Time Track Tuesday: A Monday

 5:30 am: Time to leap from my bed and go for a run! It takes me a good 10 minutes to brush my teeth, put on my sweats, get dog poop bags, drink some water, etc.

6:20 am: 20 minute upper body strength work out on Apple Fitness Plus 

6:40 am: Pack lunches at water bottles in back packs for Dorothy, Cooper, and Minnie Put Jack's lunch and a Bubblr on the dryer where he can grab it. Wake Jack up so he can go for a run. Lucky Annabel gets to start her day with an hour of running,

6:45: Minnie is awake! She brushes her teeth, puts on the clothes she laid out on Sunday for the entire week. I do her hair in her requested style, and she eats breakfast (right now, she wants grapes, a piece of cheese, a peanut butter sandwich and a Danimal, plus her Kirkland kids vitamins). I wipe down all the bathrooms and make my bed and Minnie's, start some laundry, and help various people with various parts of their breakfast, plu drink SO MUCH COFFEE. 

7:25: Time to talk Minnie to schoooooool!

7:35: Make Jack a breakfast to go and  sequester myself in my bathroom with MOAR coffee to do my hair and makeup

7:55: Check in with Dorothy and Cooper as the do their final preparations. I have to be suuuuuper nonchalant about it, but sometimes Dorothy accepts help with her hair. Putting on her socks is sometimes a trigger for her, but if I time myself right, I can find a matching pair for her (she and Cooper wear the exact same frigging socks, and sometimes, the laundry fairy messes up putting them away equitably) and have them appear at the right moment. Dorothy can get distracted looking for them and then start primping again still sockless and it's a whole Thing.

8:05: Walk Dorothy and Cooper to the bus. Annabel enjoys this, and it's fun to walk by Minnie's classroom. She bangs on the window and brings friends to wave to us.

8:20: Crunch time for me-- I throw on my clothes and pack my work bag and really really really need to be IN THE CAR DRIVING AWAY by 8:35 AT THE LATEST.

9:00: Aaaaaaaah, I am in my quiet office where I check what I need to do in class Monday and Tuesday, answer emails, and delight in my solitude.

9:55: Teach my great speakers and speeches class. Elizabeth Warren's 2019 Washing Square Rally speech is on tap as an example of public memory-- both the social imaginary she tried to change with her selfie lines and pinkie promises (ladies can be president!) and .the way she retold feminist labor history in the speech itself. Class was great!

11:00: Meet with my awesome TA

11:30: WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK. On tap Monday was a good mix of grading and responding to students and also prep for spring. I ate my packed lunch at my desk-- an arugula salad with chicken breast, beets, and goat cheese, plus an apple and string cheese.

1:00: Office hours. I only had one visitor, so I kept my work streak alive and worked through 40 research paper proposals for my Tuesday class, all the weekly assignments in my Monday class, and recording grades for Monday classes's recent blue book exam.

3:00: Walk on campus and listen to podcasts. I try to take a walk before office hours, too, but it was not in the cards this day.

3:45: Meeting prep

4:00: Weekly TA staff meeting for the big course I direct

6:00: Finish up a few more things before heading to the pool to collect Minnie from Ben

7:15: Arrive home with Minnie. We walk the dog. Minnie watches TV while I eat dinner (I WAS SO HUNGRY) (I had leftover salmon and caesar salad in a bag from Costco plus an apple with peanut butter and a couple energy bites). I also had to do some housework which actually made me really mad, since Ben worked from home all day.

8:00 Minnie bedtime, a little later than usual, but I stayed after my meeting a little later than usual.

8:30: Ben, Coop, Jack all home. Jack has dinner. Coop gets ready for bed. Ben makes sure he is ready to go to Peoria in the morning. A final dog walk.

9:00: Dorothy is home from dance and ready to crash. She has a giant snack and she and I both take showers.

10:00 Couch rotting. We are watching Sticks. We actually have like 4 shows going and sort of drop in on them randomly, which doesn't work super well for me, but also I AM TIRED, so I mostly just fall asleep snoring with my mouth open most nights and call it watching TV.

Maladroit Monday

 Let me tell you about the most ridiculous, bungling day we had on Thursday.

I had a department meeting, but Ben was out of town, and Jack works on Thursdays AND I drive the first leg of the dance run, plus Coop has diving. AND to make matters just a smidge more complex, he also had a check up at his pediatrician's office. (And you guys speaking of maladroit-- I scheduled 4 kid check ups this month, one a week-- what the actual eff was I even thinking about?)

But! The ped's office is RIGHT BY MY OFFICE, which is also RIGHT BY WHERE COOPER DIVES. The wheels started spinning! Especially when Cooper asked me if he could skip the whole day of school (he feels like we owe him a day off school because he thought he was missing most of a day to get his passport for an international dive meet, but then there was a snafu at the post office and Ben dropped him back at school after an aborted attempt and THEN the club hosting the Montreal meet cancelled, so he didn't even need  a passport.) and Minnie's pick up seemed less complex with the timing of his appointment if I didn't also have to pick him up at school.

