Randoms.

• I have a new appreciation for how many tummy muscles are required to laugh
• I have a new appreciation for modern medicine and nurses with both good humor and good sense
• I have a new appreciation for my awesome husband who not only had a peek into my day to day life as a stay at home mom, er, dad, but also bent over backwards to take care of me
• I did not spend 09/11 in deep reflection of the attack on our country - I spent most of the day vomiting or in the ER. I haven't forgotten. I remember Nick & I were still asleep - we both worked retail and weren't due into work for several hours. My mom called us up and told us to turn on the TV. I remember being so confused, watching the planes fly into the towers - I had to call my dad and ask "are there passengers on those planes?" my brain just wouldn't compute. Watching the towers fall, hearing the news of another plane flying into the Pentagon and then another going down... it was so bizarre. I couldn't make sense of it. When I went to work later that day, most of my co-workers had no idea. We couldn't keep flags or anything red, white & blue on the shelves. I bought the last of the red, white & blue ribbon from JoAnne's and spent all that night making ribbons - it seemed a small thing. Seeing our skies empty of planes was weird... seeing planes start to fly again was even more weird. I remember watching every plane, waiting to see what would happen.
• A word of caution to our neighbors: no, we're not abusing our child. He's choosing to tantrum. We're choosing to ignore him while he does. This too shall pass.
• Halloween costume has been chosen for Ben. I'm way excited! It's simple and easy but should be very cute.
• Birthday theme has been chosen! Now I just have to decide who I want to invite, how many of those invitees might come and where I want to try to host it.
• I'm nearly done with the scrap swap project I've been working on. I have the lettering to do on 4 more pages and I'm done. As proud as I am of my pages, I know I'm going to feel very insecure about them when compared to every one else's. I hate that about myself.
• I'm not loving 2011. I've gone from thinking "it can't get any worse" to "what will happen next?" - I'm hoping 2012 is much better. My mom can't die again... so I have that going for me...
• I'm anxious to get back to normal and start participating in my mommy groups. So many lovely women to get to know and new friends for Ben to make - we can't do that from home.
• I started Ben in a new tumbling class - I enrolled him in Tumble Time instead of Little Gym. I'm not sure how we feel... well, okay, I feel like a cheater. I feel like I'm cheating on Little Gym with Tumble Time. I miss the instructors and the familiarity. I don't think Ben cares either way. We'll stick it out the semester, but we may switch back.
• Nick's only been at his job a week (and missed two days because of me and my dang gallbladder...) but seems to really be enjoying it. Being home all day without him isn't as hard as I thought (especially since so far Nick's been coming home for lunch). He should be assigned to an actual project soon and that will eat up more of his time.
• I think that's it! I feel like I've been out of touch with reality for ages, but it's only been 4 days :)