Happy 12th bday to COOPER (on 9/9)

 We had a delightful time celebrating Cooper on Saturday. In lieu of a party, Ben took him and 3 friends (plus Dorothy and a friend) to a water/amusement park a couple of weeks ago, so there was way less pressure on the big day itself.

Cooper wanted to wake up to Dairy Queen cake and presents. Then he wanted to go to a trampoline park with a buddy (and he let Dorothy and her friend go, too). He wanted to spend time playing Fortnite in the afternoon (LOL), and then he requested a fancy dinner with just me and Ben. So easy to make all of these dreams come true, plus we did a fire with s'mores Friday night to set the tone for a Cooper-centric day Saturday.

I have never used Reese’s PB cups instead of Hershey bars on my s’mores before, and I have been missing out!!

Bday morning, complete with a baby sister placing candles in the cake AND helping to blow them out. Also, can you believe that  Jack held the teeny piñata while Cooper beat it with his new hockey stick and no one got hurt??

Trampolines!

Bonus bday hockey practice

“Fancy” dinner

Quick Blizzard (his all time fave) on the way home

And just like that (I LOOOOVE that show including every single cringe-worthy Charlotte story line), our family birthday season is over for this year, resuming in March 2024. Just in time to start Chrismukkah shopping!

Preschool Freedom

 OH YOU GUYS.

I dressed up today because yesterday while Minnie was at preschool, I BAKED THE WHOLE TIME. 

While it was completely blissful and the perfect way to celebrate being in my house by myself during regular daytime hours since LITERALLY YOU GUYS before the panny, it is NOT the way I should spend my kid-free time most days

Also I baked MOAR when she got home

SO. Today, I did my hair and makeup and put on a dress before I took Cooper and Minnie to school (have I talked about what an impossible logic problem THAT situation is? Basically, Cooper has TEN MINUTES between when the doors of his school open and when his class starts, but it is the SAME TIME Minnie needs to be dropped off, and the school are 5 minutes away from each other and GAH), which is a good dry run for Wednesdays when I will be teaching during preschool time, hoping that I would not go home and mop the floor (I bought my favorite scent of steam mop cleaner and have BIG PLANS for the main room). I went to a coffee shop instead!

BUT. Minnie’s school is a SAHM preschool with old fashioned nursery school hours, and I felt like a SOUL-LESS WORKING MOM SHE-DEVIL with my work bag and my heels in a sea of athleisure and Starbucks cups. I suddenly remembered my PAINFUL NEED to pass as a SAHM when Dorothy and Coop went there. Harry and Jack went part time to a full-day school where everyone worked, and I was the giant weirdo in my dissertation writing rags running from drop off to my carroll at the library or a coffee shop while everyone else went off to SURGERY or THE COURTROOM. Anywho. I have issues, obvs.

Minnie is killing it in preschool fashion, btw

Yesterday’s lewk, complete with Darth Vader Vans:

And today she woke up begging for braids (also theVANS! I love them so much, I think they were Jack’s).

Buh-bye Pool; HELLO SCHOOL

 Ah, the bittersweet transition from THIS

To THIS

Dorothy's dance studio released team placements, so I could finally make a color-coded calendar and figure out what my after-school hours will look like. Coop is already back on the ice and starts diving next week. Jack tried out for a play yesterday. Harry is in the middle of college application season and is looking for a job. Dance starts the week of 9/18 for Dorothy, and Minnie will add a ballet/hip hop class to her swim and gym schedule in October. IT IS ALL HAPPENING.

I took advantage of no activities yesterday (will this ever happen again??) to work a full day at my office. When I packed up my stuff and ventured into the hallway at 4:19, everyone was gone, and the copy/mail room was already locked up. The parking garage was empty, etc. AT FOUR NINETEEN. Because THAT'S a late day. I LOVE MY JOB. (Actually I do have one for-real late night a week in my schedule, but it is an anomaly, clearly).

We are picking out clothes the night before school, filling water bottles, packing lunches and back packs, etc, and it's A LOT. I know we will settle into a routine, and I will stop missing everyone all day long. (Seriously, I HATE when the kids are gone, even though it makes my days a little easier-- it just feels so weird to walk by their empty rooms-- am I a tradwife?)

SPEAKING OF MISSING THEM!

THIS HAPPENED!!

End of an era: THE LITTLE GYM

 On Friday last week, Minnie had her very last parent-child class at The Little Gym, which means I had my very last parent-child class at The Little Gym. Unless, of course, I take a grandkid or dozen there someday. I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY.

When I took my first parent-child class at The Little Gym in 2007 with 9-month-old Harry, Ben and I had just bought our first house (that old albatross of a condo), and the gym was a pricey commitment for us on one real (starter) salary and one grad student’s wages. I lobbied hard for it, though, and we had at least one kid in class from 2007-2019, and then Minnie started up in 2022. I did parent-child class until age 3 with all 5 of them, and they have all done some independent gymnastics and/or sports skills classes, too. And the birthday parties! We’ve had so many birthday parties there. TLG has been such a gift, and I think the attention the curriculum pays to the vestibular system and its development is why Jack and Cooper have both been such innately good divers.

We had a makeup class on our account, so Minnie and I actually did 2 classes last week, and I remembered to remember every second— chasing her in the gym for play time, helping her demonstrate the skills, the chaos of ball and bubble time, the sweet circle at the end. 

Thanks for the parent-child class memories, TLG.

But also! Now she goes into the gym, and I  sit in the lobby and drink coffee. So, I mean, that sounds pretty great, too.

The toddler class at TLG is aptly named beasts (or even super beasts for the almost-3-year-old set), and here are my beasts through the ages.

