I love the passing of time

We saw ‘The Water Horse’ on Saturday night. Well, Shelby, Annie & I saw it, while Allison & Jim saw ‘Sweeney Todd’.

It was a lovely, magical story. Annie was a little antsy (it was a 7pm showing & she was just starting to catch a cold, so she couldn’t sit still - which was fine because we were in the front, on the end of a row & she wasn’t bothering anyone except me). Shelby was fascinated. He loves movies.

The movie started out with a screen that was blank except for the words ‘A true tale it is …’.

I like that. I want the kids to believe that magic & wonder is out there in the world just waiting for them to find it. I don’t care what the end up attributing the magic to in their lives - something supernatural or spiritual, humanity, chance, karma, whatever. I just want them to know, in their hearts, that there is beauty & joy & wonder & magic if they look for it in the world.

For the year before I started dating Jim, I was thoroughly addicted to working out every morning before work, then watching my calorie intake all day. I felt good, healthy, strong.

Love made me lazy I’d stay up late nights with him, or until he went in to work, anyway. Then, it was hard to get out of bed early to get to the gym. Then, the kids came along, making it hard to find time to get there, too.

He & I have made attempts at getting to the gym on a regular basis over the years. Some were more successful than others. But, I really think that I do my best if I get to the gym before I even start my day, so I don’t have time to procrastinate it away. And, I think I do my best at watching what I eat if I’ve already done my exercise for the day. I’ll look at junky food & say ‘If I eat that, then it completely negates all of the work I did this morning’. If I do it the other way around - exercising later in the day, I look at it like “Hey, I’m going to work out later & work all of this off, so it’s OK if I eat the junk now”.

So, we joined the gym yesterday. I’m going to try to rearrange my mornings so that I go in to the gym after getting the kids to school, but before work - every weekday except for the one after Jim’s night off (when we stay up way too late )

I went this morning. Feel good!

But, still sleepy from puppy interrupted sleep. They’re going off to the adoption lady’s house sometime this week. Our job with them will be done. Our little stop on the underground puppy railway. Next step for them will be pictures, petfinder.com, adoption fairs and, hopefully, forever homes. We’re going to take a few weeks off, then get another litter It’s exhausting, but satisfying and fun.

I’m not sure how the kids or I am going to deal with saying goodbye to our first litter of puppies. It will be a little sad, I’m sure. But, we’ve been talking about it the whole time, even more now in the past few days, so I hope we’ll be ready for it.

Shelby’s best friend is sleeping over tonight. His first friend sleepover ever. Annie’s sleeping in my bed & I’m laying by her waiting for her to fall asleep. His friend is sleeping in the bottom bunk where Annie normally sleeps (when they’re not sleeping in with me). Their room is across the hall & I hear them talking, even though they should be sleeping. Talking about school, the other kids, who’s their best, best friends, etc.

It’s cute.

I like his best friend. He’s a sweet, good kid. His mom & I can talk for hours, too & did tonight when she dropped him off. I hope they stay friends throughout school. I think he’s found a great kid to grow up with.

Just had to pop the usual password on that last one, when I realized that google’s finding this blog, now, when our last name is searched. The kids don’t need to hear me talking about all of that boring grown up stuff, if they stumble across this

Shelby told me this morning that he had a weird dream last night, in which, all of a sudden, everything around him got bigger. He says that the dream probably happened exactly when he turned from 7 years old to 8 years old.

Happy birthday, baby boy!