Update

Wednesday  in mid-afternoon  Mystie

I wish I could say that my lack of productivity in my blog meant a converse productivity in my household, but I don’t think that’s been true. Here’s the run-down on the various fronts of my life.

## Housework

Maintenance is easier work than heavy-duty cleaning, but it requires consistency. A return-from-chaos session requires a burst of energy and a fit of motivation. Maintaining an already-clean house requires perseverance and daily attention. I’m better at return-from-chaos work than maintenance, but I’m working on that. I’ve had a few reclamations of the out-of-the-way rooms and laundry is always my bane, but there has been improvement even on that front.

## Boys

Jaeger has hit the fussy phase. He will cry at the drop of a hat and he can keep going for an amazing amount of time. With Hans I tossed him into bed for crying fits, but this time around that would require hefting 30+ pounds up a long flight of stairs, not to mention the return trip(s) necessary. However, stating that he must not cry isn’t working either. It’s time for it to become a discipline issue, I think; it will really be his first, but I haven’t worked up the energy and conviction that it takes to be consistent on it yet. I can’t wait until I’m ready, though; it will only become a more confirmed habit and be harder to undo if I wait. So, time to pray for grace and just set to.

Hans seems to be falling apart rather more easily, as well. I’ve found when he goes through these phases it is often because I haven’t been giving him enough focused attention and that time spent actually looking at him while he talks to me and having conversations with him throughout the day, including him in my tasks and ensuring we have a reading time generally corrects the issue. He’s also been eating more and actually sleeping during his quiet time, too, so he might perhaps be beginning another growth spurt. That would be good because then we wouldn’t have to mess with the belt for the new size 5 jeans I bought him.

## Preschool

We had two great weeks, then two weeks of nothing, then a week on again, then a hit-and-miss week, then a week off, then half a week on, then a week and a half off, then a full week on, then a full week off, and now we’re halfway through another week on. My motivation isn’t helped by the fact that the quiet time CD has helped him memorize more than I ever thought we’d get through even in the whole year, much less the first two months. But the time spent together in the morning is good, and reciting it helps his enunciation and confidence, and there are still the goals of Bible story familiarity and learning letter sounds that only happen if Circle Time happen. So, I’m trying to be good. I debate with myself between easing into the school routine — i.e. doing Circle Time — and enjoying my last year or two left of not having to do anything in particular. Hence, my inconsistency.

## Ilse

No abnormalities or problems in the last two months, so we’re feeling pretty good. She moves all the time and if I hadn’t seen the ultrasound, I would wonder if she was actually an octopus. I don’t know how I can feel simultaneous movement in three different places. But, movement indicates life and for this pregnancy that is a tangible comfort in every instance, even when she tries to push her way out of the top of my belly. She still has no middle name.

## Exercise

I just had to go from the basement to the upstairs in order to administer bathroom assistance. That counts, right? Actually, in the cooler autumn weather I’ve been walking (with the boys in the stroller) about twice a week. We can walk to the post office to deposit mail (I’ll have to tell the story sometime of why I do this for every piece of mail now), walk to the library to return books, walk to the bank, or walk to the Farmer’s Market on Fridays and they are all 2-3 mile walks round-trip. Next week play group will begin meeting at Allie’s again and we’ll have another 2 mile round-trip walk planned into the week. So far this has not impacted my pregnancy weight gain in a noticeable way, however. So I wonder if it really makes a difference or if I’m really eating that many cookies every week?

## Reading

Our book group is simply wonderful. I am thoroughly enjoying it, although I’m not doing any of my other reading I was going to do on top of the book group and I’m dying for a simple, brain-candy read. But the last two I read weren’t that great anyway, yet still drew me away during prime daytime hours. So, I’m not sure how wise it would be to begin a fun read right now. In book group we’ve done Til We Have Faces and Beowulf and now we’ll be beginning Hamlet. We keep a notebook with vocabulary, characters, a plot outline, and reading notes and questions, and I adapted questions from The Well-Educated Mind into a handout worksheet for each book that we go over during our meetings. All the titles are enjoyable reading to me, and it hasn’t been too difficult for me since so far these are all books I’ve read before, but it’s still pencil-and-paper-at-hand, engaged reading, and not purely pleasure reading. I actually enjoy the process, though, and the accountability of having to lead discussions is exactly what I need to actually do it.

## Handwork

Well, I did try tatting. I had crochet cotton and my mom had a shuttle, so I was able to begin with no monetary commitment or shopping trip. I had 5 books on tatting from the libraries (everything both the Kennewick and Richland systems had) and I set to one Sunday afternoon. I must have had a fluke of beginner’s luck, because it actually worked and I thought I got the hang of it all on my own. My series of knots pulled into a ring and it looked like it was supposed to, although I still fumbled through the process and couldn’t find a rhythm. On the next attempt, I got that rhythm and started whipping knots out. Then they wouldn’t pull into a ring. I tried again. Same thing. Turns out that the slow fumbling allowed the knot to “flip,” which I didn’t realize it had to do. I didn’t get this “flip” from the instructions in the book, although as I read them I did get the feeling that I was missing something along the way because they used a whole lot more words than were needed to describe what I was doing. Then I remembered a website I had found that had video clips and mentioned a “flip” of the knot. I watched those and saw my problem. I went back and tried to do it the right way on purpose this time. Nothing doing. I could sometimes do it rightly, but not often. So, I admit, I have given it up for now. I would rather finish my cross-stitch project and do some crochet work over the winter. Someday I would still like to figure it out and do it, but for now I want a spare-time mindless hobby and not a concentration-heavy frustration-laden task. :)

That’s it for the update, I think. Hans’ quiet time is over and I hardly feel like it began. Time to return to the present and the tasks at hand.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Lady of the House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.