Don't call me a co-ed

I started at school today. This time as a student. I'm taking three classes this semester. Two on campus at Parkland and one online. And I'm really excited about my first class. It's Programming for Young Children (ages 2-6). Pretty much it's a lot like the work I already do with my family group, but I get to focus on the actual educational theory behind the practical application rather than just lighting a fire on the seat of my pants and hoping it goes well.

Then after a great morning at my first class, I logged into my psych class online. I have a chapter to read and digest and some homework to do for it before Sunday. To celebrate me doing something I want to do for myself,  MacTroll took me out to lunch at Thara Thai, which was awesome. I got my favorite soup and some hot tea. 

This morning when I dropped X-man off at school, he was confused because he thought he was going to Mommy's school, too. :-) But he was happy to go inside and see his friends. 

My Sleepy Boy

The I in the INFJ

So I've been thinking a lot lately as to why I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by my life. I live a very active, planned out, fun existence. I really do. So why do I feel so disconnected from everything?

The truth is that I am a small group person. I like one one one; I like one on two. Hell, I'm good with three other people sitting around a booth having a beer. But I suck at crowds.

Nowadays, I find myself in an interesting predicament. It used to be that I had work friends, or school friends or couple friends. The lives of those people only intertwined when I'd throw some kind of holiday party -- for 10. 

My predicament now -- and isn't it a great one to have -- is that by moving back to the midwest and having Xander, I've met A NUMBER of outstanding new people. And I want to spend time with all of them. Being the organizer of CARE let me see them at all kinds of events. But now that our kids are more crazy and mobile (and opinionated), we don't get to chat because we're chasing our 2 year olds around or asking someone else to tackle them while we change a baby's diaper, that, let's face it, sometimes isn't even our own kid. I love it. I love having so many caring and considerate and giving people in my life. It really is amazing.

But I'm starting to freak out when we have get-togethers, because it's not just the 10 friends. It's the 10 friends, their husbands their one to four children... and then it's like a bar mitzvah or a theme park line. And my introverted nerves get fried. 

So, my goal is to make more individual time with those that I love. Sure, I might see you less in terms of quantity, but we'll get much more quality. And I hope that's okay. Because I love you. You make me happy... and I hope you feel the same way.

One of "those" mothers...

When X-man was born, I didn't have very many friends with kids. Okay, I had one: Rogers. We lived next door to each other. Our sons are 10 weeks apart. We both had difficult pregnancies in entirely different ways, but it was nice to have someone going through the same thing at the same time.

I remember interacting with other mothers with older children and listening to them complain about their kids. "Just you wait until..." Like it was a given that my baby was going to be a pain in the ass, too. 

I was discouraged and offended by it and I told myself that I didn't ever want to grow up to be a bitter mom. I was not going to judge other people's parenting decisions the way I did before I had a kid. I was going to do the best I possibly could, but in the end I knew that no matter how much I rocked or how much I sucked as a parental unit I was going to give it all I had. I am, obviously, human. So I anticipate mistakes. X-man and I got through life scream-free until about June of 2008, when he was 27 months old. Then I started to get frustrated with everything, and I realized what made those bitter moms bitter. 

As the parent of a newborn, I was underneath some delusion that if I talked to my child and kept the lines of communication open and tried to set a good example he would respect me and we'd have fewer behavioral issues. (Yeah, I'm laughing at that sentence, too.) 

But what I realized by having a toddler, is that like my difficult pregnancy, I have very little control over anything. I can plan and anticipate and adapt, but at the end of the day, my child is still going to drive me mad at bedtime. Even though we have the same bedtime routine every night. Even though he ate plenty of fruit and vegetables. Even though we had a pretty indepth conversation (at least for X-man) on how he feels like he suddenly wants to stay a baby rather than be a big boy, even if it means only drinking milk from a bottle and lying down all day with a pacifier.

It made me realize that I have what I always wanted when he was so little. I have a free-thinker. I have a kid who is more interested in figuring something out than he is in having me do it for him. I have a kid who shows affection, disappointment, sadness, frustration and tries to talk to me about those experiences. 

