I don’t think a single high school swimmer wasn’t mentally measuring the flip turn, feeling the perfectly calculated execution in the water swirling past tired leg muscles.

I don’t think a single kid with ADHD wasn’t reeling on a medal stand, slapping his buddies on the back at the success of something beyond a world he wasn’t good at.

I don’t think a single mother wasn’t sitting in the stands, watching her son climb out of a swimming pool with 14 Olympic gold medals around his neck.

I don’t think a single American wasn’t standing with hand over heart, coursing with honor as our country’s flag soared.

Congratulations, Michael Phelps. You are everything we knew you’d be.

It must be the dog days for sure. Life seems worn down and dull. Everything feels like it’s happened before and we’re just playing through the motions as usual. The Olympics have been a welcome spark of life… but soon they’ll be over, and it won’t be September yet. I guess we’ll just keep on keepin on. But I am leaning toward autumn so hard I think the railing might break.

I’ve done some spending… in the way of fun stuff (new fall clothing) and the way of less-fun stuff (new tires for the car). Thus begins my favorite season of shopping - fall and holidays - although my bank account doesn’t care much for it.

Andrew might be crawling within the next few weeks. That will be pretty crazy, but he can already maneuver to get wherever he wants to go, so it’ll just be a little faster. He gets into baby mischief (found him chewing a doorstop, loves to pull out our DVDs) and screeches a lot. I’m waiting for the day when consonant sounds replace the screeching. We’re working on “ma” and “da” but he’s a champion at ignoring what other people want him to do and doing the complete opposite. He waves sometimes, but rarely performs on command. Just enough to drive his mother insane!

How about that…. two references to the same band in the last couple post titles.

It may be 08/08/08 (and the Olympics are starting - hooray!) but yesterday was a more important day for us. It was a year ago on August 7, 2007 that we found out Andrew was a boy. It was very exciting and totally shocking because I had THE strongest intuition that it was girl. We hadn’t even talked about boy names yet. Afterward, we went out and picked up some outfits for Andrew, the first clothing we ever bought for him. So yesterday we decided to celebrate by doing the same thing. I’ve decided that every year on August 7, I will buy him some new clothes. Always a good excuse to shop! By the way, shopping is the BEST consequence of having a growing kid who needs new clothes every season. Heh.

We also went out to lunch, the three of us. Andrew decided to kick off his next year of boydom by sitting in a shopping cart for the first time AND sitting in a restaurant high chair for the first time, all in one day. Our server wasn’t that great, and we found ourselves waiting a lot, so we entertained Andrew by putting small pieces of shredded lettuce on the table and letting him try to pick them up. It’s neat to watch him figuring things out. I also keep looking to identify a hand preference. He always reaches for things first with his left hand, but he employs his right hand when he needs a finer control. It’s pretty cute.

I hope everybody has a good 888. Because eight is the luckiest number that you’ll ever dooooo…..

It struck me yesterday as I was cheerfully writing out procedure steps on a PO here at work. I am a paperwork nerd. I am an office dork.

Observe: I love writing checks (I only write checks to two places on a regular basis anymore), sending/receiving mail, filling out forms, shuffling paperwork (inboxes, outboxes, red fish, blue fish), keeping spreadsheets, making forms for OTHER people to fill out, post-it notes, anything involving sitting at a desk and writing with a good pen, typing, my “from the desk of” notepad, file folders, making lists, and just generally getting things done while being organized.

When I was little, I used to drag out my typewriter and prop a book (any book) up next to me, and just start typing out the pages, exactly as they were printed. And if that doesn’t put the icing on the cake, it might at least help explain why I type so fast.

If you were wondering why I’m not a secretary, well. I DON’T love phones or talking on them or being near them. (This is where I couldn’t be a celebrity, either. Ha.)

I really love my job, but more than coworkers and boss and clients and the things I get to learn and do on a daily basis…. I just like working. I really missed it while I was on maternity leave. And I’m really glad we have a good schedule at the moment. (I’m gonna go ahead and knock on wood right now, because apparently I haven’t been doing that enough and many of my statements and/or blog posts have been necessarily retracted shortly after they left the brain.)

