So many hoops...

When I initially decided to do this blog, I didn't realize just how many hoops I'd have to jump through in order to gain recognition. It's really a lot more difficult than it was to be a plain old webmaster at a plain old domain. Sometimes I wonder why I ever gave that up...and then I remember the agony that was attempting to learn PHP. Talk about headaches...I feel a twinge of pain just typing those three little letters.

So, my semester has ended and I have mixed feelings. I absolutely despise my lack of commitment and contribution to the previous months...not because I genuinely loved the material, but because those few months cost me around $10,000... and that's before interest. I feel that I need a constant reminder as to why I found it so necessary to seek this master's degree in the first place. I guess it works out, to some extent, because I'm home with my boy and that's really the only place I want to be.

Speaking of which, I'd like to come up with a way to be home with my boy permanently. I'd like to work from home... to hell with the 9 to 5! :) I can have dreams, right. Maybe I'll be a writer... I checked out a couple books on children's book writing and illustrating from the library the other night. They seem a little old, which, considering the state of the local library, is not at all surprising. I hope they still have some decent information.

We sort of put up the Christmas tree the other day... so far we've managed to get one strand of lights onto it. Oliver seems completely indifferent. He also seems to have no real understanding of gifts. He crawls on the giant wrapped Little Tikes Cozy Coupe car, the numerous smaller packages of clothes, little toys, books, and the two sets of Mega Bloks. He has no idea. I've been told that the first Christmas is for me and that he'll understand a little better in a year or two, and from the looks of things, I've been told right. Then again, though we've lived in this house for more than 6 months now, we haven't unpacked yet. Maybe he's just so used to boxes that putting them under a lit-up tree makes no difference in his mind. I'll let you know how the presents go once they're out of the boxes. I'm pretty sure he'll be enjoying the boxes for a while :)

He got his cage already, and he's not a big fan of it. Six grayish plastic sides of baby-containing goodness...as far as I'm concerned. Not sure what I'm talking about? Go here: North States Superyard XT Gate Play Yard. There really was no other choice... this was a necessary product. Oliver is pretty mobile for his age. He spent all of 2 days crawling, and immediately decided that he was going to cruise around on furniture. Unfortunately, he is not nearly as coordinated as he is daring... he's managed two pretty bad injuries in just a couple weeks. The cage should prevent him from falling into the coffee table... and it would be really efficient if he'd stay in it without screaming. It's tall enough, strong enough, sturdy, and plenty big... but he's just not into being by himself in a cage :\

Anyway! The finale of So You Think You Can Dance is on...which I'm only going to see one hour of because there's a new Criminal Minds at 8. I'm not looking forward to CM because I have a feeling it's going to be very emotional... the last episode was the most depressing thing I've seen in a very long time.

I'm gonna go now... I'm typing faster than I'm thinking and that can lead to a lot of mess in here.

<3

Backlog

Over the next few weeks I'm going to go through all the wonderful (and useless) baby things my son has... and tell you what I think of them. You can look forward to many pictures of him chewing on things :)

Seems I'm getting a cold. Figures, right? This is sort of the last week of classes... I have 4 projects due THIS WEEK and an 18-20 page paper due next week...that I haven't started. Boo. It might only be 9:20, but I think I should join my kid in sleep.

Introductions all around!

Hello :) I'm Awyn. I'm a 28-year-old single mom to a handsome (crawling, climbing, screeching, bouncing, pounding...) 8-month-old little boy named Oliver. I'm a grad student working on a master's in library science with hopes of someday being a children's librarian. From what I can tell, the rumors about children's librarians are true: we're an odd bunch. I live a pretty conservative life, but I'm really VERY liberal. I like all art forms, with the exception of poetry, and work (for the moment) in wire.

Blogging is a good way to get all the excess out of my head.

So, what can you expect to see here? I like lists, so here's a list -

1. Mommy ramblings - attachment parenting, things I've done that have worked or have failed miserably, you know the drill. Oliver has his own blog, and I'm not sure how much overlap there'll be.
2. Product reviews for all things baby - this kid has everything, and I have opinions about all of his things.
3. Product reviews for whatever I've tried... if I ever get myself anything!
4. Reviews of everything I come in contact with - restaurants, books, magazines, movies, websites... etc.
5. Men. What single, straight woman isn't thinking about (and complaining about) men? If I ever have any adventures in dating, you'll get to read about them.
6. Offensive topics... religion, politics, discipline, parenting styles...etc. Unless you have a good sense of humor, I'll probably offend you. And I don't care.
7. Alternatives to every-day products...or different uses for every-day products... cleaning & medicine, mostly.
8. Geek things... software, kid and grown-up gadgets... though this won't be terribly extensive.
9. Other things. That's about as specific as can be...

Soooo that's what you can expect. If I ever figure out how to be one of those coupon moms like the ones on Oprah, you'll be reading about that, too.

<3