I know I just wrote about Lucas’s swimming lessons earlier today, but this afternoon, after the very last lesson, when we were swimming for fun in the 3-foot-deep pool, HE SWAM!

Breath held. Check
Face in water. Check
Arms paddling. Check
Legs kicking. Check

Successful attempts: many
Distance traveled: 1-2.5 feet
Celebration method: clapping, shouting, jumping up and down (mommy); smiling ear-to-ear (Lucas)
Witnesses: Ripley, Roco, their parents, Natalie the swimming teacher
5-star, surprise bonus: Ian showed up moments later and got to witness the feat of swimming excellence in person, and thus revel in Lucas’s glory.
Conclusion: Awesome

Lucas is going through another phase where he doesn’t want to nap, and so far, no amount of coaxing, spellcasting, or shouting is working. I believe I’ve already made it amply clear that this drives me nuts. When he doesn’t sleep, the whole rest of our day is volatile and manic.

Not last night, but the night before, he woke at 2 am and wouldn’t go back to sleep until 4:45 am. Although we each put him back to bed several times, we checked on him later and found him in his room or in the bathroom playing with the light on. This is rather terrifying because I don’t like the idea of him wandering around the house (or worse—the backyard) in the night while his parents sleep blissfully unaware. It makes me wish we had an alarm. Anyway, this whole staying-awake-to-play-in-the-middle-of-the-frigging-night thing was infuriating and exhausting. Let’s just say, neither Ian nor I is a particularly good parent when deprived of sleep and faced with an obnoxious and defiant four-year-old.

What’s just got me boggled is how the kid managed NOT to nap the next day (yesterday). Generally, I would say I don’t know if I really believe in that “overtired and therefore cannot sleep” thing other parents talk about, but we sure experienced something like it yesterday. Fortunately, when we put Lucas down for the night last night, he slept solidly from 8 pm to 6:30 am, then joined us in our bed in the morning for another hour’s sleep, sans the usual wiggles. Phew! Thank heavens, for if it had gone otherwise, I might have had to confess infanticide.

The swimming lessons are going well! Last week, Lucas was totally freaked out about going underwater, and spent lots of lesson time negotiating with teacher Natalie about how he didn’t want to and wasn’t ready to do it.

Something clicked on Monday, however. I think it was the fact that Jackson (a friend from preschool) is an awesome swimmer, and Ripley (another friend from school) was at the pool showing off how well she can swim underwater to do handstands. Lucas tried experimenting with putting his face underwater, and then his whole head. When he received attaboys from his friends, their parents, and their younger siblings (Ellen and Roco), Lucas just couldn’t stop going underwater. It was perfect. I watched the fear of it just melt away from him. Then he started jumping into the pool from the edge. It’s the 3-foot deep pool that we’re swimming in, so he can stand on tiptoes the whole time, but the point is he’s getting over his fear of the water and showing off to his buddies: “Ripley, Ripley, watch me! Watch what I can do.” Ripley isn’t too impressed, being a better swimmer than Lucas, but with some coaching from her mom, she has learned to be supportive of Lucas’s efforts.

So anyway, that’s been $60 well spent. If I can scrounge up another $60, I’ll sign up for another session. But we’ll have to wait for the money fairy to arrive.

Anyway, Lucas’s preschool teacher says, “Maybe he’s experiencing an inner change.”

We gave away our son at 12:30 pm on Saturday. We did not go and retrieve him until 12:30 pm on Sunday. That means Ian and I had 24 hours alone together. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time that happened.

We spent some time in old Folsom, crawling through jam-packed antique stores, jewelry stores, art galleries and other places that would be VERY RISKY to enter with Lucas in tow. We felt so grown up. The day was beautiful and we were liberated. We sat at a gallery café and talked without anyone blowing bubbles in a drink, kicking our chairs, complaining about wanting some other snack, or spilling. We also wandered around Capital Nursery for a while and didn’t have to chase down a runnaway boy.

Then we dressed up and went to dinner at Il Fornaio in Roseville, which happily honored a gift certificate dated November 8, 2000. We ordered carefully to stay to our $50 limit, but also to overreach it just a tad, so we could tip the server with our credit card. $53.79 and we even had dessert. The meal was great and we ate fresh-baked bread.