If you’ve ever found yourself adjusting everything on your desk to be in perpendicular lines and angles… you might be an Organizational Geek. I’ve heard.

Last night I was a little bit weepy with nostalgia. Andrew is at a very fun and smiley age right now (I use the word “fun” lightly - still not sure whether an infant can actually be fun) and the difficulty of his newborn days has always been too fresh in my mind for me to truly miss those days. But of course, as time moves forward and plays its mind tricks, I’m starting to remember with fondness some of my favorite moments about Andrew being so tiny.

Last night, it started when I found some football on TV. I asked Andrew if he liked football, and reminded him that he watched the Super Bowl with us when he was a tiny fry. Toward the end of the Super Bowl, Andrew and I had reclined on our couch and taken a nap. Then I recalled our afternoon naps together. I would pick up Andrew and we’d curl up in the recliner downstairs with a snuggly blanket over us. He would doze on my chest and I would fall asleep to his breathing and heartbeat. Andrew has never been really cuddly, so those times were precious to me, and at the time I remember specifically thinking how it wouldn’t be much longer that he would sleep like that. So as I was thinking about it last night, I was just crying and crying. K said he was sure that when Andrew was older and had a bad dream, he’d still want to come sleep with Mommy. That comforted me a little bit. Sweet husband.

So yeah, it’s crazy that Andrew’s rolling everywhere and trying to crawl and getting into STUFF now. He has a deliberate silly-grin face and a deliberate drama-cry, and it cracks him up to play This Little Piggy (especially when the piggies go to the grocery store, and the park, and Wild Waters, and another piggy eats all-beef hot dogs, and pizza, and noodles). And even though he screeches as loud as he can when he’s bored or wants some attention, I adore this un-baby KID. I also remember when he was so brand new and quiet and still. When he was three days old and could hold eye contact with me for as long as I could look at him, and the depth of those dark blue eyes took my breath away. He may not have had much personality, but he was MY tiny baby.

It’s funny how many different “people” a son can be, as his mommy watches him grow.

Lately it seems there has been a lot of discussion in my world about natural and homebirthing. That’s probably why I had a strange dream last night. In the dream, I was giving birth to another baby, but everything was amiss. When I arrived at the hospital I was already 8 cm dilated (woohoo - I wish!) but after that initial check, we never saw another nurse. They were all too busy elsewhere to come back and check on me. I ended up delivering with no assistance, and I sat and held the baby while I waited for somebody to come and help me. The husband was running around, trying to find help, but we just kept waiting. There was no doctor, and in the end they put the wrong middle name on the birth certificate, too. Everything was indicating a careless, hurried, impersonal hospital birthing environment. I was fairly disturbed about it when I woke up. I kind of wish I had it in me to seriously consider a more “natural” birthing experience if we had another baby. It also makes me feel like there are better choices out there that I’m not making. Just another aspect of mother questioning and guilt, I suppose.

It’s been the very longest week. At the end of last week, K had a spinal tap and bloodwork done, and he saw the neurologist today. It was mostly along the lines of “not enough news is good news.” His spinal tap wasn’t completely clear, but there wasn’t enough to be considered abnormal. Just like everything else we’ve encountered, no questions are answered, no decisions are made. The neurologist still suspects that he might have the beginnings of MS, but there’s just not enough to diagnose anything right now. I told K tonight that everything involved in this has been “sort of”. He sort of had all the symptoms of neuritis. His MRI’s have been sort of okay. The spinal tap was sort of normal. We could go another month before something new shows up, or it could be years. He might never have enough markers to diagnose MS, or he might have enough in a couple months. It sounds maddening, but actually it’s just enough to make me more appreciative of health in our daily lives. It’s something that healthy people become complacent about, no matter how much you try to avoid that. Having some perspective is always a good thing. Anyway, I really appreciate all of the continuing thoughts and prayers.

And now I’m off to have a little drink and play some WoW. K’s computer decided to have a crisis this week, so he’s spent several days running diagnostic tests, reinstalling Windows and getting everything straightened out. I think it’s back in action for the time being, and we haven’t played WoW together for a while.

