Quick Thoughts on a Friday

Just some shit that’s been making the rounds in my head recently:

My husband’s been gone for a few days and I genuinely miss him. That’s gotta be a good sign, right?

On a related note, I had two mornings alone with the kids and didn’t even make a big deal about it! Look at me! All grown up!

I’ve been driving a friend to sub jobs on the peninsula when she works at this one school that’s on my way. It’s fun to have someone to talk to in the morning and after work. I also like helping out my friends.

My daughter will be six in three weeks. She’s has grown up so much this year and is a lot of fun right now. I’m looking forward to this summer.

My son is a handful but so incredibly sweet. He frequently stops me in mid sentence to announce that I’m his best friend. When I tell him I love him he says, “I wuv you to mommy.” His favorite form of showing affection right now is the “hi-ya hug,” where gets a running start, jumps at me yelling (a-la-karate/kung fu) HI YA and wraps me in a giant bear hug.

I recently finished No-Drama Discipline (by The Whole-Brain Child folks)–on Ana’s recommendation–and it’s hands down the best parenting book I’ve ever read. I wish I had saved myself the time and energy of reading any other parenting book ever and had just read this one. So, so good. I hope to write more about it soon.

While my husband was gone I let my daughter sleep in my bed. Last night I decided to just go to bed with her and was asleep by 9:30pm. I didn’t sleep straight through the night, but it was still amazeballs.

My two-year-old is a shit sleeper. It’s starting to wear on me. (And yet at my mom’s house he sleeps straight through the night and doesn’t wake up until 8:45am. What the actual fuck!?)

On a related note, I wish my son’s room didn’t share a wall with the kitchen. Worst. Idea. Ever.

I’m so done trying to sell and buy shit on Craigslist. Unless I’m making $100 or saving $100 it’s just not worth it, and sometimes it’s still not worth it even if I am making or saving a ton of money. From now no I’m just going to donate my stuff to the Young Families Resource Center. At least there I know it’s going to a really good cause, and I can feel good about that.

Having said that, I’d love to find a site where I could get some decent money for my cloth diapers, because I know those resale well in the right circles, and I’m not 100% sure they’d go to good use at the YFRC.

(I wish I were thinking about selling my cloth diapers because we didn’t need them anymore. Sadly that is not the case. My son is 2.5 years old and not the least bit interested in using the potty. After almost six years of cloth diapering I am SO DONE! But I’m trying hard to be patient and not push it.)

My allergies are SO FUCKING BAD RIGHT NOW. They are really messing with my quality of life.

I’m finding it hard to motivate to work out these days, probably because I have so much going on in the afternoons and evenings. Not wanting to work out is uncommon for me. I hope I shake this feeling soon, because I’m about to embark on a half-marathon training regimen.

I sent out the invitations for my daughter’s birthday party so I’m feeling a lot better about that. Now I just need to figure out what to put in the party favors and make sure I don’t need to order that shit ASAP.

For my daughter’s last party we put “No Presents Please” on the invitation. This time I did not write that, because my daughter has been having meltdowns about the presents other kids get at their birthday parties for months now. Presents are basically the whole reason she wants to have a party. And yet, I don’t want all those fucking presents at my house! I’m seriously considering offering to buy some of them off her for cash, and then donating the ones she sells me (or just regifting them at subsequent birthday parties). Somehow I doubt she’ll be okay with that. I will be instituting a one in, one out rule with her presents though, so we won’t just be adding to her stuff. Maybe that will help persuade her to get rid of some of her new stuff, along with the old.

It’s Friday! There are five more weeks of school left! Woot!

15 Comments

  1. Re: cloth diapers, I’ve bought off Craigslist (though you just said you were done with it) and off a Facebook cloth diapering group specific to my county (where people actually know the going price of CDs).

    Out of curiosity, what type do you have? Are elastics in good shape after two kids/so many years?

    1. I have mostly GroVias, but a few others as well. They are still in really good shape actually. Surprisingly so. I don’t want to make a ton of money selling them or anything, but I do think they are worth something.

  2. Oooh, I start half-Marathon training next week! My running group suckered me in for a race on Labor Day. What/when are you running?

  3. I loved Whole Brain Child. It just felt so “right” to me. I’m going to get No Drama Discipline from the library.

  4. No Drama Discipline is always one mentioned in my adoption/connected parenting groups and so is Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control – I have not read the former yet but I’m in the middle of the latter.

  5. I sold my cloth on CL. They were used about 2 yrs old, and I sold about 24 for $80. They were bum genius and this was 3 years ago. I thought that was a good return–about 1/3 what I paid, for used dipes. But yeah, CL can be annoying especially with all the spammers.

    We also have a bedroom sharing a wall with the kitchen–our room. That’s preferable to the kids’ rooms…but we had our 2nd in our room until she was 6 mo old. And my DH bangs around when he gets up before me–ugh. (When the baby was in there I would slowly, carefully open a drawer etc.; my dh: bang/slam)

  6. She’s six years old. Let her enjoy her presents. They love receiving them and opening them. You can get always get rid of other stuff that she won’t even miss. Offering cash to a six year old is a bit OTT and joyless compared to getting presents!

    1. Fair enough. I’m sure she’ll just end up with all her presents. I think I’d be more okay with her having more stuff if every time I asked her to help me clean up her things she didn’t have a complete meltdown. Her 2.5yo brother can pick up his shit. My 6yo daughter, not so much.

  7. I tucked about half my son’s recent birthday presents away (just put them in one of the larger gift bags and put that in a closet), and he hasn’t asked after any of them. Could you try that? He was just so excited about the ones he was playing with I think he forgot the others. Of course, YMMV.

    I don’t use CL but have some (minimal) patience for ebay, since I don’t have to connect with people IRL, just mail stuff. Is that an option for your cloth diapers?

    1. Hmmmm. Hopefully I can manage this, but my daughter has a steel trap memory and my guess is she’ll eventually remember every present she got, even if she barely looked at it.

  8. We asked our elder one to donate 1 old toy for each new one we kept and it mostly worked. She is also so awful at putting away anything so a common consequence is the things left out are gone for a week and returned only if requested. If she wasn’t upset at the 2 week mark, it was gone forever.
    I’m looking forward to Whole Brain Child next. Currently we are decluttering with The More of Less and a corresponding 12 week class.

    1. I am taking that course too! I actually bought it in January and then didn’t really follow it, but I re-signed up again and am hoping to stay on top of it this time. Maybe we can check in with each other and see how it’s going!

  9. Do you think maybe your allergies are affecting your motivation to work out? I’m sure they must make it harder, and they’re a legitimate excuse. Take this time off, then get stuck into that training.

    I’m going to dare to ask whether the very fact your son sleeps through at your mom’s house and not yours could be a telling one?

    Missing your husband is definitely a good sign!

    I loved this post. Yay, you!

    1. “I’m going to dare to ask whether the very fact your son sleeps through at your mom’s house and not yours could be a telling one?” <-- What do you think it might mean? I'm honestly curious.

      1. I think that the questions suggests that your son is not sleeping through the night because he knows you will come in and spend time with him and not because he’s scared or can’t connect sleep cycles.

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