I've been writing and reading a lot more recently. Started a novel(?), novella(?), short story(?). Something like that. I've decided to write without looking back.

With the screenplays I wrote (or tried to), I would look back. I would edit. I would edit and edit and edit until I cut a 150 page document down to 8. Maybe I should call that hacking and not editing.

Maybe I need therapy around things I try to create and then tear down. I'm only half joking.

So with this little ditty I'm doing now, I've made an effort to write without looking back. Write from beginning to end, in a line, no looking back.

So far so good, since I'm still in a tremendously long Act I. Writing set-up has always been easy. I think it is for most writers. It's getting a plot and thickening it that kills the lot.

Well, it's been nice talking about myself. Time to take Evan to therapy.

The writing's on the walls at Nordstrom. As I assisted Evan down a set of escalators today, greeting me at the bottom was a sign that said something like, "At Nordstrom we wait until after Thanksgiving to deck the halls."

Hooray and whatever.

Who's their audience on this one? Consumers? I think we could care less when they put up the shiny shit.

Actually. I take that back. Prior to reading that sign and while I was shopping on the inside of the store, I thought to myself, "I can't wait for holiday shopping. That's when stores get in the really good stuff. That's when I go nuts buying winter clothes."

Maybe they're trying to rub it in the face of other department stores: we respect our customers and don't cajole them through our enormous sliding glass doors with glitter and sparkles like You Guys do.

I would probably respect their maneuver a lot more if it came to me via third party, like through a news outlet.

Apparently the annual waiting-until-the-day-after-Thanksgiving to decorate is a 100 year old tradition at Nordstrom, and I think it's great. Wonderful to have traditions and keep them up every year. But isn't the point of traditions that they are just that -- traditional -- expected. It seems strange that you'd have to announce a 100 year old tradition.

Oh, I forgot to mention. This year -- can you believe it? -- we're going to eat turkey on Thanksgiving! That's right, kids. Turkey.

It took...

~ one extraordinary contractor (thank you, L., for allowing your husband to work late at my place super late on a Friday night!) who got a crash course in hanging wallpaper thanks to me and who did a bang-up job painting and putting up curtain rods

~ one super special queen of babysitting babysitters to entertain my volitile children and assist me in putting together the heaviest bed ever (there was one point where I was concerned that one or both of us would be crushed like grapes in a foot-stomping barrel)

~ two cans of metallic paint (one silver, one bronze) for me to paint a poor, old dresser and turn it into Something

~ a fancy, silver credit card that oh, so wonderfully did its job, but will cause me incessant grief come the next billing cycle (and no, Jonathan didn't win any money in Las Vegas where he was this weekend)

A couple of things. The nightstands are actually supposed to be mounted on the wall. Wallpaper takes a week to cure, so I won't be able to hang the nightstands until next weekend.

Also, the bed's color isn't really the greatest. Hey, you get what you get at Ikea. At least it wasn't some wacky tonal hot pink and red deal. Maybe one day Bemz can help me out.

Last, I need to get my wedding photos developed and put a picture in the frame. Yes, you heard me right. I have not picked out my wedding photos yet.

So there you have it. From an anniversary present (last June!) that started out as some black-out drapes for the windows to a full-on transformation. Jonathan was indeed surprised. He loved it.

Let's just say I picked up a used dresser for 65 bucks that looked like it came straight out of the early nineties. Cream colored wood with curvy brass drawer pulls. When I'm done with my two quarts of paint and lots of elbow grease, I'll have a piece of furniture that will have zoomed into the 21st century. Just you wait. Photos to come.

Happy 3rd Birthday, T-Bone!

(And thanks photographer Auntie Cynthia!)

Tyler got Simpsonized and has the mug to show for it!

The ol' stacking hat trick while your brother opens presents...

You know you've had a good bash when a ball seems just the right object on which to rest your head.

"To infinity and beyond!"

Will I ever get a good picture of Tyler? These are seriously the best shots that I have from his birthday. Auntie Cynthia?

