Category: Monday gratitude

What I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. My husband, and how aligned we are in how we want our lives to look. It’s really important to both of us that we make time for what matters, for joy and rest, rather than working all the time. I know so many people who are always busy with some obligation or another and never think they have time for themselves or for doing anything fun, and we both refuse to live that way. In general, I think it’s far more important for two people to have values in common than to have interests in common. We do have a lot of similar interests, but we also have interests that aren’t shared. Our values, though, are pretty in sync and I’m grateful for that. He’s a sweetie, too.

2. The zoo has brought back our favorite event, and my mom is going to watch our kid so we can go. Back before the pandemic the zoo used to have an annual wine tasting event, where they shut the door to all those annoying kids and let those over 21 stumble around drooling and crying and dropping their Cheez-its. And this year they’re bringing it back!

3. The weather seems to have really, really turned a corner. No more false spring, no more secret second winter. Even our rainy days are over 50 degrees now. We’re home free. It’ll never be cold again.

4. I have a few friends who still invite me to their parties. I almost never go. I’m almost always on kid duty, and I choose not to take him to things that would just be difficult. And if the kid’s in bed I’m exhausted and just want to sit my ass down. Everyone knows I’m not going. But a few friends invite me anyway, and that feels good.

5. I finished crocheting my sweater. It was a really ambitious project and I didn’t find it very enjoyable. On several occasions I let weeks go by without working on it. But I finally finished it, and now I’m looking forward to working on something that feels fun again. And considering the sweater was my first big crochet project, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Several strangers have stopped me on the street to compliment it, and somebody even took a picture. How fun!

What I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. I’m starting the week with food prepped, thanks to my husband taking B out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon. My week always feels less hectic when my ability to eat healthy food doesn’t depend on finding the time to cook it while my toddler cries because I’m not drawing him pictures of stingrays and manta rays and spotted eagle rays.

2. My little backyard. It’s small, but it’s big enough for a few chairs, a few things for B to play with and a little bit of space for him to run around. We basically don’t step foot out there from November through March, so when spring comes around it’s like our house suddenly gets bigger – we have one more space we can occupy without actually going anywhere.

3. The number of playgrounds we can walk to. I grew up in a very small town and there were two playgrounds – one in the “downtown” park, and one at the elementary school. We live within reasonable walking distance of at least ten. The other day I drove to a nearby house to pick up something that someone was giving away, and saw yet another playground that I hadn’t even known was there, just a mile from our house.

4. The cardigan I’ve been crocheting since September is almost finished. It has been such a slog, has felt like it would never end, that my motivation to keep working on it has been basically nonexistent. But yesterday I finished the ribbing on one of the wrists, and today I should be able to finish the other wrist. That will leave the ribbing along the bottom, the front and the neck, and it’s the same technique as the wrists so I feel like I have it figured out now. I’m starting to think maybe I can finish it before our trip at the end of the month? Possibly? It’s a nice thought, anyway. It’ll keep me picking up that treacherous hook.

5. Spring flowers. There are so many beautiful flowering trees everywhere I look right now, and tulips have finally been opening this past week. It all feels so cheerful. I know these particular flowers will be short-lived, and then it will be irises and whatever else comes next, and those will be beautiful too, but the first flowers of spring are my absolute favorite because, in Seattle, they come after a stretch of cold, wet darkness so long it feels endless. Spring flowers feel like a beautiful sigh of relief. “You made it,” cherry blossoms say. “You didn’t throw yourself in front of the train this year,” daffodils say.

Things I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. The weather is finally starting to improve. I’m sure we’ll still have some cool, rainy days, but it feels safe to say we’re done seeing the 30s. The weather this past weekend was beautiful, which was especially nice because we started potty training and were able to spend a lot of time in the back yard and at our neighborhood playground with our little training potty in tow.

2. I was able to easily re-home a bunch of stuff we no longer needed by posting them for free on our neighborhood’s family-centered Facebook group. I haven’t had much luck giving things away on my local no-buy group – it always takes several tries to find somebody who will actually show up – but this facebook group tends to be pretty reliable. I’ve turned to this facebook group a few times when I’ve wanted to find something but didn’t want to buy new, too. I got my kid’s potty seat and several of his snack and drink containers just by asking the group if anybody had some they didn’t want anymore.

3. We can lie to our kid. We don’t watch a lot of TV, but he has taken a liking to these short videos that show different kinds of animals and then say what they’re called. For the past six months they’re all he’s been willing to watch. We decided we want to shift his interest, if we can, to things with a bit more of an actual storyline – Trash Truck, Puffin Rock, Bluey, Sesame Street, Thomas and Friends, any of those. We want to keep things low-stim, so no Ms. Rachel or Cocomelon in this house. He has been very hesitant to move from the animal videos, though, so after a recent trip to the Museum of Flight where an out-of-order elevator really caught his attention, we simply told him his animal shows are out-of-order. That made complete sense to him, and it’s been weeks since we watched them.

