This is part of my practice I guess. Write something. Anything at all, just to get the cogs in my brain turning. Any writing is better than reading emails and mommy boards. After I clear this junk out of my head, maybe I’ll write another paragraph of fiction, LOL!

It is 7:10 and I have only just sat down with my first cup of coffee. Dylan will be awake any minute now. I actually don’t even have that much time anyway. I have to get our stuff ready to go to the Y.

Yes, I have joined the YMCA!!! They have free child-watch which Dylan absolutely loves. And their treadmills are like running on a cloud! I like to go in the late mornings, when it is mostly older people and other moms. There is a nice absence of beef-cakes at 10 a.m. I’m still finding it really weird to exercise in front of other people since I have been doing it at home for so long.

Dylan is getting older, his naps slowly diminish every month like the days get shorter in the fall. He will be two this summer. And then someday he wont be taking any naps at all. And Good Lord, I want to do this all over again with another? Yes, at least one more I think.

This, my friends, is why there is preschool!

Parenting (and keeping a sane mind while doing it) is a constant state of revision. Nothing works for very long and then you’re on to the next challenge, the next puzzle to figure out.

We kept our bedroom door closed this morning so that maybe Dylan wouldn’t hear our alarm clocks. It’s now 7:30 and he’s still sleeping. So now what to do about the neighbor who starts up her janky car about now every morning and runs it for 15 minutes?

This week I am learning to own the consequences of my own choices. All this came from one of the epic discussion/debate/fights that Jim and I have most Saturday mornings. I don’t know what it is about Saturday mornings, but that is when they usually happen. Saturday mornings, or when we’re in the car and driving near Mound Road in Warren. Who knows?

This weekend, our discussion/debate/fight was about how I can never accept criticism without then turning it around and telling him what he’s done wrong. I don’t know how that spawned the following realization, but it did - that it is NOT my husband’s fault after all! Whatever it is, is not his fault.

I have my own alarm clock. It is not my husband’s fault if I don’t wake up in the morning to write. I can wake myself up. I can make my own coffee, carry my own grocery bags and open my own doors. Just because he buys cheesecake doesn’t mean I have to eat it, although most likely, I will decide to eat it anyway. I can drive my own car, and as much as I enjoy my husband’s company, I can go out on my own sometimes too.

I hear a Pull-ups commercial in my head singing I’m a big girl now!

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the things he does for me, but somewhere in these past five years, I have stopped doing things for myself. I have taken what I wanted from feminism and but left the challenging parts.

So this week I have been setting my own alarm for 5:45. I hit the snooze button twice before resetting it for 6:30, and hit the snooze button one more time before I woke up, which was entirely my decision.

But in this brilliant self-accountability adventure, I have discovered that the earlier I wake up, the earlier Dylan wakes up! It’s maddening! Just as soon as I’ve settled down with some coffee, and even think about working on something, he’s awake!

I swear I am being perfectly quiet, but I think he senses our awakeness and wants to join in. Either that, or it’s both of us hitting our snooze buttons for an hour straight

Waking up early, before the baby, makes all the difference in the world. Just taking that one hour before he wakes up to gather myself. And now my brain is awake, on fire with ideas and creativity. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that there are beautiful plump snowflakes falling outside, and Dylan is happily watching Sesame Street.

Dylan is in this phase now where he CRIES when he wakes up in the morning. From the very second he opens his eyes until he has his sippy cup of slightly warmed milk in his needy little hands. It’s really not a pleasant thing to wake up to. He’s such a happy kid the rest of the day, but just that trauma of the morning really sets the day off on the wrong track. But I can deal with it after I’ve had my coffee and a chance to think. I think women can deal with anything after coffee and a chance to think.

So this rush of creativity and ideas leads me to this: I think my short story collection might actually be a novel. Not even a novel-in-stories, but just a regular old novel. And a good thing too, since there is no market for short-stories, and every time I tell someone I write short stories, they look at me like I have a slimy alien growing out of my ear.

Of course, here you are absolutely obliged to roll your eyes at me. Everybody is writing a novel. Everybody has a first chapter. Really, they do. I know it. I’m fine with it.

And then there is this: how do you write a story about someone who travels somewhere you’ve never been, without actually traveling there yourself? There being Japan. Because I have a toddler and such adventures are not really in the budget these days.

Milk from cloned animals is “virtually indistinguishable” they say. The “virtually” meaning that there is at least some difference, or they would be saying it is “absolutely indistinguishable.” I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t be done, but I am saying I want the right to know which milk it is, so that I might choose to drink it or not, and choose to give it to my family or not.

Send a letter to your Congressperson or Senator!

I voted for the soon-to-be first female President of the United States!

And I’m taking my hubby to have his kidneys poked and prodded and stones knocked out. And we are both nervous about that.

And I hope that Dylan is a good boy while we’re waiting. He usually is while we’re out, if there are nice old ladies to flirt with.

And to my writers group, I am sorry, but I am obviously not a writer this week. Maybe next week. Hopefully next week.

That is all.