this is when I started to read the blog

I have read my blogI

Thinking about how things might turn out well is a very nice change from fear and dread. I am glad to have discovered an alternative to fear and dread.

http://writtenbymurphy.com/wonderblog/?p=1514

Hey, chick…

Don’t forget. If it matters to you, it matters.

Always.

It’s late. I shouldn’t be blogging. But i feel good. I”m takign care of a bunch of stuff I wanted to do.

Yay!

I complain a lot. But Veronica is full of cuteness, too. Not only sleeplessness.

FOr example, when we are doing errands, and she stops me to say, ‘Hafta go pee pee”

We go into the bathroom, and she sits her tiny little bottom on the toilet seat. I haer the little tinkle, and I say

Good job!

Then I help her pull up her pants, and she eagerly flushes the toilet.

my turn, Veronica.

So I sit and she hear the tinkle

She says

Good job, Mommy!

Thank you Veronica. How very encouraging.

Okay, I guess it didn’t kill me. I’ll have to get back to you about whether it made me stronger.

Veronica took forever again to fall asleep. But while we were trying to persuade her to lie down, she kept talking about all the things we did on our trip.

She recounted with delight the many animals we saw, and the adventures we had.

She liked the trip a lot. It rocked her world.

She even remembered the things in order. Chris noticed that once you realized what she was talking about, you could tell what came next.

I am assembling my writing, my short stories, and making a book out of them.

I am almost ready to get them out into the world. And I am convinced that no stupid collection of stories ever existed.

I just want to disappear. I guess this is a sort of stage fright for writers.

We almost forgot about the solar eclipse, because we were barely back from our trip when it started.

I tried to look at it, but got spots in my eyes for my trouble. I thought I would walk the dog in the waning light to experience it as best I could.

Me and dog were taking a short walk, and we saw a lot of people trying to get a look at it. I said to everyone I met, “Happy eclipse!”

One man said, “You just missed it! The people over there had special glasses. Go knock on the door, you can take a look.”

After hesitating, I decided to go for it.

Julie answered my knock, and came out with extremely dark cardboard sunglasses. It was so neat to see! It was horned like a crescent moon.

i thanked Julie, and spent a little time getting to know her.

Guess what? Her astronomer husband is from Alaska.

EAGLE RIVER, even. Crazy! I welcomed them to the neighborhood, and said I would come back with some of my alaska stories.

“We come all the way around the world and meet aroudn the block!”

“Claremont is like that, ” she said.

I guess so.

Chris has climbed Mt. Whitney several times. Once, I limbed it with him. it took him a while to convince me to try.

He would say things like, “You climb it, and then you remember the experience and want to do it again. BUt when you are up in the altitude, gray and weak you don’t remember why you wanted to do it.

I am feeling that way about this trip. What were we thinking, to have two nights away from home with Veronica? She does not like being away from home.

Even when she is home, she sleeps abysmally poorly.

There is a woman with a three year old sitting here eating breakfast in the hotel breakfast room. She

ALSO HAS A SIX WEEK OLD

She is perfectly made up. Her children are behaving very well. THe 3 year old sits an eats her fruit. THe six week old has a silent way of crying.

Can i hate her? TOO late. I already am.

Veronica did not cry last night. She just took a very long time to fall asleep. and it took me holding her hand and saying ‘Be sleepy. No kicking your feet, Lay down.” for an hour solid.

that doesn’t count the aproximate 20 minute long shifts Chris and I had been taking to keep her in her bed for the previous two hours.

sigh

Mother of two over there has a very flattering post-pregnancy shirt on that minizes the leftover baby belly.

Veronica went to sleep. But then I couldn’t. I had to listen to some podcasts before i could drift off. I fell asleep about 11:30

The i hear Veronica say “Look! Issa Bird!” Chris pops up and says, “Lay down now.”

IT was 4:30. Chris looks at me and says “It’s your turn. She’s been doing this all night.”

Well. She had been doing it all night. But she was going back to sleep after. NOW, she woke up for good. SHe hadda go pee pee. THen she had to ask if she could go sleep inthe crib, not the cot. THen she wanted to go back in the cot. But no, not this time, she wanted to sleep in the bed with me.