Here's the before:

Since we moved in this house, we've done nothing with our bedroom. In case the broken dining chair-turned nightstand or bare-bottomed bed didn't speak for itself. Too bad I didn't grab that camera angle that shows off the outdoor patio furniture that Jonathan uses as his nightstand.

I will refrain from revealing what's on the docket for this room in the coming days, just in case Jonathan reads this blog. (He generally doesn't, but the one time...)

The other side of the room is equally abysmal:

My plans for the weekend are to focus on the bed-half of the room. The fireplace-half will only get a bit of a primp. Our pocketbook won't allow for what I want to do with the fireplace yet (note tile laying on bottom left corner of fireplace).

But for now, big things are in the works!

Jonathan said in school he was "tier 2 popular." He coined the term, as far as I know.

I said I thought I was probably Tier 2 Popular too. And then he went to my high school reunion a few years back. "Honey," he said, "I hate to break it to you, but I could tell that you weren't even close to popular, let alone tier 2." So I guess I over-estimated myself.

The reason I wasn't Tier 2 Popular or even on the popular specturm was because I didn't come up with cool phrases like Tier 2 Popular.

How do I know that Evan will surpass tier 2 popularity in school one day? Because he makes up cool phrases like Tier 2 Popular:

The boy calls his shoes... treads.

And he says it all cool like there's nothing to it. "Hey, mom, can I take off my treads?"

Old skool = kicks. Evan skool = treads.

Treads.

Jonathan will be out of town this week for a few days, and I'm putting together a surprise for him while he is gone.

Part of his surprise led me to Ikea. I told both him and Evan that I was going there this afternoon.

Evan: What is Ikea?

Jonathan: A furniture store.

Evan (to me): Don't buy too much furniture or you'll run out of money.

I looked at Jonathan as though he set Evan up to say it. But he looked just as floored as I did that Evan was able to put two and two together. I guess that neuropsych exam wasn't wrong about Evan having excellent analytical skillz.

So anyway, part of Jonathan's surprise has to do with Ikea. And sweet mess of tootsie pops, they pack things so compact and heavy there, that I had elicit help from Jonathan when I got home.

Jonathan: What is all this stuff?

I tried to unpack as much of it as I could so he'd only have to carry in the super big, heavy pieces. But I'm married to a smart man. I'm sure he knows what it is.

Christina: A surprise for you so stop asking.

His spirit didn't lift the way mine would have if he were putting together a surprise for me. He rolled his eyes just a little bit, and I could see his Inside Voice going, "Oh great. What is she up to this time?"

Surprises from me make him fluttery with anticipation...but not in a good way! ;)

I've bled out my nose today. It's dry in the house. I accidentally pricked two fingers while sewing today and my fingers bled too.

My body's okay bleeding everywhere else but where it counts right now.

In major PMS-mode, today I have consumed: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, three sausage patties, two individual size bags of cheetos, corn niblets, broccoli with cheese sauce, tons of nacho chips, a bowl of granola cereal, a coke, three glasses of milk, half a pan of Stouffer's lasagna, and a cup of International Foods french vanilla coffee. Oh yeah, and a bowl of chocolate fudge brownie with extra chocolate swirl and chocolately chocolate chip ice cream. And several glasses of water.

My stomach is a veritable amusement park of junk food right now.

Anytime Aunt Flo wants to pay that monthly visit, this chick is bloated and ready to go.

Which reminds me. At the hospital after giving birth to Tyler, those super major blood clots were coming out. Shocked at how absolutely big these things were, I asked one of the nurses if it was okay to have blood clots the size of catalopes.

I asked this question in front of an important man in my life, who I will not name to protect his reputation. This particular man seemed quite worried about me. After the nurse left (it was fine), he asked, "Is the blood coming out of where you go pee or where you go poo?"

Ummmm??? How about where I just had an entire person rip out of me?

Men.

I've been absent here lately. Starting to feel bad for not having pictures up from Tyler's Tuesday birthday yet.