2009, Harry:

2011, Jack:

2014, Coop

2016, Dorothy

Menopause follow up

 I had a video visit with a nurse practitioner on my new PCP's care team last week. It was great; she was super reassuring. She's checking my thyroid (even though my old PCP was great about doing that regularly, since my mom has hypothyroid (and so did my grandma) but said it sounds like I am beginning my menopause transition and should live for the next few years with a constant hormone storm raging in my body. NEAT.

BUT.

Part of the pre-visit prep was to review my chart and make sure all of my meds and medical issues were up-to-date. I have not done this in forever because for in-person visits, this step in optional, and if you forget, the intake person will ask you most of the questions in person, although they usually do not talk about medical issues documented in the chart. It's more of a hey are you still taking prenatal vitamins LOL kind of convo. Video visits, though, won’t let you join the call until you at least open the darn chart. So, imagine my surprise while I was sitting patiently on the call waiting for the provider to join, perusing my chart, and I saw a condition from March of 2022 that said something like “perception of sensation to non present stimuli,” and when I clicked the “learn more” button, it took me to a page about psychosis. Could this be a note from the time the lingering smell of burned chicken made me think I had a brain tumor? Or the time a bruise under my toenail from new running shoes made me think I had melanoma? Or when a new way to part my hair at the salon uncovered a weird cowlick and I thought I had alopecia? You guys! I even checked my blog from March 2022 to see what the heck I could have been seeing the doctor for that caused them to note, like, advanced paranoia, but I came up short. 

At the end of the visit, I asked the lovely nurse practitioner about it, wondering if that note was why I got an appointment at all for something that she so clearly was not even a tiny bit concerned about, and she very seriously read the expanded version on her view of my chart, and then she took her glasses off and looked at the camera seriously, and then she laughed and laughed. Then she apologized and explained it was from a massage therapist who appeared to be trying to say that the pain I was reporting in my neck and shoulders did not correspond to any musculoskeletal issue he could detect but accidentally charted a severe mental health disorder. She deleted it from the chart. I was like oh are you just telling me you’re deleting it, but really you are noting in my SECRET CHART to not talk to me about it again? Luckily, she laughed at that, too. OR MAYBE SHE WAS PRETENDING.

Really, through, every time anything is a little bit off in my body, I assume first that I am facing a terminal diagnosis, especially when it is part of my body I cannot see. So, there’s that— which probably deserves its own note in my chart. And probably has one in my secret chart. 

Back on my Apple Watch bullshit. Usually when I use a fitness tracker, I gain weight, but this time, I am NOT wearing it when I am working out because I want to close all my circles OUTSIDE of dedicated exercise. Cross your fingers.

**I got my period on cycle day 59.

August: What I Read

August was an EXCELLENT reading month. I revisited some vintage horror novels from my tween years, and I read books by all-time favorite authors. A new Ann Patchett and  a new Richard Russo? WOW.

You can skips these:

How to Talk so Teens will Listen and Listen so Teens Will Talk by Adele Faber: Meh. **Audio

 In the Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros: Maybe a little better than Colleen Hoover? Maybe not. **Audio *2023

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski: A very random skip-the-line on Libby, but I loved her stress book, and this was good, too. **Audio

Solid Meh

The Menopause Manifesto by Jen Gunter: Did this book make me more anxious or less? HARD TO SAY. **Kindle

The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz: Too many twists. **2023

Nostalgic Faves

The Cheerleader by Caroline B. Cooney: Dorothy mentioned in passing that she wanted to read scary books but that Goosebumps were too baby-ish, and I hunted down 4 of my very favorites from my own childhood. LOVED this book when I was a round her age and could not read it often enough. I spend through a re-read, and it still satisfies.

The Return of the Vampire by Caroline B. Cooney: OH THIS ONE! THIS IS THE ONE that I remember so vividly from 4th or 5th grade.  (this one is also called Evil Return)

Yes. I liked these.

What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall: I really liked this COVID thriller— scary, gripping, twisty— all of the things. **2023** Audio

Dark Corners by Megan Goldin: This was a perfectly great thriller. **2023

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott: Yep. Liked it lots. **Audio

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas: YES, please! A new fantasy series I really like? BRING IT. **Audio

Oh yes. I liked these a lot.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman: So good! I am a big fan of the Thursday Murder Club, but I just read that the author is taking a break. Still! I like this series so much I will check out his new stuff when it comes out even without my favorite elderly crime fighters. **Audio

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls: This is really great for about 3/5 and then just great after that. **2023

Prom Mom by Laura Lipppman: YES, you should read this one. It’s so well written and plotted. **2023

Book-of-the-Year Contenders, All (Yes, all. I lurve the Will Trent series, especially on audio)

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin: LOVED this coming-of-age novel. New England academic setting! Back-biting English department! Friend and professor dramZ. All of my favorite things. **2023

 The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand: SO GOOD. Might surpass 28 Summers as my favorite of hers. **2023

After That Night by Karin Slaughter: To be fair, I would listen to ANYTHING Kathleen Early wanted to read to me, but this 11th Will Trent book is the very best one. **2023 **Audio

Somebody’s Fool by Richard Russo: A NEW RUSSO? AND WE ARE BACK IN NORTH BATH? Pinch me already. **2023 **Kindle

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett: I think this is my new favorite book ever, and Meryl Streep as the narrator? Heavenly. **2023 **Audio

This Month:

19 books

11 books published in 2023

8 print, 2 Kindle, 9 audio

This Year:

153 books

79 books published in 2023

83 print, 9 Kindle, and 61 audio