Back to Normal

The world is going back to normal. My colleagues are going back to campus. Workers have been industriously clearing snow from the drives, pushing it around with big red scrapers and throwing salt on the ground like chicken feed. It's snowing. It's coming down diagonally, sometimes sideways, out my big sliding glass door. (It frosted on the inside of the sliding glass door yesterday morning. We have a major draft and circulation problem in this place. Talking to this place's central command is one of the many things on my list.) Unlike many, I am blissfully indoors, cozy in my thermals watching Dinosaur Train and occasionally spooning yogurt into Absurdist Tot's mouth, when he comes around. (I know. Absurdist Tot's only fourteen months, and TV is not recommended at this age. I'm a terrible mother.)

Back in Grad City, it's -10 degrees. Here it's about 15 degrees, not that I know it in my bones.

Yesterday, I felt ill most of the day. Today, my sore throat is gone. Yay. (Knock on wood.)

Back when the world was shut down, we had Big Plans. Now, I just think cozying up in the house sounds like a great idea. But I haven't been out of the house since before Christmas. I'm sure I should get out.

(Forget it. Domestic tranquility is blown. AT just shook the table and spilled my coffee. Oy!)

Though I've been in the house for a long time, I didn't get depressed and listless very much -- instead I've been working on projects, mostly getting AT on a decent sleep schedule. He was going to bed later and later; a good night was 11pm. Now he's going to bed around 9, with the attendant waking up at 8. And though I know I'm about to jinx it big time, the last two nights he's actually slept through until morning. I'm pretty sure that this reversion to night waking has been because of teething. I love sleeping through the night. I really do. Mostly because I stay up late. It's happened many times that right at the moment I'm tired and ready to go to bed, AT wakes up and wants to be nursed and coddled, often refusing to be put down. I'm all into attachment parenting and stuff, but actual co-sleeping, with AT in the bed, means I get very little sleep. Not because I'm a worried mom, though there is that - I don't want him to fall out of bed, and since we don't have a bedframe and are perennially poor, we can't and don't want to install rails -- but because he's a very fitful sleeper, sometimes sitting up and falling forward, often turning over in strange positions until he's perpendicular rather than parallel to us other people. It's really a nightmare for me.

Our Big Plans really are all about Building (my theme of the year, following Profgrrrrl's lead) on the foundation we've lain last year. We need to get caught up with doctor's visits (regular for AT; doctor, dentist, and vision for me) and start visiting daycares. We're determined to get AT into daycare by the end of the month. And I have Big Plans too. I have to prepare the elective I'm teaching in spring quarter -- and there's a lot of stuff to do and read there -- and then there are my Big Plans for scholarship. I really want to get some Serious Work done. My dissertation was complete and defended two and half years ago, and I've yet to publish an article on it. Lately I've been doing a fair amount of reading and researching for various articles I'm proposing, and I believe in that work more than ever. Now that's a great way to start the new year! So I want to get regular writing done. Over the next three months, I want to write 100 crappy pages. It sounds like a lot, but really it's only a page or so each day. And I also need to catch up on my reading. I read an article last night. I really need to do that daily or as often as possible in this parenting life.

Okay, I don't think Sesame Street's focus on hibernation today is helpful to my sense of get-up-and-go at all. Of course, AT's biting all his toys rather than watching anyway. He doesn't sit still long enough for me to read him a story! He thinks books are for eating. He's pushing his toys around the room. What a nut.

As discombobulated as this post is, I think it's the most accurate representation of my life. I look at the window and think of my research, my crochet project, the doctor, teaching. Then I snap back to whatever Absurdist Tot's doing, his need for food, a new diaper, whatever.

I think I have to go. The entire family likes poached eggs on toast. And that means the Cook's got to get in the kitchen.