ugh.....

that was a short run.  bought a t.v. on monday.  it's hugeness looms in the living room....dant dant dant dant, danaaaah.  (that's supposed to be the music from 2001: space odyssey where the monkeys bash on the big black thing....you know, right?....whatever)

i was kind of excited to get the t.v., and now i'm really disappointed that we did it.  feels like a bad decision, an impulsive move, an unsavory one-night stand.  yick.  i can't even look it in the eye now. and it won't leave. it keeps calling and "dropping by". gah.

wowwee!  still tv free!  i miss movie night sometimes. i think we're going to try to borrow a projector that can hook up to the laptop...might be fun to have popcorn and watch a movie all big and wavy on the uneven plaster! 

aint it the troot

"children go to sleep just in time to save their lives"

just read that on another blog. such a welcome chuckle in this day of whining and complaining from all sides...husband included. they sleep as i type; the kids that is. and the inside of my head is mine, mine, mine...if only for a few minutes more. wonderful.

< = >

been thinking of this minimalism thing for a while now; and i'm having trouble resolving my desires with my reality.  to wit; i have kids.  am i damaging them psychologically by throwing away all their stuff?  NO!  whoops, that was my inner voice. shut up... 

i'm sitting here in my living room, surrounded by books, throw pillows, toys, curtains, doo dads, cast-off clothing (not mine; it's freezing in here!), art, cat hair, electronica, dvd's, plants, and i ask myself; where the hell do i get off claiming to be a minimalist???!!!

first of all, i have more than one kind of salt....that's probably the first clue that i'm no frikkin minimalist. better to call a spade a spade and admit i have sentimental attachments to all kinds of things.  i have mugs from 20 years ago that i can't bear to part with. i have old baby clothes, i have busted-down dolls and toys from 40 years ago. what the hell?  how can i point a finger at my own mother when i'm still harboring all these bits and pieces myself? my only advantage is give or take 25 years....then we'll see just how many boxes i have in my garage.

stop with the stuff already

good garage sale haul!  made 160 bucks; on stuff i would've just dropped off at the goodwill! yay!

 in other news....d had his first day of preschool today.  no, i didn't cry.  somehow i feel like this isn't "official" school...and i'll save my crying for kindergarten (?!) 

m had a lovely first birthday party on sunday.  lots of cake smeared in all his nooks and crannies. not too many toys and crap, thank god. d was a little jealous i think, but he hid it pretty well. just runs around with m's new toys and balloon in his hands like they're his...but we can handle that. mom and dad were here and that was great as always. went shopping with mom (of course), and i didn't even dip into that 160 bucks!  i'm trying SO hard to keep a lid on the acquisitions around here.  it's hard! especially when you're out shopping with a die-hard maximalist like my mother. ay, she has a "way" of talking you into buying something you'd never consider otherwise.  i got away with only a grater and a couple things for the kids, but i felt like yelling "step away from the knick-knacks, i'm a minimalist, i can help!" although i feel i'm just an intern minimalist....no one really has to know that. 

The littlest hustler

holy fuckbox!  d had the mother of all tantrums today.  screaming and crying because his girlfriend, maeve, wouldn't do his exact bidding.  i'm at a loss as to wtf that was all about.  my gut tells me he's overtired.  (m fussed a little last night, no nap yesterday at grammie's, crap nutrition as well).  why, oh why, does she think a 'lunchables' is adequate nourishment for a 4 year old??? topped off with mini oreos?  whatever. i'm no saint; but geez.

i'm still holding fast on the absence of the black box.  he whines only periodically for a show. oddly, he only really whines bad if he's 'gotten a little taste'; a little huff off the lysol and he's hustling me again...lying, cheating and dancing on the coffee table for attention. 

oh well, better news.  getting ready to hold an impromptu garage sale tomorrow. i have acres of detritus lined up on the front porch ready to be thrown onto the front yard.  god i hope someone buys most of it; don't want to be hauling that much crap to the goodwill on monday.  i'm a pretty ruthless purger; but i have a tendency to want to purge other people's "stuff" (crap), along with my own. example: i am sick sick sick of all these thomas trains.  he doesn't play with half of them, doesn't appreciate another 1/4 , and the remainder are littered all over the house most of the time. but you know if i got rid of ...say...Toby...that's the ONE TRAIN he'll turn the world upside down hollering for in two weeks.  i actually took a whole box of trains out last winter, stashed them in a closet upstairs and waited for him to ask about them.  didn't happen. what now to do about his father's crap?  can't these people get on the minimalist train with me! 

The TV Experiment-part 3

over a week. going to make this permanent! at least until winter boredom sets in, then we'll see just how crazy things get and make a judgement from there.  

The TV Experiment- part 2b

AND,  m is sleeping through the night again!  yaaaahooo! does it have anything to do with the t.v. fast?  i don't know, but i wouldn't be surprised.  although it probably has a lot more to do with our re-committing to the cry-it-out method and the fact that he's gotten over the runny nose he had last week.  at any rate....i'm glad.  but, also cautious....because, after all, the first rule of sleep club is never to talk about sleep club.

