Bits and pieces

Lately my thinking has been fuzzy. I can’t be at my best every day, but “best” has been much harder to come by lately. Usually I can hold task lists in my head. It is like there is a shelf in the back of my brain where I can put thoughts that I don’t need right now, but that I’ll need soon. I can quickly reference the shelf and grab the things I need. Lately the shelf has been more like a hole. I put thoughts there and the vanish. If I want them back I have to recreate the conditions that made me think them in the first place. I’ve been using lists a lot lately. Lists don’t vanish so long as I keep them all neatly in my planner.

Gleek lost her first tooth on Tuesday. It has been wiggly for weeks. She is very excited at this milestone. She shows her excitement by grinning to show off the hole in her mouth. She has three more teeth that are wiggling as well.

We received a proofing copy of Tub of Happiness from our printer. This is an unbound, low-resolution, cheap paper, copy of the book. It makes me happy to hold it. The book is that much closer to being real.

I had parent teacher conferences for Gleek and Link. It is so nice to talk to teachers who have no particular concerns that they want to discuss. Gleek and Link are both doing well in their classes. The teachers are not worried for them at all. Gleek has no behavioral issues and her teacher is very impressed with her reading and pattern-recognitions skills. Link needs a little more practice reading aloud, and a little help getting started writing. But that is it. No long conferences. No special arrangements necessary. It is all going well.

Next week Howard leaves for the last convention of this year. I’m supposed to be in high gear getting some last minute things done. I wish I could find high gear today.

Link received an award certificate for perfect school attendance during the months of August and September. He is so pleased with the certificate that he wants me to frame it and put it on the wall. He plans to have perfect attendance all year so he can have a collection of these certificates. He deliberately requested that we not go on any trips during the school year that would make him miss school. I’m happy to comply. I hadn’t planned a trip for this year anyway. I did mention that he might have to miss school if he gets sick, but he assured me that he’ll just be careful and stay well.

I was going through old journal entries and realized that most of them were “lessons learned” rather than “what I’m going through.” I’m not sure what it means, but the tendency was interesting to notice.

I walked Patches to and from school today. He rode his bike. It was fun to watch him feeling so grown up as he carefully dismounted and walked his bike across streets and around any sidewalk that looked the slightest bit “slanty” He also practiced wiggling the handle bars so that the bike went zig-zaggy, riding standing up, riding with no hands for brief periods at slow speeds, and holding on to the handle bars at places other than the handgrips. Periodically we had to stop so that he could dismount and sit in the shade for 2-10 seconds.

And now I need to go mow my lawn.