I have so many fits and starts of blog posts collecting dust in my dashboard. We have entered that labor-intensive phase of toddlerhood with Julius in which he needs nearly constant attention and doesn’t sleep much. I remember this from Miles’s second year. I think both of my boys have always been good about entertaining themselves, and they are increasingly able to play together (or at least near each other) without fighting, but still, the attention span of a 13 month old is approximately 13 seconds.

It’s a funny combination of slowing down and being busy lately. I am very busy doing things like applying sunblock. Fixing snacks. Replenishing Julius’s toothbrush because he has a serious toothpaste addiction. Reading books about dinosaurs. Meeting up with friends at the park. Acting as a human buffer between my baby and the laws of gravity. Sneaking in chapters of YA novels while the boys play at the water table.

A lot of the time I’m kind of not doing much of anything because the boys are outside playing and need supervision but not a lot of input from me, so, depending on what they’re doing and my energy level, I might read a bit or weed a bit…

I know, it’s a hard life.

Things I am not doing quite so much: writing. Cleaning the house (or even picking up all the crap strewn everywhere). Keeping up with the dishes from all those snacks. Eating regular meals. Spending time alone with my husband. Getting enough sleep. I suppose there’s time for all that, later.

I do miss writing. Reading more makes me want to write more, but I haven’t the time. I don’t have a lot of quiet, and I need quiet to write (the boys are out with Mike right now, and I should be drawing…). Soon enough I need to return to all those bits I’ve started and finish them, or more likely, decide they are going nowhere and start over.

But not if you’re a little boy! They love it out there. And now that the gates are locked, the bestest part is that I can send Miles out there to play as much as he likes without having to follow him around, and that’s a good thing because he will stay out there literally for hours. He digs in the (so far fallow) garden, writes on the garage walls with sidewalk chalk, throws balls to the dog (who pointedly ignores him), and tells stories to himself. He rides his Plasmacar around on the deck.

It makes me remember how big the world seems when you’re little, and how a backyard that looks kind of boring and in need of landscaping to me is large and full of wonder to small child. He identifies the woodpecker that always comes by to peck the hell out of a telephone pole. He finds worms in the dirt. He greets by name the neighbor’s dog when she comes out of the her house to wander around her adjacent backyard. He collects all the wiffle balls into a little divot in the crab grass and pretends they are eggs. I found a spot on the back of the garage where he had practiced drawing circles and straight lines – my little perfectionist who likes to hone his skills in secret!

Of course Julius isn’t big enough to be outside alone yet, and must be constantly shooed away from the stairs (oh, child), but he has a ball outside too. Just traversing the stubbly grass is an adventure in itself, and of course he likes to try to do whatever Miles is doing.

And I haven’t even busted out the sprinkler or water table yet! They are in for a real treat this summer.

* Miles is now remembering things I said we could do and asking for them at inopportune times, which has been rather interesting. One day I suggested we go to the coffee shop to meet some friends but he refused – until bedtime, when he started crying about wanting to go to the coffee shop and see Charrrlieeee! Another night I offered to let him watch a movie and he refused, until the next day when he had used up all his screen time and I said no.

* Another new thing for him is talking about feelings. Usually he will talk about what he thinks I am feeling, whether he sees that I am happy because he went potty, or – with sometimes uncanny sensitivity – that I am sad for whatever reason. But one night when he was fighting bedtime he told me while crying, “Sad! Don’t wanna go to bed!!” With this and the above, I am very pleased that he is communicating new things verbally even when what he has to say might be frustrating!

* Meanwhile Julius has catapulted into toddlerhood, and though his whining can sometimes be annoying, he is mostly completely hilarious. He has such an expressive little face and frequently knits his brows when he disapproves of what’s going on. He likes to laugh and has finally learned to back off when he’s bothering his brother, instead of steamrolling obliviously into a fight. He throws down the most adorable and ridiculous tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, limp-noodling it to the ground, tears cartoonishly flying out of his eyes as he bawls angrily. Kid cracks me up daily.

