Things to do in 2 minutes

Now that I have a few more productive months to use for tying all loose ends and complete all unfinished business, I thought of things I could do in little time slots. When I am in the middle of something important and get a couple of minutes of spare time, or between 2 tasks on my daily schedule and can't start the next one right away, or playing with Dr. Chill and he does not want me to interfere for a few minutes - the feeling of having time and not filling it with anything productive makes me panic. It will probably get even worse once I have 2 kids and my schedule will be broken down to bits and pieces, and I will never get a chance to get to the bottom of my daily to-do list on time :)

So, to begin with, 2 minutes would buy me an opportunity to:

1. Wash sinks and counter top in my bathroom.
2. Squeeze out carrot and apple juice for 4 (not counting time for washing and peeling fruit and veggies: it will probably take another 5 minutes).
3. Vacuum the main entrance area. OR Vacuum the laundry room area. OR vacuum the kitchen area. 
4. Unload the dishwasher (with reasonable amount of dishes and utensils)
5. Load /unload washer. OR Load /unload dryer.
6. Make and serve a snack for a toddler. OR heat up and serve lunch/dinner for a toddler.
7. Make a bottle of milk with probiotic for a toddler. 
8. Fully dress up.
9. Brush my teeth.
10. Wash my face and brush my hair. AND pull the hair into a ponytail or a hair clip if needed (alright, that's how my time in bathroom build up...)
11. Briefly dust each of the bedrooms, the office, the dining, music and living rooms.
12. Review daily agenda, make changes, cross out completed items.
13. Check each email box.
14. Type a brief email from phone or ipad.
15. Stock up diapers for Dr. Chill in his bedroom.
16. Make a cup of coffee AND while the espresso machine is warming up and working - either a sandwich, a bowl of cereal or a bowl of cottage cheese for breakfast. 
17. Pack up full lunch for me (given the main course was put in a container the night before).
18. Wipe all the counter tops in the kitchen.
19. Organize my closet.
20. Pick up and put away toys, books and clothes in Dr. Chill's room.
21. Go over daily mail received (given it's already been picked up from the mail box)
22. Pack up the gym backpack. OR - the work & study backpack.
23. Clean up and organize the laundry room: hang the jackets into the closet, put the shoes on the shoe shelf and wipe those that need it, take away bags, backpacks, toys, mail, parcels, and any other random items that are piling up here. 
24. Fill up 2 glasses with water OR (maybe AND) 1 kettle with water. 
25. Fill up a pitcher with water and while it's filling up - cut and throw in  slices of lemon (1/2 lemon).
26. Set up the oven for 400 degrees and put in the container with mix for cottage cheese.
27. organize 1 pantry shelf.
28. Put away all the toys in the living area into the boxes and baskets in the play area.
29. Clean up each of the bathroom mirrors
30. Wipe the entire laptop with electronics wipes (including cleaning the keyboard).

I have very frequent thoughts on how lucky I am to be a Mother nowadays

"Very frequent" being between every other day and every single day. Yesterday though, while Dr. Chill's single-hand-ball-throwing-practice in the kitchen ended up in the attempt of serving us all a fried ball with veggies for dinner:

Literally!

I realized that in a way he is lucky to be born nowadays too, and see his Mom laugh her pants off while fetching her smartphone, taking picture of the cooking ball, and then proudly going on for the next couple of minutes about how cool and good at aiming he is. No spanking, no yelling for being to noisy, active or generally not fitting into Mom's miserable life. 

What are the chances I could have had even a vaguely similar experience of motherhood... , say, a century ago? Sometime and some place where life would have been all planned out for me from the start and if I were born with ideas of my own regarding my life (and what's worse - same personality I have today) - well, too bad for me! At least every other day I reflect and appreciate no need to change a my whole life and tuck it around my child. Several arrangements around the most important areas of my life work just fine. I also don't have to believe that my Child owes me anything: now, or when he grows up. I can just enjoy motherhood with no strings attached!

I am also extremely grateful for being able to cook different meals for my family every day, if I decide to do so :)  I can create a pretty good diet with not just red meat or poultry, but some enormous choice of fish, veggies and fruit. I feel happy when I see Dr. Chill stuffing his mouth with salmon, green beans, rabbit meat or drinking soup right from his bowl, but frankly - if the only groceries I could lay my hands on were good enough for making sandwiches, or if we had to live on potatoes,  pasta and chicken drums - his idea of eating well would have been quite different. Yep, maybe as a highly prone to allergies child grown up in the post Cold-war era :)  I still beam when I open a small plastic box of fresh raspberries to wash half a dozen for my kid. In January. 

