To sleep, perchance to regress.

I am tired, yo. I shouldn’t be; it was my “off” weekend (which is to say the girls were at their dad’s) and so I should be caught up on my sleep. I should be, but what really happened was that my IO invited me to a mutual friend’s house for swimming, drinking and football (Go Pats!) and then we both ended up at my house. So, not so much with the restful sleeping. Oh, get your minds out of the gutters! What I meant was that living alone has certain advantages, like having the bed all to yourself and, you know, covers. Then on Saturday night, I went out to meet the Group of Six Five – girlfriends from ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed. We met for drinks and while I still got home before midnight, there was lots of drinking and then I might have stayed up a little later reading horror stories. So, yeah, not so much with the restful sleeping.

And now the girls are back. The girls are back and my chances for sleeping are pretty low. As in, dim to none. You see, Bee has done a bit of regressing lately. She’ll be up and down for a good hour after I put her to bed, crying her poor little heart out. She’ll say she wants her bear, or Gracie to come to bed, or me to lay down with her – any number of things that sound like good excuses to come get me. And then she’ll wake up anywhere from once to five times a night crying for no reason whatsoever. She goes to bed at 7 p.m. – a reasonable hour for a three-year-old who doesn’t nap, I think. And she is cranky and tired and ready for bed…she just doesn’t want to go. I don’t know if she’s afraid and prone to nightmares like I have always been or if she’s just playing me.

Which is really the reason for the post – I need some ideas. I’ve tried letting her keep a book in bed as long as she doesn’t cry; I’ve tried asking Gracie to go to bed earlier in hopes that the company would help Bee; I’ve tried lying down with her every time she’s asked; and I’ve tried sticker/reward charts again. That one might be working, but I just started it Thursday night, so I’m loathe to declare it a success after just one night. (And a half, really, since she went to be an hour ago and hasn’t made a peep.) I guess we’ll wait and see – in the meantime, flood me with ideas and float up a prayer for some sleep at Casa de Katie, mkay?

Quote of the day

Bee, as I was tucking her in to bed: “Fireworks please, Mommy.”

Me: “… Huh?”

Bee: “Fireworks!”

Me: <Look of utter confusion>

Bee: <patting her face all over> “Fire. Works. Fireworks. FIREWORKS.”

Me: <Dawning comprehension…sort of.> “Oh, you want five thousand kisses, like the other night when I sneak-attacked you?”

Bee: “Yes!” <sticks her cheeks out for the attack> “Fireworks!”

The two things you need before you run.

Warning: This is another C25K post.

If you ask me, there are two things you need before you start running. (Well, three things if you include having a friend call you lame and taunt you into running with her.)

First, you need a schedule. Something to follow when you can’t remember what day it is or what you’re supposed to do or when you’re supposed to kick it up a notch. A few of you lovely, lovely readers have decided to try this crazy C25K thing with me, only to promptly fall over and die when you looked at the running schedule posted to the C25K website. Yeah, I’m not following that one. I promised a few of you that I would email you the schedule I am following, but I thought it would just be easier to post it here:

Phase I    Walk/Run    Month 1    Mostly Walking (Times in minutes per day)
Week	M	T	W	TH	F	S	S	TOTAL
1	Off	25/0	Off	30/0	Off	Off	30/0	85/0
2	Off	27/3	Off	27/3	Off	Off	27/3	81/9
3	Off	24/6	Off	24/6	Off	Off	24/6	72/18
4	Off	27/3	Off	24/6	Off	Off	24/6	75/15
Grand total: 313/42

Phase – II    Walk/Run    Month 2    Mostly Walking (Times in minutes per day)
Week	M	T	W	TH	F	S	S	TOTAL
1	Off	21/9	Off	21/9	Off	Off	21/9	63/27
2	Off	18/12	Off	18/12	Off	Off	18/12	54/36
3	Off	15/15	Off	15/15	Off	Off	15/15	45/45
4	Off	18/12	Off	15/15	Off	Off	15/15	48/42
Grand Total:  210/150

