So I'm back from the pool today...

...it feels like a weekday since we had a schedule like mon-fri since Ed's working today. I had some fun being the cool chick teaching the guys & dads how to make a big splash with a can-opener off of the diving board during the 10 minute break - while all the other girls were trying to look pretty or just reading and not paying attention. It's always funny (and fun) to get the male attention in more than one way - not only was I wearing a Charlie's Angels-esque bikini, but I was giving them pointers since they couldn't make as big of a splash as I could.

I sometimes forget and get momentarily distracted by bright-shiny-objects called boys. Mind you, they're boys, not men - I have yet to meet a boy who was so good looking he could rely on it solely to get whatever he wanted who had subsequently matured into someone capable of taking care of anyone other than himself. Sure, they're pretty to look at, but do they bring you tampons when you call them in a frenzy, or pay attention and do sweet things just when you need them to? No, they don't. I was in the world of boys for so long that I forgot there was another category in the male species called 'men'. I figured that the only males who were actually men were so much older than me that I couldn't be attracted to them and had given up on finding men until I found the average-age man attractive. The guy over about 35 I could possibly be attracted to is Sean Connery, and that's just because the mental attraction overrides the lack of physical attraction for guys that old. None of the other guys over 35 do anything for me (meaning those less than 10 years older than me - as I age, it'll go up, I swear.)

Then came Ed.

See, I wasn't looking for men to date - I wasn't attracted to any of the men, and I had sworn off boys - particularly 'bad boys' who are the worst sort. I happened to find the one bad boy who had become a man at a younger age and had a good enough idea of himself to not be intimidated by my presence.

So I still, on occasion, get googly-eyed at some pretty-boy (a boy with a nice body who rely upon it to get what he gets - and doesn't have anything else of merit going for him) but then I remember that I've got a man who takes care of me better than any other could think of trying to and gives me opportunities to be and do things that other men wouldn't even dare agree to. Not to mention that he's the smartest and most interesting person that I know - and even though I'm quite a pain in the ass most of the time, he's ok with that because to not be would be hoping I would change - and hoping people change isn't ever a good idea. Then I stop being googly-eyed for the pretty-boys and start getting warm & fuzzy (among other things) for my husband and want to partake in some pernicious snuggling.

Natha's a tired little monkey who's about to go to bed - we're watching Futurama at his request - we've watched at least 3 episodes tonight at this point, maybe more. He's become interested in space stuff lately - I need to take him back to the planetarium for the show on the different planets...

Right now he's having fun cutting the Val-Pak of coupons that was addressed to him (*nudge nudge wink wink*) into *very* tiny pieces with a pair of scissors. All the mail like that we get is addressed to Natha, if you know what I mean. He even throws out the AOL CD's before opening them at this point - and this is the boy who has spent the last two days thumbing through the Oriental Trading catalog looking at lots of cool-yet-useless junk - doesn't take much to occupy him sometimes...

So I'm being lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy lazy Jane...

...although I'm not waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting for it to rain. I just don't feel like doing much other than hanging out at home...

Natha's looking at the Oriental Trading catalog and showing me at least 3 things on each page that he wants - just what he needs - more plastic crap. It's cheaper than waiting for the happy meal toys to pile up, though. I told him I've already seen it all, but he gets so excited to show it to me that I feel bad for cutting him off.

Which reminds me of how I've semi-kicked the junk food habit - I certainly don't eat it as much as I used to - and if I do, I don't eat very much of it.

I've started dabbling in Ayurveda theory and balancing doshas - I have a certain predominant dosha, but I can get too much of the other two which makes me feel in an off-kilter or otherwise out-of-sorts mood. Ayurveda prescribes certain foods, herbs, yoga postures, and aromatherapy to re-balance the doshas. So now, when I'm having a 'bad day' I'm going to try and see if the doshas need a-balancin'. Even if it's placebo effect, if it makes me feel better, then it works and doesn't cost anything (or not very much).

