Shoe Friday #87

2 pair from Amanda.  She says: "My four year old daughter, Catriona's, favorite sparkly tennis shoes.  And my trusty Crocs that helped me survive three days of exploring and hiking the ruins at Angkor Wat.  My feet are filthy, but I love the photo because it shows a side of me that my husband and I (and my friends for that) didn't think was possible - me going anywhere without my high heels!"

 

Stride Rite Toddler/Little Kid Glitter Sneaker

  

crocs Women's Patricia Open Toe Wedge

(affiliate links)

Party Planner Michael

(Yes, we have power.  Thank you very little Pepco for the 50 hour outage.  And the 4 hour reprieve.  Just enough time to spend $200 in groceries in which I threw out half of them.  And a visit from Amy.  Moving on.  No one wants to hear me whine about that anymore.)

Michael is obsessed with planning his birthday party.  He talks about it constantly and is always changing his mind on what theme he wants.  He has invited his whole room from camp.  Which would be fine and normal except that his birthday is in MARCH.  March.  I would get this if his birthday was a month or two months away, but March?  I'm starting to feel really bad for the kids who think they are getting invited to Michael's birthday party with ponies and light sabers and dinosaurs and water balloons (the last four themes he has come up with) and that invitation is never going to come.  Because by March, Michael will have a whole new set of Kindergarten friends and he will have forgotten all these kids.

I feel like what he is doing is mean.  Taunting these children with a birthday party that is never going to happen.  Well, it is going to happen, but not for 8 MONTHS.  8 months. 

What is this new obsession with a birthday that is 8 months away?  Do we not get that it is 8 months away?  Is it the only way he knows how to make friends?  Is he going to be the one in college having all the dorm room parties?  Are we just understanding the concept of birthdays and it is TOO BIG TOO MUCH TOO EXCITING?

I'm not sure I can talk about Michael's 6th birthday for 8 more months.  It is really not that interesting of a topic.  Is he going to start planning his Bar Mitzvah at 9?

So, How Are You? Anything New?

Things are pretty uneventful around these parts.  Just swimming along, perfectly fine.

Oh, right.  We have no power.  Again.  Still.  I have no idea anymore.  I think Miss Banshee put it best:

(That is the very first screen-shot I've every taken.  I'm like a real blogger now.  I know how to take screen shots.  It has only been four years.  I'm slow.)

It's my fault.  I got all all uppity with the power.  We lost power Sunday night and regained it Monday morning.  Amy was still out so I invited her over to get some work done.

Bad idea.

(Anything else you want me to screen capture?  Because I TOTALLY KNOW HOW TO DO IT NOW.  I'VE HAD NO SLEEP ON A LOT OF COFFEE.  YEAH STARBUCKS FREE WIFI.  AND OUTLETS.)

Fine.  Pepco, you win.  You hate me.  I know.  I wasn't nice to you during snowmaggedon/apocalypse/allthesnow/whatever.  Fine.  I will only say nice things about you (even though I did start the hastag #pepcosuckssomuch.)  I'll stop harassing your twitter guy.

Can I have my power back now?  Please?

In Which Buying School Supplies Causes Me To Have A Complete Meltdown

On Friday I decided to start Michael's school supply shopping.  Yes, it is only July, but we are literally out of town EVERY WEEKEND between now and the start of school and I do not want to be doing it the night before school.  I've been at Target the night before school starts, never again.  I want Michael's start of Kindergarten to be as stress free as possible, so I figured what could go wrong on a random Friday in July.

First of all, I forgot the list  I managed to pull it up on my iphone, to discover that Michael's kindergarten school supply list consisted of-

Backpack (large enough for a binder to fit in);  glue sticks; 
box of Crayola crayons.
 
I wanted him to pick out his own backpack, so I made a special trip to the store to purchase glue sticks, and crayons.  I felt like moron.  Possibly looking at the list BEFORE going shopping might have been a good call.  And then I walked into the school supply aisle. 