Phase – III    Walk/Run    Month 3    Mostly Running (Times in minutes per day)
Week	M	T	W	TH	F	S	S	TOTAL
1	Off	12/18	Off	12/18	Off	Off	12/18	36/54
2	Off	9/21	Off	9/21	Off	Off	9/21	27/63
3	Off	6/24	Off	6/24	Off	Off	6/24	18/72
4	Off	9/21	Off	6/24	Off	Off	6/24	21/69
Grand Total: 102/258

Phase – IV    Run    Month 4    All Running (Times in minutes per day)
Week	M	T	W	TH	F	S	S	TOTAL
1	Off	15	Off	15	Off	Off	20	50
2	Off	20	Off	20	Off	Off	20	60
3	Off	20	Off	25	Off	Off	25	70
4	Off	25	Off	25	Off	Off	30	80
Grand Total:  260

The other thing you need is a good bunch o’ tunes on your iPod. For awhile, I just grabbed my iPod and hit the skip button a thousand million times each session. That was getting annoying. I’d go to stop my stopwatch and reset it and instead I’d hit the skip button – just after I found a good tune, too! – and I’d hit my watch when I went to skip a song… I was a mess. So I finally sat down and made myself a playlist. I was going to share it with you, too, because I want your input, but then I realized it’s over a hundred songs and you probably don’t want to scroll through that many songs. So here’s what I want you to do.  Send me the songs you think I should add. About five or so songs, okay? My tastes are pretty eclectic; if I’m running, I just want the song to have a good beat.  So send me anything and everything and I’ll give ‘em a whirl. Next week is my recover week (I move from 6 minutes down to 3 minutes), but the week after that I shoot up to 9 minutes of running. I am going to need some motivation, people!

The If Question without any easy choices.

Usually I pull my If Questions from a coffee table book, titled (rather aptly), If. But this week I didn’t have to. This week, my If Question came from a book I recently devoured (and you should, too), called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. One of the many topics of the novel is the German occupation of the British isle Guernsey, and the means and ways the islanders survived. At one point, the characters discuss the horrible question the parents had to made, and now I’m posing it to you:

If you were faced with occupation of enemy forces during a time of war, would you send your children away, hoping they had a better chance of survival and of meeting day-to-day needs (like eating), or would you keep them with you?

I’ve tortured myself with this question ever since I read that particular passage. Ideally, I would go with my children to mainland England (supposing that we, like the characters, were on Guernsey). But if that weren’t possible, if I had to choose – what would I do?

I suppose the “right” answer, if there is such a thing, would be to send them away to relative safety. Away from the bombings. Away from starvation. Away from the uncertainty of how we would be treated. It would be temporary, hopefully, and how could I not do that which would make them safer, no matter how painful it would be? Isn’t the safety of my children more important than my comfort?

The problem is that I know I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s a mother’s instinctual need to protect her young or my own inherent selfishness, but I just would not be able to let them out of my sight. I couldn’t send them away to strangers, knowing they would be scared out of their minds, and not knowing if I would ever see them again. That would be worse than fighting together. We might not make it, but at least we would be together.

Unless, of course, they died of starvation or bombs or what have you and I was fine. What if my decision caused their tragic demise and everyone who had been sent away was fine?

See what I mean about how there are no easy answers?

Still, I think I would have to keep them. I would need to see each and every minute that they were okay. I don’t do well with the constant worrying; I would much rather know, either way. What about you – what would you do? Stay and fight? Or hide them and hope?

Love is where the home is.

If home is where the heart is, well, then to my way of thinking (I call it Katie-think), love is where the home is. Especially if you are my home. You are supposed to stay where I put you and not move until I decide that I am okay with that. That’s just the way childhood homes work…at least in my Katie-verse.

My dad said he is going to sell my house in a year or so.

I am not okay with that.

If he sold my house, other people, strange people would live there. And where would I go? When I went home to visit, where would I sleep? I couldn’t imagine someone being all up in my house. I mean, I still call it MY house, for pete’s sake!