I'm ready for Ed to come home, but I know he can't. I've got to get used to him being busier and not at home too (since he wasn't getting much work done here). This always happens when I'm not busy, and it sucks every time. When school starts for me at the end of August I'll be busier and in a better mood about him being gone, even when Natha goes to school on the 15th, I'll have more time to myself and to concentrate on things. I think that the staying home with Natha is starting to get to me - I enjoy it most of the time, but there's sometimes when I want to be by myself or doing something different. I know it's over in a couple weeks, for good or for bad, and that makes me feel better. Not that I'd make a different decision to not stay home with him - I think him being with parents more and watching Between the Lions has made him able to read at least 3 different words and knowing most of the letters. Earlier this summer, he didn't know many letters and couldn't read anything other than some numbers. He's also a bit better behaved than before - unless I'm out-of-sorts, then he's more likely to misbehave. (Like he's doing now - it's been constant chatter for the last hour - loud singing and talking about nonsensical things. Geez!)

Ed's supposed to call here in a minute so I can see if he's going to be home for dinner - then I can plan the rest of the night... and maybe get some quiet relaxing time - I'd been busy wednesday & thursday and didn't completely relax either night. I think that's why I'm fundamentally wound up now... Yoga helped but didn't get rid of all the excess cortisol I've been carrying around...

So I'm coming to some weird conclusions lately...

... they're not so weird that someone came to that particular conclusion, I just wasn't expecting *me* to come to them, and especially now...

Here's some of the things that have been squishing around in my brain lately:

-School schedules for the fall and how to take care of Natha when I'm gone
-Who I am as a wife, since the Stepford version doesn't fit me and that was what I was finding myself striving for in certain ways
-Natha's impending school status as 'Kindergartener Supreme'
-Whether or not I want another kid running around the Tennessee installment of the Arino household, and whether said kid will burst forth from my loins or be lovingly adopted by the weirdness that is us
-How to practice restraint (for more on this one, see my online yoga journal including how it's going)

There are some weird widgets that resulted from the squishing, namely:
-I actually considered stopping school to be here (home) at night for Natha then decided that it wasn't the answer and something else could be done
-That I'll just have to construct who I am as a wife myself since there aren't any apparent examples presenting themselves
-That I'm actually kind of freaked out about him going to school since it's such an important time and he'll go through a lot of changes personally
-I'm pretty sure I don't want to have another kid, and if I do, I'm almost completely sure it's not going to physically come from my womb
-That I do have a sense of restraint, I just had to awaken it the right way

Now some of these are more surprising than others, most certainly. The biggest one is the no-more-kids idea - I didn't realize I actually felt that way. I'd always thought I had wanted two kids for various reasons - more than one genetic basket for the eggs, Natha having a sibling, and that's just how I had envisoned it gol-darn-it. I've since, however, realized a slew of things that all add up to 'no kid for me' (to be said in a Soup Nazi voice):

Disclaimer: now lots of these things make me sound selfish and otherwise more weird and conceited than you had previously thought possible - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Reasons Leigh doesn't want another kid:
I've got a good enough one the first time around
Ed's ok with Natha as his only son
I don't have the temperment to stay at home with a baby, but don't want someone else to raise my kid (a daycare)
I was lucky to keep the body I had the 1st time around (no stretch marks on the tummy) and don't want to chance it this time
There are too many weird disorders/slight dysfunctions that could happen, and the cost/benefit doesn't work out how I'd want it to - the chance is too high for me (scant as it may actually be)
Ed's chock-full-o'-recessive traits and who knows what would happen
I don't want to drive anything other than a convertible
I don't want to lug around any more crap than is already necessary to take care of Ed & Natha now
Natha has a sense that he's not the only one in the world - we've onsie-proofed him, I'd like to think
I can do without changing diapers ever again
I've got enough to handle with Ed and Natha - they need more care as it is :)
What if the kid's technically ok but just a bit stupid/slow? That would be infintely frustrating
I like the pregnancy part, the labor's ok, but I don't want a newborn in the house
I don't want to have to get out of bed before a certain time on a regular basis (Natha entertains himself if he wakes up early)
I like my boobs the way they are now and I don't want them to get saggy and stay that way (they barely recovered last time)
At this rate, I'll be free before I'm 40
I like to travel as much as possible without lugging things around
I would like to be a yoga instructor/fitness model, and the kid would just get in the way

