Artemis

Okay, so I didn't blog twice yesterday. But two days in a row is pretty damn good, so be happy with it. On Monday I leave home to return to my daily schedule of being a nanny. I wasn't really homesick when I was there before mostly because I was going to see my family soon. In my head, I am not returning. I keep having the thought: I left home for a couple months, I am done with being a nanny now and I am back home for good. Not the case. I get the feeling that when I return to CT, I will be more homesick than I was before. On a happy note, the mother is going back to work as soon as I return from home. I am happy about this because the little girl listens to me SO well when her mother isn't around and I can't wait to start enjoying her more without the whining and not listening. Also, I get to create my own schedule for the day: when we get up, when we leave for school, what we do after school. It will be all me and I like having that control. I already have a daily sc...

I am failing at blog entry. I am sure by now everyone that actually reads my blog (about 5 people) has now stopped for the lack of entries, with the exception of my impatient sister (see Ramblings of an Impatient Sister on Slapdash ). I have always enjoyed writing, but without something or someone pushing me to do it (again, other than my impatient sister), it is harder to do than I imagined it would be. So I apologize to my readers for not keeping up with my blog entries, I will try to do better. In fact, I may even blog twice today.

I think babies can sense how you are feeling. A few years ago, about a year after I had surgery for endometriosis, I was helping my friend watch her cousins for the whole weekend. Even after being the one to wake up with the 7 month old baby in the middle of the night, I wanted kids more than ever, possibly because I was faced with the fact that I may not be able to have children of my own. One night, I was in the baby's room alone with her. She was crawling around on the floor, trying to escape out her bedroom door. I was thinking about not being able to have children and a few tears fell. Right as they did, the baby stopped, turned her head around, looked at me and headed my way. She crawled up to me, put her hand on my hand, laid her head down on the floor with her face a few inches from mine with her butt sticking up in the air and smiled at me. She laid their for a few seconds, then got up, turned back around and continued her escape from her bedroom. How did she know? Yesterd...

Instead of having writer's block, I have blogger's block. Every night I sit down and think about the various topics I could write about on my blog. I think about the family I work for, the things the little girl has said, my trip to NYC this past weekend (which was so much fun and great to see my friend from photography school). But for some reason, I don't want to write about any of them. I am not sure why I don't want to talk about them, they all are good topics and I have plenty to say about all of them, but nothing comes to mind when I sit down to write. So I have taken out the book my sister jdoc gave me for my birthday a few years ago, "A New Leaf: Ideas for Writing, Inspired by Trees". I will look through it the next couple nights and maybe I will find something to blog about. As for now, I am going to go watch the episodes of LOST from the past 2 weeks that my mother so kindly taped for me. Maybe I will think of something to say about those.

I was going to tell you all about my non-vacation in Florida, but it is a bunch of bah-humbug. It would be all about how the grandfather was really mean, how we almost never left the house, how I didn't see the beach when we were only 15 minutes from it, how I hated the lack of routine because I didn't know when I was supposed to be working or not, etc., etc., etc. But I am just not in that kind of mood, I am in great mood. It is Christmas time, I love this time of year! It really brings out the child in me. While everyone here is complaining about the cold and the snow, I love it. I can't wait until we have enough snow for me to play in! I love Christmas decorations, the town is beautiful with them up. I have them in my room and we have them all over the house. When I look at them, I get all giddy. I have a small Christmas snowglobe and when I turn it over, I get excited. I am heading to New York City this weekend to meet up with a good friend and see the Christmas decorat...

I am finally back from 10 days in Florida. Probably sounds like a vacation, but it wasn't... but that is a different story. I had all intentions of writing a few blog entries while I was gone, even though I didn't have internet access, and putting them on my blog when I returned. I didn't write any. Then when I tried to write an entry last night, the blogger was down, so again, no entry. And now that I have the chance to write about something important, there are so many options that I don't know what to write about and frankly I am not in the mood to write. But by this point you guys are used to my lack of subjects since it has been so long since my last entry, so I am sure you can wait a little longer for a good blog entry (well, most of you can anyway). When I am in the mood to write, I will share about my non-vacation in Florida.

I ate at a restaurant yesterday and on the placemat they had questions that were used as conversation starters. One of them was "what would you do if you were President for a day?" Since then it is all I can think about. I don't know if one day is long enough to reverse all the wrongs that this President has done to our country. Assuming that I would have full power as the President and wouldn't have to pass things with the other powers that be, my list is endless. As I started thinking about it, more and more things popped into my mind. I would definately need to stay awake for the full 24 hours and not bother with eating, bathing, etc. Tasks would need to be given to as many people as possible so I could cover as much ground as I could. I would hire my sisters as my aides to help me out with everything. The first thought was the war, I would end that... then the environment, I would put us on the Kyoto agreement, toughen all the pollution and emission laws, stop the...

