Monthly Archives: June 2019

Tomorrow is The Plane Trip.  It is capitalized because it has become an entity of it’s own.  How will the baby fare?  No one knows.   I have planned for every eventuality I could – plenty of bottles for him to suck on during take off and landing, Earplanes so he doesn’t have to suck on anything to be fine, crystallized ginger and Seabands in case it turns out that he’s like his mother (I get violently ill on planes without mass quantities of Dramamine), an entire toddler-sized backpack full of new toys in case it turns out he won’t sleep on the red eye… I’m as prepared as I can be.  And now it just looms, out there, waiting for a verdict.

One of the things I’ve been working on in my personal life is not to overwhelm myself.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had as long a to-do list as I had today.  The baby was not pleased.  He’s used to being able to bring me a book, snuggle up in my lap, and insist that I repeat the whole thing four times.  He’s used to dragging me into the guest room where I play him an improvised “Baby Beluga” on the keyboard as he bangs along on the low keys.  He’s used to a playmate.  And regular meal and snack times.

But Mom had two giant suitcases to pack, four loads of laundry, and massive house organization to get through.  Which meant he was relegated to the periphery, entertaining himself.  Not the best for general morale, but even amid the crankiness there were moments.

Like this one:

I transferred laundry from the washer to the dryer.  Behind me, the boy skittered out of his room and down the hallway, disappearing into my bedroom while doing his silly dance-run and yelling “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!” And then two seconds later, he ran back the other direction into his room again, yelling and swaggering the whole way.  Back and forth, back and forth, yelling only as he passed through the hall, knees flying.

The absurdity of motherhood is my favorite part.

So now we go on a Great Plane Adventure, and see what happens.  If nothing else, at least we’ll have that verdict.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a little writing time on this vacation.  Don’t laugh, it could work out.

Before the actual blog entry, I just wanted to remind everyone that Blue Gentian is officially $0.99 as of yesterday.  Go get ’em! 

I have started a blog entry about ten times in the last two weeks, and always feel like it isn’t fancy enough.  You know, not up to my regular standards of pretty language and interesting anecdotes.  I almost scrapped this one, too. Most of my stories now involve small boys who say “EIEIO” to all questions, or losing a small shoe at the local diner.  And the truth is that I don’t even have the energy to turn those things into something more interesting than they are.

I don’t know why this semester has felt so terribly draining.  I wrote a paper last night that I’m very proud of, but it has never taken me 4 1/2 hours to write a five page paper since I was an undergrad.  I feel like I’m probably losing my touch.  The days when I used to regularly crank out seven papers a week are too far behind me to be helpful.  (On second thought, maybe I should be glad about that…)

I’m also feeling demoralized about student teaching, and my lack of classroom management.  I had a breakthrough realization, though, that procedures aren’t actually for the students.  They are for me – so that I have a clear line on what is being done when and I don’t have to sit in class and think to myself “is that offense bad enough?  But I haven’t warned them…  Maybe I should just let it go?  Or…?  If it gets worse I’ll definitely address it.  But how much worse…?”   If I have a policy, I don’t have doubts.

See?  Demoralization and exhaustion are not the fodder of a good blog entry.   And the above is deceptive.  Professionally I might be demoralized, but I spent a full half-hour yesterday throwing my son into a pile of pillows while he shrieked with glee, and unhappiness in the face of that is basically impossible.  Not to mention, I am flying to the home of my forefathers next week. Maine, land of mosquitoes and white sand beaches, where everyone takes their ice cream VERY seriously, and it is possible to eat one’s weight in lobster and/or clam chowder.  Which, believe it or not, is all secondary to how much I’m looking forward to seeing my dozens of cousins.

My cup has been poured out, but it’s getting filled soon.  I really can’t wait.