So cute, he was getting mixed up about the word present and president since both things were happening that day. He now says that Barack Obama is his birthday president.

We've been working with Tyler more and more on his behavior and he's getting better. Lordy, that kid got away with murder around here, mostly because I was spending so much time paying attention to Evan.

Tyler's been my "special friend" this morning, sitting on the kitchen floor and watching me clean. After a few minutes he realized that watching me unload the dishwasher is not a great thrill and promised to keep his body to himself. (He has been trying to wrestle with Evan.)

In the past, I've made my kids apologize to each other if they did something untword. Now, they not only have to apologize to one another, but also to me for not following directions. I sense that Tyler hates apologizing to me, and it's helped curtail his behavior.

He's done a great job of trying to walk in the house instead of run everywhere. The kid really is so cute as he cruises around on tip-toes -- definitely not running, but not quite walking either. I'm sure his "behavior problems" stem from my thinking how cute he is instead of laying down the gauntlet.

In other news, yesterday we received the verbal results from Evan's neuropsych evaluation.

He scored at least at the 5 1/2 year old level on all the cognitive tests, and on the analytical ones scored at the 7 year old level. Remember, he's 4. She said that he's the kind of kid that would do awesome on an SAT. His cognitive issue is that while he knows what to do with information once he gets it, actually getting the information is really tough for him. He is so distracted and inattentive that it is difficult for him.

On the social/emotional tests, he scored very, very low. Very low. To the point that the neuropsychologist is concerned that he hasn't developed a sense of self -- something that most children develop by about 1 year old. While it was a low score, from my vantage point (I was there when Evan took that part of the test), he just refused to answer her questions. But, I suppose, that says something about his ability to take a test.

To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed about it because something about the way it was presented to us didn't seem objective. It was as though they were taking what they could from the test to justify why they kicked Evan out of school. It is now the school's opinion that Evan doesn't need emotional services, but to be in an academic environment where he can learn, since analysis and processing is one of his great strengths.

I think it's kind of a cop-out to say he doesn't need emotional services. They are the premiere provider of this type of service in Chicago and possibly even in the nation. But they couldn't help him. And I think they wanted to feel better about themselves. It was only two months ago, remember, that they wanted to escalate him to residential care in a facility for emotionally disturbed children. In hindsight, this seemed like a cop-out to me too. "If we can't handle him, certainly, he needs more intensive services."

I haven't been writing much around here or reading much online elsewhere, mostly because I've started going to bed super early. I also haven't been too inspired.

But there is a huge surprise for Jonathan I've been cooking up. I plan on Downloading about that a lot in the next week or two. But I don't want to let the cat out of the bag quite yet...

Testing post by e-mail function

I e-mailed two posts to this blog over the last 24 hours, and they are nowhere to be seen. Hmm...

Maybe it's because I'm bi-racial too, but I am having serious issues with calling Barack Obama the nation's first Black president. He is just as much America's 44th White president if you want to get technical about things. Sheesh!

We may be opening up to the African American race in this nation, but there is still a long way to go.

As I drove past the intersection of Armitage and Western this morning, a silver Mercedes coupe coming in my direction passed through the light and pulled to the side.

A female passenger from the front seat exited the car and walked toward an unkempt blind man trying to cross the street. It looked as though she introduced herself to him. When the light was in their favor, she helped him across the street.

Then she hopped back in the Mercedes and they took off.

That tiny gesture butressed my faith in humanity today.

As two responsible parents, we've decided that I'm not going to be part of the riff raff at Grant Park on Tuesday evening (hopefully) in celebration of Senator Barack Obama's bid for the presidency.

Apparently, three of Jonathan's female co-workers were in Grant Park to celebrate Independence Day, and were literally yards away from a shooting that happened there.

Considering the nature of this potential victory, Jonathan's concerned about safety and security. He thinks I should stay home and view it from the privacy of my own living room.

This kind of feels like the turn of the Millennium. Remember that? All those scare tactics -- that our electronic world was going to crumble when computers read the date "00" to mean 1900 and not 2000.