For me it doesn’t come just at the moment that I watch them sleep, but a little later as I myself shut my eyes and try to drift off. I picture waking up in the morning and sitting across the breakfast table from Miles, and I can’t stand the thought of it sometimes. It’s not that I dread the work of taking care of the kids, and certainly not that I don’t want to be with them, it’s some vague but powerful feeling that I love them so much I can’t even face another day of… what? Vulnerability. Caring about these little people so much. These little children who need me so much. Being their everything. Not living up to my own standards. Facing the risk of loving these malleable, dependent, vulnerable little people that I just can’t protect from sadness, failure, loss, pain, or even my own clumsy parenting. How can I wake up and do that again tomorrow?

Reading Daring Greatly sounded a wake-up call in my soul when it comes to parenting. This last year has been tough a lot of the time, and I don’t mean in the ordinary parenting workaday way of dealing with sleeping and tantrums and what have you. It’s been hard for me spiritually. I realize that I haven’t been the parent, or the person, I want to be, lately. I read in Simplicity Parenting that when worry becomes the defining experience of your parenting journey, things have gotten out of whack. That one also hit me like a punch to the gut, because, yeah.

Brown also says that in difficult moments she tries to catch herself before she loses herself to fear or anger or panic by repeating to herself, “Vulnerability. Vulnerability. Vulnerability.” I loved that idea but that particular word doesn’t really ring my bell, so I landed on, “Uncertainty. Uncertainty. Uncertainty.” I try to say this mantra when I’m becoming consumed by worry. Because it is uncertainty that I struggle with so terribly when it comes to parenting. Well, it’s uncertainty that I struggle with in life, generally speaking. But when it comes to my children it’s the hardest thing, because the stakes seem so high. Me? I’m okay. I’ve made it this far. But my boys, these little people that I brought into the world?

I don’t know if the kids are going to be okay. It’s hard for me to just SIT with that. I run through my lists of concerns and fears like rubbing a worry stone between my fingers, a useless motion that only intensifies my anxiety. Uncertainty. Uncertainty.

I’m telling you this because I know I’m not the only one, and also because I want to do better. I have a simple goal. I don’t want to try do more Pinterest projects, or be more organized, or never lose my temper, or be perfect… I just want to try to accept that loving my children means I’m vulnerable, and they’re vulnerable, and the future IS uncertain, and things might go wrong or the going might get tough and that’s just life. I can’t control it and that has to be okay.

(By the way the hummus is upside down because it was cracked on the bottom. I waited all week to return it and then forgot to bring it back to the store.)

A friend recently suggested that I blog about how my meal planning is so precise that we are basically out of food by the end of the shopping week. Instagram has seen the inside of my fridge before when I posted pictures of the kids scavenging in there and some folks expressed amazement at the tumbleweeds whistling past the crisper drawers.

It’s true that I feel a twinge of pride when I cut it this close to the bone. I don’t know why, but the satisfaction some people get out of hoarding thirty five cans of chicken soup in the pantry, I instead get from buying only what we need for the week. Instead of a hoarder spirit, I guess I have a hobo spirit. Ready to pick up and hop a train without leaving a trace.

How do I meal plan? It’s simple. I’m repetitive. I do basically the same lineup of meals week after week. I felt kind of bad about it (but not bad enough to change my ways) until I read in Simplicity Parenting that having a set routine to your meals is actually good for children, and that’s all the encouragement I needed. I don’t make the EXACT same meals every week, but the same general pattern:

• Wednesday is takeout pizza from Whole Foods
• Thursday is either soup & sandwiches (winter) or salad & sandwiches (summer)
• Friday is pasta
• Saturday is Mexican
• Sunday is the Wild Card – sometimes roasted vegetables, or veggie burgers, breakfast for dinner, rice and veggies, another pasta dish if I’m out of ideas
• Monday is Asian (usually either Indian or a stir fry)
• Tuesday is leftovers or Use Up The Groceries night

I may switch those around depending on what’s going on and whether Mike will be at home or on the road – I have to make things that “keep” for him to eat the next night when he’s away, but that’s the overall plan.

