Odd. Just… odd

I’ve been going through another phase lately.  The sucky part is it coincided with my awesome trip of awesomeness to California, but it’s not like I can choose when I go through these phases.

Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones getting to me.   I just don’t know.  I’m feeling so… out of it.  Literally.  Like the world is going on around me, and I’m just observing.

I have plenty of companionship, through my best friend in Virginia and my sister in Florida, my online discussion group, my Pogo friends.  I even see my neighbor pretty frequently.  She came by yesterday to give me Amish friendship bread.  Nom nom nom nom nom…

I am not hibernating like I normally do when I get into these moods.  I am leaving the house, getting out, saying hi to random strangers.  I’m putting on my makeup (but I am leaving my hair ALONE , Janets!), getting dressed, feeling pretty.

But I’m still… out of it.

It’s easy enough to say, well, then — snap out of it!  I wish it were that easy.  I want to do that, but then I end up just observing from the sidelines again.  And those of you who know me in real life know I’m not an observer; I always jump right in with both feet.

I just don’t feel right.  I don’t know what it is.  It’s hard to explain, to put into words.  And it’s frustrating as all hell because this isn’t ME.  This isn’t who I normally am.

Ah, well.  Maybe it’s just the pregnancy hormones yakking; maybe once I get well into this pregnancy I will be just fine.  I’m crossing my fingers, anyhow.

So today turned out well.  Kurt’s been ill for the last few days.  He hasn’t gone much more than maybe an hour between visits to the restroom, poor guy.  Last night, we stayed up fairly late, mainly because he took a three-hour nap yesterday afternoon to try to sleep off his illness.  He felt well enough to go to dinner last night, which worked out well for me, but by the time we were finished, he couldn’t do any more.  We normally walk around downtown and try to pop into the record store (and yes, folks, it is a real-life record store), but poor Kurt just couldn’t do it.  Once we went to bed, Kurt began to toss and turn.  He couldn’t get comfortable.  His stomach would seize up and tumble around, and then he would get up to use the restroom again.  He was definitely not feeling well.

I felt badly about it, but I finally asked if he minded if I went to sleep in the other room.  I was exhausted from the night before, and I really needed some sleep.  He was okay with it once I explained that I wasn’t abandoning him; I was just trying to make it so we could both get some sleep.  I slept like the dead all night long, even though I was on the futon.  Poor Kurt kept getting up and tossing and turning, and finally he had to get up to play one of his video games to tire him out.  He’s exhausted now, but at least he will sleep well tonight.

Today he had half the day off, although he managed to be home before 10:30am.  So much for my quiet time.

We managed to get Grace’s medical bracelet fixed today.  The jump rings between the heart link have been pulled apart over the last year and a half, and sometimes I’ve gotten out my own needlenose pliers to cinch it back together.  Of course, I don’t have the proper tools, so I’ve banged up and stretched out some of the jump rings.  It was really time to get it fixed for good.  We had all the jump rings soldered shut (why they weren’t soldered to begin with, I can’t figure out), and also got two new lobster-claw clips on either side.  The jewelry store lady was trying to get me to remove one of the lobster claws entirely to make the bracelet stronger, but the entire point of this bracelet we have is that it’s got interchangeable bands.  When she grows out of this band, or when we want to change to something prettier, we have that option.  I ended up spending more on getting everything strengthened and fixed than I did on the entire bracelet originally.

But the lady who did the fixing for Grace’s bracelet was incredibly pretty, and she was really quite awesome to talk to.  We were yakking for a good thirty minutes after I paid the lady.  She was absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.  She had black hair with a liberal sprinkling of white; more pepper than salt, but it was really quite striking.  It was short but flipped up on the sides, and it suited her to a T.  She had no makeup on, but her eyes were large and brown and expressive, like a dog’s eyes.   And she was so helpful, welcoming me to the area and getting so excited when I told her I was pregnant.  I almost want to go back there once I’m showing and she can be even more giddy over me!

I just wish I had an excuse to go in there.

The main reason why I wanted to get Grace’s bracelet fixed was because she will start school the last week in February!  YAY!  She’s been bugging us ever since she was potty-trained because we promised her that once she was potty-trained, she could start school.  Every day since then, she’s been asking, “Mommy, can I go to school??  I want to go to school!  I’m potty-trained, Mommy!!!”  While I was in California, Kurt investigated a good five or six preschools in the area, trying to find the perfect one.  The one he likes the absolute best is way out of our price range, but he found one he likes almost as well that is much more reasonable.  That’s the one we looked at today, and I thought it would just perfect for her.  The only thing I don’t like about it is there is only one slot left on Mondays, and if the preschool is closed on Mondays because of a holiday, we still have to pay for that week.   But I don’t anticipate many more holidays for the rest of this semester; Grace’s date of enrollment is officially next week so we don’t have to pay for President’s Day.  And what other Monday holidays are there till summer?  Memorial Day?  We had hoped to get her in on both Mondays and Fridays so she can have two days a week, but we’ll just have to wait till someone drops out or moves.

Once summer begins, Grace will go two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then come fall, she’ll go Tuesday through Thursday.  These are all half-days; I could put her in for full-day, but I’m not sure I want to do that.  It seems like quite a jump when she hasn’t been around kids for the last six months or so.  Apparently the kindergarten in my town is a full-day kindergarten, so Grace will have plenty of time to be in school once she hits kindergarten-age.  She’ll be one of the older kids, too, because she has to be 5 before September 1st of the year in which she starts school.  So she will be 5 when she starts and almost immediately turn 6.  But that will be fine.  Better to be older than younger in school, I think.

It will be so weird not having Grace around at least one day a week.  But I feel confident with this preschool.  They really seem to know what’s going on, and Grace’s teacher is a lady at least in her 40s that has been teaching little ones for almost 20 years, so she has loads of experience.  I love that.  I think Grace will really get a lot out of this preschool.

I think I might have a standing date at Barnes & Noble every Monday morning.  Me, with a book, and a coffee from Starbucks.  Heavenly!!!  Now if only I could invite Terri to come along too!