I recall immediately rushing to the toilet to make sure that it indeed flushed. People were worried about flushing toilets. A potentially dreadful evening ended up to be rather fun.

Our mayor here has made it clear that he wished from the beginning that Barack held his event indoors at the United Center, which is miles away from downtown. The mayor is not interested in his estimated million people who will flood our downtown streets -- too much commotion.

Too much potential for history to repeat itself. Remember, we're the city where there were race riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Hey, now that I think about it, how cool would that be for Chicago to host the election night rally for the first president of mixed African American heritage -- without violence? It was on these grounds that we solidified the racial divide in our nation, and forty years later, on the same grounds, that we unite ourselves without regard for color of skin.

Don't everybody get all giddy about the prospect. Quite unforunately, our city has had more violent deaths this year than any other city in America. In fact, more people have been killed in the city of Chicago this year than killed in the Iraq war this year.

But back to the mayor, I'm sure he hasn't had a full night's sleep since he granted Barack access to Grant Park for the rally. He's called the U.S. Coast Guard to patrol our lake; he's told the cops that no one gets a day off; he's hired all sorts of private security agencies. The peeps who run Lollapalooza in our city each year have been called to help plan this event too.

Our mayor's got a lot at stake -- and not just for Tuesday night's rally.

Chicago is still in the running in our bid for the 2016 Olympics -- the year Barack Obama would step down from his presidency if he were elected for two terms. (Bookending his career as president with two historical events like these seems quite nice symmetry, no?) If we can't handle our own presidential election rally here without incident, how would we be able to handle the world?

All eyes -- the nation's and the world's -- will be on Chicago on Tuesday evening, especially if Barack Obama wins. Apparently, I will be one of the millions of eyes to watch it via electronic imaging and not in person, even though the opportunity to smell history in person is right under my nose.

I'm too much of a goody two-shoes to sneak out! But man, I'll be itchy to do it.

1. Started the morning with a ginormous temper tantrum from Evan, who was having trouble peeing. I don't know if it was the meds or what, but he couldn't get his pee out even though he wanted to. I felt bad until he started looking to destroy our bathroom. Then I just got pissed. Not a good start.

2. Went to a family therapy meeting with Jonathan and Tyler. Evan stayed with Auntie Cynthia so that Jonathan could express how ginormously pissed off he is at Evan's former school. I tried to stay out of it as much as possible -- Switzerland, so to speak.

Tyler started doing play therapy around all the mad feelings, pretending that the fisher price people were (literally) in a meeting and very angry. "Stop it!" They would say to each other.

Just when I thought I was clear of any missives Jonathan was slinging at our family therapist, both he and she at some point tried roping me in to corroborate their points. Jeez.

3. Evan has been severely stuttering the past two days. Both his babysitter and my sister mentioned it to me. I witnessed it myself and it is more than troubling. He can't seem to get his words out of his mouth.

At his counseling session today and now as he is playing, he is rubbing the backs of his hands against a surface. He did this when he was having bad reactions to one of the other meds we tried earlier this year.

Just now he has starting having some foam around his upper lip.

He has started taking Depakote as of Sunday, and I am linking these. This is really the only thing that has changed. Looks like this medication isn't going to work for him. I hate the whole medicine trial and error thang.

4. Tyler -- my sweet, baby, Tyler -- has become obnoxious, hyper Tyler at school. His teacher has been telling me for the past week that he has been "hyper" in class. And today she threw down the gauntlet. "You need to do something at home about him." I was completely thrown aside, considering how well he did at camps this summer. The difference was I went to camp with him and camp was in the morning.

She did throw out the possibility that maybe he is tired. And I agree. He doesn't get sleep now the way he used to because of the school schedule.

I'm going to try to find her phone number -- she gives out her home number! Can you believe it? -- and call her this weekend. I want to find out exactly what "hyper" means. (Because I'm sure my clinical understanding of hyper is not the same as hers.)

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Sure could use some alcohol right about now.