I think if I ever wrote a book on parenting it would be called. I would never do that. And other idiot things people think before they have kids.

I was always creeped out by nursing toddlers. I would sit agape watching some mom whip out her breast when her child walks yanking at her blouse. Ewwwe.. I would say silently. I'm never going to nurse my kid once he can WALK. I figured my son would just stop nursing by the time he was walking. HA!! When he's tired and spinning and generally freaking out, the only thing that works is nursing. It's also the only time when he tugs at me and actually says: "Mamma Mamma." When he's not trying to nurse, he calls me and everything else "Da Da." It's pretty cute. I don't feel like I need to wean him completely. I want him to nurse once a day before bedtime so he doesn't get too sick at daycare. My sister quit nursing more or less cold turkey when my niece was around 18 months and my mom just held her and rocked her (my niece not my sister) and after two days she pretty much forgot about it.

We visited Rich's cousins out in Groton today. They're in the process of putting in MY dream kitchen. I think mine would be a little more classic than their is modern but it's BEAUTIFUL. They have shaker style cherry cabinets and really deep patterned greenish/gray granite countertops. They've got a giant subzero fridge just waiting to go into a huge slot. I'm so jealous!! It's stunning. If we don't move to Syracuse I think that's what the kitchen at Harrison street will end up looking like. Except ours will be smaller and we probably won't buy the stainless steele appliances. We may do birch instead of cherry because I like the deep patterns in the wood. I love fancy kitchens.

That's about it for tonight. I'm going to space out in front of the fire for a while...

I was feeling pretty good last night after I watched the debates. I was so nervous, I was shivering. John Kerry has been my senator for 20 years, and I've never really formed an opinion of him -- other than one of total fury when he voted for the war in Iraq. Since I don't live in a swing state, it doesn't much matter what *I* think of Kerry. But last night, he blew me away. He was calm and confident and Bush was crabby and petulant. It was like that short lived Trey Parker sitcom about Bush. "Wah! Being the president is HARD, and this bully is picking on me!!!" Man he's dumb, and inarticulate. But he can be very charming, and Kerry can be very wooden. But Kerry was on last night. The press seems to be thankfully more interested in analyzing the factual nature of the debates and not the "body language." So I'm happy about that too.

I other more personal news... Eric is still so excited about his new classroom with the "big" kids that for the second day, he didn't cry. I put him down and he was off like a shot to play on the slide. What a positive change for him.

Once again he awakened around 3 this morning and fussed. He went right back to sleep once I went in and put his blanky back on him. I think he just gets cold. I tried turning the heat on, but that was too hot. Poor little Goldilocks!! Then of course I couldn't fall back to sleep after that. Not for hours. Fortunately, Rich got up early with The Boy this morning. I don't know what we're going to do when he goes back to work. It's just not going work if both of us are employed full time. On Wednesday I got to Eric's school around 5:35 and he was the last kid there. It's just stuff like that I don't know how to work out.

This whole Syracuse thing will solve the issue.. but that's still a long shot. And we'd lose more support by moving there than we have here. This whole work/baby balance is a conundrum to me.

Eric has developed this weird sleep radar. He sleeps through the night on nights where I don't have to be into work early to do something that causes network downtime at my job. The past couple weeks I've been working out a particularly confusing network problem that I have to bring the network down to test. And I have to get in here by 8:00 AM, which means getting up around six thirty. Almost every night before one of these early days, he's had trouble sleeping. Sometimes, it involves me or Rich going in there and patting his back. Sometimes it involves hours of desperate wailing (both mine and The Boy's) as we both want sleep so desperately. But I'm thankful that once I go in there, I never lose my compassion. I think we have some new teeth coming in. And that's part of the problem. But as Kristi Hayes once said "I think they're receiving signals from their home planet." Those signals govern basic baby functions like eating and sleeping. If you think about it. It's really the only logical explanation.

Fortunately, my network problem is solved for now. I thank the capricious Gods of network administration for that one. We'll see if the problem persists.

I miss the co-sleeping a lot. We gave that up when Eric started breakdancing in our bed, a trait I am almost certain he inherited from me. When I have trouble falling asleep I try every possible position, while trying to be respectful of the person next to me. Eric has no such inhibitions about disturbing the other people sharing the bed. He throws himself on me, arms akimbo, then he tries to sleep on my pillow, then he does the same thing to Rich. If I weren't so sleep-deprived it would be much cuter. We used to bring him into our bed to sneak a few extra minutes of sleep when he wakes up at six. But I'm trying to stop the nursing, so we haven't been doing the morning nursing snuggles lately. I think I can continue our morning snuggles once we've established the weaning a little better. But for now it's very much a work in progress. I'd like to cut down to just have the feedings right before bedtime. I'd like to keep lactating as my ace-in-the-hole to solve serious toddler anguish. But for the most part I think we're ready to stop.

