Beat

No, I'm not talking about the Patriots, although that is incredibly depressing. I think I'm in shock. Admittedly, I saw very little of the game. But I did catch Tom Petty - woohoo!

Anyway ... it's me - I'm beat. I should be sleeping right now because I got very little sleep last night. But my allergies went crazy today, and I decided to take a Claritin, which will keep me up for at least another two hours. Oh well!

I just finished the third week of an online class I'm taking for work. It's my first real class since I graduated from college nearly 14 years ago. It's so weird to have homework and reading and assignments and class participation to worry about again! Especially when I've got a full-time and then some job on top of that, not to mention a three-year-old boy to love. How do other people do this?!? The work for the class this week totally overwhelmed me, and I ended up turning in my second assignment late. Gah. That is so unlike me, but I'm trying to just accept that I'm doing my best. I mean, I stayed up until 2 a.m. this morning working on it - because I realized just after midnight that I had been doing the project wrong, so I had to start it from scratch. I gave up then and finished it this afternoon. It bothers me to have turned it in late, but mostly it bugs me because I need to get at least a B+ in the class in order to be reimbursed for it.

Today was a great day otherwise. We had our usual pancakes for breakfast, then R did lots of fun imaginary play. He and I climbed the mountain (stairs) to go exploring in the woods (his bedroom). We found a beautiful lake (his bed), a bobcat (our cat, Harley), a bear (teddy bear), blueberries to eat (blue lego blocks), and fish to fry up for lunch (socks). R was decked out in his exploring gear: a pair of toolbench goggles, his electric drill/screwdriver, and a flashlight. :-)

A took R out for an hour or so to go walk in the real woods so that I could finish up my assignment for my class. He's been doing that a lot lately, God bless him.

Later, we busted out the Play-doh Fun Factory R got for Christmas and spent an hour or so squishing out various shapes and scattering zillions of tiny Play-doh morsels on the kitchen floor.

Then, R turned our couch into a train. He was the engineer, and he made me locate his wooden train whistle so he could blow the whistle for the stops. He informed me that it was a "purple line train" (his name for our local commuter rail) and then when I climbed aboard, that a machine would cut my ticket. I was also informed that I could not let my legs dangle over the side because they would get caught in the tracks. A was enlisted as another passenger. There we were - all three of us on our not-very-large couch, sitting cross-legged, while R blew his train whistle with all his might. Priceless.

After that, we headed to our friends' house for the Superbowl and dinner. We brought a roast chicken with us; our hosts also had squash ravioli, squash soup, chips and dip, crackers and pate, lots of chocolaty treats, and steaming cups of cappuccino to share. It was scrumptious!

R and I were both exhausted (and fell asleep in the car on the way over), but we all had a great time. R absolutely loves our friends' kids - three boys ages 13, 11, and 1.5. The older boys are so nice to him and let him play with all their stuff and seem to actually enjoy hanging out with him. And, R's babysitter was there, too. She's the new love of R's life and he immediately wanted to sit next to her and started ordering her around to play with him. I told her and her mom that she didn't need to accommodate him, but her mom told me that she is in love with R, too, so it wasn't a problem. That makes me so happy.

Our friends had three enormous bags of boy clothes for me to go through and take what I wanted for R. I'm so excited because R just ripped a hole in his last pair of unhole-y jeans, so he desperately needed jeans and pants. And, once R has outgrown this stuff, I can return most of the clothes back to our friends for their youngest. He was a preemie, so he's very petite and it'll take him awhile to grow into them. (He is the happiest little guy - I was loving it when he climbed up into my lap and snuggled with me. And he adores R - he kept stroking R's hair and trying to tickle him. R is very sweet with him, too.)

Then we came home very late, I put R to bed after making up a story about his adventures exploring the universe with a jellybean astronaut (I have no idea what a jellybean astronaut is, but I made it up a few weeks ago when R asked me to tell him a story and I was half asleep - R and the jellybean astronaut have had many interesting journeys together since then), and I slept with him in his bed for half an hour before coming downstairs to find out about the Patriots.

After such a wonderful day, though, how could I be depressed? :-) I topped my lovely day off with a slice of the most delicious chocolate cake I've ever tasted while I watched "Jane Austen Regrets" on Masterpiece Theater. I'm tempted right now to put in my DVDs of the 6-hour-long A&E version of "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth. But that would be crazy. Heavenly, but crazy. ;-)

I hope you all had a great weekend! Please say a prayer tonight for Wanda's Aunt Cassie as she nears the time for the Lord to bring her home.