I really lost in the battle against insomnia last night. I slept only three hours.I went to bed at 9:30 and woke-up fully awake and ready for the day at 11:30. I was unable to fall asleep again until sometime after 4 and woke-up at 5.

I slept poorly the entire week, I think because I was fighting a cold, as was Mort, and I had mom ears on in case he needed me. I woke up every time so much as a snowflake drifted to the ground.

Somehow, however,I beat back my cold, even without sleeping. Yesterday, it was full-blown, despite my weak attempts to stave it off with Breathe Easy and Detox tea, vitamins and oj. My throat hurt, my head hurt, I was stuffed-up and achy and convinced I was barreling towards the flu. I drank 900 mugs of Throat Soother, Cold Season, and Echinacea tea and we sat outside breaking and throwing ice and snowballs for an hour to get fresh air and damned if my cold isn't 100% gone today.

I can't shovel the driveway with this heavy crust of ice because of my faulty back. We have that house, right now...the one in the neighborhood of lovely homes that is the single blight with the unshoveled driveway, ruining the symmetry of suburbia. But seriously, at least half of my neighbors have plow attatchments on their tractors and not one of them noticed our driveway needed to be shoveled and just went ahead and did it? In our old neighborhood, if someone's driveway needed shoveled, Dukeor any of the other neighbors would just go ahead and do it. If you can, why not? It saves someone else the bother of doing it. Yeesh. I mean, the driveways here are obscenely long, so it's not like I would expect anyone else to shovel it by hand, save for us, but if you're so bored that you're plowing the street with your tractor, help a sista out. That's all I'm saying.

On the other hand, I have these fantastic female friends who have offered to pack up their kids and come over to help me shovel. And they all know what a monstrosity our driveway is. When I got the first phone call, I almost started to cry with the sheer generosity of it. The e-mail from another friend just about did me in. Who has friends like that? Friends that in the midst of their own day and their own chores stop and think about you and wonder how you're faring and if there's any way they can make life easier for you. So so amazing. What a blessing. Straight out of a movie.

Mort saw his first icicle yesterday. He was so excited. It's the small moments like that that stop me in my tracks. We cleared off the swing set and slid down the slide into a pile of snow, we threw snowballs at the icicles to knock them down, we went sledding and ran through the ice-crusted yard. There are rabbit tracks frozen across our porch.

I am blessed and blessed and blessed some more. Friday was spent with friends, the afternoon devoted to children poking chunks of ice with sticks. Isn't it funny; we spend money on swingsets and sandboxes and various "outdoor" toys, when in all reality, all a child needs to be amused for an entire afternoon is a block of ice, a stick and his or her imagination. Life the way it should be. When my mush was an infant, I did subscribe to the "trees makes the best mobiles" philosophy, that children don't need loud electronic toys, they need your pots and pans and tupperware and rubber spatulas. They need to lie on a blanket outside and watch the wind blow the clouds. I guess if you're lucky, you realize that never changes, that given the chance, kids will always make their own fun.

I am starting to map out my garden for this year. I'm going to start composting and I think I can till the soil myself or with the help of a herd of preschool kids armed with shovels and giggles. I have knowledgeable friends who told me to plant my corn and beans and peas together because corn pulls nitrate from the soil and legumes release it. Also, the legumes will use the corn shocks as their climbing posts. I need to better focus on stagger planting and keep up with the weeds. I am pretty excited for the planting season to begin.

I have written and erased four full blogs today.

 

I took down the Christmas wreath I had forgotten was still hanging on our front door.

I waved and laughed as my son yelled, "Hi Mommy! Mommy, look at me!" swinging in a harness high above a trampoline.

I drank tea and ate cereal.

I cried with joy and awe as our new President was sworn into office.

I wondered what in God's name George Bush Sr. was wearing on his head. I think it was a Davy Crockett hat, but I can't be certain.

I discovered a puddle of water in our basement when I went downstairs to adjust the house humidifier.

I looked out the window 407 times to see if my son was soon arriving home from his playdate.

I overwatered yet another plant.

I made appointments for passports and puzzled over what to put down for Jay's eye color.

The sun is shining.

It is a good day. 