As you can see, there's quite a list. I'm thinking of more as time goes on, too. Ed's happy to hear this, I know. It was one of the last big disagreements-we-eventually-have-to-agree-on and see, it's worked itself out (at least it's started to). Let's wait and see where this goes...

I think I'm going to do another installment of 'Contents of Leigh's purse' tomorrow. TTFN!

So I took a humor test, and this is what it told me...

the Wit (60% dark, 34% spontaneous, 11% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 70% on dark You scored higher than 42% on spontaneous You scored higher than 0% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

So I have to vent an 'arrrrgh!' and I'm not even a pirate...

look at this here jibberjabber garbledygook.

All I have to say is *sheesh*.

So I can go register Natha for kindergarten...

...starting on August 1st. He's got his 5 year-old check-up tomorrow afternoon so we can get all that paperwork stuff together... So it looks like he's really going to school. Yeah, he's been in daycare and aways during the day, but not at a real *school* where they focused on teaching rather than keeping 'em busy. I think he'll start picking things up like a sponge - he's nice and primed for the experience, since he's starting to figure out the letters on things we have sitting around the house - and he knows how to spell some simple words, like 'zoo'. Or 'butter', which is spelled, according to Natha 'Country Crock'.

Ed and I took a nap this afternoon while Natha took a rest - he was instructed to stay quiet in his room for about 40 minutes, which he only came out a couple of times - once he decided to try and snuggle up with us but he was too squirmy so we asked him to go play and reminded him of other opportunities available to him for snuggle-time later...

Ed has/had a headache - I'm going to see is he feels better yet or if he needs more medicine. What is it about guys that they go and hide or just act miserable when they have a headache and/or feel generally bad instead of taking - what's this? - *medicine* that might actually make them... *gasp*... feel better. I guess that's why most guys are best served by having someone in charge of the details like medicine, kleenex, and non-spoiled milk.

Let's go see how he's doing and if he needs anything else... :)

So yesterday was Natha's birthday...

...and I'm still thinking about it today. He seemed to have a good (if not just tiring) birthday - he didn't get up until almost 9am this morning. We went to Toot's for lunch and they sang to him, then Chuck E. Cheese where we spent about $50 and ended up with 870 tickets which bought Natha a plastic kid's toolset, then to Logan's where they got everyone in the restaurant to do a big 'Yee-haw' in honor of the Goobster. We also made some kick-ass cupcakes which Natha's trying to get me to let him have and I won't... Ed had one before breakfast, though. I took a bite out of one last night and that was it for me. It's amazing how my tastes have changed from sweet, rich things (I used to just eat whipped frosting by itself) to saltier junk food (like the Taco Bell I broke down and ate for lunch today - sorry honey!)

I went to the YMCA with the intention to run about 2 miles, but the whole time I was thinking about how much I really wanted to eat Taco Bell, sit on the couch, and watch Dr. Phil. We picked up Natha's shoes which were inadvertently lost at the Parent's Night Out he went to on friday night (which is another topic itself) and then I noticed that the nursery was closed - I had thought it was open but it wasn't. We tried to go the gym and play basketball, but there wasn't an open goal or unclaimed ball in sight. So, I took it as a sign, grabbed Natha's shoes, and stopped at Taco Bell on the way home. Dr. Phil, like usual, made me thankful to have the family (son & husband, particularly) that I have, and I even turned off the TV and didn't watch Oprah because it was advertising something *way* more dramatic than I wanted to put up with. I went and finished cleaning the bathrooms - the house is (somwehat) clean now! Ya know, it's really unfortunate that I don't like cleaning more. I think that's one of my flaws - yes, I do have them. I did clean up my car and remove most of my bumper stickers on saturday, though - I finally hit the point where I was embarassed to be caught in my own car and had to do something about it. It looks like an entirely different car now!

