The Lost Symbol

I just finished reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I got it for Christmas. I had seen it in the stores and had a passing thought of interest. I had enjoyed reading The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons so when I got this one, I thought, "Oh good!"

In the beginning of the story, Robert Langdon is summoned by an old friend, (or so he thinks) to Washington D.C. to give a presentation about the symbolism in the capitol. To be honest, I was disappointed that I did not get to read about symbolism in the capitol through Langdon's speech. It might have been more interesting than the start of this book. Perhaps my expectations were high based on the last two novels with Langdon as the main character. I was expecting a bit more action. This story seemed a bit formulaic. Langdon is challenged, lines between good guys and bad guys are drawn and then get fuzzy. Langdon cracks some codes using his knowledge of symbols and of course, there is a police chase. None of it is anywhere near as suspenseful or exciting (or should I say controversal?) as The DaVinci Code.

I think the author is losing his love for Langdon, if he had it in the first place. In the first two books, Robert Langdon is made out to be a genius. He figures things out faster than everyone around him and only needs a little bit of help, mostly to get him safely in and out of certain places. In The Lost Symbol, I personally think Langdon is pretty slow. Maybe because he does not have a strong belief in the hunt he is on. He thinks the kidnapper is a madman and delusional and that the treasure of The Lost Word is make believe. The whole time I was reading, I had a feeling that the word was not what it seemed. You'll have to read to find out what it is but it really is simple. Everyone I know would figure this out relatively quickly. However, the overall theme of this book seems to be that the answers are right there in front of us but we are too blind to see. At then end of the book I thought, "well yeah, of course" whereas at the end of Angels & Demons and The DaVinci Code I thought, "Woah! That's so cool!"

However, I still had a hard time putting this book down. I'd like to go to the places in this book and see some of the things that are mentioned within the story. I'd like to know more about Noetic Science and really find out how much is fact and how much is fiction. There is a part of me that wants to believe the message in this book and find out more about it. Our history has always interested me. There is another part of me that says, "No way, but wouldn't it be cool?" This probably doesn't make much sense if you haven't read The Lost Symbol. Dan Brown has a great talent for making you believe what you are reading. It is so matter of fact and realistic sounding that even the craziest parts of the plot are believeable. It's fun for awhile to escape reality and believe in a story.

I would definitely tell people to read The Lost Symbol. I enjoyed it. I feel like there should be more to say but I can't think of anything. Let me know what you think of the book if you read it!

Thoughts and Memories

I am currently working on Isaac's second year scrapbook. I spent some time tonight making a page about his first birthday and how we celebrated. I got to thinking about the past 17 months and it is just so hard to believe that he is so big. At this time last year, he was only 5 months old. He was not crawling. He was barely sitting up and still didn't sleep through the night. He didn't have any teeth and he didn't talk (at least not in words). At his first birthday, I couldn't believe that we had made it through his first year. It was hard but we loved it. Even when we hated it. Even when we were so exhausted and sleep deprived that we didn't know how we were going to get through a day let alone a year. Once I figured out this whole Mommy thing, it got way easier. I was better able to juggle my time at work and my time with Isaac. I had a rough year that first year. Peter coaches (which most of you know) football and bowling. Two seasons in a row and they both happened to be at the beginning of Isaac's life. I resented the sports for a long time. I hated the fact that he wasn't here to help me. However, (and Peter you are not allowed to use this against me in any way) at times, it seems like the times when I had to be alone and parenting on my own allowed me to form a very special bond with my son. Peter has his thing with Isaac too, don't get me wrong. I just feel like being alone with him really forced me to figure everything out and make decisions. Most of you know, or if you haven't realized it yet, you will, that I have a hard time making decisions. I don't want to make a mistake. I want to do the right thing and I worry that I won't. Every decision I had to make on my own with Isaac was agonizing. Sometimes it still is but I'm learning that I'm pretty good at this Mommy thing. I have a VERY happy, healthy little boy. He is so special and bright. I have so much fun with him whenever we are together. I'll even admit that I don't mind when he is whiny and just wants to be held. I don't mind making dinner with one hand. It's hard and a major pain in the butt but it's so worth it.

