thing. So that makes life easier (for me). I'm also trying to delay the time he gets the reward (after he pulls up his undies, after I clean the potty, and after I try to distract him with another toy instead), and if he doesn't ask for something, I certainly don't offer (which happened twice today).

The reward variability has, however, lurked us over into food territory. Which I really, really didn't want to do. But it all started with Trader Joes. My trunk door kept hitting one of my grocery bags as we were trying to pack up and leave, so I ended up taking out my container of chocolate covered raisins which was falling out and being troublesome. I put it on the roof of the car so that I could close the door, and started putting Solomon in the car. He kept talking about how he wanted beans, and I'm looking all over for bees, something big, or anything he might be talking about before I realize he's calling my raisins 'beans.'

So, then we got started with giving a bean for poop on the potty. Sigh. But it's half fruit. So it's healthy. Right? Right?

I know, I know...

It's been a super long time. Sorry.

So what's new? Something weird happened and I started really liking my job again. What happened was that I went on an interview. And I really really loved the clinical director- she would have been a great boss. She was raving about the parts of my personality (namely, my honesty) that have been criticized at my current job. Unfortunately, the job wasn't for me. Although it'd be close to home, the building was much more run-down than my current facility, and the therapy rooms were small, dark and shabby (but not shabby-chic). And... all the the therapists shared one office. I wrote her the next day and turned down the position, siting the longer hours and reduced pay from my current set-up as the reason (which was certainly a large portion of my reason). But even when she dropped my hours and increased my pay rate to more than what I'm making now, I still just didn't think it was the right move for me. Yes, I have issues with my boss, and yes I really really hate my commute. But, damn would I have to have a really awesome opportunity to give up my own office. I have a nice office. Large. Huge window with a view. Privacy to do what I want when I'm not seeing clients: be it eat, take a quick cat nap (shhhh), do yoga, talk to Gerard, play on Facebook, etc. I'm realizing 1) it would take a lot to give that up, and 2)there apparently aren't that many places that give you your own nice large office with a view. Another major consideration is my ability to set my own schedule. While scheduling clients myself is often a huuuge pain, and greatly increases the emails and phone calls to and from parents that I otherwise have to deal with, I've come to rely on it as a deal-breaker for being an almost-single (what we wives of men who work long hours and who are the obligatory go-to parents call ourselves), FT working mom. So, if my 9oclock cancels for next week, then I can schedule a doctor's appointment for that time, and not have to worry about it being filled without my knowledge or consent. Or if I want to go look at a preschool I just reschedule my morning clients and go do it. If my 4 oclock client cancels then I go home. I don't have to get anyone's approval or permission. No one really knows when I'm at work or not, and no one really cares. As long as I bill enough people at the end of the month, when I come to work, and when I cancel or reschedule people is entirely my business. And that's kind of freaking awesome. That would be really, really hard to give up. Basically the only way I'd give that up at this point is if I found a place really close to home that paid well enough to allow me to work significantly reduced hours to the point where I didn't have as many conflicts needing to come in late or leave early, because I'd have short work days. Unfortunately most job postings don't advertise salary or flexibility, and it can be so variable in this field, so if I have any hope of finding something, I have to keep going on interviews. I have another this week; we'll see how it goes.