Making a list or six

For the Babe:

Buy a new Nosefrida

Buy a small stack of prefolds

Buy new crib hardware

And of course, the great washing of ALL THE THINGS

Make cool-weather swaddle blanket

For the Marauder:

Buy or make a back-up outfit for his school cubby/summer activities

Paint and decorate his room

Make Spring/cool weather blanket

Find all of his educational materials and put them in Home Ed cabinet

Figure out ways to challenge him in his reading and perk up his math interest

For Patrick:

Keep mouth shut about glacial progress of things I cannot do myself

Draw rough sketch of possible kitchen and living room floorplans

For the House:

Trim the curtains

Re-organize the bathroom storage

Re-organize the kitchen storage

Pick out paint for our bedroom

Vacuum as primary anti-flea measure

Run steam cleaner over all easy chairs

New couch?

New armchair for our room?

New dresser for kids?

For the Pets:

Apply Frontline monthly 

Find good place for cat tree and then get one

Find bigger cat box?

Get Faolan back on track walking with me in am

For me:

Walking!

Stop drinking coffee, it’s making me swell

No take-out/fast food, see swelling

Go to knitting night every week

Fall without falling

Things are so much better here. Sleep may not cure all ills, but it does provide a dearly needed buffer between rat brain and human brain. Seamus is still throwing down but less frequently. I found my copy of Raising Your Spirited Child and looked through my scribbled check marks on the temperament assement bits and remembered that yes, Seamus goes to eleven. It’s in a book! Written by someone who writes books*. But damn if that book didn’t help before, so hey, let’s crack it again and see what I forgot.

The repairs on the new house are progressing slowly, so we’ll be in by November 1st, something that leaves me both relieved to have more packing time and furiously attempting to figure out how to swing his birthday party and Halloween. He has requested a robot costume “with a robot head too, please mom”, so I have some ideas spinning in my head. I’ll need access to my glue gun and a lot of acrylic paint. And bike boxes. No clue about a birthday party. We went to a bunch this year, so I’m trying to figure out the best way to celebrate our boy.

My garden got trashed while I was away, so I have one last tomato harvest out of it before pulling everything up. I plan to move the blueberry bushes to the new place and keep them in their pots for the winter, but almost everything else will get composted. We’ll be getting settled in and trying to figure out how to make the house best work for us through the winter and spring, so I do not plan to change (remove) the current plantings until spring. I have a lot of stuff I’d like to finish for Seamus, baby gifts for soon-to-be toddlers I haven’t started yet, and a possible babe of my own to craft for, so I plan to spend the winter sewing, stenciling, and prepping my pantry for easy meal-making. I have no idea about the quirks awaiting me with the 60 year old electric range and oven, so I’m planning a lot of mains for the crockpot, and crossing my fingers that I can steam and saute things on at least one burner.

We have a lot of excursions planned to take advantage of the weather. We went to the Lawrence Hall of Science yesterday and I rolled down the window as we drove through the hills. The air was lightly warm, and smelled of bay leaves and dry grass. I love this time of year.

With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel

Hello Zappos, my old friend

I’ve come to shop for shoes again

For the boy’s feet continue to grow,

At a rate that never seems to slow

And retail spaces tweak out his little brain

It drives me insane

So I listen…to the call

Of Zappos

Apparently he needs snowboots, as his are two sizes too small. Catch up with you all later.

Afternoon Movie

Title: holmgrrl vs The Bathroom

Alt. Title: Fuck the Former Tenants

Language: English, with cursing in English and Spanish (subtitled)

Synopsis: After finally getting a large chunk of time free from Seamus, I clean up the house and prepare to clean the tub, which has been grossing me out since I rinsed some shampoo of off a sliding door and released a tide of pink shower scum. I turned on all of the lights and threw down with some Bon Ami and SalSuds. And scrubbed and scrubbed and was vanquished by poor water pressure and no-slip stickers, caked with accumulated plaque.

But I’ll be back for the sequel. With bleach and steel wool.