The Secret Life of Z

I miss being 19.

test entry from flickr's blog utility

New pictures of Kieran from Seneca Park. I've decided to skip my usual Photoshopping because I may never get around to actually doing it, and then may never post them. Such is known to happen.



Here's the rest!

March 1, 2008: A respite from cabin fever.

A neat trick Kieran learned at school.

Kieran's first day back to school began with his usual, "I don't wanna go to school!" I packed him a lunch of turkey and cheese sandwich, raisins, cheese, and crackers with his usual ice water. As usual, he forgot all about his refusal to go once he opened the door of the school and saw the other kids. Then he took off and hardly said goodbye to me due to being absorbed in some plastic gadget.

Kieran's whiny attitude toward leaving the house is not his most endearing quality. He has refused to go to the park, the zoo, his friends' houses, his grandparents' house for Christmas, amusement parks, etc. But once he's at the destination, he won't leave.

The wind is blowing so hard I thought the windows were about to bust in a moment ago...

It's nice to hear our new wind chimes in action.

We had amazingly warm weather for the last three days. On Sunday, Kieran and I took his new camera to the zoo. He seriously has his own working, real digital camera, made by Fisher-Price. Possibly the best toy ever.



His zoo pictures:



( Photos by Kieran, age 3 )

In other news, and I'm not sure, but Kieran is possibly reading. I dunno, his skills are in the gray area. He has a sight word memory that allows him to read one phonics book to me - not just by memorizing the order of words, but by following the words with his finger. He can sound out words too, but it's a little slow and frustrating to him so I don't push it. I'm frustrated b/c he's still in with the 2's class at his school, but there's no room in the upper level class. Today one of his teachers said he's probably bored with this class and fits in better with the older kids. She thinks his acting out is a result of that boredom. I was afraid of this, which is why I thought it might be best to keep him in Montessori to see if his maturity would catch up with his intelligence. But they were such losers about actually trying to address the behavior in a non-punitive way. Gah!

I am writing this on my brand new MacBook Pro, courtesy Manual, thank you very much. I needed a high-end design computer for home, and I got it. It is, as my students keep telling me, sexy.



I'm not keeping up with LJ well these days - not keeping up with much of anything, really. Time with husband: nil. House: disaster. Diet: months of neglect (but back on track). Exercise: on and off. School: totally on the ball.

It is so amazingly easy to go to work this year. I have always enjoyed teaching, even when I'm in the most stressful environment, but this year I am completely enjoying nearly every minute of it. I have one class that has a few moronic boys in it (i.e. they laugh at things they think are "gay") but other than those twerps, time flies when I'm teaching. I am so incredibly lucky. If I could only pick up Manual and transplant it to some country not at war that is doing something about global warming and has socialized healthcare, life couldn't get much better.

I watched Sicko last night, which is the only MM film I haven't seen in the theaters. I didn't feel compelled to make special arrangements to see it in a theater like I did the others because it's such a depressing subject - I know everything he's going to say about how bad things are here and it's just going to make me want to move far far away. And it did. There weren't enough laughable moments to ease the impact of it all. Maybe he wants to be taken more seriously.

And. Well. I feel totally hopeless about the state of things in this nation. I find myself still reading the news out of habit but I can't stand reading anything about the Middle East in particular. Too much despair. Work and Kieran are good distractions.

I think I'm ready to try for baby #2.

Around 11 pm, Kieran comes padding down the hallway in his pajamas.
"What are you doing up, Kieran?"
"I can't stop playing with my penis!"
A pause, then I turn to Jamie.
"Sorry, this one is yours to deal with."

I have created a Facebook under Liz Palmer, so add me please.

So I'm taking my first sick day of the year with Kieran - he has pink eye. I'd rather not miss any days at work as I've got too much to do, but if there was a day to miss, this would probably be one.

We had been kept up Monday night by another mysterious night ailment of Kieran's and were exhausted all day Tuesday. Tuesday night, Jamie drifted off to bed for a "nap" shortly after dinner, which meant I put Kieran to bed and cleaned up after dinner. By the time I was ready to begin my school work, I was totally dragging, so I decided to sleep and get up early to do it (silly me). Of course, when the alarm went off at 5 am, I postponed the arrival of morning via snooze button until it was 5:45.

Then I realized I didn't fill out Kieran's application for his new school. As his first day at school was that very day, they were having me bring it in along with him. After some stressful searching around the house, it seemed we lost the application packet, so I was application-less, graded paper-less, and plan-less for the day when Kieran finally woke up at 7 am with a puffy, encrusted eye.

So it's been a rather laid-back day at home. I ran a few errands in the morning and had a nice, leisurely lunch at home. I even had a brief nap with Kieran this afternoon. Sweet. It's one of those days when I'm wondering why I'm trying to stress myself out with a job. (Then again, many more days like this and I would feel bored and depressed, so it's all for the best.)