How it all began...

For some reason, I feel compelled to write about how Paul and I met. Most people know the story (or stories!), but I want to have something in writing in case this blog still exists in 50 years and I'm old and decrepit and don't remember anything then. This could get long...you've been warned. Here it goes.

Paul and I met probably close to 20 years ago for the first time. We had a mutual friend, Michelle (someone I went to college with, but I don't remember how he and Michelle met). Michelle took me to a dragon boat race on the Fox River to participate with Paul and a gaggle of his co-workers. I remember thinking he was so cute, and probably the nicest guy I'd met in a long time. I don't remember much about the race though, nor about anything else going on at that time.

At some point, maybe days later, I tagged along with Michelle to a bar in St. Charles where we met a big group of friends she hung out with, Paul being among them. The bar was a confetti bar, and the floor was covered in about 3-5 inches of little paper confettis, as if someone sat for years with a hole punch and a lot of paper. My recollection of events leading up to going to the bar are sketchy, but I do remember being there and flirting shamelessly with Paul. He didn't seem all that interested, though that didn't stop me from trying.

At one point, I remember standing in a circle of the friends we were with, next to Paul (to his left). He was holding a cup of beer, and I stood with a handful of confetti. I held it high above his head and let the confetti dribble down the back of his shirt. All of a sudden, he took that beer and flung his hand back, letting go of the beer down the front of my shirt. Now, he says that I was getting confetti in his shirt and that he warned me to stop (I vaguely remember the warning, but CLEARLY remember the beer). I stood there stunned, and Michelle grabbed me and ran us both out the door. I remember walking to her car and saying over and over, "Holy crap, he just dumped a beer on me!"

What followed was about 2 years of avoidance from both of us. Michelle would call and invite me to stuff, and my first question was always, "Will Paul be there?" If he was, I wasn't, and vice versa. It wasn't until about '97 or '98 when Michelle's parents threw themselves a housewarming party. We both found out the other was going to be there, and I relented and let myself be talked into going. At the party, he came up and apologized for what he'd done, and I immediately forgave him. He was so damned nice that I couldn't NOT forgive him. We talked and I told him about living in Japan. He mentioned going to visit a friend in Hong Kong and asked if he could stop in Tokyo on the way for a few days. I thought it was a great idea so we planned it.

Paul came to Japan in February, 1999. He stayed for 3-4 days, and I played tour guide around the city. We even spent the night in Sakai, the town where I lived, and he even went with me to taiko practice while he was there. It was the most fun I'd had there, and I fell head over heels for him, however I had been told (by Michelle) that he had started dating a girl a few weeks before coming to Asia. I knew this while he was there so I had to keep the flirting to a minimum. Hard to do when you're sleeping in the next room (or the same room as we did at the ryokan in Tokyo). After he left, I sent him a letter and told him how much I enjoyed his visit, and said that if he ever found himself single again to contact me. I think there may have been a few emails after that, but then I didn't hear from him again...

...until 2003. Michelle's cancer had relapsed (several times), and we saw each other for the first time (since '99) in September of '03 at a fundraiser for Michelle. We said hi and made small talk, but it was a little uncomfortable. I really hadn't thought of him much in those years before. For the next few months, we would pass each other in the hospital hallways on occasion while visiting Michelle, and I think he was at a sleepover she had one night with her friends (he's always been "one of the girls!").

In late January 2004, I got an email from him early one week (a Tues?), asking if I'd be free to go to a musical that Saturday. He had tickets to a matinée in the city and no one to go with. I had nothing going on so I went. And I went with absolutely NO expectations. I mean, I'd already struck out twice and I certainly wasn't going to go for strike 3. I went, and we had a great time. It was in the early afternoon and we went out to dinner afterwards (I was suppose to pay, per my suggestion, but had forgotten my credit card!). Then he took me home to my condo where we spent the next 7 (or so) hours talking. And talking. And talking and talking and talking. We were exhausted by 3am but he left after that, and I think he called me every single night after that for months. We would talk and have fun and do stuff together, but it was always just as friends.

One night in May of that year, after having gone out with him for the umpteenth time as a friend, I got an itch to do something to try to move things along. I sent him an email saying I'd had a few too many to drink, and asked him outright what was going on with us. Were we a couple? Were we dating? If not, could we be? I held nothing back. Funny thing was, I was sober as a judge when writing it. I didn't hear back from him that night, nor the next day or the day after that...not even our usual call. I was TERRIFIED that I'd ruined things, and I wrote back to him and apologized, and asked him to please not take it seriously. I heard nothing for about a week when one afternoon, I was leaving my condo to go to a hair appointment. I stepped out the door and saw Paul walking up the sidewalk outside my building. I was puzzled because it was in the 4 o'clock hour, and he normally didn't get off work until 5 or later. He walked up to me holding a bag, and we both stopped in front of each other. I was scared to death, but he looked and me and said, "I think we should date." That was it. He brought me Chinese food to celebrate the moment (which had to wait because I had an appt I had to keep, and he had to leave to go bowling that night). I hugged him, and he left the food in my fridge for later. It was one of the sweetest moments I can remember! I had never been so happy in my life.

That was the beginning to a lovely ride!

Letters

Jackson has a new addiction in his life: LETTERS. He's discovered the alphabet and he loves it! I bought him an alphabet puzzle about a month ago. It's take some time but he's learned where all the letters are, and he can say most of them (though I don't think he understands that there's an actual order to them). He's also been watching a LeapFrog video he got for Christmas called The Letter Factory (it's about letters and the sounds they make). This has been a GREAT teaching tool for him! He can't quite say all the letters yet, but he can identify them and say the sounds for most. If we're wearing shirts that have wording on them, he takes so much time pointing to each letter, prompting us to say the letter for him (though lately we've been able to ask him what it is and he'll say it). It's been really fascinating watching this all progress! Kind of weird that he still can't really talk, but he's obsessed with the alphabet...

