thirty: day 30

i tried to write last night.
i failed.
it's surprisingly difficult for me to summarize 5 good normal but each unique days.
can you? without writing too much and too long? if so, good for flippin' you.
i know my limitations.

i know This day though.
it was simple and lovely.

david woke up first. then yosie.

she snuggled with me for a little while, before vacating to find david and be in his company a bit before he left for work. she left with remonstrations to me to not stay in bed too long. it felt like she was mothering me. she is a mothering-type. bossy, but nurturing. wonder if she learned that from anyone she knows?

i felt rested and nature called. i got up.
david left soon after i arrived downstairs.
yosie declared he hadn't kissed her after he walked out the door, but he had, just not on the hands. get treated like a princess much? *eye rolling*

yosie ate breakfast and then was set up with ScoobyDoo while I took a shower.

i french braided 2 ponytails in my hair while it was still wet after i got out of the shower. when i took it down this evening i had a pleasing soft wave. alas, sleeping on it will probably flatten it out.

soon we were off to a playdate at mentor-friend, Diana's, place. Diana was babysitting a little bespectacled gal named Aubrey. She and Yosie were a bit stand-offish at first, but they warmed up to one another after an hour or so, and were soon thick as theives and thoroughly involved in dolls and "playing baby". Audrey, a year younger, was quite agreeable to being the baby and letting Yosie be the mom.

Diana patiently listened to my little concerns about Yosie's toileting habits and anxieties about sending her to kindergarten, eventually, like when she's 10... She shared the wisdoms from her experiences with her children and gave me perspective from reminding me without saying so that "this too shall pass". We will continue to try to be attuned to Yosie's needs and guiding her gently but firmly as she grows and matures, and we will all survive, one day at a time.

Slowing down.
This seems to be the key.
Rush rush rush= worry worry worry.

So we took it easy this afternoon.
At home we had a quiet time which consisted of savoring the sweetness and humor of Pooh's Heffalump Movie.

after the movie, we took advantage of the sunshine to take a long walk. we strolled about 10 blocks to an friend, Linda's house, to pick up and pay for the tshirt scarves she'd made for me. on the way we observed a plane, and the crescent moon in the blue sky- i choked on the explanation for this and advised she check with her dad. my astronomy is a little sketchy. we saw several grand yellow buses and many children walking about, as school had just let out.

i gave yosie the choice of a couple of bows linda made from tshirt material in a rainbow of color varieties. she chose... *shocker* pink and purple. *sigh* aaaaalll girl. 'course, i may be kinda hypocritical, since one of the scarves i purchased was a rich purply shade. the other is a burnt orange. i'm very pleased with them.

i was not suprised when yosie was reluctant to walk back home. though we'd taken a slow but steady trot on the way to Linda's, yosie said she felt like we were walking to China or Mexico.  I finally mobilized her with the idea of seeing the railroad tracks again. there IS something powerful about walking across the railroad tracks... their heavy iron rails that stretch as far as you can see in both directions, seem mysterious and silent and pregnant with possibility. we gathered a pinecone and spied a kestrel soaring high over the rooftops.

we made it over the railroad tracks and i attempted to motivate her the next few blocks with promise of a stop at the Annie Oakley statue where there are benches. i told her we would sit and eat a snack. of course, she insisted on knowing WHAT the snack was. when i told her they were gummy fruit snacks, her sharp little mind deduced that these were one's that, unknown to me, she had tried while Mammaw was babysitting over the weekend. that initial tasting had apparently developed in her a strong negative opinion of them, and she declared she didn't want any and whined and fussed and was nearly in tears by the time we arrived because i did not have any other options. she calmed once we sat down and agreed to try some, but her taste buds were consistent in their rejection. *sigh*

before we'd left on the walk, i had thought it would make sense to stop at the coffee shop for a little snack on the way back, but since i'm not in the habit of carrying cash or letting it lie around the house and my debit card has been AWOL (for too long, i might add) it didn't seem feasible. i advised yosie, before we left the house, that we would not be stopping @ the coffee shop, b/c inevitably she would ask as soon as we got within a block.

however, as we sat eating our, admittedly not-very-palatable fruit gummies (that is, as i ate the sugar-free, vitamin C-enhanced, stick-to-your-teeth-unpleasantly citrus shaped gummies...) it occurred to me that i might have some $ left on a gift card i had packed over the weekend. hooray! i gathered us up and off we trotted to our favorite coffee shop, just a block away.