My dad is just going to have to change his mind. It’s happened before (him saying he was going to sell the house and then not doing it). So we’re just going to have to hope and pray that he’s in one of his manic moods. Or depressive moods. Or whatever mood it is that equals not selling the house. Because I could buy it, but then I’d have to sell this one and I’m sort of court-ordered to live in Texas if I want to keep the girls, so…um…yeah. Don’t think that will quite work out.

But that’s my house. He can’t sell it. That’s the house that my parents bought when I was a week old. The house that I lived in for twenty-one years (except for college), until I pulled up my roots and moved to Texas to live with The Ex. That’s the house that has a door-jamb marked with various height-markers and names and dates for my siblings and cousins and friends. It’s the house that my brother almost set on fire a time or two. The one that my youngest sibling still lives in. The one is supposed to be there whenever I want it, damnit.

It’s mine and it’s going to have to stay there, with my mum (and sister) inside it until I decide I am ready for them to be somewhere else. I’m just going to have get all sneaky and devious to save it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to round the bend in the road and see this, the brick building that means home is just seconds away, the home that means I am me again.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone. May the home that makes you YOU again always be where you need it!

Aha! I did it!

Another C25K update. You know – in case you’re tired of reading them.

First, a little aside: frequently, when I type “C25K,” I hit the Shift key, causing C@%K to appear on my screen. Which is sort of how I feel about it sometimes.

But really, what I’m writing to say (in my uber-sweaty, pre-showered state and everything) is that I did it! I ran 6 minutes! But Katie, you might ask, didn’t you run for 6 minutes on Monday afternoon? Why yes, yes I did. Except it totally kicked my ass running for 6 minutes on Monday. My arm was aching when I got back and I even took two aspirin, just in case it wasn’t psychosomatic. (And before you all yell at me, it is the arm which hosts the elbow that has had a crick or been sprained or had tennis elbow or whatever you want to call it for the past month. So I wasn’t really concerned. Just cautious.) Anyway, the point is that tonight I had run 3 minutes in the first 10, and I wasn’t even winded until after the 5th! And I didn’t have to break down the last 2 minutes into 30-second intervals! I think it helped that I hydrated better today. I gave myself a day off in between outings instead of just 28 hours off. And it was cloudy outside…well, sort of; the sun stayed behind a patch of clouds for most of my run. The rest of it was all me, baby!

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go shower and then enjoy the nice margarita chicken that I thought to throw in the oven before I left. You’re welcome to come join me, but I might make you massage my feet after dinner.

Guest Blog: In which there is food AND fire.

[Submitted by my very lovely, directionally-challenged sister, Kim.]

Question: Anybody reading this old enough to remember dinner parties from the 70s??  How did you all fuel your fondue sets?

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of being invited to my first ever fondue dinner party.  (Let’s fast-forward past the part where I had to actually ask the host’s girlfriend, J. what was involved in order to help me figure out what to bring.  Clearly a bottle of wine was in order…but what else?  Usually I bring dessert – I am a Master Pastry Chef…at least, I am in the minds and taste buds of my lucky friends.  J. explained things to me without taking any of the multiple opportunities to poke fun at my ignorance and I added fruit and broccoli to my grocery list.) 

It was my first time heading over to D.’s apartment in the uber-posh Old City neighborhood of Philly, though I’ve been to bars, eateries, and galleries there often enough to have a decent idea of the major cross streets.  I’m proud to say I made it from the train station to the apartment without once consulting a map!  Only backtracked once to make sure I hadn’t missed the street and again when D. yelled out his window when I passed the apartment.  (If you knew me, you would understand just how much of a magical feat this actually is.  It may be more impressive than my ability to earn a graduate degree.) 

