J'Espere

Yesterday was sort of enlightening. I say sort of because nothing necessarily happened that should have enlightened me but the more I think about it, the more I think about what it’s going to be like to be in charge of a small child. My kindergarten class came in yesterday morning eager to meet their guest reader, a high school senior. She took it upon herself to ask if some of the seniors could come read to the younger grades, which I am all in support of. It’s great for both parties- my little ones get to hear someone besides me for a bit, and it’s great for 18 year olds to perform the art of negotiating with five year olds. So she came in and did a fantastic job, reading one of her favorite books, D.W. the Picky Eater (Marc Brown). In case you’re not familiar with your children’s lit, D.W. is the little sister of Arthur the Aardvark. She’s kind of a pain but usually things work out in her favor. Personally I love the Marc Brown books. They cover everything from puppies to loose te...

I definitely wanted the title of this post to sound ominous. Because it’s something I have been struggling with for the last couple of weeks. It started with a cold, which isn’t uncommon this time of year or in my area of expertise. Small children spend most of their lives it seems with runny noses, so there’s no reason to think I’m not going to. So I have a cold. I bump up the Vitamin-C, eat a little soup, drink plenty of water and make sure to go to bed early (no problem, since I could totally go to sleep at 7:30 each night) and I figured it would go away on its own. Which it sort of did. Except for the part where I still had a lot of congestion. But that’s the last thing to go, right? Last week, my ear starts hurting. Just a tad. All right, I think, obviously it’s because it’s been windy and the temperature has been up and down and I’ve been running outdoors a lot. So I do what any normal person will do. I ignore it. Even as it gets a teeny tiny bit worse. I complain to Matt ab...

My CHILD. Not children, CHILD, has an insatiable appetite. I think I have eaten like this at these times: 1. Growth spurt, 9th grade. 2. Freshman year of college, when I discovered I could get to the grocery store at any time of day or night. 3. Marathon training 1, because I didn't know what was going on, but all I could think about was pancakes. The other marathons were much more in control. 4. The day after our wedding, because everyone is right, you don't get to eat at your reception. 5. Now. Today one of my co-workers asked how I was doing, and when I said, "Yeah, I'm just trying to hang in there until lunch since I just had a snack about five minutes ago" she nodded her head in understanding, and told me that when she was pregnant, she used to go to bed thinking about what she was going to have for breakfast the next morning. Oh, no. I didn't even realize that that wasn't normal. Oh. NO. In fact, even as I type this (It's Friday night, so...

Direct quote from last weekend's dinner with my husband. Actually, this is the exact quote "I can't keep up with you anymore." Stated while pushing his mostly empty plate away as I reached towards it with my fork, since my plate was empty. I haven't eaten this much since I trained for my last marathon. Not that this is any different. Except in this case, instead of trying to shave down times, calculating meals, and heading out for 20 milers, I'm literally growing another person. And clearly taking this eating for two thing seriously. This baby does not treat eating lightly. Weight gain during pregnancy should be fairly gradual. Almost nothing in the first trimester (easy, since most of what you eat is coming back up), about a half a pound a week in the second trimester, and then a pound a week in the last trimester, as the baby actually grows enough to run out of room and then be born. In the meantime, we do everything together. I remember one of my friends ...

There. I said it. I don’t like the Duggars. It is with irony this statement comes out of my mouth, considering I watch their show on a consistent basis, and, with the rest of the country, was vaguely interested in a woman who spent so many years of her life pregnant/nursing/pregnant/nursing. I thought overall they were a silly family but pretty harmless until I started watching their show again recently. I like to watch terrible TV early in the morning. It’s something I don’t want you to judge me for, because we all do it. But lately instead of 10 Minute Trainer and juicer infomercials I have discovered that the Duggars come on TLC bright and early. Here’s the deal. I’m watching the show, which is supposed to be a “reality” show (of course we know now that reality is a broad, undefined term), and they have lunch. For them, lunch is a production, since they are feeding at least 22, and often more than that if a guest comes by. The girls start to work on lunch at some point mid-mornin...

I officially "turned the corner" about 2 weeks ago. I woke up one morning and did not immediately want to throw up. Success, but cautious success as I went through the day wondering when the feeling was going to hit again. I woke up the next morning, and same thing. About five days into this, Matt commented he hadn't been woken up to the sound of his wife chomping on cereal in bed. I commented back that, in fact, I hadn't had to, but no need to put the cereal away quite yet. So there was this great "honeymoon" period (my doctor called it that), and I was pretty excited about. Now, the honeymoon period has turned into a hunger period. I checked, and the baby is now supposed to be the size of an avocado. So WHY is it demanding SO MUCH FOOD? Oh, and you think some carrot sticks are going to satisfy it? Doubtful. Highly doubtful. The baby prefers homemade baked goods, pizza, and fruit. And if these things can happen on a regular basis, so much the better. I...

I'm sure my friends are loving the title of this post. If you have ever participated in one of my surprisingly frequent moves in any way, you understand that I am thisclosethisclose to being on Hoarders. I am extremely sentimental about my stuff. I find it mostly interesting, entertaining, and I like my stuff. But I am aware that over the last few years it has gotten out of hand, and I think Matt definitely thinks it's gotten out of hand, and I should stop. But I guess it didn't really get bad until this summer when we began to prepare our house for moving. It was bad. Really bad. We started packing up all this stuff, and then it was suggested we move it to a storage unit. Which I happen to already have. So we drove the stuff up, opened up my unit and it was...horrific. For both of us to realize that the storage unit was already full of a good amount of my crap from when I had moved back from Wilmington, and stuff from when I had moved from Chapel Hill to Wilmington, and ...