Five

Happy 5th birthday, beautiful, bright, complicated, Nadia.

             You've grown into such a great helper and big sister.

We love you.

Living Well is the Best Revenge

After 3 months of perseverance, I finally did my first unassisted chin-up today.  Merry Christmas to me.  2012 has been a good year, at least for physical accomplishments.  First marathon, PR in the 10k, and now a chin-up... oh, and I also finished and did well in 3 classes. (Stats, microbiology, and anatomy.)  I hope to continue pushing myself in 2013, but not just on the outside, I'd like to be more fit on the inside too.  Which starts with being more patient, especially with my kids.  

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone!

I Didn't Know There Were More Things About Myself to Hate

I'm so homesick and tired of being alone with the kids I could scream.  And screaming, I do do, unfortunately, at them.  Or cry.  Yes, I know I am fortunate to have two healthy children.  Children who have never been victims of shooting or any other sort of violence. Yes, I know that I am privileged in that neither kid has had to go to daycare in the first 3, if not 5 years of life.  I know.  I know it could be so much worse.  But it could also be better.  It could be, and  hopefully will be better, when I have friends to see and talk to.  It will be better when I have family to form a support network.  It will be better when I no longer feel like an alien.  America is lovely, yes.  But I'm an alien.  My natural penchant for self-loathing seems to be exacerbated by this environment, which definitely does not help me in the mothering department.  A woman with whom I feel a special kinship, mostly because she's a bit of a princess dark cloud, like me, said to me last summer, "in some ways, these years with small children are the worst years of your life."  Maybe not everyone feels this way, and I certainly don't feel this way every day, but I think (it has to be so) that it's okay to feel this way sometimes, or even most of the time.  Having kids is effing hard.  

Transitioning Josée to a bed is not going well.  Need I say more?  I sort of patted myself on the back after N got through her terrible threes.  She's obedient, respectful of authority, bright, plays the cello... yay her.  Yay us.  Josée, on the other hand, makes me feel like the worst parent ever.  She scoffs at authority and resists every correction or instruction.  She's so unlike me that I have no idea how to help her.  With all of this being said, however, she has a very sunny/uncomplicated disposition that I desperately do not want to break.  Help.  How does one parent a happy, yet obstinate, child? 

2 Years of Snug Life

Happy birthday to Josée, who turned 2 yesterday.  She also got her first hair cut!  (And  no, not a bob cut - just a trim to even out her newborn mullet.)

Potty Princess

Knowing how busy we're likely to be in the fall, I decided I'd better give the ol' potty training thing a shot before time slips by and she's all of a sudden 16.  I started half-heartedly last Tuesday with the official day slated as Saturday, August 4th.  It was a rough go at first and I started to doubt the timing (she's just a few days shy of 22 months) and the method, but today was completely accident free and I'm starting to believe this may actually work.  I know the flights back home in a few weeks are going to be a bit tricky (with the definite possibility she will be wearing special 'airplane panties,' ie. pull-ups, for the day;), but her love of the recently learned words "no," and "mine," combined with her natural willfulness, would have only made success more difficult as she got older.  At least, that's my opinion.

And for record, it was not my idea to make those crowns for them.  Despite my best efforts to avoid such a thing, N has become a bit of a princess nut.... thank you, peer pressure.  But fortunately, she also likes trains,  reading books about things other than princesses, and playing in the dirt.  So far, she seems pretty well-rounded.

33

I turned 33 the other day.  The kids and I are in Canada.  It is wonderful and surprisingly beautiful weather so far.  Many changes to come.... not yet sure exactly how our life is going to look in the next 1-2 years.

New

What's new?   Not much.  I guess I haven't had much time/ motivation to blog because I've been doing a whole lot of solo-parenting since the marathon.  I finished a statistics class and have started microbiology.  Math= awesome.  Biology=interesting, but a TON of reading.... ahhh... brings me back to my high school IB nerd days.   Anyway, I've decided to take a different approach to rehabbing my IT band this time and have done zero stretching, nor therapy.  Instead, after a respectable amount of time after the race,  I started running just bits at a time and doing strength training with my legs.  So far, so good (knock, knock), but I've also been more conscious of my form and feel that going faster, feels better.  Problem is, my endurance hasn't quite caught up!  So I've only gotten up to 4.5 miles at a time, but hey, that's better than NO miles, which is what I worried the marathon might have done to me.

To come, J gets home tomorrow and then in 3 weeks we leave for Canada.  Yeehaw!  I'm really excited.  There, I will not only be continuing my microbio class and spending some much-needed time with my peeps, but I will also be doing some Suzuki violin teacher training, if, for no other reason, than to be able to better help my children practice.  (Specifically Josee 'cause I have the crazy notion I may be able to start her on vln myself.... she's already super keen on anything music/noise-related.... saying 'ga-ga' (taka taka - a central Suzuki rhythm) whenever we talk about practicing and wanting her own chair to sit on while Nadia practices.  Ah, not-the-first-born-children have such an an advantage!  And I should know!  I'm a first born!


Anyway, a pic from Easter.