I felt slightly better about needing instructions on how to be a good guest at a fondue party once I saw that the actual fondue sets were still in boxes on D.’s dining room table.  I think my relief may have been interpreted as smugness by karma because I quickly realized that J. was throwing nervous glances towards the electric blue-colored liquid fuel that was also sitting on the dining room table.  Turns out the instructions to the fondue sets starts out with something like “DO NOT *EVER* use liquid fuel with the fondue set.” Yeah.  I later found out from J. (who was against the whole liquid fuel thing from the start) that the marketing team/shelf stockers at Bed Bath & Beyond had decided to put the bottles of liquid fuel right next to the display of fondue sets.  You know, the ones that are never supposed to use liquid fuel.

So they’d purchased the liquid fuel only to find out at 7 pm Friday night that it was really not all that safe.  Well really the girlsfigured that out and D. just wanted to use it anyway after finding out that the corner store doesn’t stock sterno.  Seriously – the man has countless years of very formal education – he studies the BRAIN for goodness’ sake! – and he wanted to play with fire on a Friday night.  The womenfolk talked about alternate plans (put the fondue pots over the indoor grill; use lots of tealights; make a freakin’ salad for dinner instead).  But D. is a bit fussy when it comes to Events.  He likes to play Captain Fun and gosh darnit – fondue is only fun when it’s an actual fondue, not a salad!  Knowing he wouldn’t resemble anything close to happy until he had exhausted his options for perfection, J. encouraged D. and his friend to go to Home Depot while the two of us stayed home and chatted.  Turns out Home Depot and Lowe’s – the manliest of all stores – also did not have any sterno.  They had to break down and drive to Walmart to get some for our frou frou dinner party. 

We didn’t start melting cheese until 9 p.m.  It was dark out, people!  But at least D. got to return triumphant, declaring “I brought you FUEL” and demanding we call him Prometheus for the rest of the evening.  And the very best part of the party?  (Besides the cheddar, beer, Worcestershire sauce-y goodness on my broccoli and carrots?)  Nobody burned down a lovely apartment, nor lost any important body parts to flame. 

Dare I tempt the Fates by holding a barbeque next week???

New! and Exciting!

It’s official: I am the mom of a schooler. A kindergartner. A child old enough to be in school. I feel older. And wiser. And strangely, cooler – like I am one of the parents who are “in the know.”

This morning was just as I thought it would be: the parking lot was a mess and everything else went smoothly. The hardest part of the morning actually came first: Bee started crying and just about collapsed in on herself when Gracie and I left her on her own at school. Bee felt so left out and adrift without her big sister. It broke my heart to see her pouting and her chin trembling through the window. It helped to know that Gracie would be back with her tomorrow and every morning thereafter. Today’s drop-off and pick-up for Gracie was First Day of School ONLY.

As upset as Bee was, that’s how happy and excited Gracie was. She was bouncing all over the place, waiting until it was school time. Thankfully, her dad was on time and we got over to the school with minimal fuss. Dropping Gracie off in the classroom took all of five minutes – and only that long because the students had to wait one at a time for Ms. F. to brandish them with a name tag and label their locker. Then I had to remind Gracie to give us a kiss before she skipped over to circle time without a backwards glance. I even made it in to work before 8:30, if you can believe that. My heart didn’t falter once – until I remembered this time five years ago when I sat in my co-worker’s office, crying because I had just left Gracie at daycare for the first time and I missed (sob) her. Thinking back, my heart did kind of wobble, but I think I did great.

I was, however, a little nervous about this afternoon. I picked up The Ex and drove towards the school to try to figure out the rules for parent pick-up. Of course, on the way over, The Ex had to make some hurtful remark about me – out of nowhere – that almost made me cry. That really helped ease the tension. Thankfully the school wasn’t too far away and it was such a mess that it took both of us concentrating to navigate the throngs of cars. I don’t know how parents do the whole ‘pick-up’ routine every day; I really don’t. I would be homicidal after a week. It took us twenty minutes of waiting in a double line of cars – with admin helpers radioing back to retrieve kids – to get Gracie, and that was after The Ex jumped out of the car (without a word) to fetch her. Thankfully, there is a God of Small Things who brought back the calmest, happiest kid in the whole wide world!

