Go easy or suck it up?

This semester I was a full-time student in early childhood. Outside of the regular reading, you do a lot of activity and program planning. You also have to do classroom observations and find a focal child to visit every week to complete the appropriate lab work. It's a lot of organizing time and schedules: my schedules, other families' schedules, school schedules, etc. 

I decided I was only going to do school part-time in the fall. But I'm conflicted. Mostly because one of my "required" classes is available online. So I feel like going on campus T/Th for an hour and 15 minutes isn't a lot of time, even though the class may require more scheduling. Right now I'm registered for "Child Psychology" online and "Literature and Language in Early Education." I'm thinking about taking a small 2-credit course, "Math and Science." Because, let's face it, the sooner I get the credits out of the way, the sooner I'll get to my practicum (student teaching) and the more skilled I'll feel about applying for jobs.

On the other hand, I feel pretty pushed to the limit this semester. And I plan on being full-time again in the spring. If I do that -- maybe taking it slow in the fall would be a better idea. 

Either way, I'm filling up this summer with fun family times, and I'm really excited about having some freedom. 

My second favorite day of the year

If you know me, you know that Christmas is my most favorite day of the year. I like the start of winter. I like the cooking and the giving of gifts. I do my shopping all year round and am always done by Nov. 15. Things are wrapped and tagged and shipped to family by Dec. 10. It eliminates a lot of stress for a woman who hates standing in line, large groups of insane people and, well, traffic. 

My second favorite day of the year has become the annual Center for Children's Books sale held by the Graduate School for Library Sciences at the University of Illinois. And today is that day! 

But before I swing by and pick up Quigs for the festivities, I have to get a large amount of homework done for school. At 10:30 a.m. I'm observing my focal child. I have to type up my observation of the class I visited last Wednesday for my program planning class that's due tomorrow. (I wrote it on Friday while I waited for my tires to be changed, but I forgot to take my laptop, so I've got to type it and put edit it.) 

I also failed to finish my psych reading, so I have to do that and take an online quiz before the 11:55 p.m. deadline tonight. 

Thank goodness MacTroll is home this entire week. Its the first and only full week in February he's home. So we've got a lot going on before he has to run off again. 

Oh, and by the way, if you see my son around, he's a bit birthday obsessed. He's very excited about being three. He's very excited about his special day, and unlike his mother who has terrible birthday karma and wishes, most of the time, that the day would just come and go unnoticed, X-man loves his birthday. We've been practicing blowing out candles without spitting with my birthday cakes. Like at Christmas, I love watching X-man get excited for special days. Special days that are all about nothing but fun and enjoying them with the people you love. 

But the coolest part is that X-man was born the opening weekend for Jarling's in 2006, which means his birthday is always likely to coincide with that date. And if Jarling's is opening then warm weather is just a few weeks later. I don't call anything before May 1 a guarantee of warmth because I've had school canceled as late as April 26th for snow... 

So, hooray for good stuff like books, birthdays and frozen custard. 

Update: Nearly $400 worth of new children's books for $96. It was awesome to read new books with X-man all afternoon.

Sunday -- my day off

Today is Sunday, and MacTroll is going to spend a lot of time with X-man today after being gone on a 5-day tour of Texas last week. He flew to Dallas from CMI, then drove with two co-workers to Austin and then to Houston. This week he's flying to California Monday through Wednesday night. 

And since I had a crazy busy week last week with a kid who was getting over a respiratory infection, I'm spending the day doing my reading for school and writing a portion of the e-newsletter for the CCHS.

I also have to do an insane amount of laundry. But most annoying is that I woke up sounding like a bit of a frog with a scratchy throat. Some liquids, oatmeal and a shower later, I'm feeling more human though, just a bit annoyed by my cold. X-man has a playdate this morning with a friend, so MacTroll is going to take him so I don't infect their family.

I bought a dayplanner yesterday for the first time in 3 years, so I could keep track of my appointments, fun social appointments and my school/test/visitation schedule.

The other thing that has been sucking up my brain are garden ideas for my yard. The regular plots are all filled (just waiting for them to grow up a bit, since they were baby plants when I put them in). But I plan on doing more fruit and vegetables this year. We planted a pear tree in the backyard last fall. He's a little guy, so it'll take a while before he fruits. I'm also going to pick up a raspberry bush like we had at the last house. Starting at 15 months, X-man would sit with me and carefully pick the berries off the bush I planted at the last house. But I'm excited that I have more room for one at this house. 

I picked up a book on how to turn your front yard into a garden. But I don't want to build it into more than I can care for so, this is gonna take some thought. And it'll probably take me 2-3 years to make it happen. 

Peaceful morning

I got to sleep until 7:08 a.m. this morning. Seriously. It was wonderful. I got almost 8 full hours of sleep, which means X-man got 9.5 hours of sleep. 

He didn't fuss about breakfast. He didn't fuss about getting diapered or dressed. He didn't fuss about getting into the car, or walking into school or going to the Turtle room. He washed his hands TWICE at the sink. "Bubbles, mama, bubbles!" 

And he was only semi-needy when it was time for me to leave. 

I celebrated his achievement by driving over to the Curves and working out. And even if I don't weight any less this week (tomorrow is weigh in ), I'll have worked out 3 times at the gym and walked between 6.25 and 11.25 miles this week (depends on if X-man gets up early or late tomorrow and we walk to school or not.) 

My feeling of slackness came from me trying to use the computer to track my food this week. I'm on my computer a lot, but not usually when I eat. So I'm not writing it down before I consume food. So back to the regular handwritten journal I go. It is a good way to track your weight progress online though -- nice to see the curve bending down, even if it's a little at a time. 

Curves weighed and measured me on Monday, so I'm weighed each week, weighed and measured each month and then there's the normal step up on the scale I put myself through.