Wide awake at 3 a.m.

It's one of those unfortunate nights when my brain clicked on at 2:15 and wouldn't shut down. I tried tossing and turning for an hour and then gave in and got up. The benefits of this are that I do get to take advantage of the very rare quiet time in my house without the fear that I will be interrupted after just a few minutes, and that I am awake on a night when I am not feeling super tired. I know that I am not good at updating my blog as much as I would like, so I feel like I have so much to say but I don't want to make it overly long, so I thought I would just list a few things that I wanted to record.

• Matt is looking super skinny these days. He is down 80 lbs. in a year and a half, and last week started running. He is doing the couch to 5K deal and is really getting into running. I am so proud of him!
• I am feeling really jealous of Matt because he is doing so well and my knee and back are hurting so much that I am not able to work out at all. I have only lost 4 lbs. since my knee surgery in October, and I am feeling very frustrated. Grrrrrr.
• Meredith is reading so much these days, I am really impressed with everything she is learning in school. She is also being very sweet and helpful most of the time, and I breathe a sigh of relief that we seem to be entering a new phase with her.
• Meredith was the "queen bee" at school this week, she got to bring in a few things that are special to her, and we made a poster board of her favorite things and some pictures of her. She loved getting it together with me, and after an hour of working on it together, she turned to me and told me thank you for doing this with her and that she loves it when we get to spend time just the two of us.
• Yesterday when Meredith came home from school she called me Mrs. Gregg. I know that kids sometimes slip up and call their teachers mommy, but I had never heard anyone do the reverse!
• Nathan is so much fun (most of the time) right now. He does a hundred little things every day that I wish I could show everyone because I think he's so much fun to watch! It's not even something that I can describe, because it would take so long to describe everything he is doing. He says "fun" all the time now, he wants to "see! See!" out the windows everything he hears outside. He gets this little glint in his eyes and turns his head to the side and glances at me to see if I am watching him, then cracks up when I look at him. He adores trucks and construction, and has recently started watching Bob the Builder, and thinks it should be on 24 hours a day. (He doesn't want to watch it most of the time, just wants it on.)
• The other day Cooper was crawling towards the cars Nathan had dumped out. Nathan saw him coming and frantically started putting the cars up on the bricks in front of the fireplace. You could tell that he was doing it to protect them from the incoming baby, and he looked really proud of himself for figuring it out. Cooper stopped crawling and looked at Nathan. Nathan finished putting them out of reach and started talking to Cooper. Coop started crawling again and pulled up on the bricks and reaching for the cars, and Nathan looked panicked! He said "No no baby! No no!" and tried to hand Cooper one of the baby toys. It cracked me up!
• I have officially started moving away from watching Cooper and into teaching Gymboree more. Kelli is going to find another place for Cooper and I am going to teach 2 days a week. Mondays will be fun because the kids get to come with me and hang out in the art room for the nursery. I will also teach on Wednesdays, and I just found out that Nathan got into the Mother's Day Out program I wanted for him, so he will go there on Wednesdays. I think it will be a positive change all around, and I will get more time to focus on my kids when I am with them. I am really looking forward to it, and I love the idea of only working 10 hours a week and making as much as I am watching Cooper for 50 hours a week!

Well, that's my "shortened" version of Donovan life these days. Believe it or not, I could have gone on longer! It's now 4:30 and I think I will be able to catch a couple more hours of sleep before starting the Wednesday routine. Good night!