Every thing Gracie bubbled over with, “Wanna know something New! And Exciting?!” and then ended with something like, “I went outside!” and “I ate most of my food, but what I forgot to eat I could take home! like the rest of my sandwich!” and “I made this many friends! [holds up ten fingers] But no one from daycare is in my class, but I saw Maddi! and Ari! in the gym!” and “Can we get Bee now?” and “Tomorrow I will find the bus. I will tell someone, ‘I can’t find the bus. Is this the one that goes to DaycareName?’” She is so smart, erasing my fears without even knowing I had any. Oh – and she got to be line leader today. She is taking over the world, yo. Wanna know something new! and exciting?! I always knew she would. And now I know it for reals. I can’t wait to hear what her day is like tomorrow when I don’t even have to share her.

Can’t hardly move.

I should have bragged yesterday. Granted, I was just bragging in my head, but still. Shouldn’t have done it. I thought running for just three minutes was sooooo easy. I was barely even winded yesterday when I got home. Tonight I kicked it up to six minutes and I about died. I don’t know if it was because I only had a day and a half in between (10 a.m. yesterday morning to 3:30 p.m. today), if it was because it’s 100+ degrees outside and I ran during the hottest time of the day, or if it was because I kicked it up to six minutes, but I really doubted my ability to stay upright by the end. My time was still half decent, but by the middle, my thought process was going something like this:

“…mailbox, mailbox, mailbox…next car, make it to the next car…mailbox, mailbox, mailbox, light post.”

like some crazy urban variation of Duck, Duck, Goose where no one is chasing you and you never really get to the empty spot in the circle. I do have to say, though, that I probably covered a half mile – farther than I ran two summers ago after two months of training. As soon as I catch my breath and regain some energy, I promise I will cheer for myself. Now – who wants to come massage my shins while I compose a post about the first day of school?

Must be Sunday.

If it’s a Sunday and I have the kids, I can usually be sure of one thing: the day will end with a meltdown, either theirs or mine (or both). It should have put me on my guard that we got through this entire weekend without a single meltdown. Nope, it was an enjoyable weekend all the way around. We bought a baby blanket for me to start stitching for one of my friends, we went to a baby shower on Saturday and the girls were angels, my IO joined us for dinner on Saturday and the girls weren’t shy for even a minute…nope, it was a perfect weekend.

Until I came up with the brilliant idea to let them make their own pizza for dinner last night.

I guess it could have been much worse. No one lost an eye, there isn’t pizza sauce on the ceiling, and no one fell backwards off the chairs and rendered themselves unconscious. No, the assembling of the pizza went very well, indeed. It was idiot mom who melted the back of her hand whilst scooting the pizza out of the oven and onto a plate. Of course, the hand that was holding the plate of pizza was the hand that bumped into the 450 degree oven door, and of course I had the presence of mind not to drop the ceramic plate onto the tiled floor. Nope, I had to wait until I put the pizza down on the counter before I could go run my hand under cold water. Even that didn’t help. I couldn’t find my burn gel and I couldn’t leave my screaming hand out of cold water long enough to search properly. All of which was going on very quietly so the girls wouldn’t be afraid. Finally I slathered on some aloe and a gauze pad and wrapped my hand with tape. When my hand didn’t quit screaming, I strongly considered packing up the kids and rushing off to Target to get some maximum pain relief burn gel. But it was tax-free weekend here and I didn’t want to brave the crowds…and I still had to bathe the girls in preparation for the first day of school…and I had to pack Gracie’s lunch. So I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and slapped it on there. As long as my hand was numb, the shiny, waxy line that was melted into the skin back of my hand didn’t hurt. That made lunch packing and hair washing prettttty interesting. Oh well, I guess it’s better than one of the girls’ hands melting into the oven door.

The girls did finally pick up on my distress. Maybe right around the time I started whimpering and begging for sympathy. But that’s okay. They were cheered up by the fact that I let them wear their pajamas backwards – you would have thought it was a bank holiday around here when I said yes to that odd request. I wonder if wearing pajamas backwards has mysterious pain-relieving tendencies, too?