Gratitude

In these few moments that I am not cranky, these are the things today for which I am grateful:

1) Heather's super funny e-mail

2) Finally getting to the root of Mort's bizarre teenage attitude problem

3) Catching snowflakes on our tongues

4) Making Valentines with my Valentine

5) Watching Mort write his very first independent birthday message

6) Chili and Speakeasy Big Daddy

7) Getting on the library waiting list for The Electric Company

8) Finding uncured, nitrate-free bacon; I don't eat it, but the rest of my family does

9) The giant piano keys from the movie Big being moved to the Please-Touch Museum

10) Tea on a cold day

I am so freaking cranky lately for no discernable reason. I am an absolute pill. I can't fathom how my family can stand to be around me. and there is no reason for me to be like this. I wake-up, I'm fine. I go to sleep, I'm fine. In between, I am snappy and grouchy and want to grab my words from the air every time I speak. Do I need to be outside? Do I need exercise? More sunshine?  Vitamins? Highlights? More things crossed off my to-do list? I'm reading rather obsessively, book after book after book...sometimes when I do that, I think I become too entranced with the story I'm reading and become resentful of anything that pulls me from it. Great for being a college Lit major. Not so great for being a mom. I love the changing of the seasons, but I'm done with winter. Spring and fall should be extended and winter and summer should be shortened. That is my decree. Other than that, I plan on making a concerted effort to stop being such a joysucker.

the gamble of yoga dvds

i had out all my props and was ready to enjoy a good yoga session this morning. everyone seems unusually tense and cranky for reasons none of us can discern and i needed that yoga high. i had scooped up some new dvds form a discount bin. big mistake. i went through two of them before throwing in the towel and losing motivation. yoga is not just twisting your back. yoga is not aerobics. just in case the producers of either video is reading this and needs my input.

i've been awake for three hours and the day seems endless. i'm in a funk. i need some sunshine. sunshine is actually slated for next month, but i have put on my holiday 10 and can't fathom attempting to fit into my summer clothes right now. yeah. i should probably do something about that.

crap

what a crap day. made more so by the fact that it should have been a great one. the stars just were not aligned. cranky kid. unwelcome person at a friend's house whom i overheard on the phone to his wife being a full-blown cold asshole. he is probably the joy sucker. you expect to see someone bubbly and lovely and there he is instead. plus the fact that i had to hear him be cruel to her. i'm tired. i'm low. i was going to make a hair appointment, but now i think i'm going to do it myself. i'm not even excited at the prospect of slugging back the speak easy big daddy ipa. okay, i'm a little excited for that.

i have so many niggling little things to do. swim lesson sign-up, decisions about plans for the spring, i almost bought a bunch of organic seeds today before i remembered that i may not get to have my garden this year. this is the last year of having my child at home with me. i am not looking forward to next fall. i can't stand the thought of being apart from him for 8 hours every day next year. i'll have to find a job just to prevent myself from stalking him. 

titles are challenging

I heard from my editor  and the woman for whom I ghostwrote an article based upon the  Jewish traditions  in her life was very pleased with the result. It feels so good to have accurately captured her tale in a way that she is happy to have her name attached to it. Especially as I am about 40 years younger and a lapsed Catholic who wrote the article surrounded by a giant pile of books and two computers  and it was my first attempt at writing in the voice of a person I didn't invent. Although, in that way, maybe it was easier. I had a definitive, non-negotiable personality to capture whereas when I write fiction, I have to embody my characters and they can change at the whim of my mood or lack of sleep.

Speaking of which, it was another 3am wake-up. Ugh. 

Okay, I'm lying here zoning out.

I am very glad that I do not eat scallops as I discovered yesterday during one of our marathon reading sessions that scallops have 100 eyes. Can you imagine eating something with 100 eyes? How disgusting is that? I'm not coming from a selfless we are all one point of view. I find all shellfish to be pretty foul. Lobster and shrimp are freaking insects. Anything encased in a shell has the texture of something that's been encased in a shell. It doesn't help when you go to the beach and have the misfortune of entering one of those places where people are hunched over picnic tables surrounded by mounds of crab shells and corncobs, grunting and shoveling food into a greasy mouth with their thick fingers. Blick. I'll take fake crabmeat in my sushi , thanks.

Om

I started my yoga practice again yesterday. I've been fearful of reentering it as so many poses would force me to move in a way in which my disc would be compromised. But I've missed it. I don't know how floaty I want to be, but I have found that I truly am infused with this amazing sense of calm and lightness by the end of a session. It's certainly not something I am able to achieve by running or walking or aerobic sizing. And what's more, my thighs are burning as I walk up and down the stairs today. Warrior pose? Triangle pose? Regardless, I would love to incorporate that feeling into my everyday life.

