Summer Vacation!

Yay! School is over, and summer is officially in session!

This last week has been an absolute nightmare (as the last week of school so frequently is for teachers), and I've been busy beyond belief. I had to clean out my room since I'm not returning next year, finish grades, give finals, etc. There was a graduation fiasco that involved a shrieking Bear... but now, for the next 13 weeks, I have blessed, blessed freedom.

I have formulated a plan for the summer, and I'm very excited about it. During the school year, I have zero time for cooking dinner, and more often than not, we end up eating in a Less Than Ideal fashion. Also, there is lots of soda and other bad things. Add to that absolutely no exercise whatsoever, and you get slightly pudgy, very tired me. So, this summer, my goal is to eat right (always easier in the summer anyway), cut out soda, and take the Bear on long walks in the stroller for exercise. I just feel so much better when I take care of myself a little bit - I'm pretty run down at the moment. But I don't want to get too crazy right away, so this Great Plan of mine goes into effect on Monday. I'd like to get myself into a healthy state by fall, because I think that this autumn we're going to start trying again for Bear Number Two.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, we would really like to have more than one child, and this is as good a time as any for us, financially speaking. They would be close in age, which is important to us (my husband and his sister are eleven years apart). Plus, this one is so sweet, every time we look at her we want to have another. I really, really want to have another baby.*

On the other hand, I am completely terrified of losing another baby. I'm still feeling a lot of grief and sadness from the last one, and I don't know if I really want to expose myself to the possibility of more pain. The first time I was pregnant, I didn't worry about any of this because it was unplanned and I was so depressed that I didn't really care if anything bad happened. The second time, the baby was very much wanted, and I let myself get very excited, and then I was just devastated when I miscarried. If I get pregnant again, I'm afraid that I'll spend the entire time worrying and won't be able to enjoy my pregnancy.

I'm not particularly worried about *getting* pregnant, since we don't seem to have much trouble in that department. ::knocks on wood:: Every time my huband looks at me cross-eyed... well, you get the picture. (We're hideously fertile. We have no decency.) No, it's the *staying* pregnant that I'm worried about. I don't think that I could handle losing another baby right now.

Anyway, enough of that. I also have plans this summer to read several very important books (the new Harry Potter being one of them), and teach the Bear to sleep past six a.m. Every morning, come wind, rain, hell, or high water, that kid is Wide Awake by six. Sometimes it's sooner. I love my child more than life itself, but I am not a morning person, and this has got to stop. So, I'm planning to entice her to sleep later. Not sure how to do that, though. I thought about gradually scooting back the bedtime, but that seems cruel and unusual - plus I like having some time to spend with my husband in the evenings. And I can't really cut back on her naps, because God Forbid she doesn't get her nap when she wants her nap - there's just no living with her. She's on a fairly straight 10-11 hours per night, two two-hours naps during the day schedule. I think she's doing pretty well; I would just enjoy waking up *after* sunrise instead of before it. This is all my fault, however, since I had to get her up every day at six for her whole life, pretty much. I brought this on myself by going back to work, I know it. Bad Mommy, bad!

Also on the Bear front - she says "uh-oh" with great regularity now, although not usually in connection with anything. Today, though, she said it after she dropped the remote on the floor, which was cute and also meaningful. So smart! Also popular are "dad" and "dada," which she uses interchangeably. Very very rarely will she ever say "mama," so I think I'm going to accept that I am uncool and move on. Such is life - maybe after our summer together I will regain my *cool* status. Highly unlikely, though.


*I think... Many people have told me that the second one is always the oppsite of the first, and I wonder if they aren't right. The first one is so laid back, so easygoing, and has such a sunny disposition, it's hard to imagine having a high-maintenance baby. I think I would freak out, quite literally. (I'm totally discounting the first three months here. We do not speak of them.)