Natha's got to get ready for karate class - he's been watching Futurama for the last couple hours upstairs - he had wanted to watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force but I talked him down to Futurama - I told him it was about space. Which it was... and he's always liked the Simpsons...

I'm trying to find a bank to let Natha open a savings account as a child's account, but I can't seem to find any information in general on the internet - all of the adult ones make you pay a fee without a minimum balance. Anyone got any ideas??

Laterz...

So tomorrow is Natha's birthday...

...the big # 5!. We'll go on the obligatory trip to the ol' Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow night to then pool all our hastily-won tickets toward Natha's charity for him to then decide on the small, heart-shaped red-'n'-sparkly nail polish that he remembers to put on once. Oh, well. $30 well spent, I say. That's just the charge for the memories, I guess.

He's done some funny stuff the last couple of days - I'll have to fill that one in tomorrow since we've got to get up at the crackadon for Ed to go to work at 4:45am. I can't help it that I wake up, dear. At least it gives me some time to get the things done for class that I didn't do earlier. I was a bad teacher this weekend. Nothing irrevocable, but I don't feel warm and fuzzy about it, earlier.

Time fo' bed, fo' shizzle dizzle. Word.

Five! Five! Five! He's going to be going to f'in *school* in less than a month! Freak out!

I love my son & husband. Oodles and Oodles ---> infinity.

So I'm watching Monty Python, trying to relax...

...after spending 6 hours in the car, driving today. Sure, I dropped off the kid, but my muscles are not happy about it, particularly those located in my hips, namely the right one.

Ed's in the 'Boro, doing friend things. Unless he decides to pick up some other couple in hopes I'll be interested in swinging - hey, I'm all for it for other people, if that's what floats their boat... me, however, I can't share opinions well, much less my husband, much less doing something like *that*. So, for all of you who hope, one day, to get me drunk or otherwise lessen my inhibitions to the point where you'd hope I'd decide such things are a good idea - don't get your hopes up. It won't work. I've tried a similar thing before in my younger, wilder days and it was not at all something I wish to ever repeat - it was an ok time, I've just been there and done that with no desire for a replay. It's just not for me. I feel as though I'm married for a reason - to be with my one person, and anything additional just detracts from the fun. I know that Ed feels the same way as I do, which is part of the reason we work together so well - sure, we're very different people with different backgrounds and different brains, but we're on the same page where it counts - for example, something like this.

I ate the leftover won-ton soup for dinner and darn it if it didn't taste very good. Mind you, I ate it, but it was nowhere near what I was expecting. Now, this wasn't from last night or anything, it was from tuesday night, so I'm not *that* surprised. It's amazing how my tastes for food have changed - I'd rather be eating cottage cheese and carrots than won-ton soup and crab rangoon. I've all but given up completely my penchant for fast food. The remnants are my liking for bacon, egg, & cheese biscuits from Mrs. Winner's, where I get orange juice instead of my previously-usual sweet tea. Man, I haven't had sweet tea in I don't know how long. Don't really want it, either. I went to Sonic today with Natha and he got a chocolate shake and fries, and didn't even want a kid's meal - and hardly ate the fries. I got mozzarella sticks with marinara and a cherry limeade - it was the most expertly made cherry limeade I think I've ever consumed. Too bad it was in Munfordville, Kentucky and not anywhere around here because I'd be in trouble. I think that unfolded as it did for a reason. :)