Well, I was thinking about all of this and trying to figure out why I have these bittersweet emotions when I realized that I miss my tiny baby sometimes. I don't know how my parents have gotten through the 28, almost 29 years of my life without breaking down and crying. Maybe they have and just haven't let me know about it. It makes me think of when I went away to college. I was focused on how great it was going to be and I was so excited. My parents and Lisa drove me up there and helped me move all my stuff in. Once everything was in my dorm room we went out for lunch. Everything was great. I wasn't nervous or worried at all. I did not think that I would be homesick. I thought it was going to be great. I was right. It was great. The one thing I didn't take into consideration, was my parents and the things they were feeling. After we ate lunch, they drove me back to the dorms. It was so crowded with people that we had to say goodbye in the car. My mom was sitting in the back with me. She gave me a hug and started crying. I had the hardest time getting out of that car. I didn't want her to be sad. I knew that it would be okay but this feeling landed in the pit of my stomach. I was suddenly scared. It was suddenly real. I was going to get out of that car, my parents were going to drive off and I would be alone. For the first time in my life, I was going to be in charge of my life without anyone there to tell me if I was doing the right thing. I had to get out of the car. Other people were waiting for my parents to move. So, I got out and waved goodbye. My mom and my sister were crying. I was close to tears. I went back into my dorm room and I just sat there. Then I started to unpack. After awhile, Peter called me and kept me busy for the rest of the day. He made it easier. Eventually, I got used to being on my own. I wonder if my parents got used to me being on my own or if they look at me now with my own baby and just get that bittersweet feeling in the pit of their stomachs. My son is only 17 months. This feeling just gets stronger every time he does something new. Every milestone and every accomplishment sends a feeling of pride and a little bit of loss through me. Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to stop growing up. I just feel a little tug of losing my baby. I know he's still a baby and will always be my baby but he's growing up and it's going too fast. How do you handle it?

I think that handling him growing up is two sided. On one hand, I'm losing the little being that depended on me for every single need. On the other hand, I'm gaining this little person who is so much like me and his father it is scary. He becomes more independent every day and I know that I'm raising a smart, self reliant little person. I'm proud of that but I miss the days when he wouldn't stop crying unless I was holding him in the rocking chair. I didn't know that I should enjoy that as much as possible. People tell you to but you are so wrapped up in everything else that is going on or that needs to get done and isn't that you end up not enjoying it as much as you should. It doesn't take long and it's gone.

Well, I have purged enough emotions for one night. I should get some sleep so that I am not sleep deprived this weekend. I'm sure Peter would like it if I was actually interested in leaving our house for a little while!

Thanks for listening!

The buzzing in my head . . .

What can I say? I don't really get to blog much any more. I was blogging weekly about Weight Watchers but even that has taken a back seat to the rest of my life. I am very busy now that school has started again. We have a new reading curriculum and while I think that it is very good and will be very successful, it is a lot of work and we haven't had much guidance. (They are trying but there isn't much time for it) This makes for a very overwhelming and stressful year. We are figuring out what is expected from this curriculum ourselves with some support from literacy coaches but even they have a lot going on trying to cover 5 buildings between 2 of them. I enjoy the teaching part but the planning part takes a long time. I went to my mom's (was just going to stop by for a few minutes) and ended up making student V.I.P. books and putting together Scholastic Book Orders while my parents played with IKup. Then we ate dinner and played a little bit until it was time for IKup to go to bed. I took him home, got him changed and put to bed and then started working. That was at about 8:30. Now it's almost 10 and I have reading, math, and part of writing planned. I looked back at my plans from last year but there isn't much I can do with them. Everything is very different. The writing curriculum hasn't changed but there is a little bit of overlap with the reading so some of the things I did for writing last year don't apply this year. We'll see.

The frustrating thing is that I planned on Wednesday and followed what I thought we were supposed to follow and then found out that there is a better way that was hiding in the back of the reading binder. Thank goodness Nuetz shared with all of us. The way she found is way better and less repetitive. It was starting to get boring. It's just too bad that the district never went through our CD with us to let us know what the reading curriculum had for us. Yes, I realize that they went through a lot of it over the summer. But guess what? I am a teacher for many reasons. One of those reasons is because I wanted to be a mom who had time for her kids. I have always wanted to be a mom. It's the most important part of my life. I don't think I would be happy any other way. Being a teacher gives me a schedule that allows me to spend as much time with my child as possible and still work. The summer is a huge part of that. Yes, they would have paid me to go the inservices in the summer. Unfortunately, I would have paid more in childcare than I would have been paid to be at the inservice. So, I stayed home and enjoyed my time with my family.

