Sleeping in the Closet

Clinton recently began sleeping in the closet on Saturdays and Sundays, which has really increased the quality of my weekends. He used to sleep in our bedroom (like the average human being), but it was difficult on both of us: For him because he struggles to sleep with daylight streaming in through the windows (even with the blinds shut), and for me because it has been nearly impossible to "get ready" in the mornings without disturbing his sleep. So he decided to move a mattress into our inordinately large walk-in closet ("inordinate" only because the master bedroom it is attached to is ridiculously puny) and try sleeping in there. Now he has a nice dark atmosphere to sleep in, and I can walk in and out of our bedroom during the mornings and get ready without disturbing him. It's working out pretty good so far, although I'll admit it was a bit strange telling the kids yesterday that "Daddy is asleep in the closet."

Yesterday was pleasant. In the morning I went to Target to go birthday shopping for my niece Cassidi, who just turned twelve, and for little Austin (Matt and Alana's son) who was turning four. I texted Sarah to see if she wanted to meet up with me, and she just happened to be in town with the kids, so we met at Target. I got through all of my shopping in about 15 minutes, so we decided to meet at the McD's across the street for lunch. I beat Sarah there and was waiting for what seemed like an eternity for her, and just when I started to feel little prickles of concern, she walked through the door looking somewhat bedraggled. It turns out that when she was backing out of the Target parking lot, her and another woman backed out at the same time and ran right into each other. I feel so awful for her...she's the type of person who can walk through a rose storm and come out smelling like crap (okay, I may have twisted that expression a bit). Once we were settled down with lunch, we dived into our usual long deep conversations. At one point she confessed to me a lie that she had told. She was so worried that I would be mad at her (even though the lie in question was never directed toward me, but to another party), but I actually felt quite the opposite--it took a lot of courage for her to divulge what she did and I only view her as refreshingly human.
After lunch, I went home, wrapped some presents (and by "wrapped" I mean "threw in bags"), and headed toward Matt and Alana's house for the birthday party. The party was a very relaxed backyard get-together.  They had a bounce house for the kids, and a pinata, which of course the kids loved (and now, with Halloween's loot, we have a mountain of candy so enormous that we will probably be handing it out to trick-or-treaters next year). Once it was dark, we talked around the fire-pit outside for a little while.  After once again visiting with Matt and Alana, I have determined that Matt was born in the wrong time period. He belongs in an era where he can be some sort of freedom-fighting renegade, going through underground channels with a bunch of others rebels to fight for justice.

Today I went to church by myself, which I didn't care for because this is only my third time at this particular church (we changed churches recently), and so a lot of people don't recognize the "newcomer" yet and were a little on the over-friendly side. The times I went with Clint, people reacted more normally with us, but for some reason, when I was by myself this morning, they had this false warmth about them. I know that makes no sense, but that was just my perception. The service was really good though, so overall I'm glad I didn't flake out.

This week I have completely neglected Moses because I had a lot of after-work responsibilities that ate up my whole week. I finally was able to take him on a walk this afternoon and he is back to dragging me on his leash. Arghhh. He also gulped down a slinky right when I let him into the house. Didn't even hesitate. I hate to think how that's going to look coming out the other side later.

Language Arts Night on Wednesday went great.  I had so many more parents then I imagined, and for a few nerve-wracking minutes I thought that I wouldn't have enough supplies, but I wound up with plenty. I decided to do the flipbooks and corresponding PowerPoint with my own students this week, just because they came out really cute and are great little tools for teaching parts of speech.