I taught Natha about several important things to know when traveling - like what the symbols on the map means and where we are relatively speaking. He knows now that the lines are roads, and different color lines are different types of roads, and they all have numbers. The dots are cities and the numbers + wedges point to exits and their mile markers - so I had to explain mile markers, too. All of this while driving and him looking at the map. A couple of times I had to have him put my finger on the symbol he had a question about and then try and figure it out whilst driving. After a while I had to stop, for safety's sake. Natha also insisted upon not listening to music most of the way there - which actually made the trip go faster. I also had to think more instead of be distracted by channel-surfing the radio for audible music that wasn't Christian in nature.

Which brings me to another thought - don't you just hate it when you're channel surfing on the radio and hear this new song you haven't heard before and start really digging it? Sometimes you get as far as listening to the words and you realize that it was christian in nature... other times it strings you along to a snippet about the station after the song that clues you in that you've been sucked in to non-secular compositions. What do you do then? Admit you liked the song? Realize that you, an agnostic/atheist/satanist/pagan/etc. were duped into liking something christian? Get mad at the Christian music industry for sucking people in with decent-sounding music hoping they'll be converted and/or born again? Do you do anything about it? Does it make you question your spirituality/personal relationship with Jesus (even though he still owes you 20 bucks)? I personally get kind of disappointed that the melody wasn't secular because there's a dire need for decent new music and someone spent the money to produce that song which has a more limited audience - I feel like the composition should have been better used, not spent on something that the majority of the world finds objectionable. I guess the same could be said about most topics of pop music as well, though - they can be quite objectionable. I know that the christian music stations are, for the most part, not actively proselytizing the general public with the music they play - they're just providing it to those who already profess to believe. At that point, I calm down a bit and move on to another station. In the end, I just get over it. I can just imagine, though, how many people hear one of these christian songs on accident, question their current faith, and become christian, just because of accidentally hearing that song. I wonder what the stats are on that one - how often does it happen?

Reading Yoga Journal lately has me thinking more about my spirituality - I consider myself, for most other people's purposes, to be agnostic/buddhist - but I've been thinking more about what that means to me lately. It's not a religion, per se, to me - it's just how I am. So instead of being guided into a religion and then striving to live by its principles, I was who I am naturally and tried to find a religious category that went along with my inclinations. Once I found the name of what I was inclined to be, I like to study it to further enrich my spiritual life. See, by doing it this way, it's the path of least resistance on my part, with still allowing room for growth. I get to be the good person I've been trying to be, then work on properly approaching the issues that come up to truly accept them. Sure, I'm not the best at it, but it's the dogma I try to follow, just like any organized religion. The reason YJ has sparked this introspection is that the magazine has lots of articles about spirituality and meditiation, not to mention articles about all kinds of interesting things, for example, about Bhutan, a country with an interesting take on life. Most people don't realize that yoga is a way of life, not just something to practice 3 one-hour sessions a week at the YMCA - thus the magazine has to cater to those just looking for asana guidance as well as those looking for sprirtual information. I'm glad to be back to reading it again, after my hiatus.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go take a bath and read YJ until Ed comes home. That's what I'd most like to be doing *right now*.

So I'm about to leave to take Natha to Kentucky...

... I'm driving up there and back today. Normally my hips might bother me from sitting so long, but since I've been practicing my asanas, they shouldn't bug me at all. Let's hope.

I ended up taking a bath and reading most of last August's issue of Yoga Journal, then I fell asleep at like 9:30. I woke up hungry at like 1am, and Ed got up for some reason, too. I think he had too much caffeine and couldn't sleep well. He's got a demo he's working on that he's presenting today so he tried to stay up as late as he could last night - he asked me to make him coffee. I told him I thought he should stick to diet coke, but he wanted coffee - and that's what he got.