I really don't want my plans and school work to take up my whole life. I have to be able to think about other things. That's hard to do right now. I'm the kind of teacher that usually walks out on Friday with everything planned and copied and ready to go for the next week. This is the third week that I'm going into with plans made over the weekend. I can't even carry everything into my house from my car in one trip. That's not even including IKup. Thank goodness he can walk. I have a lot to do and I take things home but by the time IKup goes to bed, PKup is home and then I want to catch up with him because we never see each other anymore and by the time I have any time to do anything, it's time to go to bed so that I can get up in the morning and do it all again. Thank goodness for my parents. I was able to get two things done that have been going back and forth with me for a week and a half.

Well, I'm getting tired and there are more things that I'd like to get finished. Thanks for letting me vent!

Life is good . . .

Aside from a little frustration with my weightloss, I'm feeling pretty good these days. I have found that blogging really helps me. It doesn't even matter if no one reads it. It's really just for myself.

Last weekend, the girls got together and did some scrapping! It was so nice. PK watched IK and I was able to sit and scrapbook with few interruptions. Well, unless I had to keep running inside for more tools and such. That's okay though. I got a good start on the book of me for my mother. She recently gave me all the pictures of me growing up and ordered me to put them in a scrapbook. Well, ordered isn't really the right word. More like strongly encouraged! But really, why would I say no? I got to my first birthday. Seems like a lot but it isn't. I have millions more. She was happy with what I had done so far. She said just to get a couple of pictures of each thing and get rid of the rest. I think I will scan the remaining pictures and put them on a CD, make a pocket page and put the CD in the scrapbook. That way, even though I will be throwing away the old pictures, she will still have them if she wants them for anything.

There are lots of good things happening, so much that I don't even have time to write about them now but more will be coming later!

Parents' Intuition

Everyone that follows me or PK on Twitter knows that IK woke up crying tonight. At about 11pm he woke up crying. I gave him some Motrin because he's been teething. One tooth came in and we had a couple of days rest, then the other started coming in. He was very crabby the last couple of days and hasn't been eating or napping very well. He hasn't been sleeping very peacefully either.

At about 11:15, IK woke up again and was inconsolable. I felt helpless. I didn't know what to do for him. I had a horrible feeling that something was wrong. PK seemed to feel this way as well but we just didn't know what to do. After an hour of this, I called the doctor. I know it was after midnight but isn't that why they have a doctor on call? When I first decided to go to this pediatrician, they were very open with me about calling after hours. They wanted me to call if I felt there was something going on or I had questions. Now, I understand that the answering service is important. It keeps the doctors from getting a bunch of phone calls at home. It's a necessary evil if the doctors want to get sleep or have a life outside their jobs.

Having said that, I do not think that it is up to the answering service to decide whether or not I have given enough of a reason for a doctor to call me back. I called tonight after my baby had been crying and inconsolable for an HOUR. 60 minutes of screaming and what can only be considered writhing in pain. I tell this to the woman who answers the phone and she tells me that she needs more symptoms. The doctor isn't going to think crying is a good enough reason to call back. (According to her.) I had to take his temperature, rectally, while he's crying and freaked out already, so that she has enough symptoms to tell the doctor. Now, as far as I know, the answering service does not actually talk to the doctors. They page them to call my number. The doctor calls and needs me to tell them all of the information again. The doctor who called me back is not IK's regular doctor but one that I believe he has seen once or twice. She was very sweet to me and made me feel like I was right to call. No baby cries for an hour for no reason. I told her that IK NEVER does this and the only other time was when he had an ear infection. She said that she was thinking that it may be something along those lines and it would probably be a good idea to take him to the acute care center. She said that I should be prepared in case it was something that would need the hospital but she thought the acute care center would be able to check him out and just make sure.

