Reclaiming my house

This weekend I was amazingly successful at reclaiming my house from the clutter and dirt that had taken over. I cleaned the master suite and started laundry Saturday. Sunday I focused on the formal dining room (Leif’s playroom) and the library. I dusted and vacuumed, Leif helped. When I pulled the vacuum cleaner out he retrieved his little vacuum and followed meticulously in my steps matching the length and time of each stroke. He helped me pick up his GeoTracks. The library I was somewhat successful at, limited mostly by the loads of papers that AB “might” need at some point in his coursework. They are all stacked for him to sort. AB cleaned the living room Sunday while watching the Seahawks game and between the two of us the kitchen was cleaned.

Our west wing went completely neglected save for the accidental mopping of the utility room. Pregnancy brain is real. I was filling the utility room sink up with Oxiclean and hot water when Leif started doing something (I can’t remember what) that he wasn’t supposed to. I went running with every intention of returning to the sink in the utility room. A little while later I heard water splashing, sure enough, scalding hot water all over the floor of the utility room.

One major accomplishment Sunday was achieving dominance over the laundry. It has been months since every piece of laundry has been clean in this house. AND I accomplished this feat with a toddler in underwear!

That last statement implies there was success with the toddler in underwear. Which actually couldn’t be farther from the truth. Truth is I managed to time that last load of laundry to finish about 30 minutes before the next accident. So my house was really just 30 minutes of not a speck of dirty laundry.

Speaking of Leif, I couldn’t have more of a boy’s boy on my hand. Wow. He is just all boy. Lately everything is about being an airplane, flinging ones body through mid-air and wrestling. He has his tender moments too though, like last night when for some reason he insisted on going to bed on the floor instead of his crib. I layed down on the floor with him and he reached over and rubbed my shoulder for a few minutes. When we leave in the mornings there are always a few tears as Leif calls for “just one more piss” from Daddy. If he had his way AB would stand there and give one more kiss all morning. (Ignore the fact that when we get to daycare I have to beg for a hug and kiss as he is running off to get busy with his day.)

Then there is this morning where Leif came into the bedroom while I was getting ready and told me he wanted to “watch baby”. I stuck the VHS tape in the VCR and hit play as we marveled at the in utero baby on the screen. Leif took to pointing out the body parts to me, similarly to how I did for him last Friday, only when I did it, I pointed to the actual body parts. Leif pointed to empty space and would recite “baby’s arm” or at the face and say “look mommy toes!” It melted my heart. Also implied he is not my little all knowing oracle… and maybe, just maybe he says “sister” because it is easier to say and not because he is all knowing.

In other news, my former graduate advisor wrote me this weekend asking me to write a letter in support for him in his nomination for a Graduate Advising Award. I like writing, why then does this task leave me without words? My goal is to create a letter that is brief, poignant and memorable and that conveys how deserving he truly is. All I can come up with is a rambling mess of words and examples of his worthiness. It reads plainly like every other letter of recommendation out there. This is killing me.

The other thing that is killing me is that he told me in his letter that my former labmate, John, got a job teaching at a small State College in Colorado. Slacker John. The one I “promised” (with my fingers crossed) to help him find a job here and then never followed up because I couldn’t stand what my coworkers would think of me if I actually recommended him. He has yet to defend and still has only written one (poorly written) draft of his dissertation done. Ugh. I suppose I should take consolation in the fact that he has a 1 year temporary appointment making probably less than half what I do here. Still I dream of a comfortable job like this, in my home state, preferably with my husband bringing in a good salary… I still sit here shaking my head thinking of John in this position, and just a twinge of jealousy.

In other news from my former advisor I had recently expressed some discontent at how hard of a time I am having weedling myself into surface science projects here, my true calling. When I first took this position he was unimpressed and probably somewhat concerned at my willingness to jump into the nuclear realm. (I was job hungry.) In his recent letter he encouraged me to remain straddling the two worlds given the state of our international relations. This was important for me to hear from him. Like a child that is always looking for a parent’s approval, I seek his approval in my professional life.