Looks like I am headed to the east coast again in October for my company’s fall client conference. I’m going to Baltimore! Yet another city I’ve never visited. (I’ve been close, however - I think our hotel was in Maryland when I went to D.C.) I’m looking forward to it, although I don’t think I will have much free time. We normally do the trade show for a couple days, then our own conference for a couple days. This time, there will be an extra day in between the two, which makes for a very long trip. I couldn’t commit to a week away from home, so I’m flying out just for the conference part. It will be nice to see a new place this year, since our spring conference was here at “home”. And I haven’t been on an airplane at all this year - how unusual! - though right now I’m glad we haven’t had to worry about flights being canceled and such.

So… some long-distance travel on the horizon. Always fun and crazy.

Summer is a strange animal. At the end of June, I feel surprised that we’ve already hit the longest day of the year. At that time, it feels like summer is just getting underway. And just a month later, I’m already leaning toward fall and wondering where the summer went? My coworker and I were talking about it this morning. She swims outdoors every morning before work, and she mentioned that sunrise is happening later and later every day, and it’s getting noticeably cooler in the morning already. She and I are both fans of fall and winter, so our eyes were sparkling. For the rest of the day, I’ve been thinking about fall. In case you didn’t know, I LOVE LOVE LOVE September. It’s my Other Favorite month (after December). I am a “fall person” to no end. And today I’ve had that delicious autumn twinge.

Happily, I’m not completely exhausted with summer yet. I’m still watering my flowers pretty faithfully, when usually by this time I’ve just about given up on keeping them green. (The snapdragons aren’t flowering any more - that’s long gone.) I still like to take Andrew outside in the evenings, and on the weekends we go out and play in his little pool. He’s learned how to splash, which is a very important skill. Overall, he’s such a good-natured baby. Quiet, but pleasant. In the past month, he’s really changed and lost a LOT of his babyness. He’s turning into a “busy” kid now, always wanting to move and look and interact with the things around him.

In retrospect, July has sped by pretty quickly! I’m a little surprised that it’s going to be August this week. But now… we’re that much closer to September.

Andrew has a new second cousin. Jacob Ryan was born on July 22 at 9:47 pm, weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. He looks like such a precious little boy. A big congratulations to his sweet parents, our cousin Becca and her husband Ryan. We are very excited for them!

I keep trying to think of an analogy or a way to describe my life is right now, but nothing quite nails it. In case you haven’t noticed, I like to categorize things. I like when life fits neatly into boxes. Unfortunately that’s not always the case, so instead I just keep swimming straight ahead, every now and then lifting my head to take gulping breaths. I KNOW the oxygen is right there above me, and I KNOW the pool wall exists ahead of me. I just can’t see either of them right now. (There’s my analogy. Ha.) Things are up and down and exhausting and lovely and endless, all at the same time.

I’m riding merry-go-rounds about so many things. Some days (or weeks, or hours, or even moments) I feel like a total idiot for being so obsessive about breastfeeding. Not a day goes by where I don’t think at least once that I should just wean him completely and stop worrying about it. It’s SO MUCH WORK. It really is my entire life right now. And that can be so ridiculous. But then another moment will come when a cool breeze of perspective passes over me, and I think, Why am I so upset about it? It’s awesome that I’m still able to give him breastmilk on a daily basis. Why stop that now? It’s NOT all or nothing. I can do both breastmilk and formula indefinitely. (I don’t know if that’s true, but these cool breezes often are kind of exaggerated. They just make me feel a lot better.)

I like the daily grind. I love routine. But I also need to break out a bit. It’s just hard when I’m tied to the house… either with the small fry or the pump. The summer heat has been kind of oppressive. We go out for walks after K gets home from work in the evening. It’s too hot, but it breaks my rut a little bit. One of my favorite parts of summer is being outside in the early evening. It’s always enjoyable to stand in the yard for a few minutes and water the flowers. I just never really make time for it. So going outside for a bit every night helps me get my head above the water.