Cold Spaghetti

Do you know what the room of a 4- and 2- year old looks like after a morning searching for costumes to wear to school? It’s not pretty.

But we pulled it off. Thankfully, I’d picked up some sale items over the past few years… including a cowgirl hat and cowgirl boots. Both of these were purchased on outings when Paul was not around to glare disapprovingly. I am using this as an example of my Good Shopping Skills, which have now proven themselves to be Very Valuable in a pinch.

Along with a horse-y shirt, Kate became a cowgirl! We worked on “Yee-haw!” all morning. At 9:30, we joined her at school for a little Halloween party.

She was quick to find many good uses for her cowgirl hat. “Daddy? What do you mean I can’t have a pony?!”

Then they had a puppet show. Kate walked herself upstairs and sat in the front row, without thinking twice about her parents, stuck in the back with the babies (they were a little freaked out by the intense cheese brought by the puppet man.) Luck for him, Kate LOVES cheese. All kinds. She ate it all up and especially liked the guy’s cat, Dinah. (His ghost was named Blythe. Chuckle, chuckle.)

She just took it all in, wild horsewoman that she is.

And seriously, it took honest effort.

She didn’t even notice us leave after the performance. She is SO OVER us!

Then, at 2, we visited Will’s BATMAN’s school. He was cruisin’ the play-yard in his Batmobile.

Inside, the kids’ artwork decorated the cafeteria. That face in the center is the work of Batman, himself.

Then, the Kindergarten put on a Maori-inspired song and dance, wearing Maori-inspired skirts that they made. (Their study of Australia has branched out to New Zealand.)

We figured Will did pretty well with the words and movements, considering he’d missed three days of school recently for our trip north.

His favorite part was “aou, aou, aou, aou-aou-aou!”

After their performance, guess who was waiting? Yup, same guy from the morning. His shtick went great with the older crowd, though. And when he needed a BAT, guess who got called up?

See that handsome guy in the background? He recorded it all. A prince among men, I tell ya.

Thanks to Paul’s recording prowess, here’s an incredibly reduced-quality video of the Maori-song and dance. My favorite part is when Will hitches up his pants about 50 seconds in. AOU!

“Mommy, I love you sweeter than the sweetest bullfrog ever kissed.”

A few days before we left for last week’s Pittsburgh trip, when I was feeling totally overwhelmed with home and Mommy and wife-y duties and starting to beat myself up about ‘what is the next step with this dissertation…. hmmmmm??‘, I decided to join NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month.  This is an agreement to blog each day for the whole month of November.  I rationalized that I could publicly track my progress daily.  Either it would be a motivation for me to do better each day (sort of the ‘Weight Watchers’ idea of accountability), or, be so publicly humiliating that I am shamed into progress in December**.

I look back at this and think, “WOW. I thought all of that and I wasn’t even on the crazy pills yet!”

Part of the treatment for my bronchitis/cold/can’t breathe mess is a short course of steroids (“I want to pump… you up!”)  Thankfully, this is a quick in-and-out treatment where you start to taper at the first dose, not the several month taper I endured for almost half a year in 2001.  If you knew me during that time, you remember that I was one big hunk of crazy on steroids.  Couldn’t sit still, couldn’t listen, couldn’t sleep, always hungry, and way emotionally raw… in short, completely manic.  That is pretty much how I feel now.

I’m not sure what I can get done, if anything, until I’m tapered off these drugs and better recovered.  But what I can do is make some plans.  This is what I want for the month of November.  Here are my goals:

— To review the transcripts

— Translate relevant parts

— Decide if more interviews need to be done

— Complete any additional interviews (okay, this one involves many forces outside my control, but there it is)

— Send them to Angela and Monica (in Peru) for transcription

— Announce that I am done with interviews, and BE DONE WITH THEM.   (This could be the hardest step of all!)

There is one potentially fatal flaw in the plan, and that is I did not include a ‘meet with committee for input’ part.  This is somewhat strategic… getting feedback from a committee member is a hopeless process that takes months, is wrought with conflicting information, and typically leaves me feeling lost.  In other words, I could do all of this work and then have it all shot down.  But I’m going for the ‘forgiveness not permission’ route here.  And hoping that what I do have is strong enough to build on.

So that’s my goal.  The second goal is to post progress here.  Just how much work can one woman complete on her dissertation in the midst of illness, election day school closures, home renovations, a husband who works three jobs, her Schweitzer Fellowship retreat and project obligations, school committee meetings, Board responsibilities, her first child’s 5th birthday, Thanksgiving holiday, and general holiday preparation?

May the force be with me.

** Hey… I was not the only one to feel this way!