yosie chose our perch at the bar, in front of the mirror. we ate a banana chocolate chip muffin, put together a puzzle twice and read 2 books, and people watched in our rearview mirror. i was pleased to observe 3 highschool girls who were of various NONcaucasian ethnicity, hanging around with a few blondies/brunettas. it was a hip-teen-girl scene there after school. yosie was obviously mildly enchanted by them- the BIG girls... at one point i had to instruct her to stop biting the table and staring. *sigh* i did not remark when i overheard her comment, to herself, that 2 of the girls looked "the same..." (to me, one appeared India-n and the other, Asian). what would you have said?

it was a cloudy walk home, but we felt merry and light. yosie skipped and pretended she was a flying plane.
david greeted us at the door, after yosie pounded a bit and experimented with the doorbell.
we ate a bit of chicken pattie and apples.
she and david Knex-ted for awhile while i got started here.
we played Dora Scrabble.
then bedtime routine- brush teeth and toilet.
D's in charge of bedtime tonite, so here I am.

that's day 30. and you'll have to do with a very brief debriefing of the 5 days before:
the planner says:

day 24
Kari Over [a fun visit with neices and my sister]
Yoga [a new class- Primary 1]

day 25
work [mushroom pee]

montessori school info meeting [WAY too expensive, though we love the method. we can't afford a second house payment.]

day 26
work: survival >>

day 27
Session 2 of swim lessons, starts. My little mermaid swims "belt free" (no flotation device) and ROCKS it.

Mom comes over to stay with Yosie...

D&I go out with Ben and Savana [deli lunch, thrift stores, record stores, the tobacco shop, the used bookstore, Panera, their house, Alan Watts, beers, snacks, beers, smoking, games, questions with heart-felt answers, late-late night, crashed on their couch. day 28 mid-morning: coffee, ibuprofen and water. hugs. off to have busy productive family day. this is how parents party. ]

i am contemplating who to blame for my double chin and wondering if smoking would get rid of it...

stellar sunset. not so stellar shot @ 70 mph

home-girls

day 28, cont...
re-made a thrift store tshirt into a tank top in less than an hour! you can too. find out how HERE.


before...

after. layered under new thrifted cardigan.

"cut and paste"-aganza with Mom and Yosie.
breakfast food for lunch- too much bacon. eggs. tortilla chips and guacamole.
stayed up late numbing my butt on a kitchen chair, watching the Oscars with my movie-fan lover.

day 29
work: daydream about the Oscars and the pretty dresses and the movies i still haven't seen. give shots. test pee. check weight, BP and O2 sats. the usual...
free lunch: chinese food. thank you drug reps.
waste my short lunch time on email and pinterest, contributing to the fatigue of my already bloodshot eyes.
come home to a child taking an early bath due to all day incontinence leading to foul body odor and rashes. ugh. anxiety- why'd she do it? am i missing something? or is her bladder just sensitive cause she's 4.5?
i let her give me a pedicure, after i trimmed her toenails.

i enjoyed reading a chapter book to her at bedtime, proud that she is attentive enough to listen to 2 chapters and still want more.

xo Polar Bears Past Bedtime


came downstairs and tried to do this blog. ditched the blog and fell asleep on the couch.

so.
today is my last day with this "first 30 days of my thirties" pledge to myself.

perhaps it's obvious or not, but these outlines of my days are very much just the surface. so much happens in my head that i think about putting here... some of it i probably shouldn't. how much of one's head shit should really end up on the internet? but some of it, i really should. still, i'm not really a Blogger, i'm mostly just a documenter, a journalist. good Bloggers have definable and well expressed thoughts. this looks like unedited chatter by comparison. i don't know of a way that will work for me to get my "true thoughts" safely out of my head and documented.

do you really need to know about my sorrow that a long time ago friend in who is in town, visiting, hasn't responded to my FB request to get together? does she hate me now, or just as bad, is she utterly indifferent? why does she feel that way? what exactly did i do? or am i just being hyper-sensitive and paranoid and she's just REALLY busy catching up with her family and taking care of her baby twins?

or do you want to hear about how surprisingly grown-up i (ironically) feel now that i'm 30? like, i'm so grown-up i feel like i've cut the puppetering ropes that i allowed to be tied to me by my previous religion? or how i feel happier, more at peace, than i ever have now that i'm not going to church any more and i can't imagine feeling at home in any church within my access or maybe any at all? not news to some of you... i hope that's not painful or grievous to those who it is news for. talk to me. please.

maybe you don't want to hear or know.
okay. that's okay.
you don't have to come back to this space.
i'll be doing my best to love you anyhow.

i'll be sticking around and showing up here and there, in my random, quirky way...
cause 30 isn't going away anytime soon. :}

thirty: day 2

interruption in persuit of coffee...

peeking out: orange tied braid, pipe cleaner corsage made by yosie

in my "summer" dress ~ inspiration from a 4 yr old

is this a linden tree?

thrill of terror

my true loves

I stayed up waaay too late last night, for no good reason. I'm promising myself right now NOT to do that tonite...