Then, we used the two free movie passes that have been stuck to our fridge for I don’t know how long. We saw The DaVinci Code. It was exciting to see a film at the theater. My high heels were a little uncomfortable and we were definitely overdressed, but it was totally fun. The movie was good/entertaining—not fabulous. I thought it was very cool to watch Ian McKellan—larger-than-life Ian McKellan—go on and on about how the Goddess was deliberately shut out of religious thought by the church and women were systematically burned and suppressed and excluded from religion. (Whether you like the book or not, you gotta appreciate how Dan Brown has brought to mainstream attention the concept of the Goddess, that religion is a man-made phenomenon, and that people in power manipulate the truth—especially the “truth” about God. I think it’s fabulous that there are people in an uproar about this film, even though the film’s ending was different from the book’s.) And I enjoyed the portrayal of Silas by Paul Bettany very much, and Jean Reno always rocks. Audrey Tautou was good, too. … Actually, that reminds me: Our very first date together (Ian’s and mine—I’ve never dated Audrey) was The Last Temptation of Christ. The year, 1988.

After the film, we came home and the rest is censored. Suffice it to say it was a sleep-in morning, with delightfully sophomoric conversation and coffee. Lovely.

Thanks, sweetheart. I love going on dates with you. I hope you had a wonderful anniversary. I did.

P.S. And thanks for planting my new canna lilies and day lily!

Good morning, my love. Happy 11th Anniversary!

Eleven years ago today, we were getting ready to walk down a grassy aisle, lined with friends and family. We were getting ready to speak the vows that we’d each written, to hear the magical words pronounced by our priest that would cement the bond we already felt with each other.

We were nervous, excited. You were telling me to pack my suitcase for our roadtrip honeymoon up north to the Oregon coastline, Ashland’s Shakespeare festival, and a wretchedly ugly B&B in Napa. I flitted around our apartment, throwing in a pair of panties, then getting distracted. You must have told me to pack forty times, and I still forgot to bring a jacket along.

On that sunny Saturday, we were so joyful that the rain had stopped, just in time. I had my long brown hair done up with curls and ringlets. You tied your long brown hair back in a rubberband festooned with a maroon ribbon. Our friends busily prepared, busily fixed, busily set-up the holy ground where we were wed. You wore a rock T-shirt up until the guests began arriving. The chairs were white, the gowns and vests were burgundy, the long coattails, charcoal. We had more flowers than any wedding I’d ever been to. Your sister took the SAT test that morning, and crashed a car that afternoon. My bridesmaids and I got dressed at RoRo’s house. A photographer took photos of me in my ivory brocade gown: me alone, me with my mother and grandmother.

My dad decided there weren’t enough cups and he sent people out to by up all the plastic cups in town: a rainbow of plastic graced my meticulously decorated, and otherwise elegant, tables. The columns we thought would decorate the grounds weren’t stable in the breeze. Friends improvised. I suspect someone asked you if you were sure.

At the last moment, my father, without thought of the expense and with tears in his eyes, asked me if I really wanted to do this. I knew then that if I said no, he would take me to the car and drive me away without a backward glance. I said yes. He walked me me down the aisle to stand by your side. The barley was cast, the magical words were spoken. The community said, “We will.” And afterward, in a rush, we retreated to stand together under the giant oak trees, to have a moment of quiet certainty and relief in the middle of a crazy and out-of-this-world experience. My heart pounded. We kissed again.

Photos. Dancing. A whirl of color and sound and joy. We celebrated, we gave thanks, we said prayers.

Eleven years ago. I would do it all again. I love you today even more than I loved you that long-ago Saturday. You are my source, my retreat, my foundation. I love your humor and your fears. I love your compassion and your cynicism. I love your suffering and your playfulness. You are the partner I always wanted and the partner I revel in having. I don’t know how I was clever enough to see it when I was so young, but I know this: I chose wisely.

I will love you, comfort you, honor and keep you, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy. I will cherish you and continually give you my heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep myself only for you as long as I shall live. Blessed be.