And called Doug.

"Doug the list says crayons.  How many crayons?  The big box?  The small box?  And how many boxes?  And glue sticks?  Do you know how many different kinds of glue sticks there are?  Who the hell wrote this list?  Could they be less specific?"  He was at work.  And he didn't yell at me.  Yes, I know, he deserves some kind of husband award.  Instead, he brought me flowers that night.

And lets not go into the 20 donated items they ask for.  Am I supposed to get one?  All 20?  A couple? "Kleenex."  A BOX?  BOXES?  WHAT DO YOU WANT?

HELP.

I ended up spending 6 dollars on 2 boxes of crayons, a box of glue sticks, and a box of markers from the donate list and I left the store with such a pit in my stomach and a desire to burst into tears.  I cannot even buy SCHOOL SUPPLIES.  And I'm not one of these MY BABY IS GOING TO KINDERGARTEN MOMS.  I'm too busy worrying it is all going to fall apart again. 

I sense the transition to Kindergarten is not going to be as easy peasy as I had hoped.  And perhaps I am just a tad stressed about it?  I've also given up sleeping.  Which is my normal reaction to stress, but that could be due to a number of things I'm stressed out about at this given moment.

Shoe Friday #86

My friend Stacy's shoes.

Something similar?  by Cole Haan. (affiliate link)

(I need more shoes, people!)

Bloggers Block

I'm finding it harder and harder to blog these days.  The topics just won't come.  Maybe that's a good thing, because that means things are going well, right?  And no one wants to hear how boring my life is.  So last night I literally starred at a blank screen in typepad for 3 hours before I closed it.  There was some screwing around on twitter and words with friends during those three hours, but there was a lot of, I HAVE NOTHING TO BLOG ABOUT ANGST.

So tell me, how do you break through bloggers block?  Or do you just bag it and come back another day?

 

Remember When I Complained About The Snow?

This summer seems like one endless loop of heat.  It started in May and has never stopped.  One day melts into the next and it is all 100 degrees, 100 percent humidity with maybe a chance of a late afternoon thunderstorm.  Rinse, repeat.  Too hot to go outside.  Too hot to sleep.  Too hot to do anything but sit on the couch and complain about the heat.  It is so pedantic to complain about the weather but we are all walking around saying "hot enough for you?" and "and you thought the snow was bad?"  I spent 10 minutes yesterday thinking about running a 5k in New York City in August.  I can't because it is full, but the thought it was going to be 100 degrees did also cross my mind.

Yes, I actually considered doing the BlogHer 5k.  Doug hysterically laughed at me.  Because he was the one who told me when I started couch25k I would run a 5k.  And I was like no, no, no I won't.  Because this is just about teaching me how to run.  I don't want to actually run a 5k.  Except yesterday I kind of thought about it.  And he was all "told ya."  But alas, it was not meant to be.  I'm not sure I'm sorry about that.  But he is convinced I will actually some day soon, run a 5k.  And then a 10k.  He is out of his mind.

So this is my life right now.  Complaining about the heat and complaining about running.  It is not so interesting.  Except for, you know, the other stuff.  

****Anybody notice anything new around here?  Anything at all?

Boundaries

I recently read a post about blogging boundaries (and I swear I would link to it but for some reason I woke up at 4 am the morning I wrote this and could not go back to sleep and can not think) and it caused me to think about what my blogging boundaries are.  And what is interesting is at this very moment there are at least 5 things going on in my life that I absolutely can not blog about.  Because they fall under the things which can not be blogged about category.  But when does not blogging about something become lying?  If someone is having marital problems (I'm not, I promise) and is not blogging about them because they don't feel comfortable, are they lying to their audience?  Are they trying to portray that everything is perfect?  Keeping up a front?

