You are what you read.

I bought Jeremiah some new short-sleeved button-up shirts bc he's been so busy lately that I can't keep up the laundry to match his few nice shirts. I've been a Campaign Widow all week, doing lots of baths and dinners and bedtimes on my own. He comes home for an hour right after work if he possibly can before he's off to another community meeting. But of course, that hour's not quite dinner time and therefore not late enough for him to help with baths or bed.

I can't decide if this is worse on the days I'm home with the kids all day or worse on the days when I was at work all day and then have to step right in without help. He is very aware of this and he went back and revised his campaign schedule so that he's only going to the things that really matter. Some things that would be good but not crucial, he's skipping at this point since he said he's weighing his gain against my loss. Good man.

Also, today at work I found our lost snake. He was sunning on the windowsill behind some plants. We were scared to grab him bc he's so ridiculously fast and we figured he was hungry and might be scared. We knocked him into an empty trash can before delivering him to his cage. He's been missing since sometime between Sunday and Tuesday. Today's thursday so it's amazing that we found him at all! Good luck.

Best Moment Lately:

I wasn't feeling great so I had the kids take it easy with me earlier this week. We had so much cuddle time instead! It was great! Whispering under the covers at "nap time" with J. was very cute. And C. fell asleep while I rocked her at her nap time, which hasn't happened for many months. Her sleepy little arms and legs...ahhhhh.

Worst Moment Lately: 

I'm on Sudafed again. Jeremiah commented that I've had a headache every day for a long time now.  I honestly haven't kept track. I never let a little thing like a headache stop me. But the tiredness and sinus pressure clued me in that I'm probably sick. I let myself be sick and watched tv shows with the kids instead of mowing the lawn (which is like eating spoon after spoon of nutella (which I also did recently)- good in the short run, bad in the long run).

Thoughts lately: 

You are what you read.  Or maybe, your thoughts are what you read. 

Jeremiah constantly reads like 6 books at a time without dropping down to less than 4. That's a given for him.  We have a huge library in our house but that's deceiving. He borrows books from his parents' house, which has an even bigger library. And we usually have something on hold at the library (because he reads such obscure stuff that it's never ever on the shelves. they have to bring it in from other libraries or other counties!).

Anyhow, Jeremiah gets lots of crazy ideas and sometimes it's hard to separate what's a deeply thought out plan and what's something that he just tossed together after being inspired by a book. If he's reading about Ghengis Khan, he's thinking about the mongolian empire and believing that it's important that he father many many children. If he's reading about science fiction, he's all hyped up about our space program and trying to find good posters of the surface of the moon to decorate our kids' bedrooms.  If he's reading about poverty in Bombai, he's mentally restructuring the world's resources and pondering cultural relativism.  

Usually he's reading all of these at the same time. Some are old ideas for him and some are new rants. And that, in a nutshell, explains Jeremiah's campfire conversations.  He took the time to plan out his personal reading book selection until Nov. 2010 so that he won't get too distracted from his campaign and end up writing a screenplay about zombie lawyers again.  

I'm the same way but a little worse because I usually read one book at a time (except for book club books, which are usually books that I'm not really interested in reading so I dole out the chore throughout the month) (no offense to my book club) (that's why I'm in a book club- to read things I normally wouldn't) (and to have a solid excuse to go out alone for an afternoon and it sounds very grown up and intellectual to say).

Lately I've been reading books about parenting. Partly bc that's what I have, and partly because I'm starting my homework for my yoga certification. 

Last week I was reading "The Big Rumpus" by Ayun Halliday, which is an indie, urban, zine-writing mama's true stories from her pregnancies and mommy-hood with her then-4 year old and newborn.  She loves her newborn Milo very much of course. But most of the book focuses on her experiences with her 4 year old daughter Inky. Maybe that's like our photo albums at home- the oldest had more time to accumulate so many photos and stories and it's not that we prefer her over the younger, it's just that we have more material on her to draw from.  

So last week I was relating to what I was reading and thinking a lot about J. with her 3 year old self and the crazy and similar things we've been through. I was very much thinking about preschool and socialization and how much, at this age, should I focus on the sounds that different letters make? 

Jeremiah was slowly coming down from reading a book called "The Nuture Assumption", which I'm going to read myself one day, but I know all about bc I always hear everything that he's thinking.  It says that we assume that our parenting skills (nurture) makes a big difference in how our kids turn out, but that studies show that genes (nature) and peer influence (socialization) have a much bigger influence.  

So you can see that his book crossed with my book and suddenly I had all eyes for J. and her interactions with other people. 

But then I finished that book and picked up my required reading for yoga "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" which is more about the 1-3 year old child and suddenly my focus has switched to C. with her 16 month old self.  I started following some of the book's advice on nipping tantrums in the bud and yes, it actually does work. But I feel like an idiot and so I'm not too happy about that. 

You're supposed to talk in emphatic, short, simple sentences with lots of gestures and mimicking a slightly lower level of your kid's emotions. Like an animated ape-man. 

C.: pointing to the cookies and shouting "cooka! cooka!"

 Me: pointing to the cookies in stabbing motions, while squatting on her level and making a dumb frustrating face "cookie! want! you want a cookie! you really want a cookie! and you're mad that you can't have it! mad mad mad! you want cookie!" 

Yes, it stopped the tantrum enough that I could explain why we're not having cookies and then redirect her. But a minute later, she's back at the cookies and I have to do it again. J. thinks this is funny and has started imitating me, imitating C. 

I'm always the calm mommy using full sentences and hugs to say no and then redirecting with lots of animated excitement. They make fun of moms like me in the book. We're so dumb that we don't realize that our kids' brains are only developed as much as a caveman (cue the geico commercial). 

So now I'm thinking about C. and her brain and trying to communicate with her without being condescending.