I learned something about fathers and daughters today. Their urge to protect and make their daughters happy starts at birth. The baby had a doctor's appointment today and I got to go with. The doctor gave advice on sleeping and eating habits. When we got home, the mother was telling the father about what the doctor said; he seemed to disagree. Here's how it went: Mother: The doctor said that the baby should be eating every three hours. She said that if she is fussy in between it means that she is not getting enough to eat when I feed her or she is gassy. Father: No, you feed her when she wants to eat. Mother: No, because then she will think that whenever she cries, she will get food. She needs to start on a schedule soon. Father: No, you feed her when she is hungry. Then he walked away. Even though the doctor (and a how to book on the first year of life) said how her eating habits should be, apparently doctors and experts are wrong, at least to this father. As annoying as it wa...

I think this area takes the term "snail mail" too seriously. My wonderful mother has taken on the task of sending me all the things I couldn't take on the airplane. In the first package, she sent two of my quilts, one my grandmother made and the other my friend made. She sent it right away because she knew how much I wanted them and that I would sleep better with them. Sixteen days later (eleven business days), I finally got the package! I understand that I am a long ways from North Dakota, but that is just ridiculous. And when you are homesick and wanting something that reminds you of home, it seems to take forever. She already sent the second package, I might get it by springtime!

Today was a good day. Don't get me wrong, the little girl was still a pain in the ass. But for the first time since I have been here, I feel like we are making progress. She started out her day with a huge temper tantrum and while this may sound bad, it was really a good thing. It was the only time the mother has said no to her daughter and then disciplined her for not listening. While she did not stay in the time out, I take it as progress on the mother's part, it isn't easy telling your child no when she is crying. The little girl is finally starting to show me some respect, which is a great feeling. This morning when she lied to me about something, I looked at her with a sad face and told her that when she lies to me, it hurts my feelings (the best method I have found for dealing with lying). She looked right at me and told me she was sorry... progress. When we got out of the car today, I told her to take her coat. She looked at me and told me in a snotty voice, "Yo...

Kids must have some sort of bad day radar. When they sense you are having a bad day, they decide to be a pain in the ass. I didn't sleep well last night, am completely exhausted and not feeling the best, so the little girl I watched decided to make my bad day even more miserable. One would think that a 4 year old girl wouldn't be all that vindictive, but one would be wrong. They are great at being bossy, lying, ignoring, and making babies cry intentionally, all while fooling their parents into thinking they are angels. Oh, but beware little girl, because I see through it all. I see when you color all over the carseat after your mom tells you not to, I see when you give the dog 7 dog biscuits and tell your mom you only gave him one, I see it when you take out the baby's pacifier and say "it just fell out" and when you poke at her until you make her cry so you can hold her after your mom says "she is happy, just leave her alone, only pick her up if she cries...

When did we reach the age that we cared what people thought? There is a guest staying here this weekend and it is a teenage boy. The little girl I watch had never met him before. Last night she was running around the house with her shirt off, sitting on the boy's lap. I asked her why she had it off and she said because she was hot. She obviously doesn't care about her body yet, it has to be great to have such freedom. On another note, when I moved here, I never considered that a different place would have different spiders. I have had to kill two so far and I had never seen either kind before. Do they have poisonous spiders in Connecticut?

When I started my blog, my sister insisted that I write everyday. I negotiated it down to two or three times a week and both weekend days. I am holding up my end of the bargain, however I lack a subject. Nevertheless, it counts as a blog!

When I got to Connecticut, I was excited because the trees had just started to change. Since they have had so much rain here, it delayed the fall color peak, so it was beautiful. The trees are colors I have never seen anywhere else, some have even turned light pink! But as luck would have it, the colors changed really fast and a few windy days have made a lot of the leaves fall to the ground. I have been so busy this week and it is dark by the time I am done with work, so I have yet to take any photos of the trees. I am hoping that they will hold off a little longer so I can get out there on my weekend off and take a few photos of the beautiful New England fall colors.

I didn't expect to be so tired! I knew that I would be working with children all day, which is always exhausting, but I am more tired than I expected! I am sure it has something to do with daylight savings time, a time change and getting up early. Or maybe it is spending all day with a crying baby and a little girl that is so energetic! The little girl was even in school for half a day and the mother was home for most the day and I am still worn out. But I must say, I love it!

It is already past my bedtime. I have a lack of sleep and I need to get up and work in the morning. And yet there is so much to say about this place. There is already so much I love about it and so much that will take some getting used to. And as much as I want to share these things, for now I need to go to bed. I have a day of work to tackle tomorrow, whether I am ready or not.

Here is my blog! I don't have time to write much since I am still trying to finish packing before I leave. I will write more in a couple days when I get to Connecticut!