My Funny Valentines

So the revision process is going better than I expected. By the end of this month, I will have redrafted all my chapters, my intro, and my conclusion. I'll spend March making it all pretty, and I hope to give it to my committee (which may or may not still be missing a member) by April 1st. But April 15th is my absolute deadline. I should be defended by early May-- so I guess I was perhaps wrong last year when I feared I wouldn't have a PhD while I was still 30. Maybe. Keep all your phalanges crossed. I wouldn't be shocked if something terrible happened, especially since I just wrote all that down ON FRIDAY THE 13TH no less. Yikes. But anyway, the whole point was not to pat myself on the back or to fish for compliments (although that's how it sounds, and I am starting to wonder, with increasing intensity, why I am not deleting any of this). I was leading up to a point: Even though things have been going well, the chapter I am working on right now is horrible. Like shockingly bad. All of the other chapters have been boring and missing things like topic sentences and transitions, but they have made very clear arguments, and they have dealt with clearly defined moments in history. This chapter? No boundaries, no argument-- I keep making all these grandiose claims about clergy support for Planned Parenthood, but I never say HOW or WHEN or give any examples from the ARCHIVAL LITERATURE. It's like I handed my dissertation over to an eight-grader and said, "Here, you take a crack at this. Maybe you can use it for social studies class."

So that's why I am blogging right now, not suffering through more pages of really bad writing. Also because Harry and jack have been cute lately. Which is good because that's pretty much their job.

This guy has started naming all his toys. usually things like Pooky, Cooky, Tooky, and Toofy (a band of pirates), but the other day, he told me that his favorite action figure (a choking hazard pirate dressed in splendid blue plastic) is named Taint.

He has also been playing with my phone all the time, and he has a terrible knack for dialing my advisor-- especially when I am saying something awesome like "Can't you guys just shut up for a second"" or "I don't care if those are for your friends. If you drop your Valentines again, you can't got to school." (that's right-- if you're clumsy, you don't get no edumacation.)

He is also the naggiest nagger in the whole nagging world. If he asks for milk once, he asks sixty thousand times. He asks Ben at least 26 times if he can have a blanket and some socks during his before bed tv viewing time (shut up; don't judge us-- it's only 15 minutes, and we also read books).

He finally gets jokes and is really fun to tease because he gets super upset (I wonder where he got that character trait? Not his total freakshow of a mother, that's for sure). He can do knock knock jokes, and I am stoked to teach him some weirdo Vaudville routines as soon as Jack can be his straight man.

We got the spring and summer YMCA activity catalogue in the mail, and I was telling him all the activities for 3 year olds. I mentioned soccer-- no response, karate-- no response, basketball-- no response. Then I said ballet, and he said, "Ballet? For me?" Then he squeezed on a pair of Jack's Robeez and twirled around the room, telling me he was the "ballet guy." I am totally excited because we walk by a ballet class on our way to the daycare room at my gym, and it is a-dorable!

They can finally play together, which means I can sometimes check my email or pluck my eye brows for a few minutes (about the eye brows-- OMG-- my bangs are so long that I don't notice them, but I happened to glance at them in the mirror today while stopped at a red light, and I seriously have 2 caterpillars on my face. Nice.)

But any period of peaceful playing usually ends in something bad happening to Jack. The other day, Harry pried his fingers off of the Little Tikes piano that sits very classily in front of our fireplace, and Jack thudded to the floor and started to cry. I gasped, and Harry said, "I think I better go in timeout," and fled to the bottom step.

Tiny Jack doesn't mind the rough treatment, though, because he loves Harry more than anything in the world.

Definitely more than this creepy bear.

Jack is the sweetest, happiest little guy these days

Not only have I almost forgotten how awful things were when he was a screamy, pizza-face, disgruntled infant, I have also completely forgotten what life was like without him. It couldn't have been as lovely as life with him, that's for sure.

Happy Valentine's Day!

(Harry and I are going out for breakfast before LG tomorrow, and he asked me why (because he asks why about fifty five thousand times a day), and I said "Because you're my Valentine." His reply? "No I'm not. I'm Miss Connie's Valentine." That sound you just heard? Nothing. Just my HEART BREAKING!)