Busy Autumn Friday

We wore ourselves out yesterday, we had such a busy family day!

We started by visiting a preschool in town - that we actually all liked a lot. Then, we zipped to the mall to buy Jake new larger fire truck sneakers (to replace his favorite blinking fire truck sneakers) and ate lunch at Sbarro's, which was surprisingly satisfying to all. At Sears Jake fell in love with a huge bright pink Dora pillow and a smaller blue truck pillow, so he arrived home with gifts. As did we, as our housecleaner was just finishing up and the house was sparkling. After naps for all but Mike, who worked, we headed out again, so the boys could get haircuts at Jodie's (and Jake could introduce me to Jodie's dog Manny, whom he LOVES) and we could all eat Himalayan dinner on the downtown mall. The air was cool, the sun shining and EVERYONE downtown looked super happy. People kept stopping to smile and flirt with Jake. At one point it was a group of 3 collegiate women who could not take their eyes off of him! I guess his fancy new shoes and haircut really upgraded his cuteness factor. He lapped it up, of course.

We stopped into the crafters' coop and got a very nice invitation from my Pilates buddy Jan to visit her pottery studio nearby us sometime. I'd love to do that, have always wanted to see it. She's a professional potter and her work is amazing. She remarked on my bump and said she just got certified in Pilates. I told her I'd be coming to see her after the baby comes to get back in shape!!

I spent the evening researching the preschool and procrastinating on some schoolwork I needed to get emailed to my students. I did it tonight, though, and feel virtuous. And tired.

Little girl is kicking constantly, as usual. And I feel HUGE!

October Weekend

We had a really nice day yesterday. We took Jake to "Old Farm Day," an annual festival they have here every Fall in a huge field nearby. There were farm animals and food and hay rides and fire trucks and demonstrations and all sorts of booths set up with crafts and local businesses. Jake loved the sheep and goats and spent about 25 minutes being fascinated with an old fashioned apple cider press. He watched a boy of about 9 pressing the apples, tasted the cider, and and finally helped press the apples himself, with some help. Practically our whole town was there: we saw tons of friends and I realized how many people we have come to know here. It really feels like a community. It was nice. And we all napped really well afterwards!

Sunday am is always Jake and Mommy morning. Mike gets to sleep in and Jake and I do whatever we like. Today we had an early breakfast in our pajamas, where we decided to mix our two favorite kinds of cereal together in each of our bowls and pronounced it good, got dressed, played hide and seek in my closet, practiced typing letters on the computer, and played several Dora computer games, (including a bingo game that Jake played all by himself, clicking on his bingo board with the mouse when the pictures matched; he's very quick at this now). Then, after snacks, all three of us spent some time on baby preparations, taking all of our baby equipment out of storage and replacing the stuff farthest in with the clothes we got for when she's a year old and putting all the things we'll need right away near the door to the crawlspace. Jake did his part by moving empty boxes all over the upstairs (copying what we were doing), and unpacking his old baby mobile. He kept asking us to hold on to the long plastic arm so he could pull us around the room.

A good weekend was had by all. I'm beat!

More Pix from Last Week

What A Mom Can Do While Alone

So what did I do with 4 days alone while Jake and Daddy went to Grandma's house? I tried to do things I will not be able to do for another year or so when the new baby arrives. And at a pace that was my own.

So, while Jake and Mike were gone, I managed to:

-clean my entire office, purging two huge bags of papers, organizing all my current projects, and rearranging the furniture so the room is more spacious,

-oversee the construction (or deconstruction) of the wall between our den and kitchen, so that now we have a nice big window that lets in light, allows us to view kids from the kitchen, but is still high enough to provide safe closure for when we want the kids to play safely by themselves. This included measuring for the hole, removing all toys from the den and food and items from the kitchen that could get dusty, and then after they were done, touching up the kitchen walls and woodwork as well as those in the front hall and stairway with shiny white paint,

-do an errand for my friend Jacki who's sick and drop it off at her house

-attend bookclub at Jen's for A Thousand Splendid Suns

-go to my 23 week ultrasound where I got lovely 3d pix of Baby Girl, and then argued with my doctor an hour later about what gestational diabetes is and what to do about it:


Me: I seem to be gaining weight rather rapidly over the last month. Do you think my gestational diabetes has kicked in? Should I start measuring my blood sugar levels?



