Some Kind of Help…

October 16th, 2008 § 2 comments § permalink

Doodles: Are Uncle Jon and Alicia having a baby yet?
Me: Not yet. They only just got married a couple of weeks ago. Even if they had a baby right away, it would still take nine months, remember?
Doodles: Do you have to be married to have a baby?
Me: No, you don’t. But being married first is the traditional way of doing things. Not everyone is married to have a baby, and you don’t have to be married to have a baby, but if you follow the tradition, you’ll get married first.
Pie: Were you married when you had a baby?
Me: Yes, I was.
Pie: Why?
Me: You know, having a baby is really hard work. It helps a lot if you have a partner when you have your baby, to help take care of it.
Doodles: Yeah, having a baby is really hard work. But it’s also fun.
Me: That’s true. And I wanted Daddy as a partner in taking care of a baby.
Doodles: Hey, Pie, you know what?
Pie: What?
Doodles: When I was born, Mommy had a partner. But when you were born, Mommy had two partners!
Me: I did?!?
Doodles: Yes! When Pie was born, Mommy had Daddy and me as a partner. It was hard work taking care of you Pie, but I really helped a lot. I gave you bottles of milk. So many bottles of milk. Pie, you drank a lot of milk from bottles [I’d like to remind everyone here that Pie was never what you’d call a bottle drinker. She actually despised the bottle]. Mommy was lucky she had so much help.

Well, I guess that depends on your definition of help. If by help you mean being a screaming, whining, dawdling, getting in the way pain in the tush two-year-old, yep, Doodles, you were a huge help! Thanks for that.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican

October 14th, 2008 § Comments Off on Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican § permalink

For the record, my parents are Democrats. So maybe I should just send this to Adam’s family:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxvHkFLmqRk]

The Slow Slug to the Starting Line

October 13th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

I’m just a week away from my race, which means I’m in full-on taper mode. Tapering is when you ease off the running in preparation for the race. I hate tapering. Hate, hate, hate. Tapering plays with your mind, makes you think you’re slow. It has you itching to go out for a good, long, hard run. I went out this morning for a “30 minute easy run with 5 pick ups” and all I could think was, “It probably wouldn’t hurt me to go just another four miles,” but I have to stop myself. This is the one time I also try to really pay attention to what I’m eating, consume lots of veggies and pay attention to my fat and alcohol intake (in other words, no drinking this week), which I know I should be doing all the time, but let’s face it, I don’t.

My previous marathon PR (personal record) is 4:25:07 in New York in 2006. That’s a 10:07 pace. I really want to break the 10-minute-a-mile pace in this marathon, as that’s a real psychological block for me. But with that three-week injury, at this point my only goal is to finish uninjured. Taking those weeks off of running really did a psychological number on me. I think breaking the 10-minute block will be like the two-hour half marathon. I couldn’t do it. No matter what I just couldn’t run faster than a two-hour half marathon. And then, running with a friend, I did in September 2007, and since them, I haven’t run over two hours since (I’ve run a total of five half marathons now under two hours). I think once I break that 10-minute mile, I’ll always do it. But until that first time….

So for now I’m thinking fast thoughts. I’m envisioning myself at the finish line, the clock reading 4:20 (which is just under at 10 minute pace). Of course the more I do these ridiculously easy taper runs, the more I long to run Comrades (on an up year, of course). Something about not even breaking a sweat makes me think I can do anything. My ultimate goal with all this running is to run Comrades before my 45th birthday (figuring that five years is enough time to get back on our financial feet after the remodel and that five years from now, I’ll be more open to traveling halfway across the world with my children).

10 minute miles? I hope so. And if not, no biggie. It’s all just training for Comrades, right? Run, baby, run.

Status Update

October 12th, 2008 § Comments Off on Status Update § permalink

Things are tense in my oh-so-tiny apartment and I’ve consolidated my life down to miniature size, which is why I’m having such a tough time blogging these days. I no longer think in blog terms–the most I think is one-line Facebook statuses. Writing actual paragraphs, strings of those oh-so-pithy status updates, if you will, now seems a colossal task. My mind is thinking things like, “Jenny is contemplating tossing all of her children’s toys out the window to see if anyone notices” or “Jenny is thinking of moving abroad for three months with no forwarding address” but this empty Blogger box seems to want more from me.

But here I am, with a rare moment of peace as Adam has the monsters at the playground. Our house is in total destruction mode–the roof comes off this week–but progress is happening. I can’t envision this thing done, but apparently it will happen. I have an incredible lack of imagination on this. All I see are dollar signs as we need to pick out appliances, counters, fixtures and our savings account–like all of yours, I’m sure–is spiraling down, down, down, down, down….

My daughter is enmeshed in wedding planning (at 5 a.m., she woke up, literally screaming, “I NEED MY BRIDE DRESS NOW! Where’s my white bride dress! Get it for me now!). We had a lovely conversation on Wednesday, mere hours before the start of Kol Nidre:

Pie: I’m getting married today.
Me: Today is not such a good day to get married. Kol Nidre is in just a couple of hours.
Pie: NO! I’m getting married today!
Me: And just who do you think is going to marry you today?
Pie: Jasmine!
Me: No, I meant, who is going to perform the ceremony? All the rabbis are busy today!
Pie: But my wedding is today!
Me: And what kind of reception will that be? You can’t serve any food! The grown-ups will all be fasting.
Pie: [getting furious] NO! MY WEDDING IS TODAY!

Doodles is so Doodles. I can’t even elaborate on that. He’s just… well, Doodles.

And me? Well, “Jenny is going off to see a movie by herself. No kids or spouses allowed.” And that sums it all up nicely.