Today at 4 pm Lucas will have his first swimming lesson of the year. The lessons are a birthday gift from Grandma Sydney. We are taking lessons through CA Fam Fitness, which we have done once before when Lucas was 2. I’m not sure what happened last summer: I guess I was too busy to take him for lessons. Anyway, I will pick him up from school and take him straight to the gym. I hope he won’t be too grumpy and tired to try. I’m planning on giving him candy afterward to reinforce the experience.

Unfortunately, I sort of forgot we were going to start the lessons today and I kinda double-booked the afternoon with a playdate with Joseph. When I told Joseph this morning that he wasn’t going to be able to come over to our place this afternoon, his little elfin face fell and he walked away without saying a word. His mom said it was probably for the best because they had an extremely busy weekend, but I know for a fact that Joseph doesn’t get to have many playdates, and he was looking forward to it. I feel like a heel for having disappointed him.

Between making sure I have childcare when I need to work, meeting my deadlines, getting Lucas to school on time, swimming lessons (next week), and satisfying the visiting needs of 5 grandparents and 2 great-grandparents, I’m finding that Lucas’s social calendar is rather full.

Now, every day when I pick him up from school, I find that he’s already made plans with one or more school friends to have playdates outside of school hours. “Mom, Ria, Jackson, and Ella are going to come to my house and spend the night for two days! OK?” They make plans with each other! They make promises. And the kids don’t really get the subtleties of adult schedules and social niceties. (Like why would I make a play date with a kid who is rough and mean to Lucas? Or why would I want a play date with that kid’s mom? We moms don’t have anything in common.) And it’s not just Lucas who’s begging me to fill his every waking hour with friends and fun. Other kids ask me directly, “Can I come to your house to play?” Little Laural asks every day.

At least we’re not playing organized sports yet. Gods help me.

However, with all that said, we just had a successful and fun playdate with X. He came to our house, and although X and Lucas bickered for a while, they eventually found a peaceful zone in which they built and fixed things (something about a stage) with tools. And together we three managed to put some seeds in the ground. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks we’ll have some handsome pumpkin and flower seedlings growing.

I do not read The Sacramento Bee in the morning. Instead, I read livejournal.
I do not check CNN.com, Google News, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo! News, MSNBC, or BBC News, Wired News, USAToday.com at lunchtime. Instead, I read livejournal.
I do not watch evening news TV shows. Instead, I read livejournal.
I do not watch PBS news TV shows at night. Instead, I read livejournal.

I think I have a problem.

Today, Lucas gave me a little gem of advice while he attempted to grope me:

“Have another baby and make some more mama milk!”

So, I’ve been working out pretty steadily for almost two months. I’m back in the swing of things now (the first 3-4 weeks are always the hardest). I’ve made some room for exercise in my life. Today I hit the gym after I dropped L off at school and worked on the treadmill. I’m thinking of trying out one of the yoga DVDs that Kimkim lent to me, but I probably should work tonight instead—Blah. Tomorrow evening is yoga class; I’m looking forward to it because I didn’t go on Monday.

It’s time to step it up now, I think. Time to increase a couple of variables (duration, intensity) and see where that leads me. My friend H asked me if I wanted to do a triathlon with her in July. Sounds fantastic and terrifying, but honestly, I don’t think I’m ready for any such thing.

I indulged in carbs a few times lately, mostly related to my birthday. I can’t resist the naan at the Indian restaurant, so when I picked that establishment for my birthday dinner, I knew I’d be binging. The good news is twofold: 1) I enjoyed the food immensely, and 2) I did not instantly blimp up. I know I can just go back to eating low-carb and exercising and be fine. (I’m not always that calm and confident—sometimes I’m kind of panicky about losing my discipline. But today, I feel secure.)

I want to get my bike fixed up so I can go riding on the bike trails (I think I have a few friends who would be interested in going with me).

Lucas and his buddy from school, Joseph, are playing in the other room right now. They’ve been here about 50 minutes; I picked them both up from HT preschool today. Joseph is the younger of Lucas’s teacher’s two sons. He’s sweet and a little wacky. Although Lucas is 4 and Joseph is 5.5, they are playing beautifully together. Naturally, Joseph is busy exploring all of Lucas’s toys, and Lucas is happily sharing them. The first thing Lucas asked me this morning was, “Is this the day of my playdate with Joseph?”