July 28, 2011

  • 7-28-11  (Grant is two-and-a-half years old today)

    I just woke up from a decently pleasant dream.  How’s that for a minor miracle?  We were going on vacation, on a car trip to somewhere in California, perhaps.  The scenery was beautiful, and we went on several very long bridges that seemed to be going over bays and inlets from the ocean.   We kept stopping at game arcades and I kept finding lots of coins and paper money on the ground.  I grabbed lots of it up.  We went to eat at a restaurant and I ordered clam chowder in a bread bowl and all-you-can-eat corn cakes (they were part of the clam chowder order – it was like they were the side dish) and that seemed good to me.  Now there was a table of four guys right behind us, and they weren’t saying anything at all and they made me nervous.  I was showing everyone the money I had found, but felt like I should keep it hidden from them.  But nothing ever happened.  And then we went to a hotel and there were lots of legos there.  Brian apologized for playing so many video games (now, I want it to be clear that in real life, he does not play too many video games; this apology from him is more of a sign of how he feels guilty sometimes playing games, when he really doesn’t need to feel guilty at all).  And then Grant and I were going to take a nap.  It was great.  Usually my dreams are so negative and stressful, and this one wasn’t at all.  So even though it’s early in the morning, I decided to get up and write it down, and also to write down some things about the kids.  And I probably get to take a nap this afternoon, so yay. 

    I’m feeling a bit clunky in my wording this morning; I’ll blame it on the fact that I didn’t sleep very long, although perhaps the truth of the matter is that I’m getting out of practice with writing.  Or maybe I just need to warm up. 

    Recently, perhaps starting in the past few days, Grant has started saying, “Mommy going now?”  It’s very clearly a shortened version of, “Where is Mommy going now?” and yesterday he said it to me a bazillion times (or at least 20).  Every time I wandered away from him he would run after me, asking, “Mommy going now?  Mommy going now?”  And I’d say, ‘Where is Mommy going now?” and he would say, “Yeah!” and I would say something like, “I walked to the garbage can to throw something out.”  Which was just a few steps away from where we had been together, clearly in sight.  He seems a bit anxious about me leaving, even if it’s a few steps.  Or maybe he’s just delighted with communication?

    Yesterday the neighbor girl had a birthday party, and I took both kids over.  After we were there for a short time, Grant wanted his sippy cup, which we’d left at home.  So I told Madeleine (who was having fun digging in the dirt – it was a backyard play party) that Grant and I were going home to get it, but we’d be right back, and Madeleine told me, “I’ll keep an eye on myself.” 

    There were lots of kids at the party, and I found myself feeling quite protective of Madeleine.  There were a ton of little girls there, and Madeleine couldn’t tell which one was her friend.  She went over to some kids and asked which one was her friend (she called her by name, but I guess I’m getting a bit more selective about names in blogs now), and I imagined the kids laughing at her for not knowing.  But they didn’t (I don’t think).  But I was nervous.  Then they had a slip and slide, and the kids waited in a line, but I had to show Madeleine how to wait in the line, too.  She seemed unhappy; she said she was “tired” (which is what she says when something is wrong or she is unhappy) and flopped in the grass.  And then I worried again that kids would make fun of her or something.  I worried about her being lost in the large group of kids and not having fun because she didn’t know anybody, etc, etc.  Talk about projecting my own issues onto my kid.  I think this is a prequel to a whole world of emotional discomfort as my kids get old enough to go to school and venture out into the wide world….  I am NOT looking forward to it. 

    I thought I had a ton to write down, but now I’m not thinking of it.  I guess I could complain for a moment.  My neck hurts a lot; I got tense and then pulled it and it’s hurt for 5 days or more now.  I suppose a massage could help, but I only had a prescription for 16 and I’m not sure how many I’ve used, but it is definitely most of them.  I need to go back to the doctor and have the whole annual checkup and then maybe get more, but even with a prescription it costs money ($25 copay now, up from $20) and I’m feeling guilty about money, perhaps especially because I washed Madeleine’s pink iPod touch in the laundry on Monday…. And after that happened my back went haywire too, though it’s gotten mostly better.  I just get super-tense and pull the muscles and it’s all very uncomfortable at times.  Going to the gym helps some; we’re going again tonight, which is good. 

    Yesterday we went to McDonald’s for dinner (I hardly ever go there anymore, and felt the desire to get out of the house), and Brian decided to take the kids to a park afterwards.  He was going to drop me off at the house for a bit of free time (and then when he came back, I stayed with the kids outside for quite awhile, so he could have free time).  On the way home to drop me off, Madeleine said to me, “It’s so funny when you take a bath.”  That was strange and seemingly out-of-the-blue, but then I figured that the last time we had gone to McDonald’s for dinner and then Brian had dropped me off at the house (quite a long while ago now) I had taken a bath, and the kids had come in to find me there.  I asked Madeleine why it was funny when I took a bath, and she told me it was because I was too big for the bathtub.  Great.  I must be like a beached whale.    She just likes to lie down in the tub all the way; must be nice.    (She said something else funny and slightly insulting on the way back to the house, too, but I can’t remember right now.  Sigh.)