The Texture Of Things

…but it wasn’t to me. Having a second child has turned my life on its head. It is so wonderful and challenging, and it generally keeps me away from my keyboard. I’m hoping to write a little more in the next couple of weeks, but suffice it to say, Tater is AWESOME and Tot is GREAT and life is pretty good.

Things I’d like to write about are:
being tongue-tied
an adventure or two in raising a boy
an adventure or two in raising a baby who appears to be an eater, glory be
and other stuff and junk
anything you’d like to hear about

Meanwhile, email me if you want to friend me on Facebook. I spend a lot more time there than here because I can do it while I nurse.

I want you to see the thing that has kept me from blogging. No, it is not a picture of Tater. I’m not allowed to post those here. (Email me if you’d like to take issue with that.)

It is, however, a side effect of Tater. You see, Tater is always ALWAYS eating, thereby rendering me incapable of typing on my keyboard, so I’m left using this:

It’s called the on-screen keyboard. This entire post was created with it. I “typed” it with no interruptions, and it took 15 minutes. No, I don’t have carpal tunnel yet. Yet.

Click here to find out what “Dos” means.

Beginning with this post, posts relating to Baby Dos may or may not be separated by the heading “Dos”. I can’t separate this stuff in my life or in my head anymore, so it’s actually getting me stuck when I’m trying to put together posts. Then I end up not posting anything, and that’s not cool. At all.

I guess from here on out, this is just a blog with two kids, instead of just one.

Despite my haphazard posting schedule, there are still readers out there, some of whom I believe do not care to read about my pregnancy. I don’t want to chase off any reader, but there are some pregnancy-related things I do want to write about. So, the question on my mind lately has been how to separate out the pregnancy-related posts in a way that is immediately recognizable, allowing readers to choose whether to continue reading or not.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and this is the best solution I can come up with.

The title of every post containing pregnancy-related chatter will begin with Dos, standing for Numero Dos, as in Baby # 2. Here is an example:

“Dos: Coming Soon to a Blog Near You”

And before the text body of each Dos entry, I will link to this entry explaining what “Dos:” means.

I hope this:
1. works.
2. is worth it to somebody, anybody.

Thank you for your time. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

As much as I liked the purple snowflake template, I can’t take the limits on post length any more. I don’t know how to fix it, so I need a new template.

I like this one, but as with the other, the font is, what, 10 point? Dude, I’m freakin’ blind, so that’s got to change, but I’m not exactly sure how yet.

I’m sitting here parsing the code for font style and size info, and I’m finding nothing. I’m just not very literate when it comes to html. I’ll take any suggestion anyone has and I’ll take any hint on customization I get, as well. In comments or in email, either way, I’m open.

Also, there are some links that aren’t working yet, up on the top. I have to figure out where those things are and populate the links, or something. Am I even speaking English? Gah.

We are back from a short vacation, and now I am swamped with grading, which is getting the best of me, sadly.

As soon as I get my head above water, I’ll post a bit about some happenings, one of which is quite gross.

Egad, I’m such a tease.

For now, let me offer this vague item: I need to get myself on a diet improve my overall nutrition, but I don’t know which punishment plan to choose. Ugh.

brb.

It’s not like I haven’t wanted to post – I have. I’ve just been swamped this last month.

In late May, I had my surgery and my birthday.

So far in June, I’ve had the tot’s birthday, the tot’s birthday party, every doctor’s appointment I can possibly schedule before school starts up next week (one for her, like 70 for me), revision of all my course documents from last semester (thanks, new book), finding and purchasing a climber for the tot to help her with gross motor skills, and the sundry daily crap tasks that build up. Plus gardening, trying to get the tot outside to play (easier with the acquisition of said climber), making the phone calls that need to be made so HG can move forward with the crap on our house To Do list, and trying to prepare for a vacation trip next month.

I’m just feeling thunked-out. My brain is summer mush, which could be good on the grill but is not great when you’re counting on it to perform higher functions.

Here is a short list of what I’d like to blog about shortly. Maybe if I commit to it here, I’ll move forward on that, too.

*Challenges of anonymous blogging
*The woodpecker in our garage
*The tot’s Infant-Toddler Development Assessment
*The Sensory testing I’m trying to get scheduled
*A hurtful thing someone said to me (not quite a mommy drive-by, but similar)
*The question: Which is more “natural”? Peeing or breastfeeding? (This is an obtuse tag, but it’ll become clear when I write more about it. For now, what do you want? A post or just more of me pondering posts and not actually updating the blog?)
*Surgery update
*Collection of Spectacles
*My dusty Thinking Blogger award

Okay, that is way more than I can accomplish any time soon. I’d better get to work.

Good news:
It is a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful day for writing a blog post, seeing as how it’s 90 degrees and climbing outside and the tot is at daycare.

Bad news:
This is all the post you get, because…

Good news:
The battery in the handset of our office phone is, when fully charged, good for at least 173 minutes.

Bad news:
I learned this by being on it for 173 minutes with my mother-in-law, talking mostly about nothing when I had planned to be writing a blog post.

Good news:
I feel like writing again.

Bad news:
It has taken this many days following the surgery to get back to a writing place again. The surgery was such a frustrating experience, though in the end, there is no bad news yet. We’ll know more tomorrow – post-op appointment with doc tomorrow, then I’ll come tell a story about bruises.

A couple of weeks ago, I commented on a post of KLee’s about being fat in America. The comment kept taking a life of its own as I drafted it. (Note to self: if you are commenting on another blogger’s post and thinking of it as “drafting a comment,” you might just need to write your own gaddam post. Love, amy.) So, I finally cut off my comment and threatened promised indicated I would post my thoughts on the topic here.

What is coming is a tangled post, but I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve been trying to write a post about my upcoming surgery (hernia, potential endometriosis, potential scar tissue from past surgeries, unlikely-but-I-am-not-ruling-it-out discovery of an alien), but I repeatedly find it intersecting with what I wanted to say in KLee’s comment section. So I’ve decided to let the two posts be married. Due to the length of the draft I have as of this writing, I think I’ll have to post it in two segments since I haven’t figured out how to fix the theme code’s problem with super long posts.

Until I post again,
amy.