He got up early this morning to keep working, and I had a horrible allergy-induced headache - so I took some medicine and went back to sleep until 8. I'm going to have to start drinking nothing but water for the next couple months like I do every year about this time - otherwise I constantly feel like crap because of allergies. I still think it's funny that Ed was planning on taking me to the Ragweed festival until I told him I was pretty darn allergic to it. I had started cutting out caffeine and sugar, drinking mostly propel and flavored carbonated water, but that won't quite do the trick since I get allergy-induced, non-contagious thrush - and the best treatment is drinking lots and lots of water. I used to take a Nystatin (anti-fungal)/Benadryl mix to keep it under control, but I don't have the prescription anymore, and water works just as well.

I'm about to pack Natha's bag, take a shower, and leave. I'll be back later tonight, not too late. I wonder what time Ed's going to the Boro - and whether I get to go with him... :)

So I'm home without-a-kid earlier than usual...

... he's with his dad today until tomorrow morning. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself. I was going to start planning for the second session of lab, but I don't have the right syllabus so I don't know which labs I'm teaching. I just emailed the professor to see if he had anything to send to me, but until then, I'm not sure what to do. I'm watching TV right now - I was watching Maury but I've since gone to Vh1 for a show about reality tv show's great moments - which seems like quite the oxymoron to me, but I'm still watching. Oh well.

Ed's going to be home soon - he's been off working, meeting someone just now and then he's got to work most of if not all of the night tonight, so I've got even more time by myself. I started reading the last Harry Potter book, Order of the Phoenix, last night, and I could go spend some time on that tonight. Or I could read the Scientific American from last month (I finally caught up to the current issue!) or one of the 10 (I kid you not, 10) Yoga Journal issues I haven't read over the last year. I figured if I couldn't clear my mind long enough to sit and do yoga, I shouldn't even try to sit and read magazines *about* yoga. I've since been able to calm down, sit still, and be still enough to do yoga (for the last couple weeks, at least) I should be able to go through and read them now. I might go do that here in a minute - we'll see.

Since Natha's going to KY to see my mom tomorrow, Ed and I have a bit of time to ourselves. I was thinking we might be able to go somewhere since he's going to start working a lot more here soon - the problem is that the last-minute deals that we've been able to find are still too expensive to make it worthwhile for the period of time we have. I've been trying to think outside the box a bit and think of other things that we could do, since the most expensive thing is the airfare. There are things we could do in Gatlinburg, in a redneck-fun, people-watching kind of way - we'd drive 3 hours, but he's never been there and it's really nice up there if you know what you're doing... We could also see if we could go to the lake house to just have some quiet time, which is a lot closer. There are amusement parks we could go to, like Kentucky Kingdom, to go on roller coasters & stuff like that. I'm trying not to seem *too* eager to go somewhere, but especially if he's going to start working more I'd like to have him sans interruption somehow before it hits the fan. I'll have to see if he's got some time to figure out something (or what I should look for in my spare time) so maybe we could go somewhere, even if it's for a night... I've been looking for things, but without him here it's a bit one-sided... We've got different tastes in what we'd want to do with our spare time, and it's hard for me to think opposite and be excited about it. :)

I suppose I'll make a list (not here, though) and run it by him later... A-ha! Something to do that I want to do! I figured it out! :)

So I've finally got a livejournal...

... located here if you want to look @ it. I've been trying to post in both, and it's not always working, although sometimes it does.

Man, who from the Ampersand Society paid off those guys that invented email? Someone must have, because before email, that symbol was completely "Most likely to not succeed" in its ASCII high school class. I wonder about that one. Ed, care to enlighten me?