I’m not going to say that this saves us a lot of money. We spend a higher-than-average portion of our income on groceries, because we are particular about buying organic and, truthfully, we eat our fair share of convenience foods (in particular I am fan of prepackaged sauces and am addicted to Luna bars). But it does ensure that we do not waste food. And it makes grocery shopping easy (because I always know what we have and what we need), which is important to me because I have to be quick in the store now that Miles walks alongside the cart “helping” me shop!

I tend to under-buy produce so that I won’t end up letting anything spoil and throwing it out. I make up for that by stocking up a little on frozen veggies (broccoli, spinach, corn, and peas are all good frozen) and even fruit (blueberries, strawberries) in case we start to run out of the fresh stuff. When I include salads in the meal plan, I also eat them for lunches during the week so I don’t let the lettuce go bad. I’m sure it helps that we don’t eat meat and so our produce is really the only stuff with expiration dates.

It’s true that by the end of the week, we’re running low or out of many things. I have to explain to Miles that we’re out of this or that favorite snack, but by now he understands the idea that we have to go shopping to get more. Also, in between our major shopping trips to Whole Foods, Mike makes stops at Target for some of the stuff that’s cheaper there, like soy milk and baby wipes, so he can always pick up anything I forgot or we desperately need.

And that is that. The Anti-Hoarder’s Guide to Food Shopping. Now I’m off to hop a freight car…

12:00 am. I am nursing Julius down after his second wakeup since bedtime. He’s now in bed with me for the night and Mike is out of town. At 12:30 Miles screams for me downstairs – he’s been doing that for the past few nights without fully waking up, because he has a cold. I quickly run down and check on him and he goes back to sleep. I stay up another half hour to see if he will wake up again.

[unknown number of nursing half asleep sessions in bed]

6:40 am. I am nursing Julius and hoping we will get to snooze for a little bit longer when I hear a scream from Miles’s room downstairs. Usually when he wakes up he will just come into my bed but lately even in the middle of the night he will just lie there and scream for me until I come to him. Sigh… we’re up for the day.

When I get to Miles’s room he’s sitting up in bed and his pants are SOAKED. This has happened a few times since he’s been daytime potty trained where he pees so much during the night that his pull-up overflows. Ugh! But he doesn’t actually want to get up and tells me to put Julius in bed with him. I humor him, knowing this will not go well, which it doesn’t. He immediately puts Julius in a head lock (“hug!”) and Julius cries to get down.

These little people and animals can keep Miles quiet and busy for some time! 

I change Miles into underpants and pants and strip his bed and then both boys just start playing with toys quietly so I sneak off to drink some coffee and read blogs! I never get to wake up before both of them, EVER, so it’s a little treat for me if they are willing to play by themselves first thing in the morning. I read Ali’s DITL post and decide to do the same today since I have always loved these posts and never done one! (I also recently enjoyed Erin’s DITL.)

Why I hate my tile countertop: it always looks dirty.

7:40 am. Julius gets bored of playing first and I start preparing breakfast. Cereal and coffee for me, waffles for the boys since this is one of the very few foods Julius will actually eat! I get him into his chair and he is grumpy as he waits. I set Miles’s plate and fork on the table and just give Julius some pieces of waffle on his tray, but he points and grunts at Miles’s breakfast until I give him his own plate and fork too. Miles joins us at the table. Julius is actually eating with a fork! He does a pretty good job of stabbing waffle pieces and eating from the fork, wow. Such a little copycat.

After breakfast the boys go back to playing nicely by themselves. Yay! Mornings aren’t always this calm but I do appreciate that they have this ability to entertain themselves. I take advantage by emptying the dishwasher and loading it with the breakfast dishes and then going to take a shower. But just as I have gotten fully undressed, they start squabbling over some Curious George memory cards. Totally naked, I help Miles move the cards to the dining room table where Julius can’t reach them. I get ALMOST all the way through my shower before Julius starts crying for me!