WHICH WOULD BE FINE except she was not sleepin. She was trying to chew on her feet. NObody is sleeping.

Chris left the room, and is sleeping on the pull-out couch.

It was his idea to let her go back into the crib.  Maybe I should embrace the fact that he never reads this blog and talk smack about him.

HE was the one who gave her the MP3 player that she wanted to hold instread of letting it play the sleepy music on the shelf. HE was the one who gives her whatever she wants regardless.

He said “Let her go back in the crib. She keeps asking for it.”

Three year olds ask for all kinds of things that are not good for them. AND she asked to leave almost as soon as she got in it, because it’s too small for her

Anyway, I get her back in the cot-bed. i Get her to lay down. SHe continues to wiggle her feet against the interesting cloth of the cot to make scritchy-squeaky sounds.

i think she kept doing that even when she was asleep. But it did eventually become clear she was asleep.

A bout an hour and a half later.

And I woke up about 7:30. I tried to sleep some more, but with both rooms beign full of tenuously sleeping fmaily members, I left to get the free breakfast.

And blog about it.

I think we need to find an overnight babysitter and leave on our own.

This second night was without tears.

ThAnk GOD.

She slept through the night, and I did too, but I woke up at 6:30. I betook myself to have the hotel breakfast and let daddy and daughter sleep.

THEY got up about 8. Then it was zoo, and lunch. We left the zoo for lunch, and I wanted a nicer place to eat. But we couldn’t make up our minds, she was starting to be sleepy, and so it was del taco in the hotel room.

She took a long nap,  though, and everyone rested during the afternoon. We decided to act like civilized people and not do anything strenuous. We all love shopping, so we went to a mall with plans to eat at a sit-down restaurant for dinner.

The mall was fun, and they were home to a Red Robin burger joint. We went in, and sat down in full view of a carousel horse that was part of the decor.

A horsey! A wooden horsey with a saddle to ride and everything! We visited the horsey several times throughout our stay. I had to repeat that it was for looking at, not for riding.

When I was able to sit down, I told Chris that there was a Red Robin in Anchorage.

“It was a spot that the churchy people would go to. A hangout spot for young adults and in particular the singles group.”
“We had one near Fullerton when I was going to University too. I avoided it,” he said.

“Well…I remember not being very fond of the one in Anchorage either…Did you have a time like that? When you were discovering what kind of places you would like to go to as an adult?”

That was the time in my life, trying things on because I picked them and not someone else. It turned out I didn’t really like Red Robin. I never understood the appeal. If it were up to me, I would have gone to the Java Joint (oh I wish it were still there…) or to a 24 hour diner. The 24 hour places never felt like they had to entertain you or be anything other than open.

Open was enough. Give me some food, and all the coffee refills I can drink until past midnight, and that’s what I want.

Until, of course, I got old enough to be more sophisticated and have some FAHNCY restaurant choices.

Tonight, fancy was sitting down and having a waiter bring the food. So Red Robin was perfect.

But Veronica didn’t like sitting still. We had to visit the horsey AND the bathroom multiple times.

The last time we went pee-pee, we emerged to wash our hands with some very decked out teenage girls.

These poor teenage girls at their version of fancy–Red Robin.

I felt pretty frumpy. But still…THey were VERY decked out and made up.

“What’s the occasion, ladies?” I asked, while leaning over Veronica to assist with the washing of hands.

“PROM!” they all said, slightly embarrassed.

Oh my. This was as time to be supporting and admiring of their efforts.

“You look lovely,” I said. Then i turned around to give Veronica her paper towel for the completion of hand-washing. It occurred to me to take it a step further.

“Look, Veronica! There are princesses here in the bathroom.”

She looked up at them with big eyes. They giggled. And because I was stuck between teenage glamour and three-year-old values, I said “Princesses have to go to the bathroom too. Everybody poops.”

While they laughed a little harder, Veronica repeated the statement with great seriousnes,

“everybody poops.”

“she’s so cute!” the princesses said.

“Okay, Veronica…Let’s go tell Daddy you saw princesses. Say bye-bye Princesses!”