Picture of Community Winds trumpet section

Last we I played in the Community Winds concert, and I have to say again how happy I am to get back into playing trumpet. When you have a child, it's easy to get paranoid and worry that that when you pursue your own interests you're somehow taking away from your parenting, by not spending time doing child centered things, but I think the opposite is true. Calvin learns so much when Quinn and I play our instruments, and he is really excited about it when we take our instruments out of their cases.

Natural History Museum

We had a good time at the natural History museum. I was surprised that Calvin wasn't that into the dinosaur bones. He barely gave them a second glance. But he loved looking at the fish, the snakes, the salamanders and butterflies. Then, upstairs there was a display about the origins of the universe, and it was in a dark tunnel with glowing pictures of the Big Bang and dust particles swirling and planets forming. He loved that. There was a video about pulsars, that showed how when a sun that's ten times the size of our sun dies, it turns into a pulsar, shooting light in a circular beam around us. That video gave us some perspective on what Quinn does all day at work (we usually just smile and nod when he talks about pulsars). Calvin was most excited about being able to drive the Mars rover with a remote control.

Bedtime is now officially a "man's job"

Last weekend, while on my trip to MN for Andy's wedding, I was so preoccupied with the fact I was traveling solo partly to wean Calvin, that I could hardly think of any appropriate conversation topics (that didn't revolve around boobs).

I couldn't help but wonder whether we would be successful. I mean, I'm happy to say that we've breastfed for 2 years (that's like, the gold standard according to La Leche League) and we've been tapering it off for the past 6 months. I was just worried that he would never be able to fall asleep.

Some people can get their kids to fall asleep at the drop of a hat - I never have been able to.

Would I cave in to him when the going gets rough? (Something told me that my husband and mother-in-law will frown upon that to say the least)

The first night home at bedtime I just went into my room and locked the door. While I took a shower and read I could hear all kinds of noises (screams, thumps, bumps, crashes and little fists pounding on my bedroom door) that I chose not to investigate.

Finally, the noises died down and ended completely. I tiptoed out of bed and unlocked the door so that Quinn (and only Quinn) could enter.

He did a few minutes later, looking a little ragged (you know, like I usually look like at bedtime). "Good job, Quinn," I said and we went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Calvin came in, and Quinn got him back to sleep without much fuss. Hallelujah!

The next night was the same thing, but when Calvin came in in the middle of the night Quinn was to tired and grumpy to deal with it. So I put on a turtle neck and zipped up a hoodie and went in. I couldn't have evasion be my only weapon in this battle of wills, we would have to go head to head.

I put him back to bed and he was screaming and flailing around because I wasn't giving him boobah. I sang to him and turned on the sleep sheep and he eventually climbed on top of my chest and fell asleep draped over me like that, like he used to when we had kangaroo care (when I tucked him into my bathrobe as a newborn and he fell asleep). The miracle was that I was able to roll him off and go back to bed.

The best thing was last night he fell asleep on the couch and I brought him up to bed without him waking up and he slept all night and didn't wake up until 7:30. I feel so well rested!

When he woke up, he asked me for a glass of orange juice and ate his rice krispies. I think this is going to work out!

Calvin's little fort

Gail Medrick, a professional office organizer, is helping me to set up my home office. The problem is that my "office" is scattered haphazardly all over my house. I know that I needed help, because my office is so non-functional that it makes it hard to get work done.

A year ago I had plans to turn the closet under the stairs into my office room. My idea was that I could put my filing cabinet in there, and use the shelves to keep track of my clips and clients. But after the filing cabinet went in, so did the skis and the books and the gloves and the propane camping oven. So I absolutely can't get to the filing cabinet, so the files have become completely useless. Instead I have piles.

On top of all that Calvin loves to go in there and mess around, and I'm always afraid that he;s going to get impaled on something.

Gail's solution to the problem was pretty interesting. At first she thought to make the room into an overflow room, but then had a much better idea. We will take out all the adult stuff. The files will go upstairs, into what will be my official home office and the skis will go into the storage outside. We'll just make it a room for Calvin. We can put books and a bean bag chair and markers and toys. He can go in there and it will be his own little world.