Unfortunately, he's still hitting me. I'm getting better at avoiding situations that cause him to strike out, but it's not always easy. The other day, he was swinging at me with both hands, which I grabbed to stop him, and he used his head to bash into my nose. Seriously, I'm starting to feel like an abused woman! Paul has NEVER and would never raise a hand to me, but Jackson sure has. I'm still at a loss as to how to handle it. I feel like I need to talk to someone, but I have no idea who.

Speech-wise, Jackson's slowly adding new words to his vocabulary. We're pretty certain he understands just about everything we say, so I'm having to really work at curbing my potty mouth. Yeesh. He doesn't quite understand opposites yet (like hot/cold, light/dark, up/down), though he does understand most of those words. He can say if something's hot, but if it's cold, he still doesn't know the word for that. He'll say dark when the lights go off, and he knows what a light is, but doesn't really understand the concept of those 2 being opposites. I know this is something that happens later though.

We have a few quiet weekends coming up. Jackson is going to a sleepover at Aunt Cake's this coming Friday, so Daddy and I are going out to dinner and a movie! A REAL DATE! That hasn't happened in a long time!

Hasta luego!

My dilemma

For the past few months, Jackson's been on a hitting spree with me. Basically, any time I do something he doesn't like, he hits me (or attempts to...sometimes, it's just him swinging his arm from across the room). It happens ALL THE TIME, no matter what I do. I could simply walk in the room and he swings. He does it when it's just the 2 of us, or when anyone else is in the room. Sometimes he makes contact, but most of the time he just swings, and I know what it's for.

My problem is, I can't figure out why he's doing this (is it something I did? or he saw?), nor what to do about it. I've read online all the tricks to dealing with this sort of thing: taking his hands, getting on his level, and telling him firmly NO (this just makes him angry and he hits more); separating him and putting him in "the naughty bed" (a portable Pack-n-Play which became a huge source of amusement for him when he realized he could take the bed apart); having him stand in the corner in a time out for 2 minutes ("Oh, look at this cool wall!"); ignoring him altogether (not even possible when he's whacking me in the face with his head). This problem didn't start yesterday, and I gave all these tricks a good shot, but none have worked and I'm at a total loss.

The worst part of it is, I'm really letting it get to me. Seriously, he's TWO and every time he swings at me, it chips away at my soul. I know how stupid that might sound, but I'm taking this VERY personally, as a sign that I've done something terribly wrong (ok...YES, I've spanked him in the past but it's rare!). He occasionally swings at Paul but it's a whole lot less frequent, and only in extreme cases (extreme for Jackson, like if Paul's taken away his favorite toy or denied him access to the toys in the man cave, his favorite play spot these days). He'll swing at me when I'm simply walking into a room. I've never seen him swing or hit any other person, but he spends most of his time with me.

Now, I'm sure I'm going to hear from a few people who call to tell me this is normal and a part of growing up and he's in his terrible two's and he's frustrated because he can't speak and blahblahblah. Maybe someone will tell me that he only does this because he loves me (yeah, I'm not so convinced). What I need is for someone to tell me what to do, to lead me in the right direction where I can make this stop for good and spend the rest of my days raising a beautiful child who loves his family and his dog. I don't even know where to look anymore.

Sorry for the depressing post. I love this boy more than my life and would do anything for him. I'm at a loss on this one though.

Start and finish

I've started a half dozen posts in the last 10 days or so, but I can't seem to finish them. Sometimes, I'm lazy and don't want to finish, or I get interrupted. I don't even know if I'll finish this entry...but I'll try.

First and foremost, Jackson is healthy!! His bout with pneumonia was short-lived, thanks to a couple antibiotics and a steroid. He cleared up right after Christmas and has been doing really well ever since. My goal is to keep him that way!

The worst part of it, in my opinion, has been his eating habits. Before he got sick, he ate really well: daily yogurt, cottage cheese, veggies, etc. During his illness, his appetite went down the tubes and he barely ate. I attributed it to him not feeling well, of course, but some nasty habits developed that we've had a very hard time changing back. No more yogurt, no peas or corn, no cottage cheese...the list goes on. He just simply refuses to eat them. I can't force feed him, so now I'm trying to change the landscape of his diet, so to speak. NOT an easy task with a 2 year old. The good news is he still doesn't like mac 'n cheese. This makes me happy.

The holidays were really nice! Christmas eve with my family was successful (the food turned out really well!), and Christmas day with Paul's family was relatively stress-free! Again, the food there was amazing, so we had a couple good meal days.

The start of 2012 was uneventful. Paul and I stayed in and had our traditional surf 'n turf meal, which was good! Played Bananagrams and got a little tipsy, and both of us were out like lights before midnight. It was a good night, and the next day we had the special treat of staying in our jammies all day and being lazy, playing with Jackson (who, oddly, was dressed in regular clothes), and eating yummy leftovers.

Now that we're back to reality, we're going to attempt some things that we've put off so far (hooking up the big TV, etc). I have my resolutions for the year: redo my office (into an office, instead of a "will it ever be a nursery??" room), be more positive, go out on more dates with Paul, and be more creative. This last one will be the most important (and hopefully) fun one for me. I want to do some canvases for Jackson's room (for the next phase, whatever that is), and other ideas I have, mostly art-related. I miss painting and would love to do something really spectacular for our family room, but I'm stalled. The Eiffel Tower's already been done by me. ☺ HAHA! Next...

Oh, look! I finished! Enjoy!