This morning opening my eyes was a physically painful task, due to the abuse I did to them reading the internet last night.
Miraculously, coffee revived me and my day was remarkably energetic. I moved at first out of sheer determination that this day would not be an "I told you so" by felling me flat on my face.
Yosie and I had a smooth, cooperative morning. We both anticipated the warm weather and dressed cheerily. Yosie patiently allowed me to do her hair and spontaneously created a corsage-like "flower" for me out of pipecleaners. I proudly wore it in a buttonhole of my sweater all day.
Yosie followed through with returning some items to Mary, the daycaregiver, that she'd "borrowed" without asking. I lectured alot, seriously, but patiently. I think she got it, the 20% that was most critical... *sigh* I'm one of those parents.
We visited Mammaw, at Great Gma and Gpa's, where she lives for now. It was an indistinct, but ...good.. visit. Yosie was beguiled with inordinate amounts of candy and charmed us all with her coloring, writing her name, puzzle assembling, and doll-care skills. She told Gma that I've been doing yoga. Later, Gma asked me about it, and told me she wished she could do something like that. Picturing Gma doing yoga was...amusing. But, I believe she could. I still remember one winter when we were visiting for Christmas, I was probably around 8 or 9, and at bedtime she showed Kari and I how she could stand on her head. I was duly impressed.
Gma brought out an old scrapbook she'd re-discovered recently, full of old clippings about all kinds of interesting little events, many that happened long before I was born. It contained her admission form for pre-school, and her ration book, from the Depression, and clippings from her first haircut. There were newspaper articles about the automatic chicken feeders that were installed on the poultry farm that my Gpa co-owned (?) and a couple about the "famous" angel food cakes and noodles my Gma made and sold in mass quantities. It was special, getting to sit and browse through it with her at my side, explaining little things here and there. Near the end, my sister and I's graduation invitations were included, and newspaper clippings about our various little academic accomplishments.
Afterward, we drove back into the nearby small town where my sister and David work. I withdrew some cash at the bank so that I would be able to purchase Lunchable's at the small grocery across the corner, that does not accept credit or debit cards and check for purchases only >$20. On a day I've planned ahead and remembered the cash factor, it is charmingly old fashioned. We purchased our lunch items, the locals politely acknowledging (wordlessly) that we were "out of towners". Yosie was THRILLED with her Lunchable. We drove to the nearby park to meet David, and sat together on a bench and enjoyed our picnic in the unseasonably warm but a bit too windy be balmy air. After we ate, we played awhile, relishing having the whole playground to ourselves. Yosie squealed, giggled, and bossed us about good-naturedly. We all experienced the rush and thrill of going down the "MOE" slide. The sun smiled down.
On the drive home we finished listening to a children's chapter book on CD and I was pleased that Yosie seemed to really enjoy it. It finished as we waited in line at the car wash, back in Our Town, and she begged for another story about Jack and Annie and The Magic Tree House. I was happy to be able to oblige her.
Once the car was clean on the outside, I was eager for the inside to match. We drove to Dad's, and Yosie creatively entertained herself running what looked like an orphanage for all of Kari and I's old dolls, while I vaccuumed and wiped down the car. Yosie's diligence at playing and not unnecessarily interrupting my work, thus allowing me to finish promptly, was rewarded with an ice cream treat from Pappaw's well-stocked freezer.
At home, I took a breather and ate a snack, while she watched a 20min show. Her tiredness set us back and marred our day a bit when, in preparation for going back out to meet Aunt Kari, a temper tantrum over difficult shoelaces landed her in time out. Thankfully though, the dark clouds passed quickly and the fresh air revived us.
Playground and Burger King with aunt, uncle and cousin.
Then off to help Daddy finish setting up bookshop @ the coffeeshop. A satisfying completion, but we're all worn out.
I managed to read complete 1 and start a second of the Flannery O'Connor stories, by sneaking in some reading time during Y's morning and afternoon TV times. (Ironic?)
Earrings: Yosie admired Mammaw's today. I half expected her to express a desire for her own, but she "passed" on the opportunity. I held my tongue. Not so sure about rushing in to it - the ear piercing.
Living communally: told another friend today that we are expecting "a friend" to be moving in with us later this year. mentioned it too @ Gma's. responses~ neutral, but weight seemed to be toward positive and supportive.
Running: mentioned my "goal" to friend/barista. she was supportive. i was doubtful.
Heartfelt letters: stumbled upon a site for "inspiration": Letters of Note
Tattoo: Looked at many bare branches juxtaposed against today's variant sky, searching for a linden tree.
Beauty rest: now.