Monday, February 28, 2011
This is how I feel most of the time
Today's picture comes to you courtesy of my friend, neighbor, and fellow blogger. I have to throw in that "neighbor" part while I can, because we put in an offer on a house yesterday that would make her no longer my neighbor. I find this inexplicably sad. The idea of breaking up the girls and possibly their future rock band career has been in the back of my mind throughout this whole process. However, in the front of my mind is the fact that we no longer fit in our house. Furthermore, while I might lose two blogger neighbors, if we buy this house I would gain another.
At any rate, DH has been working a lot lately, which means a lot of one-on-one-toddler-time for me. Anyone that knows MJ knows that means constant activity, constant defiance and constant energy. She's usually a barrel of fun, but that is intermixed with plenty of tantrums and lots of death-defying stunts. This photo pretty much captures it. I'm not sure why she's been in the habit of sticking her hand down her diaper lately, though it's probably related to the fact that we FINALLY got her back into cloth after fighting off a series of nasty diaper rashes. And those letters scattered all around? She made sure I was watching, got a twinkle in her eye and dumped them all over the floor.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
A uniquely human trait.
Also, that look of defiance. Very human. Very MJ.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Happiness is....
... making a point to go to bed at 9:00, and MJ deciding to sleep in ('til 6:00!) Holy rested mama Batman!
... an unsolicited toddler hug.
... walking in the house to see Dada and MJ reading on the couch together. Granted, her book was upside.
... looking forward to putting this sweater on my little girl.
... an unsolicited toddler hug.
... walking in the house to see Dada and MJ reading on the couch together. Granted, her book was upside.
... looking forward to putting this sweater on my little girl.
... a high of 26 after a week of -30 windchills.
... date night this coming Sunday.
What makes you happy?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sound bites.
I'm working in the lab today. And I get 30-60 second spans of time where I am just waiting on things. It turns out this is too short a span of time to do anything that needs to be done. If I attempt to do anything that requires real thought I end up forgetting something in the lab that really shouldn't be forgotten. So I am going to make you a list. Of... I'm not sure. Things I'm thinking.
1. Our daycare tells us how absolutely joyous MJ is. How she's never upset. I feel like I don't get to see that, and it bums me out. So it means one of two things: either I have unrealistic expectations of what a joyous child looks like, or she takes out all her frustrations on us.
2. I wonder if MJ has seasonal depression. The wind chill on my walk into school today was -25 degrees. That's Fahrenheit, for all you Canucks, and very cold. So, needless to say, MJ hasn't been outside for more than minutes at a time since we returned from Oregon, over a month ago. I would think this could give a person seasonal depression.
3. Despite the cold, I love Minnesota. As I was climbing into bed next to DH last night, I realized how the cold makes marriages stronger. We'd been fighting a bit before we went to bed. But it was really cold, even in the house with our heater set to 68 degrees. So we were forced to cuddle. And cuddling makes you happier, even if you're grumpy with someone. And when you wake up, after a night of forced cuddling, your relationship is in a better place.
After my realization (these are the things I think about when I'm trying to fall asleep) I googled divorce rates by state. There is some correlation between climate and divorce rate. Not a strong one, mind you, but
Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota (three of the coldest states I know) rank 39th, 41st and 44th, respectively. It would be easy to find flaws in my logic (such as the fact that domestic abuse is higher in colder months) but I stand behind it in my own relationship.
http://pewsocialtrends.org/2009/10/15/marriages-and-divorce-a-50-state-tour/
4. We've been thinking about our domicile. Someday, maybe in the not too distant future, we'd like another kiddo (or 2 or 3). Our house is 800 square feet. If you live in NYC, you may be salivating at the thought of that much space. But for the rest of us, it is tiny. It currently works just fine, but if we add another child to the mix, I simply don't know how we'll all fit. I know families have fit in such spaces in the past, but this boggles my mind. Where do you put the children? Do they share a room? I can conceive of this from about age 2 onward, but before that it seems like the baby would just wake the toddler all-the-time. Or the baby sleeps in your room, which is fine in theory, but if baby #1 is anything like baby #2, my children are loud, rambunctious sleepers that keep me up.
So the questions have been flowing like wine: Are we suburb people? Is it time to move to a place with a bigger lot, and the possibility of deer wandering through? But that means a commute. And seeing isolation. And seeing our friends less. We actually really love where we currently live. Location, neighbors, property lot. Maybe we renovate? But that's expensive, and we have no equity in our house to pay for it. And our marriage would have to surrive a renovation. oy. So maybe we buy a new house. But where? What kind of life do we want? What would we do with our current house? Can we possibly be landlords? This is the constant dinner time conversation of late. So we continue to save our pennies for a possible downpayment or renovation, and still have no idea what we want. I take that back - what we really want is for the house we're currently living in to magically double in size. Anyone know how to make this happen?
Alright, I think that's enough rambling for now.
1. Our daycare tells us how absolutely joyous MJ is. How she's never upset. I feel like I don't get to see that, and it bums me out. So it means one of two things: either I have unrealistic expectations of what a joyous child looks like, or she takes out all her frustrations on us.
2. I wonder if MJ has seasonal depression. The wind chill on my walk into school today was -25 degrees. That's Fahrenheit, for all you Canucks, and very cold. So, needless to say, MJ hasn't been outside for more than minutes at a time since we returned from Oregon, over a month ago. I would think this could give a person seasonal depression.
3. Despite the cold, I love Minnesota. As I was climbing into bed next to DH last night, I realized how the cold makes marriages stronger. We'd been fighting a bit before we went to bed. But it was really cold, even in the house with our heater set to 68 degrees. So we were forced to cuddle. And cuddling makes you happier, even if you're grumpy with someone. And when you wake up, after a night of forced cuddling, your relationship is in a better place.
After my realization (these are the things I think about when I'm trying to fall asleep) I googled divorce rates by state. There is some correlation between climate and divorce rate. Not a strong one, mind you, but
Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota (three of the coldest states I know) rank 39th, 41st and 44th, respectively. It would be easy to find flaws in my logic (such as the fact that domestic abuse is higher in colder months) but I stand behind it in my own relationship.
http://pewsocialtrends.org/2009/10/15/marriages-and-divorce-a-50-state-tour/
4. We've been thinking about our domicile. Someday, maybe in the not too distant future, we'd like another kiddo (or 2 or 3). Our house is 800 square feet. If you live in NYC, you may be salivating at the thought of that much space. But for the rest of us, it is tiny. It currently works just fine, but if we add another child to the mix, I simply don't know how we'll all fit. I know families have fit in such spaces in the past, but this boggles my mind. Where do you put the children? Do they share a room? I can conceive of this from about age 2 onward, but before that it seems like the baby would just wake the toddler all-the-time. Or the baby sleeps in your room, which is fine in theory, but if baby #1 is anything like baby #2, my children are loud, rambunctious sleepers that keep me up.
So the questions have been flowing like wine: Are we suburb people? Is it time to move to a place with a bigger lot, and the possibility of deer wandering through? But that means a commute. And seeing isolation. And seeing our friends less. We actually really love where we currently live. Location, neighbors, property lot. Maybe we renovate? But that's expensive, and we have no equity in our house to pay for it. And our marriage would have to surrive a renovation. oy. So maybe we buy a new house. But where? What kind of life do we want? What would we do with our current house? Can we possibly be landlords? This is the constant dinner time conversation of late. So we continue to save our pennies for a possible downpayment or renovation, and still have no idea what we want. I take that back - what we really want is for the house we're currently living in to magically double in size. Anyone know how to make this happen?
Alright, I think that's enough rambling for now.
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