thought splatter

I've been so short with Bella lately. Mostly because she's needy right now. If I take one step, she's right behind me. She crawls behind me, crying, even if I'm just walking two feet to the trash can. It's worst when I'm doing laundry or dishes and I go room to room collecting stragglers. My little blubbering shadow. Push her away when she needs the most, that makes sense, Shawna.

She's hitting really hard these days. I'd like to think it's a phase, but she's ALWAYS been a hitter. You lean in close for a kiss and she cat swipes your face. She seems all cuddly and then WHAM, a smack across the head out of the blue. I don't know how to show her to be gentle any more than I already have and the more she hits the less I feel like demonstrating gentle behavior.

After a whole year without the word NO! suddenly I'm frustrated and it escapes my mouth every other sentence. Usually in tandem with grabbing her away from something (the computer!). It's a meaningless expression of aggravation. It's not a teaching tool, it's power indulgence. And it backfires more often than not anyhow, since she's watching my every reaction. Noes are exciting. We're stepping into a power struggle, and if I don't stop it, we'll both lose.

I got my first heavy period in several years. It must be the night weaning, even just the thought of it, since we haven't accomplished much yet. The disheartening part of it is how much it made my leg hurt. It's hard to say what it feels like. Not painful, not yet anyhow. It's like how a limb feels when you've had your legs crossed and suddenly the blood flows fully again. It's feels warm and full of sand. It takes extra effort to lift it in even stride with my other leg. And then there are the hot shooting pains that radiate down past my knees. It's all rather unpleasant, but not painful. But I know it can be and the fact that it's already back is the only thing I'm dreading about future pregnancies. I would, after all, like Bella to have siblings.

When I was in high school, I bent my knee backward in gym class. A friend gave me a few pain killers to get through the day. The notes I took that day are squiggly and illegible because I was in so much pain. For weeks afterward (and random intervals after that) I had to get up in the middle of the night and walk around because the pain was worst when I was sitting or lying down for long periods of time. I never understood that. I still don't, but I do know that lying in bed last night I realized how similar the experiences are. I wonder what I did to my leg that day.

I caught a cold. In the summer? What a weird time to have a cold. It's because staying up late (sometimes I'm at work until 2am) messed just enough with my immune system that the cold got the better of me. I'm really beginning to resent a job that I used to love.

A block in the center of town burnt down last night. A five alarm fire. We could see the smoke rising up over the area where the farmer's market is held. I could smell it drifting in through my windows as I tried (unsuccessfully) to fall asleep. A beautiful cupcake shop. A sweet antique store where I window shop. A vacuum store that I would have visited yesterday had I not been sick. (I broke a belt trying to vacuum up my moby wrap, you see.) Apartments upstairs. One hundred years of town history in that building and today they are gone.


Yep, that's about it. Wow. Time to post a savoring list, me thinks. It's getting gloomy in here.