SO. I asked another mom to drive my leg of the dance trip, and Cooper, Minnie, and I headed to the doc together with a packed dinner for Minnie and Cooper to eat during my meeting. I figured I could do the check up, park close to the pool, walk to my office and get them set up in there while I went to the meeting, and then escort Coop to practice a little late after that and take Minnie home. The other mom offered to also drive the kids home (YAY!), and Ben was planning to be back in town in time to drive the dive carpool home.

We picked Minnie up from school a smidge early, loaded the car with my work bag, Coop's diving bag, a bunch of craft stuff and books to keep Minnie busy in my office and at the doc, snacks for Minnie, and picnic dinners for both kids.

On the way there, I noticed that we still hadn't done our pre-visit questionnaires, so Cooper filled those out while we drove, and we made it ONE MINUTE EARLY. 

Only to discover that his check up was on FRIDAY. The next day. It had been wrong on my calendar THE WHOLE TIME.

We were on campus with an hour to kill before my meeting **head desk** AND I had to do the whole charade again THE NEXT DAY (minus dance and diving thank goodness).

We saw some dinosaurs instead.

Cooper, still laughing when we got back in the car from the doctor's reception area.

I made THIS for dinner, and everyone loved it-- so easy (served it with a salad and bread)-- highly recommend.

Pic of the week

 Here are the shirts I ordered for everyone who will be around our Thanksgiving table (us and Ben's folks). Can you guess who will be repping which dish?

Slow Down Saturday: Just one kid

 Last night, we did the weirdest thing. We took ONE SINGLE KID out to dinner. It was so great Basically like taking NO KIDS. I want to go back to 2006 us and tell them that one kid is not hard. But, to be fair, we have never just had a single 5 year-old with totally self-sufficient siblings. Anyway, it was a delight.

Also that is CIDER in those wine glasses, and it is DELICIOUS.

Also also Minnie had a grilled cheese fries, and ice cream-- basically an elevated Culvers experience.

(Jack is visiting his bro; Dorothy was at a bday party, and Cooper went to watch the HS girls sectional dive meet (his club teammates finished one and two and got state bids!)).

5 ona Friday: Opening Lines

 1. This blog:  This Just In: Baby Harry Is Here!

2. My dissertation: In January 1947, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America convened its twenty-sixth annual meeting to tackle what the organization termed “The Parent Problem.”

3. The book I started writing YEARS ago and can't finish: 

4. A poem from 2019

5. Another book I started YEARS ago and didn't finish:

Thoughtful Thursday

 Things on my mind:

SPRING SEMESTER.

I mean, ok, that's just one thing, but IT IS REALLY SO MANY THINGS.

The biggest thing I am obsessing about is a new-to-me class I am teaching-- the first time since 2008, when I didn't exactly teach the class but was a TA for it in grad school (at least until Jack was born when I basically peaced out for the end of the semester).

There are 3 TAs and 240 students. I HAVE A LOT OF PREP TO DO, is what I am saying, you guys.

And plus also! I am teaching my 150-person lecture on 19th-21st century feminist campaigns and revolutions. Yes, this class exists already, but the exams need a facelift in light of the age of AI, and the major assignments do, too,

I spent all day on the new class yesterday, and I like where it's going. BUT IT NEEDS TO GO THERE FAST. I also need to just lock myself in a room for like 12 hours so I can just workworkworkworkwork all at once and not have to keep stopping and reminding myself what the hell I was doing the next time I sit down at my computer.

Did I mention we decorated the yard? Ben is very into my new inflatable obsession. J/K. He hates it.

SUPER MOON

whiny wednesday

•  I slept on the couch the other night because my sleep was in the toilet (**shakes fist at universe**), and OF COURSE I took a couple melatonin 3mg tabs. And then I read THIS

• Minnie had no school Monday and Tuesday, so she worked from home with Ben on Monday and came to campus with me on Tuesday. It was fun and cute (see pics below), but also? THIS IS A REALLY BUSY TIME IN THE SEMESTER and I was unprepared to get so little done. It was on my calendar, but it was most definitely NOT on my radar, if that makes sense.

• We gave Dorothy and Cooper Green Light debit cards and connected them with chores on the GL app, and they are doing their chores (which is super helpful, actually) but then not marking them off on the app, so I have to go in and pay them manually and it's low key driving me batty.

• It's hockey and basketball season, making dropping Cooper off at the pool right next to the place where hockey and basketball games are played FUCKING TERRIBLE. Also all of my terrible drives now happen in the dark (**shakes fist at time change**).

CUTE, THO:

she held up this picture of all of us when Jack was a baby and said "you look like you, but dad looks like a KID"

She had a row to herself

Maybe under the screen was not the best place to play?

Tiny college kid