( utterly uninteresting dream/special education nattering )
Anyways, I woke up lonely and restless and bored. Lonely is a problem because I don't have enough of interest to talk about to justify waking up koyote again. Restless is a problem because I'm likely to start frantically cleaning again and, if I'm not going to sleep, at least I should get some rest. Maybe I'll try the irc client on this thing again.

Leif has another stupid cold and keeps waking up coughing. Poor dude. I can't wait till he has a yard to go run around and go crazy in. Not that that would help his cough any.

If I thought I could get Leif to go to sleep now, take a nap myself, and then take him to the playground at like midnight (when it's only 85 or so out), I would.

If anyone local felt up to it, I'd do it regardless of nap, though I may try just getting us up at 6AM instead.

So hot and yucky. I'm guessing he really needs to get some energy out, though. Our bathing suits aren't here, so I can't go throw him in the pool. Ugh. He is so frantic being cooped up inside, but I don't know what else to do with him besides the library, Borders, or a pool. And getting to any of those is still painful.

I see a new meme going around:

Comments are screened. If you've ever had a smidge of a crush on me, feel free to comment below. I won't mock you, and only you and I will ever know. Then post this in your own LJ and see who might be crushing on you.

Frankly, there are too many people out there who I just don't want to know about to justify possibly satisfying idle curiosity about a few :)

Hmmm....could turn on anonymous commenting instead of screening replies... that would give the ego boost without quite the potential creepy factor.

I doubt I'll respond to anyone else's. Either you're already aware I have/had a crush on you, or there's a reason I haven't told you previously that still applies.

Sleepy sleepy sleepy. Need to remember how to sleep at night, rather than coming up with ideas that seem brilliant in the middle of the night and idiotic once the sun comes up.

As I referred to previously, Leif woke up the other morning suddenly knowing how to use a computer. This isn't all that odd for a kid his age, except that, for all that we're geeks and all, he's never really had a computer of his own. He's watched movies on a computer, and "played games" (meaning he watched and occasionally pointed while one of us manuevered the mouse) for 20 minutes every week or two on the library computers, but he's never really interacted with them himself.

Now he plays the Blue's Clues game all on his own, and just started the Madeleine game, also all on his own, so somehow he's discovered how to double click. I thought he'd done it by accident, but he threw a fit when I tried to start Blue's Clues again instead, and was very insistent that Madeleine was the one he wanted (though it held his interest all of two minutes).

Hmm. Something smells like burning. I hope they aren't trying to burn down the complex again like they did the other day. Well, a storage shed anyways.

I woke up hearing someone messing around with our stuff outside. Turned out to be the neighbor's cat, who wanted in out of the rain. But now I can't get back to sleep.

I'm tempted to give the doula program a piece of my mind. I sign up for two days a week. On those two days, I can't go further from home than the library (and even then I'm unlikely to get there within the 30 minute response time if they call - I basically have to be sitting at home ready to go for that to happen) and have to be ready to drop everything at any moment, pack Leif off to friends, and rush to the hospital. This means that my friend is also on call on these days.

I haven't been in since November. It's disheartening, especially since I'm the only person on the schedule those two days. I get no feedback, so I don't know if there's something I'm doing wrong that's causing me not to get called. I did get called once, but it was randomly on a day I wasn't actually on the schedule, and they found someone else before I could arrange care for Leif.

Looking at the tentative schedule for the next two weeks the coordinator just sent out, I don't think it's just me. Only four people (out of 50 or so on the mailing list) responded for her first request for availability information, and there are lots of slots open. I'm sure some will come out of the woodwork (like I did) now that she's basically sent the final reminder, but still, it looks like people are losing interest. Only 2 people other than me attended the last group meeting.

I have a friend who was in the program a few years back who eventually quit because she was never being called in.

I know the coordinator can't force the midwives and nurses to call doulas, and maybe there just truly isn't the demand. Not everyone wants a random stranger to come in and sit with them during labor.

