It’s been a while since I last updated.  Mostly, this is due to an all-consuming and relentless work schedule.  I teach and do research during the day.  Nighttime is my only opportunity to prepare my lectures.  Every night when I come home, I face a few hours of work after H is tucked into bed.  I hate it, and have decided that I absolutely am done with teaching college psychology courses.  Given the hours it requires, I get paid around $3/hour.  I am not even remotely lying.  And this is the 6th class I have taught.  It’s definitely time to move on.

I’ve been really missing H lately.  He is going through an explosive period of language development, and it is so fun to see what he is going to come up with next.  Some of his latest words are “moustache,” and “limousine.”  Yes, really.  He’s starting to speak in little sentences, some of which are more intelligible than others.  He has most of his books memorized, and tries to “read” along with me when we have story time together.  His favorite book currently is a board book entitled “The Wheels on the Bus.”  The book has actual plastic wheels affixed to its base, so the book is effectively two of Holden’s favorite things:  a book and a motor vehicle.  He loves the part that goes “The driver on the bus says ‘Move on back!'”  Holden screams this part of the story and gestures with his arms to instruct his imaginary passengers to move to the back of the bus.  It’s so adorable.

Another recent development in Holden-land is the display of empathy toward someone who may feel hurt.  If Holden screams “No!” at us or otherwise rejects us, we make a sad face and tell him that he has hurt our feelings.  When I do this, Holden stops what he is doing, says, “Mama…” as he walks towards me to pat me on the shoulder and place his head on my shoulder or chest to “comfort” me.  It’s enough to make me melt on the spot.

This last tidbit is a funny story from the other day.  Holden and I went on a walk around the neighborhood when we got home from daycare.  It was still semi-light outside and it was reasonably warm for this time of year.  We encountered one of our neighbors with her German Shepherd, Isabel.  When Holden spotted the dog, he grabbed my hand and leaned into me, asking with concern “Nice??  Nice??”  I said, “Yes, the puppy is nice,” to which Holden responded “Nice wallaby.”  He repeatedly called the dog a wallaby, presumably because the Shepherd’s ears look so similar to wallaby ears.  Holden is fascinated by animals—all of them.  His other recent animal obsession involves antlers.  Every time he sees antlers, he exclaims “Moose!”  Perhaps this spring we will actually see one—after all, they are rumored to venture through the neighborhood during mating season.  It’s an interesting neighborhood we live in—a habitat that can support both moose and wallaby is a varied habitat indeed.

Holden’s “firsts” from yesterday, February 24, 2010:

1. First snow day. Defining “snow day” here as “cancel your usual plans! because school is closed!”
2. First snow creature. During the snow day’s afternoon shift, A. and The Boy made a “Snow Wallaby”.
3. First complete sentence. You know, a complete sentence—a sentence with a subject and a verb, maybe even a direct object.  In this case, The Boy’s First Complete Sentence was:  “Owls eat mice.”

Now that we’re all healthy in our house and we’ve had about enough of the winter, I’ve begun to think ahead to the summer and all of the fun it will bring.  I’m trying to get through my arduous teaching assignment this semester by daydreaming about how our little family will occupy itself during those warm, fragrant, summer months.

My wish list for Summer 2010:

1.  A camping trip with H.  We have yet to go camping with him—we had made camping plans on a couple of occasions since he was born, but sickness intervened each time.  This summer will be different, and we WILL go camping with our little guy.  And it’s going to rock!

2.  A trip to the zoo.  The closest zoo (if you don’t count Canada), is in Boston.  We plan on spending a weekend in Boston—eating good food, getting some sunshine, and seeing some “aminals!”

3.  Holden’s 2nd birthday party.  Two years old?!  Already?!  We’re going to have a low-key barbecue at our house.  I can’t believe he is going to be two.

4.  Some light gardening.  Because of our move last year, we didn’t have time to participate in the community garden.  We also moved into our new place too late in the season to get a garden started in our new yard.  This year we would like to have a VERY modest garden…maybe 2 types of vegetables.  We have to trim back some of the tree limbs to get rid of the substantial shade in our yard—but once we do that, we should have a small patch of yard that will be ready for some veggies.

5.  Re-finishing our deck.  This is the only major “chore” I have on my list for the summer.  The deck is in rough shape and needs to be sanded and stained, before all is lost.  It’s probably an entire weekend project, with both Rob and I working on it.  Any volunteers to entertain H while we save our deck from rotting away from the house?:)

6.  Hiking.  We won’t be climbing Camel’s Hump any time soon, but I suspect that Holden might be up for slightly more challenging hikes compared to the ones we tackled last summer.

7.  My 10 year college reunion.  If we can figure out a way to make it down to St. Mary’s for my 10-year college reunion, I will be a very happy camper indeed.  We’d even be able to fit in some family visits while down there.  It would be great.  It would be all the vacation I would need all summer long.

8.  Cookouts, random bonfires, kayaking excursions, yoga, and having a good meal by the lake.  All requirements of any good summer.

9.  Trips to Maine.  A trip to WV to see my folks.

10.  Hopefully, a new job for me.  More on that later.

I was given a drug that disrupted my memory of my former life.  Holden was taken from me and assigned to a surrogate mother.  I had no explicit recollection of Holden, but when I saw him with the surrogate, I found him to be vaguely familiar, and I couldn’t understand why I felt so bothered that he didn’t seem to recognize me.  My curfew (along with others who also belonged to the lower echelon class) was implemented on a random schedule.  Lights would be illuminated, and all lower echelon folks would have to go into hiding.  We couldn’t own any property—we were nomadic, and had to depend on finding a hiding place that would protect us from the authorities just long enough until the curfew was lifted.  It was possible to advance to the higher echelon class, but the requirements for such advancement were never articulated to anyone.  You had to guess which actions  would allow you to successfully advance yourself.  I never knew anyone to be successful, despite the fact that we all tried very hard to escape from the lower echelon.  At some point, I saw Holden again, and began to recover some of my former memories of him.  I was infinitely sad that he didn’t remember who I was.

I woke up from this nightmare, realizing the seriousness of my work situation, and the extent to which it is affecting me.  It is another impetus for change.

I’m having a spectacularly crappy day (all job and car-related), so I decided to hop on here and post something positive.  I mentioned last month that I had painted Holden’s room his favorite color, “wellwoah.”  I present to you now, the before and after pictures.

Before (this shot was actually taken before we moved in; the room was used as an office by the previous owners.  Note the hideous shelving):

After (Notice that I painted the wooden trim, and removed the aforementioned hideous shelving):

You see that nice white trim at the bottom of the wall?  That trim was the same green color as the walls before I tackled it.  Talk about ugly.  The next project is to paint the hideous wooden doors.  I know, I know—painting wooden doors is practically blasphemy if you’re talking about a much older home that sports actual, attractive woodwork.  But woodwork from the 70s doesn’t exactly fall into the attractive category.  It’s dark and gross and needs to be painted.

When I have time When hell freezes over:)