Ironic

Here are four things that have struck me as ironic lately...

As I had mentioned earlier, I went through the basement on Thursday and filled several bags and boxes of items to donate at a thrift store yesterday - mostly the kids' clothing. Yesterday morning I had a panic attack about giving away those clothes. My plan had been to go through the clothes in the basement one more time to see if there was more we'd take to donate, but instead I brought all the bags and boxes in from the garage and went back through everything and ended up taking some of the clothes back down to the basement. The reason I find this ironic is that I am by nature absolutely not a packrat. Paul has for more than 10 years called me "the chucker" (although that's been Ian's nickname over the past 11 months) because I am far more inclined to throw away, give away, or sell stuff than he is. I will sell some stuff (eBay, Craigslist, and probably a yard sale next summer), but I'm afraid my inclination is going to be to keep far too much of it. Holding all that newborn clothing was hard for me. I am not going to sort through the clothes again for awhile as it intensified my desire to do ivf again.

Ian normally doesn't nap well. For example yesterday his first nap was 20 minutes long and his second nap was 25 minutes long. For about 2 years Nadia's naps have totalled 2-3 hours a day (this was true both when she had 2 naps a day and also since she's been on a 1 nap a day schedule). Even though Nadia was the better napper, I didn't have so much trouble with her sleeping too much at church. The last two Sundays I kept Ian up until we left for church, and both days he fell asleep on the way to church and then slept on me during Sunday School. Both Sundays when I took him to the nursery for the church service I told the nursery workers that he had JUST woken up from a nap and to please keep him awake during church (which lasts about 90 minutes). I feel like I must be speaking in some foreign language when I talk to nursery volunteers because they always let him sleep. When I came to pick him up at 11:45 he was asleep in someone's arms. I asked how he did and was told, he did great - he ate and slept the whole time. Sigh. This means my little boy will need to stay awake from 11:45am-7:15pm (his usual bedtime although last night he was up until 8pm). If I thought he'd be quiet during church, I'd keep him with me, but he'd babble too much. It's just ironic to me that my boy who usually doesn't nap very much naps too much at church - mostly because he likes to sleep in someone's arms.

I've mentioned that Paul has never had a child with him in the bathroom while he was doing anything - showering, brushing his teeth, etc. I rarely do anything in the bathroom by myself. This morning after I got both kids dressed for church, Paul watched Ian while I got a shower. Nadia was playing in our bedroom. She likes to do things like try on my shoes. While I was brushing my teeth, Paul came in and said, "Do you want to change Ian's diaper?" I didn't respond, but I did go change Ian's messy diaper - not because I wanted to but because it doesn't bother me to do so like it does Paul. What I wanted to do was finish brushing my teeth and blowdrying my hair because stopping what I was doing to change Ian's diaper was part of the reason I was 5 minutes late for Sunday School this morning. I guess there is a double standard when it comes to childcare responsibilities while one is trying to accomplish personal hygeine tasks.

Yesterday Paul assembled a bookshelf for me. When I was single the first piece of good furniture I bought (aka not something made of particle board) was a nice tall bookshelf. That held my books while I was single and the first few years we were married. In 2005 we bought Paul four large bookcases. His books had been stored in boxes prior to that. These new bookcases plus my bookshelf housed both of our books plus some games. When we moved in 2008 I filled the bookshelf that had been mine with children's books, and Paul filled the four bookcases with his books and notebooks. My books have been stored in a closet, on top of toilets, etc. I haven't had a bookshelf the past 2 years. As I started bringing books from my office home, I asked Paul if I could use one shelf on one of his four bookcases for my books. I admit I was a bit miffed when Paul said no because I thought I wasn't asking very much, but he suggested I buy another bookcase. I am glad he suggested that because it does feel nice to have a bookshelf just for my books. I bought a very small one for our bedroom. The reason I find this ironic is I ordered it on Amazon and used some of my credit from sending them books. It just cracked me up a bit that I used money from selling books to buy a shelf to store books.

Since this week is when we will celebrate Thanksgiving, I have decided to end every post this week with a brief list of some things I am grateful for.

1. We had dinner at Jenn, Dave, Holly, and Henry's house last night. Henry is 5, and Holly is 1. We had a really nice time visiting with them.

2. I'm really thankful that Paul took the day off of school last Tuesday to go with me to Ian's appointmemt.

3. Ian didn't wake up until 6:30 today. It's an extremely rare treat for me to be in bed past 6am.

4. It was a treat to have Ian take a nap on me during Sunday School. There's nothing quite like that.