Sure enough, IK has an ear infection in his right ear. I say Parents' Intuition because we know, mother or father, when there is something wrong with our children. If one of us calls the doctor, we have a good reason. We would never call just because our kid is crying and we don't know what to do with him. We call because our kid is crying and we've tried everything, including pain medication and he's still writhing in pain and crying hysterically.

I haven't decided yet if I will complain next time I go to the doctors' office. We'll see if my anger fades by the time the 2 weeks are up and IK has to be rechecked. What do you all think?

Sleep Troubles

I realize that most of my posts are about IK. I can't help it. He's the biggest and best thing in my life right now. Not that everything else isn't great but my life pretty much revolves around him. So, if you get sick of hearing about him, or need a break from baby talk, it won't hurt my feelings! I will understand.

I titled this Sleep Troubles because IK has been having some trouble going to sleep at night. He does pretty well at nap times. I can't really figure out if it is because he's teething or if he's over tired, over stimulated, off schedule and confused . . . I don't know. Anyway, he cries when I put him to bed. He's been doing this for about a week.

My first theory is that he's feeling insecure and unsure of his life. Seems like something a 1 year old shouldn't have to worry about. But, he's used to waking up at a certain time, going to AH's house, where he had a pretty regular schedule, getting picked up by his parents, played with and fed dinner, then put to bed. Now, he wakes up later, stays home, is dragged around on whatever errands I have to do, doesn't get to see AH, who he absolutely loves, sometimes is missing his afternoon nap (or both naps) and has no idea what the next day will bring.

Theory 2: It's light out when he goes to bed so he doesn't think it's time to sleep.

Theory 3: He's teething, which I hear gets worse at night. Then when he lies down to sleep, it puts a lot of pressure on his teeth and ears and makes it uncomfortable to sleep.

Theory 4: A combination of 1, 2, and 3. I think there is a little bit of insecurity. He doesn't understand why he doesn't get to see AH every day anymore. He's been totally screwed up with his sleep schedule since we went down to Chicago and he stayed up too late. We've been pretty busy so his naps are a little screwed up. He is teething. The top two front teeth are coming in. One has broken through a little bit but the other is still working on it.

On the plus side, he's very happy in the water during swim lessons. He's also happy when we play with him and take him outside. He's just like his dad. He likes to be outside. That's good. I liked to be outside when I was little too but now I can't stand the bugs.

Okay, I'll stop boring you with all the mom talk now. I should probably get some sleep anyway!

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I love my life! I keep having all these random thoughts. I figured I would write them down. Of course, as soon as I open up blogger my mind goes blank.

I just watched the Friend's Episode where Pheobe gets married. If only real life worked that way sometimes.

IK's taking a nap. He woke up at 4:30 this morning crying. Now I'm realizing that his teeth were probably killing him because it's raining. This morning I looked at his gums and I can see the little tooth getting ready to pop through. I hope the rest follow before the end of the summer. I can handle being tired when I don't have to do anything the rest of the day but during the school year it's very difficult.

This summer is so different from last summer. I'm happier. I know that sounds weird, I had just had IK last summer. I was pretty overwhelmed though and looking back, I think there was a little more than the baby blues going on. Part of that was also dreading going back to school which didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would be. I had very supportive parents and being a parent this year gave me a new perspective on relationships with the kids and their families. Now, I enjoy being home with IK. He's fun to be with, even when he's crabby. I like to take him places and PK is home more this summer. At least, he's supposed to be! No internship this year but still Football Camp.

I've even been talking and planning out when to have another baby! Not for awhile but at least I'm thinking positively about it!

I really enjoy facebook and twitter. I feel more connected to all my friends which is really important to me. We all have such busy lives but we can all take a few seconds and let everyone know what's going on. I think that's so cool and I'm glad that PK got me started on it.

It's almost time for me to start thinking about a Master's Degree. I thought I wanted to do reading but now I'm not sure. They just opened up an Educational Technology masters at the University Center. It interests me but I'm not sure if I want to put that much time and money into something that I don't really want to do as a career. I just want to teach. Reading would help me with that. Ed. tech would too but not on as big of a scale (I think). Well, PK won't finish for at least another year, so I have time to look into it and decide.

Right now, it's summer (even though it's raining) and I need to get ready for when PK gets home. We're going grocery shopping. The fun never ends!