But it doesn't stop him from jumping on the couch. It doesn't stop him from refusing to sit still during a timeout. It doesn't stop him from trying to stall at bedtime or runaway when it's time to put pants on in the morning. 

And like Freak, I find that my first response to being frustrated at those regular 2-year-old times is shouting. I don't want that to be my main kind of communication when things get rough, but it's hard in the heat of the moment (particularly after I've been bonked on the head with a metal truck) to get my shit together on the spot. 

This job takes a whole lost of endurance and confidence. Now when I sit around mothers of newborns, I am very aware of the long road they have ahead of them. And even though I answer honestly about my challenges with having a toddler, I find myself remembering the moms who told me my child would grow up and scream that he hates me, embarrass me in public and that I'd be dying for a martini at 2 p.m., too. So I show a little compassion.

My child is not her child. And although he or she will probably go through some similar traits at certain stages, she'll get through them, the way I'm working my way through X-man's. 

While I was searching the internet the other day, I found an article about a 60 Minutes interview with Felicity Huffman. Usually with celebrities you get a lot of crap about how they could stay pregnant forever or losing their baby weight on macrobiotic diets was a snap. I was surprised at Felicity's openness and even more shocked to find that she and I have similar parenting experiences. I'm not a big Desperate Housewives fan. I did enjoy her on Sports Night and on her guest visits to other Aaron Sorkin projects. But boy, she's got a fellow Mommy fan for life now. 

Just call me Oscar

I'm in a bad mood today. 

I have a headache and a cold.

My child kept me up half of the night because he doesn't seem to understand that he still needs to nap during the day, or he falls asleep in the car on the way to return videos at quarter to 6 p.m. and won't wake up for anything -- until it's time for Mom to go to bed -- and then he keeps her up with wild rumpus like behavior until it's way past any person's bedtime. Only to have to get up at 7 a.m. How obnoxious was he? Riley, the dog, actually begged to go downstairs and sleep alone on the couch rather than be anywhere near the second floor.

I've just dropped my monster off at pre-school. Instead of going to the gym, I'm taking a nap and we'll see if life starting at 11 a.m. is at least headache free. 

Then I will go shopping at Wal-mart, one of my least favorite things to do, and then I'll either try to take a walk or go to the gym, depending on the state of my cold, before I fetch the X-man from school.

Last Night of the Holiday

Tomorrow life goes back to normal. MacTroll gets on a plane for California and won't be back until Saturday.

X-man goes back to pre-school for the first full week since mid-December. So tonight we spent it playing with a new toy that X-man got for Christmas from my sister. It's a school bus that follows a solid line of color, so you just bust out the paper and draw your own track and let it go and it will follow the route. 

Below is our town. X-man and I had fun with the markers, stampers and stickers. I have a feeling it'll be on the coffee table until he decides he wants a new track -- like on his train table. 

Afterward, we made some chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Anyone want some? :-) 

Why we eat out

Okay, so we've been cooking up a storm at our house. And we have a bunch of left overs. So I decided to make them for lunch today.

I reheated some taco for Xander and put it on a plate. 

Then I reheated a bratwurst and put it on my plate. 

Then all hell broke loose.

"My sausage!" he screamed. So I offered to switch. 

"No! My taco!" 

Back and forth. Until he threw a tantrum and cried and lied down on the couch crying and moaning. Only to sit up and say, "Scared of the dark." 

Yeah, um, it's 11:15 a.m. and there's a strong southern exposure lighting up the living room.

Then he noticed -- I had eaten the taco.

"Mommy, go away! Go away! My plate! My taco!"

So, um, I did what any mother does. I started laughing uncontrollably. 

I laughed so hard that I had to usher myself upstairs and left MacTroll knee deep in a temper tantrum while he was trying to use the leftover grilled chicken in his new George Foreman grill/griddle/wafflemaker/panini machine that he purchased at Wal-mart yesterday. Why a George Foreman you ask? Because he found out that in all stores in Savoy -- charcoal is a seasonal item that isn't around in January. Cause he's the only insane person willing to stand out in 15 degree weather to grill. 

Ahhh -- the tirade has ended with MacTroll putting Toy Story up on the big screen. With any luck, the little crazed lunatic will pass out on the couch.