Downs

• I still don’t have enough time in the day. Whenever I mention this I feel like I’m whining because of course I’m making choices that restrict the amount of time I have. If I was willing to either keep Calvin in daycare longer or was willing to listen to him scream, I wouldn’t have to make supper at night and I would have more free time. However, I can’t quite compromise enough for that. At least I get to listen to interesting stuff as I cook. Today I listened to Podcast Beyond Belief’s “Raising Skeptical Geeks” episode. While I’m not a secular humanist, I do find many of their topics and discussions interesting. I was surprised that several of the panelist encourage their children to believe in Santa Claus when they’re young. This is something I’ve never understood. My family did celebrate Christmas but I always knew the presents were from mom and dad, not Santa. Anyway, one panelist said he purposely let his children believe in Santa so later in life they would be able to remember believing in something only to discover it wasn’t true. I find that idea a little disturbing. To me, it feels like you’re purposely betraying your child’s trust in order to teach an object lesson. Anyway, even though I don’t agree with every opinion, I do like hearing about different parenting beliefs and techniques.

Ups

• My TMJ episode seems to be going away. I’m still taking ibuprofen multiple times a day but don’t have to have as high a dose.
• Jaeger said it was funny that in the last entry I mentioned I liked routine and then the next bullet point talked about a new way I was trying to exercise. I do admit that at first this sounds contradictory. However, for me, my routine is that I exercise. I’ve been really struggling ever since Calvin was born on how to get a reasonable amount of exercise each day. I’ve now walked to daycare 3 days in a row and I think this may be my best exercise idea yet. Calvin would get restless if I tried to do a full hour of walking with him in the stroller but I get about a 1/2 hour of exercise walking to daycare and then feed him snack on the way back. Today I also was able to squeeze in a little bit of weights and ab exercises.

Calvin Moment

• Calvin loves pushing his little umbrella stroller around. I don’t know if he enjoys it because he’s pretending he’s a grown-up or if he just likes things with wheels. However, he had a lot of fun wandering around our neighborhood pushing his stroller today. For the walk to daycare I take our jogging stroller which is too large for Calvin to manipulate. However, the umbrella is just the right size for him.
• Calvin has learned how to spin himself in circles and make himself dizzy. In fact, I think he might be working on a new word, “de-e”

Simplification

• Shipped off another box of books to the thrift store.