He’s super whiny even after I get out so I pick him up and he smashes his face into my chest, the universal sign for “nurse me please,” so I do. Happy now, he goes off to play. He and Miles are now into the train table. I’ve been rotating toys through there so the trains haven’t been out for a few months and it’s interesting to see how differently Miles plays with them now. They are no longer just vehicles to zoom around the tracks, but characters that talk to each other and even eat meals from the butter and egg cars.

I have a plan for today that I THINK will be fun (foreshadowing!) so it’s time to start getting everyone dressed and ready. I throw together a simple lunch because I plan to be out for a few hours. We’re going to go to Mudpies – a kind of Mommy & Me preschoolish free play at a nature center – and then on a walk through the forest. Sounds great, right?

8:45 am. I herd Miles toward the toilet. Lately whenever he uses the toilet at home he MUST sit there for 15 minutes while I read The Lorax and he attempts to poop. EVERY time he uses the bathroom. I want to set The Lorax on fire. This morning I preemptively whip out a Curious George book instead and read that – whew. He continues to sit there after I read the book even though he clearly does not have to poop. It’s like he has a 15 minute clock in his head and will not dethrone until his time is up! But I am so smart I have built this extra time into my day. Mudpies starts at 9:30 and we are totally going to make it.

9:00 am. Potty break is over and the dawdling commences. I get Julius and myself fully ready to leave while Miles takes a sudden interest in a coloring book that he has previously used for maybe three seconds total? Now this is the most fascinating thing in the world and he is still bottomless from his bathroom trip so we have actually made backwards progress since getting dressed. If you haven’t experienced 3-year-old dawdling yet, let me tell you, it is a fine art. Not at all a big deal on this morning but it does sometimes make me wonder how I am EVER going to get him to preschool on time this fall!

The most interesting toy in the world when we are trying to leave the house!

9:30 am. While I am driving down to Mudpies, Mike and I talk on the phone as we do every morning that he is on the road. But today we get in a dumb argument about, of all things, yardwork. My mood curdles.

9:45 am. Mudpies is pretty fun, but now that Julius is walking and very interested in playing what HE wants to play, it’s hard to bring both boys. They’re always going in different directions and I usually end up tearing poor Julius away from whatever he’s doing to go chase after Miles. There are two rooms in use and the teachers expect you to be actively engaging with your children at all times, not just letting them play by themselves. After this spring I don’t think I will take both of them anymore… I may bring Julius when Miles is in preschool sometimes. Maybe. I see a new friend of mine there with her daughter but it’s basically impossible to socialize here so we don’t stop to chat.

Julius actually gets to play with a car for a few minutes…

…While Miles hogs this flower building toy for some time.

11:00 am. Mudpies goes until 11:30 but since I am getting bored, I strap Julius into the Ergo on my back and tell Miles it’s time to go – we’re going to go for a walk in the forest behind the building. At first he follows me outside with no problem but balks at the trail, screaming “Don’t wanna go for a walk! No forest!” I think that he must have some kind of finely tuned internal clock and knows Mudpies is not over, am I crazy? I distract him with pretzels and manage to coax him into a treehouse but finally I give up and go back inside. He wants to go back to Mudpies but now it really is over, and embarrassingly he screams in indignation about this in front of the teachers, though thankfully it’s not a full out tantrum.

Once again I try to convince him to go for a walk in the forest. We go outside and there are a bunch of kindergarten classes there eating lunch at picnic tables. Miles loves older kids, so he’s psyched to sit down and eat the little lunch I packed for us. Now can we go for a walk in the forest? We can not. The next half hour passes in an absurd Vaudevillian routine in which Miles repeatedly tricks me into going out to the front of the building and then CLAIMS he wants to go for a walk in the forest now, so we go all the way back around, again and again.

I am very, very annoyed.

I am getting hot, hungry, lugging a seriously heavy diaper bag (once again hating myself for not buying a damn backpack instead of a shoulder bag that is impossible to carry when I’m wearing the Ergo!), I’m still really annoyed that Mike and I are fighting via text message, and then I get a giant wad of gum on my shoe and I want to have a huge screaming tantrum myself, so basically I am pretty much a 3 year old in a 34 year old’s body. I embarrass myself in front of the staff by being that mean, grouchy mom who’s all LET’S GO. NOW. to her little kid and we finally get the fuuuuuuuuuudge out of there.