Kindergarten Khronicles

October 4th, 2008 § Comments Off on Kindergarten Khronicles § permalink

Who is this child of mine and what is this life we’ve gotten into? At pick up today, we could hear the announcements outside, being delivered by a teacher or maybe it was the principal? “And the Red Sox will be playing not just tonight but Sunday night too in the playoffs! We wish them the best and will play ‘Sweet Caroline’ in their honor. Go Sox!!” Really, people? You know their not the underdogs anymore. Does anyone really still care? A friend of mine put it well. She wrote to me: “There is no separation of baseball and state in Massachusetts public education.”

And then there’s the fact that this boy of mine has gotten, you know, cool. After school a classmate came running up to him.
Classmate: Hey, Doodles! Hey, Doodles!
Doodles: What.
C: Hi, Doodles!
D: What did you want?
C’s mom: I think he just wanted to say, “Hi.”
C: Yeah! Hi, Doodles!
D: Oh.
Me: Can you try a few manners? How about, “Hi, C.” or “Have a good weekend, C.”
D, mumbling: Hi, C.
I had a total flashback to the boys of my elementary school years. I can’t believe my son is going to be that kid. Oy.

At a fire safety assembly, Doodles learned all about what to do in a fire. He told me, “You need to leave right away! Just take the phone with you and when you get outside, then you call the firemen. If you left your pet or your toys inside, you just wait for the firemen to come get them out.”

Bring your phone with you? We never learned that. Does the cord stretch to outside? The times, they are a changin’.

“Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I’ve been inclined
To believe they never would…”

Bubbe for Barack!

September 29th, 2008 § Comments Off on Bubbe for Barack! § permalink

I so rarely write anything political in this blog, but this was the best political push I’ve ever seen. Note, not really suitable for viewing at work.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1808434&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Too Much Information?

September 28th, 2008 § Comments Off on Too Much Information? § permalink

I believe in giving my kids thorough and honest answers to whatever questions they ask. I might have to reconsider. Today Pie announced, “Last week my water broke. And then my baby was born!”

Going Postal

September 26th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

I have a nemesis. This is quite exciting for me, because I haven’t had a nemesis since Adam was at HBS (ah, RS, where are you now?). But now, now I have one. And it is… our mail carrier! I’ve never loved our mail carrier–she shoves envelopes in magazines and flyers so they’re hard to find and occasionally get tossed and then retrieved from recycling. She often misdelivers mail. But last week was the kicker. Our mail stopped coming. I mean completely. I went to the main post office, dragging a sleepy Pie, and picked up my mail. “She’s deemed it unsafe to deliver to your house because of the construction,” I was told. “You can call her in the morning to figure something out.” Unsafe? I walk into that house everyday with my two children. Would I do that if it were unsafe? There’s no construction at all on the front porch.

I was so annoyed by this that I made Adam call, because I knew I wouldn’t be nice. “We have to move the mailbox to the light pole or the tree,” Adam told me. Adam went in the morning to try and move it to the light pole, but whatever he bought to do it, didn’t do the trick, so our contractor moved the mailbox to the outside of the porch, as you see here:

I came home that afternoon to no mail. “I saw your mail person,” my contractor said. “She said its still too dangerous.”

“That’s too dangerous?”

He shrugged. “The box has to be on the pole or the tree.”

“She said that?”

“Yep.”

“And she didn’t just give you the mail to place in the mailbox?”

“Nope.”

The next day we had mail delivery. I asked the contractor but I knew even before he answered that it was our weekend guy subbing in. He didn’t deem it too dangerous.

The box has since moved to our tree. But I’m bitter. And annoyed. And I have a nemesis. I am plotting my revenge….

The Switch to Winter

September 26th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

I’ve undertaken the massive project of switching our wardrobes over from summer to fall/winter. This is only massive because all of those clothes were in storage, so it involved a trip to the storage unit, hauling out the boxes of clothing, driving them home, carrying them up the stairs, going through children’s drawers to see what is worth putting away till next summer and what no longer fits, putting all the summer clothes into the bins, and returning them to storage. Not a big deal, I know, but inconvenient and right now the apartment looks like it’s been ransacked with piles of clothes everywhere.

Last winter (and even spring), Pie insisted on sleeping in both her vest and her sweater. I pulled them both out of storage and was surprised at how bulky the vest pockets were. So I peeked inside. This is what I found:

My daughter is clearly living a much more exciting life than I am. A French franc. A shekel. Frogs. Dollars. A man’s watch. I don’t even want to think about the implications of what I’ve found. Let’s just say, I better investigate a little more thoroughly exactly what goes on at that preschool of hers!

Guilty Admissions

September 26th, 2008 § Comments Off on Guilty Admissions § permalink

Okay, I admit it. I almost hope the debates are canceled tonight, because I really, really, really want to watch the Grey’s Anatomy I Tivoed. Yes, I am a bad American. Deal with it.

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  • Who I Am

    I read, I write, I occasionally look to make sure my kids aren't playing with matches.

    My novel, MODERN GIRLS will be coming out from NAL in the spring of 2016.

    I mostly update the writing blog these days, so find me over there.

    More about me and my writing.

  • Where to Find Me

    jenny at jennyandadam.com


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  • Who I Am

    I read, I write, I occasionally look to make sure my kids aren't playing with matches.

    My novel, MODERN GIRLS will be coming out from NAL in the spring of 2016.

    I mostly update the writing blog these days, so find me over there.

    More about me and my writing.

  • Where to Find Me

    jenny at jennyandadam.com


    Instagram

    Follow Me on Pinterest

    Goodreads

    Writing Blog: Jennifer S. Brown

    Photo Blog: jPhone Jenny

  • Meta