Because we work at home and most nights are spent here due to our inability to find a babysitter (sigh), a lot of the time I feel like we live in a vacuum. We read the news, listen to NPR and watch the Daily Show and Colbert (hello funniest thing on TV), but I still wonder what we miss by not going into an office or taking very many in-person meetings. We’re no longer forced to look work-presentable every day, so if we don’t have any plans, we usually end up in PJs all morning and take showers after lunch. When we do leave, it’s usually a mad scramble to not be late, as we’ve become so accustomed to our own time that having a set time to meet other people is a challenge.

I often wonder what will happen when the Peanut starts going to school. My parents worked all the time, so while there were some days my mom drove us to school in a robe, she never picked us up in anything less than full work gear – makeup, heels, jewelry, perfume (she smells lovely), etc. She always seemed quite glamorous, to us and to our friends. There’s still a guy from my class who asks me about her whenever I see him – he used to flirt with her when we were in high school and she thought it was adorable, lol.

Neither the Chop nor I will end up picking the Peanut up from school in heels, but I do have a goal to never pick him up in sweatpants or a bathrobe. We’ll see how that goal pans out.

It’s been awhile since I watched a movie and laughed until I cried (while sober). Cedar Rapids just accomplished that quite handily.

There are moments when the Peanut looks so much like the Porkchop that it takes my breath away. Aside from the looks, we see shades of his personality beginning to shine through, and movements and facial expressions that are straight from his daddy.

Then I make him giggle or squirm and he looks just like me.

I read an article today that said the reason older people listened to older bands is because you stop enjoying new music as you get older. You don’t get the same rush of dopamine when you hear something new as you did when you were young.

I hope when I’m old they’ll have fixed that problem.

There are a few children’s book authors that we absolutely adore – two in particular whose books we purchase whenever we see them, Sandra Boynton and Nancy Tillman. Both authors illustrate beautifully and write with a cadence that makes memorization quick and easy, something useful for us, as we can easily calm the Peanut down by reciting books.

The Peanut’s gotten so good at knowing which book is which, that if I start reciting one, he goes to the pile and pulls it out. Boynton’s books are fun and funny, with lots of animal sounds and weird songs to sing; Tillman’s books are sweet and dear, easily eliciting a tear or two on certain pages.

As I was reading the latest one we purchased to the Peanut this morning, It’s Time to Sleep, My Love, I wondered if she ever sold prints of the illustrations.

And of course, she does.

He woke up from his nap this afternoon so! freaking! happy! It’s so nice when a tooth breaks through.

I’ve always had a “book” problem, one that caused me to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and suffer the next day… the need to finish reading whatever I’ve started. Perhaps I have a problem with delayed gratification (haha), or I’m just impatient, but once I’m into a book, I have an incredibly hard time putting it down – even to sleep.

When I was a kid I would use a flashlight under my covers, trying to soundlessly turn pages so as not to alert my parents.

When I moved out east, I would leave my lamp on, tea (or something stronger in hand) and read to my heart’s content.

By the time the Porkchop moved in, I had slowly begun to keep better hours, preferring to read a book in two nights and get enough sleep to prevent zombie-fication.

When I was pregnant I switched back to finishing in one night – I couldn’t sleep well the last few months anyway, might as well do something.

When the Peanut came, reading became harder. Between work and sleep, my free time was nonexistent. Occasionally I would buy a few books and read them over the course of a week, chastising myself daily for staying awake until 2, knowing full well I’d need to be up by 6 or 7.

A couple of days ago, after an idiotic decision to drink a latte at 4PM, I was reading an article in bed around midnight that mentioned an interesting book. I perused it on Amazon, swiftly downloaded it on iTunes and read until almost 5AM.

Two days later and I’ve purchased the entire trilogy and am halfway through the final book. The author has some serious echos issues, which means I think I’ve been speed reading roughly half of each book (page count: 900, 1200 and 1300), but getting to bed between 2-4AM.

If this was the good old days, I would’ve purchased the first book and waited several days before purchasing the second, and so on. But it’s 2012 and you can download a book in less than a minute.

eBooks might very well be the death of me.

The Peanut and I share a new obsession… sloth videos on YouTube. Weird, yes, but so highly entertaining AND educational!

It’s been snowing for a couple of days now. Not a lot, but enough to be cold and wet and generally annoying. Especially considering last week it was warm enough to walk every day and go to the park. The Peanut and I are suffering from serious outside time deprivation. Boo.

In better news, my darling friend had a birthday today and so I made a Ryan Gosling meme with our babies. Heeeee.

And Everything Nice from John Jensen on Vimeo.