Me loves me

Besides mastering the art of chic, as seen in the picture at left, Andrew displayed a unique talent last night while outside playing. It seems as though he’s discovered the ability to take off his diaper from underneath his clothes. And no, there was no poop.

This time.

Wednesday Morning Kindergarten Raw

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging words on behalf of my son in my last post. It’s stupid that I let a 6 year old girl inhabit so much of my brain during the day, but I can’t deny that she’s a throwback to particular girls of my youth that were nemeses of my day. I’m sure all this affects him much less than it has affected me, so I’m confident his self esteem is well intact. Today is his first official day in kindergarten and he was a little upset about things not being the same way as they were in preschool, but I’m sure after time he’ll adjust. Some of the children were crying yesterday at the open house, and he was nothing but eager to play with the other children. I don't think there is any time where he is not ready and eager to play. His teacher seems nice, albeit a little overwhelmed, and there was a fair share of running around and speaking up by a few loud kids. So, a typical kindergarten class---a little tears, a little sweat, a little running and a lot of talking. You know, mayhem.

As for the neighborhood, we’ve kept him near the house lately. He was a popular kid in preschool, so I’m sure all this nonsense with Diana has him totally confused. Let’s face it—he’s never been manipulated before. We had high hopes for him finding new friends once we moved to the new neighborhood and maybe we set the bar a little too high, which rubbed off on him. He’s been fairly protected most of his life in the shell of his own home since he didn’t go to daycare, so his emotions are raw and he’s very sensitive. We lived in a condo community where there were no kids and so this sort of neighborhood free play is a totally new concept to him. And he’s just outgoing and assumes the best in everyone. Like every 5 year old should be. So it’s like, welcome to the world---it sucks. We’ve moved on to better things like making fun of dad at the dinner table last night for being a professional wrestling fan and making up pretend matches in his basement when he was a kid. Nerd with a capital N.

I'm back, baby

Well, hello bloggy friends, I have returned from a long summer hiatus from blogging. It was unintended, and then the days just kept piling on top of one another until 2 months later I realized I hadn’t written one post. There were a couple factors at work here, impeding my ability to blog: the recent move into our house, and a new gig at work. Perhaps some people are able to juggle the demands of domestic organization, the corporate jungle, and parenting effortlessly, but I have never admitted to being an overachiever. So as they say, something had to give. Frankly, the amount of brain power I have exerted recently at work left me with little energy to even form full sentences, so writing witty, entertaining content was an impossibility. Besides, it would have been an endless bitch session anyway. So as of today, I hereby officially blow off the dust on Eucalyptus Pillow. Even though I’ve been a silent lurker on some occasions these past couple months, it’s time for me catch up on some of my bloggy friends. I’ve also cleaned up my site a little and gotten rid of some things that were just not applicable anymore. I don’t mean to insult anybody, but it’s time for de-cluttering.

There’s been some interesting debates going on the blogworld lately, especially one that piqued my interest about advertising. As a marketing associate, I would have to say that advertising is ubiquitous, and who’s to say some mom in Idaho can’t jump on the bandwagon and get paid for her writing if she wants to put McDonald’s in her sidebar. The one part of blog advertising that I do find irksome are the posts that written like ads. I know there’s a word for these, but I can think of it right now. And the endless contests and promotions. It’s a little too commercial for me. It’s not why I got into blogging. But by all means, not that I’m looking to piss everybody off on my first day back, and people can do whatever the heck they want with their own sites. It’s like the argument for censorship on the radio, you can turn the dial. I can keep clicking.

OK, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, here’s what I did on my summer vacation in photos:

Before and After (excuse the brown grass)

My uncle did the work on the porch, as well as some painting in the house. Landscaping is next year’s project. And the kids are growing up way too fast. CJ starts kindergarten on Tuesday, and Andrew is feisty little toddler who is now walking all over the place. I thought that kid was never going to walk!

There’s so much to share over what’s gone on in the past 2 months, so not sure where to start other than with the pictures. More to come later about the kids in the neighborhood, why I’m now broke, our car that died, and who ate my black-eyed susans.