4. We love our pediatrician. I really didn’t care for the first doctor we were assigned to, and it had started causing me SO much anxiety before appointments. Our interactions felt strangely hostile, she often gave us information that was inconsistent with information we’d received elsewhere in the clinic (from the dietician, for example), and I always left those appointments feeling like we’d been on the defensive the whole hour. We managed to switch to our current doctor about a year ago and our interactions all feel very positive. We just had B’s three-year checkup, and I really hope he stays with our clinic for a long time.

5. We happened to have Pepto-Bismol on hand when I desperately needed it yesterday. I’m on a temporary medication that can cause nausea, and was hit yesterday evening with the worst nausea I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t know it was even possible to throw up that much. I was starting to think I’d need to get myself to urgent care, but I also didn’t think it would be possible for me to leave the bathroom. Over-the-counter meds tend to expire before ever getting used up in our house, and then they don’t get replaced because we never use them, so I didn’t think we had anything I could take. My husband found some Pepto-Bismol in the downstairs bathroom, and it felt like a gift from a God I don’t even believe in. Within 20 minutes of taking it I felt much, much better. Lesson learned. We will always have Pepto on hand. Even if we have to throw out three expired bottles before anyone needs it, we will always have it.

Things I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. Starting the week with my food already prepped. Yesterday my husband took B out for about an hour and a half, and I used that time to furiously cook. It makes the whole week feel better.

2. That my kid no longer seems disastrously tired in the evening when he doesn’t nap. A couple weeks ago I included in my gratitude post that he was back to napping every day, and then he immediately stopped napping again. With a kid, all you can count on is that you can’t count on anything. Anyway, previously when he didn’t nap he was a mess by bedtime. Now he seems fine. So I guess whatever he decides to do each day is fine with me.

3. Spring flowers. It has still been frigid and often wet, but spring flowers give me hope that better weather is around the corner.

4. A few recent opportunities to hang out with grown-ups. Last Thursday, after a preschool meeting, I hung out with some of the moms until midnight. MIDNIGHT. I died the next day and I’m dead now, but it was fun. Then on Saturday my ghost went to a drag brunch for a friend’s birthday.

5. In a few short weeks we’ll be traveling to San Diego. This morning when the boy, the dog and I went for a walk it was 35 degrees and my fingers were so cold they hurt by the time we got back. It will be April in two days. THIS IS NOT OKAY. It’s really got me looking forward to our upcoming vacation.

I’m posting this on a Tuesday because our son turned three on Saturday and my husband took yesterday off to make it a three-day weekend. So basically, today is my Monday this week.

Things I’m grateful for going into this week (mostly birthday-related!):

1. For our neighborhood playground. It’s not actually private but it’s not visible from the street, so nobody knows it’s here and it’s always empty. It was the perfect location for a birthday party.

2. That the weather cooperated for our party. It’s been terribly cold, wet and windy here for weeks but the day of our party was sunny and in the high 50s. We got really lucky.

3. That we were healthy for the party. We’ve had really bad luck with illnesses whenever we make big plans, most recently our failed Friendsgiving in December when B came down with hand/foot/mouth. I was pretty nervous as this one approached, because half the kids in our co-op have been sick. We made it, though!

4. That we have a new dishwasher. Our old one has been acting up for months, and last week we scheduled the installation of a new one. The old one broke completely over the weekend, which added some difficulty to our celebrations. But how fortunate that we had already purchased a new one, and weren’t stuck without a working dishwasher for long.

5. That we have a few slow weeks coming up. This past week felt really hectic getting ready for the party. In four weeks we’re going out of town, which will be fun but will also feel a bit hectic. Between now and then, though, we can take it a little easier.

1. That our absurd mid-March snowstorm was short-lived. On Friday it began snowing around 1am and snowed for nearly 24 hours, even though absolutely nobody forecasted significant snow and everyone continued to say “no accumulation” throughout the day. We probably got about three inches of snow, which I know isn’t much by some standards, but for a completely unexpected snow in mid-March, it sure felt like a lot. It doesn’t snow much in Seattle, and this was our first (and hopefully only) snow of the year. Patches of snow stuck around throughout the day Saturday, but it was all gone by Sunday morning. And because it’s March and was never actually that cold, the roads were never icy. I just hope it hasn’t completely killed off all the spring flowers that were near to blooming.

2. That my son got a chance to play in snow this year. We usually get one real snow each year, although it’s not uncommon to get none. Given that it’s March, I didn’t think we were going to see any this year. I may be dying for Spring weather here, but it was still fun to see him get excited about snow at this age. He still won’t stop saying “remember when the doggy was covered in snow” (she had a few snowflakes on her back after our walk).

3. That I finally walked into a hair salon and walked out with a haircut I love. Last summer I decided to cut my long hair short, and I had a very clear idea of how I wanted it to turn out. I showed photos. I explained that I was looking for a lot of layers, including some very short layers about the same length as the bangs I was also getting. But for whatever reason, every stylist I’ve tried has been really hesitant to actually cut short layers. I’ve invariably wound up with triangle hair.