I can’t hear you, I am very busy looking at this pond.

Before I leave the parking lot I make up with Mike via text because that is stressing me out. The inside of my car is a bazillion degrees because in classic Nebraska fashion it’s gone from miserably cold to unbearably hot overnight and my little black Ford is like an Easy Bake Oven on wheels. I blast the AC, which does nothing, and we make it home. Julius falls asleep on the way.

12:30 pm. When we get home, I let Julius stay sleeping in the car with all the windows open. It’s pretty cool in the shade of the driveway. Miles and I go in and he loses himself in that little coloring book again, which allows me to veg out – MUCH NEEDED – looking at Facebook on my phone.

He went straight for the coloring book so I get to relax. Ahhhh.

I eat some leftover pesto pasta and put some out for him in case he’s hungry, but he doesn’t eat it. He does have a glass of water and a glass of milk, each with a specific color of striped straw upon request. Always dangerous to comply with such requests because then he wants additional cups with additional striped straws, which, no. I do some laundry and putter around picking things up.

1:00 pm. Julius is still sleeping! He NEVER naps this long except when he falls asleep in the car. Of course I keep popping out there to check on him but he’s cool and comfortable and totally sacked out. Miles asks to play a video game on my phone. The temptation to have even MORE time to myself is irresistible. I set a timer for 25 minutes and let him play Endless Alphabet while I start typing up this post on the computer!

The car nap is the best nap.

1:20 pm. Julius wakes up and I bring him in and nurse him. I probably should have tried to feed him real food first, but I just absentmindedly offer the boob and he nurses on one side. I put him in the high chair and offer him the pasta that Miles didn’t eat, but he doesn’t want it either. I eat it and get him down. The timer on my phone goes off – “Time’s up! Time’s up!” it screeches at Miles – which he does not like, but since it locks up the phone he hands it over and goes off to do something else.

Having fun with the fork, not that he actually ate anything.

1:30-2:30 pm. The No Man’s Land part of the day. We are all tired. Miles hasn’t napped (regularly) in almost a year but he is often kind of useless at this part of the afternoon (which is why we’re doing morning preschool!). Julius is sagging. I am beyond exhausted, like really exceptionally fatigued. We all kind of putter around. It’s best when we have an afternoon playdate to take up some time, but usually if we’ve had an outing in the morning I don’t attempt a second one after lunch.

Noodling around the house.

If we’re hanging around at home I will play with them if they’re interested, or read a little bit of a book if they’re not. Do some housework if I have the energy. But usually they ignore me when I want to play, and hang all over me when I try to get something done. Children! I manage to clean the bathroom though Julius of course is hanging around now that I’m actually doing something!

 This bathroom is so small that I have hit my chin on the edge of the sink while bending to sit down on the pot. Seriously. The one advantage of having the World’s Tiniest Bathroom: it takes two minutes to clean!

2:30 pm. Another epic toilet session. I have to all but force him to go, which is annoying because this would not be a big interruption to his day if he just peed and got on with it! This time I get away with not reading to him but he still sits there for 15 minutes after peeing. No poop. Okay dude.

2:45 pm. We play outside for a little bit but it’s hot as hell. I feel like we are all probably getting the first sunburn of the year so I put a hat on Julius’s bald head, at least. This is not helping any of us in the fatigue department. I finally decide I NEED one more cup of coffee, brew it and take it outside. Julius nurses again. Russell the asshole dog won’t go inside for water but tries to drink my coffee instead. Soon enough we all troop inside. There is a bit more nonsense about striped straws.

Playing outside. No one is really that into it. I need to restain the deck. Ugh.

3:45 pm. I am scraping bottom with my energy level. On a better day I would break out some paint, Play Doh, or come up with something else fun to do. But this is not my finest parenting day, and I’m just going to give up now. Usually I do not suggest watching TV if Miles doesn’t ask to watch, but I am just so drained that I put Curious George on for him. Julius is a whiny mess for reasons I can’t fathom so I put him in the Ergo and he’s happy. I look at some blogs on my phone and then I start making dinner early, taking advantage of both kids being occupied. I am making burritos so I’ll just keep the filling warm until I’m ready to do the tortillas.

