Smorgasblog Redux

Because it's Friday, and why not...?

Ok here are today's little smorgasbord of blogmorsels, a wee tapas bar of underdeveloped, yet possibly tasty thoughts.

Yesterday, pushed beyond endurance by a spate of overly chummy emails from Yahoo touting their new and improved content aggregation service, I finally sat down and figured out what RSS and XML and Atom and syndication in general were all about. Basically, this means I figured out how to get probably 75% of the blogs I read on a regular basis to all stream to one place: my Yahoo! page. Very cool. (And if you Blogger folks set up syndication on your blogs I could get them too. It's easy, I'll show you how. C'mon, the first one's free. Heh. But no pressure.) Course I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the Live Journal blogs I read to show up on my Yahoo! page, but that's ok...at least they aggregate there. Anyway, now I feel kinda proud of myself for being all relatively hip and techy (I'm sure if I just lay down for a few minutes, the feeling will pass and I'll be back to normal).

Parenting challenges pop up at the weirdest times. You have to always be on alert for those pesky teachable moments. Last night it was right before bed, with Eli asking "what lives in our blood?", which gave me the chance to slip in a little anatomy lesson ("Our blood is inside our bodies." "Oh, in our skeletons?" "No, the blood is in our muscles, which are on top of our skeletons.") This morning it was while flossing my teeth in the bathroom, watched carefully by Eli and peppered with a hundred questions (as I often am in the mornings these days...I'm beginning to understand more fully that common mama fantasy of wanting to lock the bathroom door behind me and put a sign on the outside of the door that says "private time, do not disturb"). He decided that he wanted to floss too. Great, a chance to really help him learn good dental hygiene! So I went through the whole floss routine with him (not that we did a good job, but intent is 80% of the battle). Then later it was time for a lesson in friendship and bossing other people around while discussing why his friends maybe didn't want to play pirate dressup over and over for hours with him at daycare yesterday. Then it was yet another reinforcement of the lesson about eating the breakfast you've requested before a request for something different is honored. Then another rerun of the ever-popular "clean up what you take out" lesson when I found he'd completely emptied his bookshelf all over the floor of his room in his search for his Peter Pan book (because we simply *had* to establish whether or not Captain Hook wore a red shirt *and* red pants, and were his boots black or brown?) Sheesh, I tell you, it's nonstop. At least I'm not worried anymore that he'll learn everything there is to learn in school/daycare while he's not around us--seems we have plenty of opportunities to teach him as well.

Ok, I have finally admitted to myself that the holiday season is now officially Just Around The Corner. I have to start gearing up for the super hardcore NASA program of logisticking everything from potluck dishes to party deco/planning to making that list and checking it twice (not to mention gathering and wrapping nearly everything on it). Whee! I do enjoy this kind of logisticking for the most part, but I can sense overwhelm lurking in its cave, waiting for a particularly distracted moment on my part so it can pop out and chomp me.

Speaking of overwhelm, I went to go see the neurologist yesterday. Good news: no, I don't have a brain tumor. Bad news: yes, I appear to have classic migraines, which are being triggered a lot right now by the fun hormonal cocktail of pregnancy, but also by the fact that my neck and shoulders are wound up tight like some sort of demonic rubber band balls. Her recommendation, aside from "take drugs, including caffeine, when you need 'em", was to get a massage once a week. Shyeah. Wouldn't that be awesome? I would LOVE to do that. I've always loved massage and the way it helps me. But even barring financial considerations, there's no way I'd have the precious spare time to do that. But I am going to try to be more conscious again about preventatively taking care of myself, whether that means getting massages, going to an extra yoga class, taking a bath (yes! I *will* use all those lovely bath products from LUSH that I keep hoarding for I don't know when), using a heating pad, doing some stretches in the mornings, whatever it takes. I have to keep reminding myself of the Oxygen Mask Theory of Parenting (e.g. take care of yourself first so that you can then take care of your family).

Ok I'm out of morsels for now. I guess that was more of a snack then a real smorgasbord, but ah well. There's always tomorrow.