However, achieveing serenity and a yoga body takes a long time. It's not like pounding out a warm-up, cool-down, and three miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill. It's a good 90 minute session and I just don't know how to carve that chunk of time out for myself without being interrupted to refill someone's milk or find a missing Bakagun. 

For instance, I could be doing so right now. But I feel like I'm only 1 1/2 cups of coffee into a 4 cup day. I don't have the energy to walk upstairs and create my studio. I wish I could sound way lazier. Namaste.

Cruel tricks at the DMV

I had to get my driver's license picture taken today. I didn't want a 4 year reminder of how sallow and old and washed-out and ill I look with the dark pit of hair my hairdresser has bestowed upon me. Sooo, I pulled on one of my 237 trusty berets and away went I.

Haha, though, wasn't the joke on me when I sat down and was instructed to remove my hat. What kind of sick mind came up with that rule? If it was a baseball hat or anything with a brim that obscured the view of my face, obviously that's just common sense. But a beret that held back my hair and was positioned on the back of my head...

And c'mon, I'm a female. Would I have a hat on if I deemed my hair acceptable? Can any female with long hair whip off  her hat and have camera ready hair? (And in my world, the answer is no!)

No. No, they cannot. So, not only do I have a tangled mop of black hair that makes me look like I'm just getting over a case of mono, but it's hair that looks like it was either shoved under a hat or hair that belongs to one who is a bit on the side of "Don't give the crazy lady a license!" It's a new low in the horridness that is driver's license photography.

It is imperative that Andy Rooney's typewriter be taken.

Good Lord. Where are the censors when we need them? His "writing" style makes my eyes bleed. Sure, the sensible solution would be to just turn the page, but he is so clearly out of his mind. It would be best if the Home took away his writing implements and covered him with a nice afghan and made him some hot lemon water. Shhh, Andy Rooney, shhh.

No sleep till Brooklyn

I haven't slept through the night for the past three nights. I'm a freaking zombie. Humans were not meant to fall asleep at 11 and awake at 2. I feel like I have a newborn in the house. And I'm throwing a party tomorrow. And I have to clean and get things in order today. And I want only to lie down and stare blankly into space.

Out of sorts

I think I am the only person in America who did not purchase a Wii for my preschooler this year. Okay, I know that's not true. Luckily, I have a wonderful group of friends who do not subscribe to the video game mentality either, or else I would feel like I needed to move to a freaky-deaky commune in the middle of nowhere with no electricity in order to raise my child in a fashion that makes sense to me.

I am growing so weary of going to parties where everyone plops plops their child down in front of the Wii and/or all the kids huddle around the one child playing a Gameboy or whatever the latest handheld video game device is called--do they even still make Gameboys?---and watch that kid push buttons. 

Ya know, if you take away that video game, the kids will still not tear you away from your glass of wine. They will instead interact with each other and make-up games or play dinosaurs or puzzles or have a dance party or build what they are deeming robots or chase each other or draw treasure maps. Kids enjoy each other's company. Kids LIKE to play and use their imagination if you give them the opportunity to do so. I know it's a radical idea, but I witness it at least once a week with my very own eyes! Put a bunch of kids in a room together and they will come up with their own idea of fun that involves nothing more than their minds. They will laugh and yell and be thoroughly engaged. 

Kids do not need electronic equipment to have a good time. Honest. I have even been to parties where the parents have orchestrated a game of duck, duck goose or musical chairs and in one instance even made-up a game for the kids and everyone had a good time. I know it seems crazy, but it's true.

Ugh. Anyway. And to the pet shop owner who feels he is being "unfairly targeted just because I bashed a kitten's head in against a dumpster ten years ago"? Yeah. I'm pretty certain I can guess what hell is going to look like for you. I'm thinking teeny-tiny  feces covered cage that allows you no room to turn around and a daily death by having your head bashed in...

P.S. If you eat fish, and/or shellfish, you aren't a vegetarian. 

P.P.S. Why in the world do I even care about this stuff? It has nothing to do with me and quite frankly, it's none of my business. Nobody is forcing me to buy a Wii, so why in the world does it matter what other people are doing in the privacy of their own home? Maybe that's the only time they hang out together as a family. I don't know. And I guess the vegetarian thing irks me because the people who are always the first and loudest to proclaim their vegetarian status are usually the ones who eat poultry and fish. The people who haven't eaten anything with a face for  at least a decade never mention it. Again, it couldn't have less to do with me. No idea why I feel the need to comment. Maybe my New Year's Resolution should be to do less judging.