In other news. I think my anxiety levels are more due to the upcoming election than to this whole Syracuse thing. If Bush gets reelected, I will lose my faith in democracy. I just wish the democrats could come up with somebody people could get excited about. And MY GOD the Bush strategists are brilliant. We are not safer under Bush than we would be under Kerry or anybody else. Nine-Eleven happened under Bush's watch because he was focusing for our cold war enemies. Terrorism wasn't a priority for them because they didn't want to do what Clinton did. Somehow, even though Kerry did everything "right" in his life, voluntary combat service in Vietnam and he didn't spend his 20's and 30's in an alcoholic haze, Bush comes out smelling like Roses. And Kerry is defending his basically solid record. I wish these fanatics did as good of a job fighting this war in Iraq and arming our soldiers properly as they are running this campaign. I want to watch the debates, and I probably will. But there's so much riding on them. This must be how men feel when their team makes it to the superbowl. Perhaps I'll use my superbowl strategy of leaving the room and Kerry will "score." Because every time I went to get somebody a snack or a drink at my Superbowl party the Pats would score. Perhaps I do have some power after all.

Eric turns 13 months on Friday. It's so strange. We had this little tiny baby with skinny chicken-legs. Now we have this sturdy little guy that runs around constantly on chunky thighs and feet that feel like they're full of frosting when I squeeze them often.

He's been doing OK in daycare, but he was on the cusp between the baby room, and the toddler room. Today I came in and they told me we could start putting Eric in the toddler room. For the first time in over a month he didn't cry when I left.

I put him down in the toddler area and he almost shouted "My PEOPLE!! There you are!!" Or at least he would have if he could have shouted in English words. It sounded more like "ALLA BaBA!!" And he ran around the room touching everything, opening the cupboard doors on the play oven and refrigerator. Then he proceeded to walk up a short flight of stairs that leads to the indoor slide. I had no idea that he could do that. I called them about an hour ago, and they said he was having a good day. He only slept 40 minutes, but that's not so bad considering that it was his first day in a new room.

I'm so proud. I think he'll do much better with the structured days. The baby room is really chaotic with the babies crawling and crying and generally sticking to their own schedules. I just knew about a week ago that he was ready to move out of there. He was the only kid that was walking and even in that completely baby-proofed environment, he was trying to get into things that he shouldn't have. I'm so happy we got to move him early. I like his new teachers too. One of them is named "Ruthie" which is what they called my mom when she taught nursery school in the '70's.

The Syracuse thing is progressing. Or at least it seems to be progressing. Rich seems to have passed his second phone screen with the hiring manager. The HR person wasn't in today, and she'd be the one setting up the trip for him to go to Syracuse.

I am WAY calmer about this than I was a couple days ago. I think, in part, it's because I talked to my mother about it. She was really encouraging and reminded me that I have a very strong connection to that part of New York. But I feel connected to New York in general, having gone to College there, and spent a year in Albany after college. It's the only place I've lived besides here and I really like it. Plus I have Carolyn who would be a GREAT and wonderful aunty to Eric, especially when he gets a little older. So yaay, Mom. Once again she's surprised me being calm when I thought she'd be upset.

I feel a lot better, but I think Rich's anxiety level has increased. I'll have to make him a nice dinner and give him some beers tonight.

Cute story of the day from the Daddy:

Fun Eric story of the day. This morning we were watching football before breakfast. I figured at half time I would take him upstairs to eat (I only saw the first quarter last night, we were watching the second). I didn't tell him this. But amazingly as soon as the clock reached 00:00 at the end of the first half Eric stood up, walked over to the TV, turned the TV off, and then walked to the gate and pointed at the stairs. It was awesome!

It's been a while since I've posted. I got caught up in the insanity of Orientation at Emerson, followed by a week of SANS training. The training was excellent. Orientation was exhausting, but as usual when it ended I felt that I had really accomplished something.

Rich is interviewing for a job in Syracuse of all places. Suddenly my nice comfortable life could totally and completely change and the thought terrifies me. Actually the thought of moving back to that area is quite comforting. I spent all my summers of my childhood in Ithaca only 60 miles south of Syracuse and I have the best memories of that time. But this period of unknowing what will happen next is completely excruciating for me. We are all crazy. And it is best if we understand our own insanity to function in life. This is killing me. Rich has his second phone interview on Wednesday and hopefully we'll have more information to go on after that. But until then each minute beats like that last hour of grammar school before summer vacation. I am crazy. I will be choosing between two good things that are dramatically different. But they're not bad things. It's like that time when you're waiting to hear if you got a house you put an offer on. It's fine if you get it, it's sad but fine if you don't. But the not knowing and having NO control is intolerable.

Plus it's dredged up a bunch of issues for me about work, and working full time that I'd really rather not deal with. I was so exhausted after Orientation that I made the stupidest mistake that I've ever made at work since I hit my 30's. Things are not quite right yet. I'm pretty sure no harm was done because I caught it.

My head is spinning my brains into painful tapioca.

In other news, The Boy is doing GREAT. It's still really painful to drop him off at school, but it's getting easier. But the work/life balance is slipping for me. Eric is clingy and needs me. As the week wears on it gets worse and worse. By Friday we're both a mess and by Monday, all is well, after we've spent a weekend together. This is not sustainable when Rich goes back to work, no matter where he ends up. It 'aint going to work.

This is nerve wracking as well.

I apologize to my vast public for the drama and angst of this 'blog.