Ups and downs of the new school year, Elan's first day of Pre-K,September 2011A friend called me recently. She was having one of THOSE moments – in the line at Trader Joe’s, with her baby (who’s not been sleeping much lately), in a rush to make it to a celebration at her son’s preschool, her line was moving the slowest and she was frustrated, thinking about all the things she needed to do for the business she runs (her full-time job squeezed into part-time ... more
I might have mentioned before that Elan is a problematic sleeper. At this point, after more than 2.5 years of sleep training, he often goes through good spells of sleeping through the night. He never wakes up at what Mikhail and I would have considered in our B.C. (before-child) life to be a reasonable hour. But let's not get me started on that right now.Elan has a clock in his head. And it is a very reliable one. It knows, for instance, exactly what time to awaken to really ... more
refi paperwork what's the rate today? goddamn is that cat pee again? workout at the gym. pay at the meter. lunch cancelled. roofer's here. shit the baby isn't napping. beautiful day for a stroller walk. why aren't you sleeping? lunch rescheduled two weeks out. playdate on. no off. no on again. roofer needs to talk. for forty minutes. see that dry rot? go to sleep. can't tell if it's cat pee. use the expensive cleaner and hope. how many points if the house reappraises for how much less than we ... more
On my walk today, there was a street that smelled like wet pepper. A huge pepperwood towered over the block. Some kind of cherry-like trees bent over the sidewalk dripping their lacy white blossoms onto my head. Across the street was a gangly bush wild with orange flowers of a nearly neon hue. I walked slowly down that street, bathed in the scent of sweet wet blooms. A good antidote to the stink of cat pee that greets me everytime I open the door to our carport. The cats have launched ... more
The amazing thing is: we are some of the lucky ones. We have health insurance. We pay over $500 a month ($6,000 a year) to cover Elan and me on Mikhail's plan through his employer. I would consider our coverage to be middle-of-the-road. It's not anywhere near as good as - say - a teacher's. But it's not just-in-case-you-get-hit-by-a-train either. However, in the last few months, our little family of three has endured a run of bad luck health-wise. Maladies include: head colds too numerous to count, 2 cases of conjunctivitis ... more