Day #135: Missing Library Life and Refreshing My Home Office
Max woke up this morning and insisted that someone was going to walk with him today. I told Josh when I came to wake him up (as parents of young children we often don't end up in the same room all night, you know how it is) that we should do that since we didn't walk yesterday. Josh insisted that of course we walked yesterday, we went for a drive and found that park, and I said, no, honey, that was the day before. What did we do yesterday? he asked me. Well, James and I went to the pet store and the fruit stand and you and Max built with Duplo. But I get it. Days are a construct at this point.
I spent a lot of yesterday missing the library, if I'm honest. I finished A Kind of Paradise, which is the book about the girl forced to volunteer in the library (can you tell that I feel overwhelmed by reality and read as much as possible?) and it had me thinking a lot about library life. I wanted to create an Instagram post about that and other books using some of the library "stuff" I have lying around. Years ago, while working as a school librarian, I rescued a couple of pockets of "date due" cards and some of those old book pockets they would go in that were destined for the recycle bin, so I have that and some other general library and book "stuff." But to find it and stage it required cleaning out my desk space.
When we bought this house, the downstairs bedroom was the one I claimed as my writing/craft/collections/office space. It's a four bedroom house, so with a room for us and baby and a guest room upstairs we didn't need the fourth bedroom. Josh has an entire half of semi-finished basement "rec room" as his space, so he didn't need it. My office had his old twin bed in it and was guest room overflow for when the *whole* family was in town but mostly it was mine. When we learned Max was on the way, though, a room mashup was required. We moved the twin bed to James's room, the crib/toddler bed to what had been the guest room, and the full sized bed and some of what had been in the guest room closet came downstairs to my office. It wasn't the worst merge ever, but while I managed to make it look like a guest room and make my desk space somewhat usable, I never really fully reclaimed it as my office. I could use it on occasion but it wasn't like it had been and with a four-year-old and an infant it wasn't like I had time to do anything down here anyway. And then Josh inherited a new work bench for his space which gave me an extra desk for my space which was nice but when it got moved in I never really had the time to shuffle my stuff around and set it up and reclaim it as my own space. He was after me for a *long* time to really fix it up and I kept saying I didn't have time to do it or to spend time in it anyway.
Well, month 2 of quarantine finally made me do it and since then I've spent a lot of time down here, blogging since I don't really have writing time, but doing a little bit of writing and any and all computer stuff. Not having to balance the laptop on my knees in bed to do any kind of computer work is really nice. Having a little space to call my own, even if the kids constantly invade it, is even better. And I must be using it a lot because it was starting to get really cluttered...with the detritus that comes from using a space and also from having a space that the kids also like to come into and hang out with mom. And we also do have family coming here at the end of the month so it has to be ready to live its second intended purpose as guest room at that time. So today I spent a good chunk of time cleaning out and decluttering this space. I still have a long way to go to get the house ready to have guests in a week but progress has been made and progress feels good. And cleaning is contagious...James picked up a lot of his own stuff.
The battle to move naptime wages on. It's actually gotten better...I can get him to go down sometimes around 1 now but only with some work. Today he took his entire nap on me in the rocking chair. It was cold and I was hungry but he's my last baby and I will embrace the heck out of those snuggles. Already I see posts in moms groups online from moms of little babies now and I think how I won't be there ever again. And I don't want to be. I was so sad when James became a toddler and I really wasn't ready to give up his babyhood. I don't feel that way this time. I have wistful moments but toddlers are awesome. Difficult but awesome. It is weird, though. Since James was the size Max is now we have volunteered weekly with the babies at the hospital so there has always been an automatic group of babies to compare mine to. We haven't been since February 27, when Max was quite close to the oldest babies in the group (it goes to 15 months.) He wouldn't be anywhere near close to them now but I don't have the week by week comparison to keep in my mind anymore.
Tomorrow we go with Grandpa for a hopefully socially distanced high school graduation celebration of some of his other grandkids, my stepbrother's kids. I'm kind of dreading it...enforcing social distance in a group setting like that and worrying about him. And Grandpa has also become pretty bitter about the current world situation which is making me sad. My dad has always been a fairly conservative person and that's okay with me...he's a history teacher and very smart and has never been a crazy conservative and we can agree on some things and disagree on others and it has always worked and been fine. But the news is so completely polarizing now and you have to check sources of information so closely and I know he doesn't have the research abilities right now to do that and I feel like it's getting harder to talk to him about it. This ish is gonna fray a lot of relationships and I don't want one of them to be the one between me and my dad.
Media consumption: after finishing A Kind of Paradise, I read Go With the Flow, a graphic novel for middle grade kids about friendship and menstruation. I did not know what to expect but I really enjoyed it. It was totally well done. I was nervous about it because it was very...red...but I think it will help a lot of kids. I don't buy graphic novels really at all...I don't find them worth the cost for the time I get reading them because they are so quick...so it's nice to have the library open and be reading them again. With that done, I drew my next read randomly and it is Plain Girl, a 1955 kids' book about an Amish girl who is forced to attend public school. Interesting so far. My copy is an old school library copy, it's TRASHED.
