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.