I've had even more weird maternal instincts/inclinations - like whether I should not stay in graduate school because all of my classes are at night next semester and there isn't a way around it (I can't choose different classes - it's 3 nights a week however I slice it.) I don't want to not go to school, but who's going to have Natha? Ed's got an upredictable work schedule and may have to leave/work on something every moment, Kazu's always at the restuarant and can't pay much attention to Natha because he's running the place - so they're both out. Could we find a babysitter that could work those three nights a week? Sure, but that would cost an arm & a leg for an entire semester, plus it's not someone in his family and he's been away from us all day at school. Yeah, I could let the chips fall where they may, but that wouldn't be consistent with my planning persona. If I see a disaster in the making, I can't just sit there and not say anything. So, either someone in the family comes up with three nights' worth of time to *pay attention* to him (9-12 hours) or we start looking at spending a chunk of cash. I don't have the money, but I could have the time - at the expense of the little money that I make a month. Time's easier for me to do than money, and I'm his mother - I'm supposed to be with him, especially if we can't find anyone else to cover for me. When I was more by myself, I didn't have to think about things like this, since they weren't an option anyways. Now that it's been an option (that I've taken) this summer, it's hard to go back to the 'selfish' option that I assumed would have to happen before. If he was in 5th grade, it would be different - but this is kindergarten - one of the important foundation years, and if people don't pay attention now, he's just going to get in the habit of acting up at school to get attention. I'm kind of mad at myself for letting this go on for so long, where he was in the care of others because I was otherwise busy. How could I let myself go back to that if I am so disdainful towards my previous decision to be that way? See now why I'm stuck on this one? I'm his mother and I should act like it, but to what extent is reasonable, and to what extent can I handle without being crazy myself? Anyone got any other ideas???

I'm trying not to duplicate posts for those who read both, so if you're wanting the *rest* of the story you're going to have to read here and LJ. That's just how it is, people.

I want to keep a running list of the words we taught Natha that day - today it was 'sissie' (like 'pansy'). There are all sorts of things we teach him about, either because they come up in our conversation or because he asks us. We got to explain red shift the other day because he asked us why sunsets are red (for a more layperson explanation look here. There's also, tacked on, an explanation of why the sky is blue, if you didn't know. There are all sorts of things that most people don't think of, want to, or even aren't able to explain to their kids, even when they ask. The doctor today was surprised that Natha knew some basic things about how the body worked - I told her that his knowledge bias was more towards molecular biology and cells, DNA, etc. but that he knew how the major systems of the body worked - at least well for a 4 year old. I took him to the Dr. to make sure that he didn't have some treatable biological reason for why he was wetting the bed still even though he's supposedly back to normal health-wise. They did some simple tests and a physical exam and determined that there wasn't anything they could find that would be keeping him from staying dry at night. So I walked away with a pamphlet about bed-wetting and how to treat it behaviorally. It doesn't seem quite right to me, to call him a bed-wetter, since he was super-dry at night (except when he was sick, but he went back to dryness right after he healed) since he was a little younger than 3 years old. Now that he's been really sick (I don't think most people understand the degree to which he was ill - he couldn't walk on his one leg), he hasn't been the same since. His behavior hasn't been the same, his bed-wetting hasn't stopped, and he's been doing other odd things that I wanted to make sure weren't because of some biological, treatable, cause. They're not, so it's back to the semi-drawing board to figure out what to do to get my kid who listened well and didn't wet the bed back.

Ed and I were snuggling last night, and for some reason we snuggled together in the same way but in a much different feeling way - I had a feeling of contentment and happiness that I hadn't felt before - ever. I was the most comfortable that I'd ever been before in my life, and almost fell asleep snuggled with him. I think I've been approaching our relationship on instinct, that I just had this feeling that we were supposed to be together, then I've been carrying the rest along with a chunk of bravado because we haven't known each other for very long, relatively speaking. Then I get these signs that my instincts were correct, like seeing him just a little different than I did before, or having a moment of ultra-contentment. Not that I was doubting it, but I feel even more solid in my emotions toward him.

I hadn't realized it until the other day, but I'm marrying Ian Malcolm. A much better looking, more intelligent, funnier, shorter-dark-and-handsome version of my favorite movie mathematician - and I couldn't be happier.