Lazy parenting for the win?

4:30 pm. My favorite text of the day: Mike’s announcement that he’s on his way home, which means he’ll be here in about 10 minutes. Julius was getting whiny so I let him out of the Ergo and now he’s playing happily again. He’s in only a diaper because the house is starting to heat up at the end of the day. Also, my kids are pretty much always in varying states of undress when we are at home.

Not a good pic but he was cracking me, and himself, up with this game of peekaboo.

4:40 pm. Daddy’s hooooome! Yay!!! I crack a celebratory beer and finish making dinner. I serve Miles a warm tortilla, some slices of cheddar, and a couple of cucumber slices. The tortilla and cheese are new additions to the list of Things He Will Eat. I serve Julius burrito filling in a bowl with a spoon, and some milk, which he still doesn’t like that much but I keep trying. We eat at right about 5:00. Miles shocks me by actually eating BOTH cucumber slices, which he’s never been willing to try before, then I push my luck and give him two more, which he doesn’t eat. He eats the cheese but not the tortilla (I’ll be giving him a snack later. I know. I know). Julius does pretty well with the bean/corn/mushroom/sauce concoction I gave him.

5:30 pm. Mike takes the boys outside, giving me a chance to totally ignore the dinner dishes and type more of this post. On evenings when Mike is not here, I sometimes try to give the boys a bath because it kills some time, but lately Miles has been afraid of the bathroom drain! When the boys come inside at 6:15 they are hot and sweaty. I bring Miles to the kitchen to help me load the dishwasher, which I am trying to do consistently now that he’s old enough for chores. Then they strip down and play trains naked Mike and I just hang out with them and chat.

6:45 pm. We shoo Miles into the bathroom because we know his potty business is going to take a little while again and we need to get to the bedtime routine. I read The Lorax again. My patience is running a little short as Miles wants to point out every little thing in the book and insists that I repeat after him, “That’s Gluppity Glup, that’s Shloppity Shlop, yes that’s a bucket, there’s a pipe, it goes in the pond, YES.” When we get to the end of the book and I read “Grow a forest,” he kind of cries a little and says, “No forest. Forest all gone!” Suddenly I realize that he may have actually been afraid of the forest this morning. Ohhhhh. This is where we’re at with his communication abilities right now: he can tell me what he does or doesn’t want, but usually can’t explain why or why not.

Julius nursing to sleep upstairs in the bedroom.

7:25 pm. It’s taken me a solid 20 minutes to get Julius to sleep. I have to nurse him, put him in the crib, and then pat his back and SHHHH him until he drifts off. I could just put him down and leave but experience tells me the crying will go on for much longer! This is a lot easier to do when Mike is home to take care of Miles. Although Miles no longer needs constant supervision, leaving him alone for 20 minutes could mean a potty accident or just a whole lotta noise that could wake up Julius and make this take even longer.

7:30 pm. Miles is playing nicely in his room but still not in pajamas or teeth brushed yet. Lately it is harder and harder to get him to go to bed and I’ve been trying to let him stay up later as long as he plays quietly, rather than spending 90 minutes or longer reading to him in bed! I attempt to play with him a little bit but I guess I’m annoying him because he tells me, “Mommy – go to sleep.” Twice. Haha. Mike eventually goes in, gets him ready and reads him a book.

This kind of sums up my feelings about bedtime, but with more curse words. Note the laundry that is folded but not put away!

8:00. Mike comes out saying Miles asked for the Etch-a-Sketch he spied on a shelf, so he gave it to him and closed the door. We are definitely lollygagging about bedtime tonight! The Etch-a-Sketch lasts 10 minutes, then Miles comes out and asks me to put it back and read him a book.