The TV Experiment- part 2

well, a few bumps in the road are to be expected.  yesterday dominic discovered that he could watch youtube videos whenever he got the whim, and re-discovered the t.v. in the master bedroom (which we NEVER use....don't even know why it's there).  today we went to have lunch out, because the cupboard is bare and i asked dominic if he wanted to go to subway; and he responded "eat fresh".  holy crap, i'm more committed than ever to this t.v. diet now.

on the bright side, i asked him last night if he missed it any and he told me he was 'getting too big to watch t.v.'. well, yay!  i'm not missing it as much as i thought i would either.  i certainly have less inclination toward buying stuff!  isn't that amazing?  i'm not a real good navel-gazer when it comes to analyzing my feelings or revelations about situations, but i can say that it feels nice, and kind of calming not to have the t.v. in our lives anymore.  this feels like what "normal" is supposed to be,  like before this we were sitting around as empty vessels, waiting to be filled with opinions and stimuli.  i honestly know i haven't missed a damn thing, and if i stopped looking at blogs i'd feel the same way, i'm not going to suffer or be labeled a social pariah if i don't know who's on Go Fug Yourself today.  such a waste of time.

The TV Experiment

g and i decided that we'd had enough of the t.v.  and that the path to family happiness and contentment lay in trashing the beast.  

all weekend, we peppered our conversations before d with hints that 'the t.v. wasn't working correctly' and that 'it may have to spend some time in the repair shop'.  so, sunday night g unplugged the t.v. and wrestled it downstairs.  

i had no idea how it was going to go over with d.  well, i think we did a pretty good job with the hints, because monday morning he came down the stairs and saw the abyss....and had no comment whatsoever. which, if you know my kid, is a big deal. 

the day went by relatively smoothly.  we had a playdate over the lunch hour and then a long nap, so there we lots of distractions that helped.  i'm feeling confident that this will be easy! yeah, check back in a couple days! i'm afraid this may be harder for me than for the kids. after the kids were in bed last night, i actually reached for the remote -old habits. there's always the internet to entertain and inform me...but i have this feeling that maybe i should impose a 'real' media fast -well, a screen media fast at least...because how effective is this experiment if i just substitute one escapist vehicle with another?  

well, it's day two now, i'm on the computer again...obviously.  but even this little bit of respite from the black box has effected me.  i feel less harried, like there are miraculously more hours in the day!  i feel less self-aware; less stressed..somehow i'm comparing myself to others less, i'm not feeling as covetous and judgmental as before. wow, only from one day without t.v.  i'm excited about this; and maybe we'll make this a permanent thing!  although i miss project runway and my dvd fix!

Feh, I'm so tired

why why why is my son getting up three times a night again? he has not slept through the night since mid june. i'm so flippin crabby. enough......

i know it's only the beginning of august, but already things seem to be leaning toward fall. the new shiny school supplies are in the stores. i took a good long drag off a box of crayons yesterday at target...couldn't help myself! i feel like there's so much that still needs to be done before we "close up the house", as we do when it gets cold around here. i need to get the children's wardrobes straightened away- i.e. swap out the summer for the winter; and get them some decent shoes. jeez, they're not even in school and i'm lusting after 'proper school shoes'. you know the kind; with a nice stiff leather sole...and a book bag to match. cute!

Trying not to eat everything in the house

i thought i was doing pretty well. Ho! Must be 'that time of the month', because nothing is sacred or safe. at least it's not total junk, but it may as well be. i've done a complete diet backslide in the last two months. the weight that *had* come off...is back. damn it. i feel lousy again and i know it's because of the things i've been eating. too much sugar, too many cheap fixes. so stop. resolve to do better tomorrow. it's the only thing i can do. by the way...i Love these dishes. Modern by CB2. they stack together, so minimalist-cool.

if only i could keep my own plate that empty.

Thank God he only said "old".

We were on a little family bike ride/walk this morning. When we turned the corner, we saw a lady sweeping the sidewalk about halfway down the block. D yelled out, "out of the way old lady"! Thank God she had a sense of humor. I tried to do the obligatory "oh, you shouldn't say that, and oh, tut tut...that's not a nice thing to say". But damn it, that was funny.

holy blog-less

Yeah, not a lot of free time in the past few months. The kids are huge, but busier than ever. D is in summer camp. He loves it. So do I...obviously. More and more lately I miss the time I used to have by myself. D would nap 3 hours in the afternoon (I know I'm spoiled); and I could be inside my head for that time. In addition I had the luxury of an afternoon completely to myself once a week when D would visit his Grammie. Well, now that kid 2.0 is here, things are different. M is still nursing (not much tho), and can't stand to be left without me for more than an hour at a time. Ugh. Plus, the afternoon naps are almost at an end....besides do you think they have the courtesy to nap at the same time...not bloody likely. Still, things could be worse. At least my tubes are tied! Ha!