Still, it seems like something needs to change if they want the program to work. The current coordinator is moving on to a new project (making the hospital into an official baby friendly hospital, meaning basically that they provide exceptional breastfeeding support), so perhaps the new coordinator will be able to push the program a bit more.

A funny LJ coincidence happened yesterday. In the morning, someone posted in ucdavis about seeing a cop staking out a local bank with a rifle, and mentioned seeing some people across the street taking about it and taking pictures. In the evening, I saw a post while reading friendsfriends from the person who had been taking the pictures. The really odd part - she's was just visiting Davis for the weekend, and our mutual friend lives on the other side of the country and has no connection to Davis. She was, however, with a local friend who is on the friends list of my former roommate. Small world.

Leif is in love with the Babar movie. It's cute, but I find I really don't like the colonialist, materialist message it has. Yes, the elephants are of course oh so much happier wearing clothing and living in a city than they were frolicking in the wild. And then there's the mommy-death, which, if I'd thought about it in advance, probably would have had me avoiding it entirely. The inconsistancies between the movie and the bonus episode on the DVD bug me, too. In the movie, he clearly becomes king as an adult. In the bonus episode, he's a child king. Ah well, continuity is for wimps.

I should try to get more sleep. 5 hours really isn't enough.

Leif has been asleep since 5:45 PM yesterday, with a few brief wakings. It's 8:00AM now, and he is just starting to wake up.

Must be growth spurt time.

If I could get him to drop his nap and do things similrly every night, I would, except that it means he barely sees koyote at all. It would be better if he could go to sleep at 8 or so.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sooo ready for Leif to drop his nap. These days, he tends to fall asleep around four or five, and then not fall asleep for the night till way too late. Even though it means I get no time in the middle of the day, I'd rather he just wait till eight or so and be out for the night.

I'll have to see what happens tomorrow. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he has morning activities, and that seems to push back his naptime.

It's 9:30, and Leif is still passed out. I guess he's really sick, and not just throwing up randomly for no good reason.

I'm not sure I'm feeling 100% myself, but that could be psychosomatic. A little bit of achiness and a tiny bit of upset stomach. Not enough to keep me from desiring coffee.

Guess we're not going to the party today :( Not that it really makes a huge difference, since parties tend to consist of me eating some food and then sitting around watching Leif play somewhere in the general vicinity. Still, I was looking forward to it.

Well, Leif woke up at about 4:00 last night, and stayed awake till about 5:30. Then he went to sleep again until 9:30. Wow. That's about 15 hours of sleep. I even got enough, even though I stayed up ridiculously late.

I think Leif may be dropping his afternoon nap. Lately, if he takes one, he's awake and frantic until after 11, and he often doesn't sleep terribly soundly when he does take one. He didn't get more than about 10 minutes of a nap today. Hopefully he'll go to sleep by 9 or so.

I'm so not ready for that, but I guess if he starts getting to bed consistently early, it will help make up for it.

We think he's going through a big development spurt right now. He's been sick a lot lately, and that seems to happen when he's growing - he gets a fever, and comes out of it doing all sorts of new stuff. He's also being very fussy in general. Such fun.

ETA: He fell asleep at 8:00 :)

I mentioned in the last post that I thought Leif was probably a little speech delayed.

One of the reasons for this is that he isn't making two word sentences yet. However, today he woke up from his nap and koyote wasn't there. He signed "all gone" (which he's actually never done before that I've noticed) and said "da".

So he seems to be discovering the concept of combining two words, at least.

We're not really concerned. He obviously hears and understands just fine, because he can follow complex directions. We'll bring it up at the next doctor's visit, but I think he just has other priorities. Like bike riding, climbing everything he can find, and otherwise scaring me to death.

He fell asleep at 8:30 again tonight. Perhaps he's going back to that schedule. I can hope, but I'm not counting on it.