9:10. Miles is finally asleep. I read 4 or 5 books, the last one being the dreaded Lorax again! Is it illegal to burn a library book?? He wanted another book after that but I told him we were done and he had to be QUIET. He snuggled with me and I stroked his hair. He fought sleep right to the end but was out in two minutes after the last book! Was that so bad, child?

Mike and I loaf on the couches for 10 minutes, goofing on our phones and commiserating over how much bedtime sucks. Then we fix ourselves some dessert (homemade chocolate chip cookies for me! Every night) and sit down to watch Game of Thrones.

9:30 pm. Julius wakes up crying. Already! Whyyyyy god why??!! I go up and nurse him down again. We are really held hostage by the fact that our house is about as soundproof as a cardboard box. If we let him cry, Miles will wake up and then we will all be crying. I get him back to sleep and we manage to finish GoT, just barely in my case as I am literally falling asleep in my chair toward the end, and not because I’m not enjoying the show.

10:30 pm. I go to bed. Look at my phone for just a couple of minutes but I’m good this time and catch a little sleep before the first wakeup of the night. I can’t even remember when that was, but it ends up being a pretty horrible night where Julius just WON’T settle and wants to be nursing pretty much constantly. I feel like I barely sleep at all!

And we do it all again tomorrow…

* Adding another layer of huh? to the eating habits of the boy who won’t even THINK about ever eating anything from the vegetable family no not even a cucumber no not even broccoli with cheese, Miles enthusiastically ate some spinach pesto TWICE this week. Pasta covered liberally in bright green pesto that we even told him was spinach. Go figure. (Spinach, grated parm, toasted walnuts, garlic, olive oil, you’re welcome!)

* Having that oh yeah, I remember this feeling when I take the boys to the park (outdoors! that place where all the snow used to be!) and I have to tag along after Julius as he doggedly tries to climb playground equipment that is way above his pay grade. I think there was a good YEAR when I never got to talk to my friends at the playground because I was climbing the equipment after Miles, and as a toddler he wasn’t half as daring as Julius is – oy.

* We just gave Miles a Plasmacar. Have you seen these things? So cool. We had bought it for him for Christmas but he ended up with so many gifts, we saved it. The downside of having a winter birthday is when do you give them fun outdoor toys? Well the truth is I just couldn’t wait any longer to bust that thing out. It is a strange kind of locomotion at first (I can ride it too!) but after he watched the demo video he got it going. Fun stuff.

* A late This & That post this week because all weekend I was either hanging on every tweet about the Boston manhunt or dealing with screaming children. Ohhh the bedtimes we have had these last few nights.

* But I did want to update the Julius situation – he was fine the next morning after that last awful day of fever when he looked so miserable. Bounced right back. Of course, since we were extra solicitous toward him while he was sick and sad, we have regressed back to Ferber square one each evening.

* Random Miles moment from this week: standing by the back door holding two plastic pickles and telling me he wanted to go on a journey to the pond. Then cracking up laughing.

* I did a cartoon for the Spray Pal, a cloth diapering accessory invented by a friend of mine. If you cloth diaper you should definitely go Like their Facebook page because Jen keeps it updated and entertaining, and if you don’t cloth diaper just go check out my cartoon why dontcha?!

I do feel so bad for the little guy though. It’s sad to see him feeling so awful.

Wednesday morning Miles woke up too early, so after dinner as he got tired and loopy he tripped on a toy and fell face first into the train table. He was pretty upset and asked to go to bed! That never happens. I read him a book in bed and he perked up; later he went to sleep at a normal hour.

Just to make this week more difficult, Mike got stuck out on the road. Because it’s STILL WINTER out there in some parts of the country, which is just AAAAGH STOP IT.

In other news, the news. I’ve been on Twitter somewhat obsessively following the Boston Globe and Boston Police Department’s tweets. I lived in Boston for five years after college and I met Mike there, so it’s eerie seeing bomb blast scenes from this town that still feels like a past home. At the same time, I think I have a case of tragedy fatigue. It’s hard to even know what to say or feel when this kind of thing happens. Again. And again. And before even 24 hours have gone by everyone has commented, ranted, shared, done a candlelight vigil, bought the t-shirt and moved on.