Elizabeth’s Journal

Life is fun!

Things seem to be rolling right along in our household now that school is back in session. Jonathan is very, very happy to be back in school! Unfortunately none of the after-school activities caught our interest this semester, so the only thing he does now is taekwondo on Wednesdays. I still want to try drum lessons, and doing something like swimming lessons would be great, but I’ve yet to do anything about that. Partly because the thought of traipsing out in the afternoon after he’s gotten back from school just doesn’t inspire me at all. Maybe I’ll feel differently when it’s cooler! Today it’s supposed to be a high in the mid-nineties. It would also be complicated to drag Kayleigh, or Kayleigh & Magda, along to stuff like that. Or maybe it wouldn’t, especially if I had both of the girls, since they would just play together. We’ll see.

I’ve started doing some yoga on the advice of my personal trainer with whom I worked last year. He said the biggest thing in my way was my lack of flexibility. This fall I wanted something new to add to my weight training and was thinking either yoga or swimming, and I decided that yoga was the best place to start as it will have a positive impact on everything else. It’s been very eye-opening and not really what I expected. Certainly the Hatha Flow class at Lifetime Fitness leaves me drenched in sweat (it’s nearly 90 minutes long), and nearly every time (been to four classes now) I fall into a deep, deep sleep in the afternoon. I have also been now to YogaYoga twice for a Hatha Flow class, and it is a wholly different experience than doing it at the gym. I love it, and frankly if I could figure out how to go every day, I think I would. Some of the techniques I learned with Hypnobirthing are useful in class, which is nice and comforting. I had no idea how incredibly good it would feel to push my body into positions that it doesn’t normally get in—completely underestimated that.

Kayleigh is doing a great job sleeping through the night in her own bed. She is getting up and going to the toilet on her own (not finishing on her own, but she gets up and goes to the bathroom rather than coming to find one of us), and there are nights that she doesn’t come into our room at all. More often she comes in once, and I put her back in her own bed and then don’t see her again until the morning. I think she sleeps better, and I know I do! It’s such a simple pleasure to be able to shift positions without having a little body molded into mine that I’m trying not to disturb too much.

This weekend should be fun for both my children, thankfully. Magda will be spending the night here on Saturday as Jennifer & Stepan will be attending an evening wedding; it will be her first sleepover here, and we are looking forward to having her. Jonathan is going to spend the night at a friend’s house (one of the boys we carpool with), so he won’t have to be here going to sleep by himself while Kayleigh goes to sleep with Magda. Yay! That makes him—and me—very happy indeed.

School this year is working out great in terms of carpooling. With three of us, two weeks out of three we each drive only three times, and the third week we drive four times. (Total of ten drives: five mornings, five afternoons.) So this week, for instance, I am driving only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. And that’s it! (I never drive afternoons—when it’s my week to drive four times, I add Tuesday morning.) It may not sound like much if you’ve never had to ferry children around, but I am in heaven.

Last week was lots of fun and quite busy for me. I went out four nights in a row! Wednesday was book group (with Kayleigh and Magda along), Thursday I went out with my best friend from elementary school whom I hadn’t seen in about 22 years (solo) to a wine bar downtown, Friday the carpool families plus Jennifer & Stepan spent all afternoon outside Cru (another wine bar) at The Domain from 4-9 p.m. (kids along but never seen by adults as they were playing the whole time), and Saturday Anjali and I went to a Texas Early Music Project performance of choral Spanish polyphonal music from the 17th century, then to Dolce Vita for drinks and conversation. Sunday afternoon I joined my harp circle for the first time since June. We had a fantastic practice! Last night (Monday) our friend Shannon came over to watch Carnivale with us. We will watch episodes every Monday until it’s finished (I have them on DVD but have been waiting for someone to watch them with me).

Life is fun!

Posted by elizabeth at September 30, 2008 03:34 PM