I’ve tried multiple salons and stylists in the neighborhood and never liked the result, and the cut I got in January was particularly disappointing. We have a salon in the neighborhood that costs next to nothing for a cut because the ladies there are REALLY fast, and a lot of people take their kids there for cuts because it’s so cheap and because, at least with young kids, quicker is better. This salon was actually the one that first cut my hair in the summer, and I went home with the aforementioned triangle. I wound up going back – something I’ve never done – and asking for it to be changed. After it was changed I felt like I had a Ronald McDonald ball of hair, but it was better than the triangle, so when we got my kid a haircut there this past weekend I decided to get mine cut too. And miracle of miracles, it turned out exactly like I wanted. I’m so happy with it.

4. That my son has consistently been napping again. In October we took the front of his crib off because he’d started trying to climb out of it, and with that newfound freedom he decided he was never napping again. We kept putting him in his room for nap-time, but he would just play for an hour, and then each evening was a struggle because he was overtired. About a month ago he inexplicably started napping again, and now naps nearly every day. It has become something we can count on and schedule around again, and that has been nice. It’s also nice that he’s getting enough sleep again. Evenings are still a struggle, but now for other reasons. 🙃

5. For this line from Pema Chodron about settling into uncertainty, which I’ve found myself reflecting on a lot: “what we call uncertainty is actually the open quality of any given moment.”

1. I got some time yesterday to do my food prep. I have some extra soup to use up this week, so I didn’t have to do quite as much – just some oatmeal, roasted broccoli and sautéed garlicy kale. It makes going into the week feel much more peaceful when my food is ready.

2. Mangos have been on sale recently. For the last few weeks Safeway has had good prices on mangos, and eating them makes me happy. They are, I believe, my favorite fruit. I think sometimes about which fruits I’d choose if I could only have five for the rest of my life, and I think I’ve settled on mangos, bananas, apples (cosmic crisp, specifically), red grapes and strawberries (frozen when fresh aren’t in season). The last one is tough, though – sometimes I lean toward a different berry. I love raspberries in my oatmeal, blueberries are so versatile, and there’s little better than the fresh blackberries that grow all over my neighborhood in the summer. Anyway, it’s important to have answers prepared for questions like that. You never know when you’ll need them.

Also, on the subject of fruit – before having a child, I always thought green grapes were the superior grape. However, having a toddler requires some flexibility with fruit and to my surprise, red grapes have emerged as the clear winner.

3. Our memberships to fun places to take B on rainy days. We are members at the aquarium, the Burke Museum and the Museum of Flight, which all offer a lot of indoor play space. We usually request these memberships for Christmas and birthdays in lieu of gifts. Our Burke membership also gets us into several other local museums, which we haven’t explored much but may soon because it’s supposed to rain all week.

4. Longer days. Enough daylight for one parent to take B to a playground while the other gets dinner ready is really a life-changing difference this time each year.

5. A healthy stretch of days. It feels risky to even acknowledge this out loud, but our house has been illness-free for about six weeks and with a toddler that feels miraculous. I know our luck will run out at some point, but sometimes when the back-to-back illnesses hit I look back and realize we weren’t sick for a while and wish I’d been aware and appreciative while we were in that healthy stretch. So, I’m aware right now that we’ve been healthy and I’m grateful. It’s wonderful to not be sick.

Here are a few things I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. That I feel fairly rested. Some weekends I feel like I spend my time chasing something I’ll never catch, and then I start my week feeling physically exhausted and also disappointed that I didn’t do better, which always feels like a moving target anyway. This past weekend, though, felt both energizing and restful and for that I’m grateful.

2. For a nice meeting with my writing group friends. Over the summer I roped a couple of my old grad school classmates into creating a writing group with me where we create a new prompt each month (ish) and we each write a short story based on that prompt. It’s always a lot of fun reading the stories and seeing how different (or sometimes similar!) they turned out. We hadn’t met since November because of the holidays, and it was fun getting back together and chatting.

3. We do yoga in the mornings now. Some rainy day last week I was trying to figure out how to keep my kid occupied indoors and I decided to try doing yoga together. I got out a mat for him and a mat for myself, put a 15-minute yoga video on the TV and he stomped gleefully on his mat the whole time. He now expects yoga every morning. He isn’t as participatory now, one week in – usually he hangs out on his mat for a minute or two before moving on to something else – but it still means I get to do yoga and that’s something I had not otherwise been able to fit into my day regularly.

4. My husband took the kid out a couple times yesterday so I could get my food prep done for the week. They went to the Museum of Flight in the morning and a brewery with a play area in the afternoon, and that got me about 3.5 solo hours for cooking. They had fun, and having all the food I need for the kid and I ready before Monday makes going into the week feel much more relaxed.

5. We had a great time at a party on Saturday night. We received the invitation just the night before from some down-the-street neighbors with a kid the same age as ours. As a person prone to social anxiety, a last-minute invitation typically makes me assume I’m not actually wanted there. But this party – a family-friendly Lunar New Year dumpling party hosted by some neighbors who have always seemed very nice – sounded too good for my anxiety to get in the way of. Their house was PACKED, but full of friendly faces and great food. We ran into several people we already knew and chatted with lots of new people. We’ve been struggling with doing this whole parenting thing alone, and are always hoping we’ll start forming relationships with other parents near us. Was this party a stepping stone to get us there? Who knows, but it was fun nonetheless.