are we giving up nap-time?

i put pbs down for a nap at 11 am, which is pretty close to normal. he fussed, kicked his crib and cried for an hour and a half! that is not normal. normally he will "fuss" until he gets comfortable in his crib. that's usually 20 minutes to half an hour. i finally went in to see what was going on. he had thrown his blankets out of his crib, he was so mad. i picked him up, after trying to cover him back up, and rocked him back and forth for a couple minutes. he was still upset and sniffling but i could tell he was tired because he "assumed his sleepy position" and put his head on my shoulder.

i hope this is not the beginning of the end of nap-time! i'm not ready for that! i need my down time and somewhat alone time. this could be a very sad and hard time for me.

pbs has now been out for an hour and a half. maybe i need to think about getting up earlier and moving his nap-time to later in the afternoon. i'm not sure if i'm ready for that either. i will do what needs to be done though giving up nap-time is not really an option that i want to consider.

maybe i'm still a bit sensitive...

i was sitting with a group of women the other night and the topic of children came up. (as is normal when most of the women are parents who are sitting around the table.) one comment that was made has stuck with me but also really stung when it was made.

i guess maybe i'm still a bit sensitive to these kinds of discussions. we were talking about how the women with more than one child try to spread their attentions evenly between each child. one woman stated that it was hard to do with her kids because one has some developmental issues and the other does not. the one without thinks that they need to go to the same sort of appointments that the one with has to go to. how do you tell your child that they don't have the same needs as their sibling(s)?

another woman stated, "that's why you have to have more than one. just when you think you've got parenting all figured out something else happens to knock you down." this is the comment that really stung. having been pregnant three times and lost two of those, it's a sensitive area for me. there were a couple other women around the table that have lost pregnancies, have had issues with fertility and have adopted, and have decided that maybe children aren't in the cards for them. i think the woman who said this should have thought about what she was saying and the company in which she was saying it.

how do you think i felt? i couldn't even say anything. i was too struck dumb by what was implied. it felt like she was saying that if you didn't or couldn't have a second child you're not worth much as a woman. maybe i'm still a bit sensitive about these things right now.

reflections

with all of the september 11 memorials, it's kind of hard not to think about life and where we've been over the past 10 years. on 9/11/01 i was getting ready to go to work at a department store when i saw what had happened. i had switched days with someone so they could go to the doctor. it had happened about an hour earlier since i was still living in the mid-west at that point. i turned on the tv to watch my morning regis and kelly and i couldn't believe what i saw. the second plane had just hit the second tower. i was glued to the tv.

i called my fiance, js (now husband), but he was in grad school and had class at that time. i called my mom. i normally called her at least once a day with wedding planning, but this day was different. normally we were happy and laughing. this day we were both in tears. she tried to calm me down but i don't think she was very successful.

i still had to go to work. the shopping mall was pretty deserted. mall security and management decided to close the mall for the rest of the day. i went home. i turned on the tv but couldn't watch anymore of the footage.

a friend and i went to a small italian restaurant in the middle of the afternoon. i forced myself to eat something. if i'm stressed or upset i completely lose my appetite. we were the only people there except for the staff. everybody seemed to be walking around in a fog. we drove by the wal-mart and a gas station. there was a run on gas. the lines at the gas station were so long. i don't think i've ever seen anything like that before.

that night we were celebrating js's birthday at his parents' house. there was a prayer service at church. i wanted to go because i knew people in nyc. i wasn't as familiar with the city as i am now and was scared that something had happened to them too. i  went to my brother's place and spent time with him.

i don't like remembering all of these details of that day. they are engraved on my brain and i am stuck with them. i wished that their was something i could do to help but knew there was nothing. i prayed. i was and am terrified that it could happen again. now even more so than then because of where we live. i know that i have to just live every day and not worry or dwell on what could happen.

why do these reflections hurt so much 10 years later?

no more rain, is that too much to ask?

after hurricane irene last weekend, we didn't need anymore water of any sort on the east coast. we finally saw the sun and blue skies today for the first time since monday! it was only for a few hours and i was nervous about getting out and possibly getting stuck in a torrential downpour. so pbs and i stayed home for the fourth or fifth day in a row. that will drive anyone crazy!

i don't see how people in seattle do it. i was going crazy after about  a day and a half of being stuck in our apartment. i much more prefer to get out and go. There's only so much disney channel, "brown bear, brown bear what do you see?", "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and "the itsy bitsy spider" i can take.

i thought about building an ark but decided not to test god. i guess we're through this until the next time. we had some leaks in our apartment. one that looked like a waterfall from the ceiling for a while. one right over our bed. maintenance came to "assess the damage" today. so all i want is no more rain, is that too much to ask?