Him: Don't worry about the past, just watch what you eat going forward. Otherwise, you could end up with a baby that is prone to obesity. Just don't eat Ben and Jerry's except for once a week. And only eat a FEW Oreos before going to bed.



Me: But I rarely even eat sugar!! I haven't looked at an Oreo in over a year. (bursting into tears, deep breath.) You don't seem to understand, I've been trying to control this all along. But my body seems to not be able to process carbs correctly. That's my concern. Do you think I should put myself back on the strict gestational diabetes diet?




Him: (Blank stare. Silence. Pause.) Well, we could do another glucose tolerance test if you want to sit for an hour today.



Me: (thinking: jesus, he does not know a damn thing about gestational diebetes, does he?) yes, please!


so then I hung out for an hour afterwards doing my THIRD glucose tolerance test of this pregnancy, and put myself back on the strict diet, cooking myself gestational diabetes friendly meals for the rest of the weekend.

-have dinner out at a new place and shop at 3 new stores,

-put together (finally) the scrapbook of cards and pix from Jake's birth that have been sitting in my closet for 3 years (!),

-have a long bubblebath by candlelight,

-take naps every 3 hours or so, whenever the mood hit,

-rearrange the contents of our dining room cabinet to better organize bills and papers,

-watch about 15 hours of TV, including gobs of Oprah, Designed to Sell, Divine Design and a silly movie with Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Amanda Peet that was so forgettable, I already forgot the name!

-purge the house of clutter so that our housecleaner could do the best cleaning she's ever done, including shining the kitchen floor which she cannot do when three pairs of feet are tromping through it for lunch,

-ordered a new bedroom set from Grand we'd had our eyes on for some time,

-ordered a new bed for Jake

-used spot cleaner to remove all the stains from all carpets, upstairs and downstairs,

-went for two nice long walks,

-wrote in my journal, and

-wrote a poem.

Most of all though, what I got from my break was not a list of accomplishments, but a sense of space and air. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. No schedule, no commentary, no distractions.

It was, in a word, divine.

More pix from Grandma's

Mike and Mom flooded my mailbox today with pix from their trip. There were some nice ones!

Jake at Grandma's

Jake and Daddy are at Grandma's house for several days. Reports are that they are having a great time. I have to admit that I am too!

Sunday Fun with Soap

Jake had a bad runny nose today, but seemed restless so we wandered outside. We decided to wash his little tykes slide set with some dishsoap and the hose, and the making of bubbles became all-absorbing. He spent over 45 minutes scrubbing and bubbling! And ended the exercise by covering his hands with bubbles and giggling as he wiggled them and got us all wet. It was a nice Jake and Mommy morning, for the day before my b-day.

News from Josette

I got a nice happy b-day email today from Josette, my French friend who lives in Turkey. She congratulated all of us on the new pregnancy and sent some pix from her recent travels.

Here she is with her son Bora, who is about 7, I think.



This is Josette's mother, and my French "Maman," Janine, who took me in for a summer when I was 17. She lives in Commercy, a small town in the Lorraine region of France that makes Madeleines - the little lemon cakes that Marcel Proust made famous. They are delicious!

She's over 80 now and still writes me long letters in her scrawling, nearly illegible French. She is one of the sweetest women I have ever met - she keeps up with pen pals all over the world.


This is Sarah, whom I met when she was about 5, that summer I lived with Josette and Janine. I always think of her as "La Petite Sarah" as we all called her then. She was the first completely bilingual child I ever met, having grown up in the UK to that point with French parents. She corrected my French with infinite patience and amazed me every day.

She lives in a tiny town in Northeast France now and just had her first daughter Erika. We send each other letters and pix from time to time.



Josette added this one for a laugh, asking me to guess which country it was. She was an au pair for a fabulous family in Copenhagen many years ago and I visited her there when I was living in France again during college.

I guess she and Bora made it back there for a visit to the Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid statue, which I remember and recognized immediately!