argh. boys.

Mostly I am super-glad I have boys instead of girls, because I never understood girls, even when I was one. Never swooned over Shaun Cassidy, never cared about horses, always off in a corner with my nose in a book – usually science-fiction or Tolkien.

However, boys do present certain challenges, I’m finding. One is the growth-spurt, I told you about the shoes, right? They’re both outgrowing their clothes faster than they can wreck them, something that hasn’t happened since they learned to crawl. And another is the fighting.

preventive worry

Amy said:

Oh, I feel like that too. And it takes so much mind energy when Chris is traveling, because it’s harder to keep him safe the farther away he gets. My sister says this is irrational. I say, “Pshht, who do you think kept you safe when you spent your junior year abroad?”

YES! It never occurred to me to write about this, but it’s totally true – I keep my loved ones alive by the sheer strength of my worry. This is why the commuter marriage is so wearing, and why I hate it when the kids are at camp, because it’s much more work keeping them safe from afar. Just like it’s harder to keep a plane up in the air when you’re not actually on it.

Note that my power-worrying can only keep them from physical danger, not from other kinds of trouble. Big irritating to-do in the works, the Sniglet’s in trouble for fighting at school. I don’t have the heart to go into it right now, but watch this space.

Song du jour of the day: The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance, by Vampire Weekend.

blessing

No particular news today or tonight. I just wanted to point out that tonight, all six of us are under the same roof – two cats, two kids, two parents. For this night, I know where everybody is, and everybody is safe and okay.

It’s so easy to forget what a blessing this is when you have it every day.

Song du jour of the day: Ordinary Day, by Great Big Sea.

panic/inertia

It says on my Facebook profile that I have almost a year to move my family to the Netherlands (I did when I wrote it), and I don’t know if all that time is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing.

Well. Yeah. We decided to move to Utrecht, or some suburb thereof, or maybe Amsterdam or a German city near the border. Then the financial meltdown happened in October and we weren’t sure we’d be able to find a house/sell our house/get a loan. We figured we’d see what the situation was after Christmas.

mommity meme

I have no ideas of my own, so I ganked this meme from Joshilyn (prounouced like Jocelyn) Jackson, the BEST WRITER EVER. I interviewed my kids. Am now considering trading them in for more cats.

it begins

I knew when I had my first boy that I would one day be spending a fortune on shoes. That day? Has arrived. Ignatz has his army boots, and the Sniglet’s been shuffling around in Ig’s handed-down snow-boots, but spring is coming (Hallelujah, blessed be, I live again! But I digress…), and they can’t do that for much longer. So today we popped down to the shoe store.

The Sniglet has gone from a size 34 (U.S. 2) to 36 (4), and Ignatz has gone from 39 (my size, a men’s 7) to 42 (8.5). Since December. Two and three sizes respectively, in three months.

Whoa.

Song du jour of the day: Ummm. Man, I have got to get some new music. Real Wild Child, by Iggy Pop.

validation

I published a pattern on Ravelry! For sale! And two people bought it, I’m so pleased.

Aaaaaaand, remember DrBob pitched books to publishers in January, well, one of them was accepted, which brings him up to five published mongraphs. He’s also pretty pleased.

In other news, um, there is no other news. We’re just waiting for Spring to happen.

Song du jour of the day: ‘S Wonderful, by the Gershwins, here sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis Jr.

this morning at 7 a.m.

Me: Wakey-wakey, fellas!

The Sniglet: I’m wakey-wakey, but not dressy-dressy.

Song du jour of the day: Quizás Quizás Quizás, by Nat King Cole.

I fall behind

120 unread messages in my Gmail inbox, 35 notifications on Facebook, 56 unlistened-to podcasts, and 738 unread items in my Google Reader. And no knitting at all until today. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly on top of things before I got sick, but still, not a bad accumulation for a week in bed, eh?

Unfortunately, the numbers are all so big, every time I sit down to try and deal with some of them, I get intimidated and wander off. I’d take it as a favor if somebody in the comments would admit to having this problem sometimes too. Most of my people are so danged efficient.

Song du jour of the day: 32 Flavors, by Ani di Franco.

all-stop

Whoa. I was kinda tired after typing that last post on Monday, and also the teeniest bit nauseous, so I went to bed… and got up on Thursday. Evening.

I did rouse the kids for school and tell them they’d have to take care of themselves, pretty much, but then I staggered right back to bed (actually, I had to take breaks. Climb a flight of stairs, lie on the couch for 15 minutes. Climb another flight, lie on another couch).