I understand that people don't "get" blogging.  My dad (hi dad!) thinks it is a little strange.  My two closest friends read but don't blog and it took me YEARS to tell them.  And I kind of did it by accident.  (Um, that's a good story.)  But blogging became a life line for me very quickly and my "audience" (although I so never think of my readers like that) got me through my lupus diagnosis, the move from hell, and Michael falling apart last fall.  You have all touched me in ways I never could have imagined.

But still, there are things I don't share.  Extended family issues, for one.  It's not fair to them, and I have a whole side of the family who still doesn't know the blog exists.  Private things in my marriage.  Issues with Michael I think should be private.  Things that I think might embarrass him later on, and some might think I even went too far with what happened last fall, but I don't think I did.  Work.  I never, ever, blog about work.

But sometimes, like now, when some of those areas are HARD and you all have become such a crucial part of working things out, I wish I could talk about them. 

What are your boundaries? 

We Are Taking a Break From Shoe Friday This Week

To wish my husband a very happy birthday.

Doug and I were friends for 2 years before we started dating.  And some would argue that he always wanted to date me, but once he told me that he would never date me because I was "too young for him."

Well guess yet, I'm still too young for him and he is almost 40!

 

Happy Birthday!

Love,

your trophy wife.

P.S.  Most trophy wives have more jewelery.  And better shoes.  Just thought I would mention.

P.P.S  I only post pictures of me for YOUR BIRTHDAY.  I hate all pictures of me.

P.P.P.S.  Why did I cut my hair?  It looks so much better there.

P.P.P.P.S.  Last year on your birthday we signed a contract for THIS HOUSE.  So essentially you got a house for your birthday.  Hope that makes up for the fact that I got you, um, nothing this year.

In His Own Time

Michael never crawled.  We know now that is a classic sign of low muscle tone and probably should have been flagged by my pediatrician, but a week before his first birthday he stood up and walked.  He never took little steps or cruised around the furniture, he just walked, like he always knew how and was just waiting.  And that is just him.

The hardest part of Michael is that he is just so stubborn.  (Shut up Mom and Dad.  He does not get that from me.  That is all Doug.)  He does things when he wants, how he wants, and there is no pushing him.  Everyone in his class was writing their name long before him, and he had no interest.  And right when I was tearing my hair out because WHY WAS THIS CHILD NOT WRITING HIS NAME WHAT HIS WRONG WITH HIM, he did it.  And it was fine.  And what the hell was I worrying about?  (I probably wouldn't have worried so much if it wasn't for a certain preschool we don't talk about anymore.) 

Michael hates swim lessons.  He cries and carries on like someone might kill him when we mention that we are going.  And sometimes he does fine and sometimes he does terrible, but we make him go.  And when I read blog posts like this, my heart drops.  Why can I not have one thing that is easy with this child.  Michael is a lot of things, smart, lovable, friendly, but he is not easy.  He isn't even a little bit easy.  He is a hard, challenging kid.  And that is ok.  Because I know the reason he is this way is because he is bright and curious and wants to challenge me, but that doesn't make the end of the day any easier.  It doesn't make him refusing to do the simplest thing, things that shouldn't be that hard, that other kids like to do, like play sports, or ride a bike, or swim, any easier.

When we were at the beach I developed this game where Doug and I would toss Michael around in the pool.  It was silly, and I was hoping just to get him a little more comfortable in the water.  A little bit through the game I realized he was swimming.  It wasn't pretty, it wasn't perfect, but it was swimming.  Some crazy combination of free stroke and butterfly and dogie paddle.  And he wasn't scared, he wasn't crying, he was just having fun.  He looked like any other kid in the pool that was not an expert swimmer.  And it is possible with the amount of swim lessons he has had that he should be a better swimmer, sure.  But he is not.  Michael is who he is.

So much of kids is personality.  And maybe we have been too busy trying to pathologize him and forgetting about his personality.  Sure he stubborn.  But in the end he always comes around.  And hey, I still don't know how to ride a bike and I've managed to live a long and healthy life.