Today I'm grateful for a clear desk, spending naptime with Max, everyone wanting to snuggle with me, looking at pictures with my kids, Italian sausage for dinner and one more day with my wonderful family.
I spent a lot of yesterday missing the library, if I'm honest. I finished A Kind of Paradise, which is the book about the girl forced to volunteer in the library (can you tell that I feel overwhelmed by reality and read as much as possible?) and it had me thinking a lot about library life. I wanted to create an Instagram post about that and other books using some of the library "stuff" I have lying around. Years ago, while working as a school librarian, I rescued a couple of pockets of "date due" cards and some of those old book pockets they would go in that were destined for the recycle bin, so I have that and some other general library and book "stuff." But to find it and stage it required cleaning out my desk space.
When we bought this house, the downstairs bedroom was the one I claimed as my writing/craft/collections/office space. It's a four bedroom house, so with a room for us and baby and a guest room upstairs we didn't need the fourth bedroom. Josh has an entire half of semi-finished basement "rec room" as his space, so he didn't need it. My office had his old twin bed in it and was guest room overflow for when the *whole* family was in town but mostly it was mine. When we learned Max was on the way, though, a room mashup was required. We moved the twin bed to James's room, the crib/toddler bed to what had been the guest room, and the full sized bed and some of what had been in the guest room closet came downstairs to my office. It wasn't the worst merge ever, but while I managed to make it look like a guest room and make my desk space somewhat usable, I never really fully reclaimed it as my office. I could use it on occasion but it wasn't like it had been and with a four-year-old and an infant it wasn't like I had time to do anything down here anyway. And then Josh inherited a new work bench for his space which gave me an extra desk for my space which was nice but when it got moved in I never really had the time to shuffle my stuff around and set it up and reclaim it as my own space. He was after me for a *long* time to really fix it up and I kept saying I didn't have time to do it or to spend time in it anyway.
Well, month 2 of quarantine finally made me do it and since then I've spent a lot of time down here, blogging since I don't really have writing time, but doing a little bit of writing and any and all computer stuff. Not having to balance the laptop on my knees in bed to do any kind of computer work is really nice. Having a little space to call my own, even if the kids constantly invade it, is even better. And I must be using it a lot because it was starting to get really cluttered...with the detritus that comes from using a space and also from having a space that the kids also like to come into and hang out with mom. And we also do have family coming here at the end of the month so it has to be ready to live its second intended purpose as guest room at that time. So today I spent a good chunk of time cleaning out and decluttering this space. I still have a long way to go to get the house ready to have guests in a week but progress has been made and progress feels good. And cleaning is contagious...James picked up a lot of his own stuff.
The battle to move naptime wages on. It's actually gotten better...I can get him to go down sometimes around 1 now but only with some work. Today he took his entire nap on me in the rocking chair. It was cold and I was hungry but he's my last baby and I will embrace the heck out of those snuggles. Already I see posts in moms groups online from moms of little babies now and I think how I won't be there ever again. And I don't want to be. I was so sad when James became a toddler and I really wasn't ready to give up his babyhood. I don't feel that way this time. I have wistful moments but toddlers are awesome. Difficult but awesome. It is weird, though. Since James was the size Max is now we have volunteered weekly with the babies at the hospital so there has always been an automatic group of babies to compare mine to. We haven't been since February 27, when Max was quite close to the oldest babies in the group (it goes to 15 months.) He wouldn't be anywhere near close to them now but I don't have the week by week comparison to keep in my mind anymore.
Tomorrow we go with Grandpa for a hopefully socially distanced high school graduation celebration of some of his other grandkids, my stepbrother's kids. I'm kind of dreading it...enforcing social distance in a group setting like that and worrying about him. And Grandpa has also become pretty bitter about the current world situation which is making me sad. My dad has always been a fairly conservative person and that's okay with me...he's a history teacher and very smart and has never been a crazy conservative and we can agree on some things and disagree on others and it has always worked and been fine. But the news is so completely polarizing now and you have to check sources of information so closely and I know he doesn't have the research abilities right now to do that and I feel like it's getting harder to talk to him about it. This ish is gonna fray a lot of relationships and I don't want one of them to be the one between me and my dad.
Media consumption: after finishing A Kind of Paradise, I read Go With the Flow, a graphic novel for middle grade kids about friendship and menstruation. I did not know what to expect but I really enjoyed it. It was totally well done. I was nervous about it because it was very...red...but I think it will help a lot of kids. I don't buy graphic novels really at all...I don't find them worth the cost for the time I get reading them because they are so quick...so it's nice to have the library open and be reading them again. With that done, I drew my next read randomly and it is Plain Girl, a 1955 kids' book about an Amish girl who is forced to attend public school. Interesting so far. My copy is an old school library copy, it's TRASHED.
Today I'm grateful for a clear desk, spending naptime with Max, everyone wanting to snuggle with me, looking at pictures with my kids, Italian sausage for dinner and one more day with my wonderful family.
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