Let me apologize in advance to my two fans -- those being my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law -- for the fact that this entry is likely to be pretty boring. I just felt like writing, so here I am.
Being back in the house is everything I expected it to be, all those days I was scrunched over on my side of the bumpy, pokey love seat at the hotel and trying to get comfortable (at one point I told Steven it reminded me of the constant and vain attempts to get comfortable during the last month of pregnancy).
There's a big empty space where the table should be, but the dogs have claimed it as their lounge-about room, as if they needed one more place to display their lazy. The artwork hasn't been rehung yet, partly because I want a change, but I'm not sure what kind or to what extent, and we don't know if we're salvaging our current table or getting a new one. So we do what we do best: procrastinate. (A mirror almost fell on Katherine tonight, though, so we should probably do something about it sooner than later.)
I kind of like not having a table. It's comfortable to eat on the couch, except that Katherine is worse about begging for food than any dog I've ever met. She'll pop her head up next to you, almost upsetting your plate if you weren't paying attention, mouth open wide for a bite of whatever you're eating. Whatever. She doesn't care, and she's not hungry. Half the time she spits it out to examine it in her little palm before putting it back in her mouth or, if rejected, on your plate.
She simply gets a kick out of communicating to us what she wants and our complying. Tonight, I was all proud because I thought she was going to town on butter beans, but then when I stood up to take my plate to the kitchen I stepped in a small squishy nest of the things that she had rejected and neatly set aside, right next to my bare foot.
Poor Alex has been relegated to the computer table in the corner in a porch chair that's losing pieces of its plastic wicker-type weave all over the floor. (He's not as good at guarding his plate against the human scavenger.)
He's sick, as everyone and their brother knows by now, and if you know me at all, you know I'm worried beyond all reason. I don't like fevers. I've always run low, Alex has always run low, so when there's a real fever involved, I get nervous. His has been in the upper 102s for two days now. We dragged him to a Mazer tent sale yesterday and had to keep turning back to get him, as he was sitting or lying down on all the couches we passed. That's how tired. On a positive note, if you give him Tylenol he's bouncing off the walls and challenging you to bike races and the dark circles under his eyes go away. He wears sick like no one I've ever seen. His face is a mood ring gauging how he feels at any given moment.
Steven and Alex both tried to make my Mother's Day wonderful, and they did a great job. Steven took the cranky baby and Alex to Railroad Park while I went on a random mission to find couch throw pillows in Pelham. We met back up and I tried to nap when Katherine did but then realized that I don't remember how to nap anymore, so I got up and got some work done. Steven had already cleaned the house while I was at the grocery store, so that was a good thing. Then after our unsuccessful search for a dining room set, he mowed both the lawns and bathed the dogs. Clean dogs!!! There is no better gift. Plus I got socks with no holes and an IOU to go to Flip Burger if anyone wants to sit on our babies so we can have a cocktail or two. =) Anyone? Anyone?
I did all the laundry on Saturday so I wouldn't have to do it yesterday. It was an effective strategy that I thought would mesh well with my intention to do nothing all day long. Unfortunately, Katherine had other ideas.
She has decided that I am the Complaint Department of our household organization. She files complaints day and night, left and right, with and without reason, and I don't even speak her language! Is the "Du Du Duuuuuh!" she's so desperately trying to convey meant to express that she's hungry? That she wants her duck? That she wants her Dada? That she wants her other Dada (Alex)? Is "A ba ba ba. A bababa! BA!!!" meant to tell me that there's something she wants I'm not providing? Or that I'm too slow? Or that I'm hopelessly dumb, she wants the SMALL lamb, not the BIG one, oh my poor tired brain.
I look forward to the days when I can say "Use your words, Katherine" and she does.
In the meantime, I've told her that when Daddy comes home the Complaint Department is closed for business, and any messages she would like to relay to her father will find their way to me in the morning.
Work is happening. I like that. I like it more when I have time to do it, when there's no crisis that sends me to live in a hotel with spotty Internet access for two weeks, and when I don't feel like I'm being incredibly unprofessional by straightening things out so I CAN get to the work that needs to be done.
I need to write, which means I need to do some phone interviews. Those have to be scheduled during Katherine's naptimes, and lately those are unpredictable. I'll find a way, even if it's sticking her in her crib and taking my phone and laptop out onto the back deck. I've been known to do that. And bonus, by the time I came back in, she was asleep!
I'm really looking forward to a summer beach vacation with the Texas family. The cousins always have a blast together! And now we have two newbies who are bound to forge some kind of bond that will flip the balance of power. Watch out for those two, everybody. Charlie is smart and Katherine is in awe of little boys. A coup is not out of the realm of possibility. She'll be walking by then ... wow!
I need girl time. I'm putting that out there for any particular combination of the initials K, K, J, S or L and L who might be reading. I've been stuck in my head too long, and I need a field trip out.
Name the night.
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