Same thought goes to being equipped with a washer, dryer, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner and other little benefits that the past 150 years rolled on us. Real life-saviors for simplification maniacs(not pointing a finger here), who use dishwasher to wash all plastics baby items, toys, organizer containers that have been standing on parents' bath counter for too long; and who use the washing  machine for... pretty much everything else. If your toddler loves loading and unloading the washer and dishwasher, and also pushing the buttons  - it helps. 

Personal space. I'm lucky,  I'm extremely lucky to live in a house that provides a lot of clean, free, safe personal space for my son. As well as for my husband and I  - after child's bed time. The mere thought of trying to fit in 4 people in 1000 sq. ft. apartment  makes me dizzy; although this is not even the worst-case scenario, I know. When traveling, one of the priorities for us is to have a hotel room with a separate common area and a door to the bedroom.

I am not even mentioning all baby gadgets, diapers, toys, learning apps - this deserves a separate full size posting to refer to later :) 

Pregnancy, baby delivery, postpartum recovery. I suspect if it wasn't for epidural during my first delivery, I would have very likely ended up with a c-section. Comparing the level and amount of prenatal medical attention I got the first time with that provided in other parts of the world is not something I would make a point of here; I just felt greatly at ease to have the opportunity to receive intensive medical care - should I have needed it. And I felt lucky enough to never have needed that intensive medical care. 

What I was able to do - and did - for myself during pregnancy requires another separate post :) Again, something tells me access to sports, body cosmetics, prenatal massage, vitamins - are quite a recent privilege :)

Just as the whole experience of having and raising a child without the feeling of being in the surviving-of-the-fittest race followed by the feeling that misery and suffering is what all real women ought to go through is. Which is something I sincerely congratulate myself with for the past 18 months now.

Still under the impression after the weekend-y call to parents,

I chopped down almost the entire backyard. Everything that's dry was cut down to about an inch, everything that had spread like a weed got a nice creative cut down to almost bare trunks, and if only I could start the chainsaw - our backyard would have soon looked like a desert with two greenhouses and a sandbox in the middle. 

The rest of the weekend went by in a much more peaceful way though. Our Saturday date night with Von Zobel (God bless smart younger sisters!) proved that I can still somehow fit in a nice combo plate of Mediterranean food AND top it with a desert worth 2 full pieces of baklava (also - to be too lazy to fish out all pieces of bell pepper from my salad and freak out over some mild stomach seizures in the middle of the night :) ).

 

Benefited from the free entrance day in Botanic Garden, moving around with a bunch of friends (ours and Dr. Chill's :)). We gotten the taste of getting professional pictures taken in beautiful places and have been taking Sis and her camera around for 2 weeks now (God bless smart and creative young sisters!). Dr. Chill is absolutely  great at modeling, and getting around crowded public places with him while Dr. Chill Jr is kicking inside makes me feel that being a Mom of 2 very active toddlers will not be too bad as long as those two do move in the same direction and with the same speed. If they do have opposite opinions on where they should run simultaneously... I'll probably consider volunteering for live human cloning with one of the British science universities...

Speaking about getting cloned: in order to get the Audit class credit ASAP, I can take the class in University A in Maymester or in Summer, which are both in-person classes. Or I can wait until Fall and take a class online in University B. I'd personally prefer going through University A's schedule and getting it over with, and I already got their approval to take the class; but: the Maymester end date is 5 days before my due date. The Summer start date is 1 day before my due date. University B's approval process is still up in the air, and the commitment would be for the whole Fall semester, but the online class looks like a more realistic option now... Hm, brain, what do we chose? 

Oh, and I really need to start memorizing and accessing the memory more efficiently!

And how do I start with sharing my own experience and developing my own material?

And remember how to group accounts in Engagement correctly?

Come on, brain, don't shut down on me! :)

Oh, and now I know that a super cool email from a prenatal yoga center on Sunday night should read:

"We're cancelling tomorrow's class: your instructor gave birth today!" :)

Life with 2 backpacks and a lunchbox.

I leave home every morning with 2 backpacks: red,  with my laptop, agenda and all the lehrstoff bundled together, and green - with a change of clothes and shoes (to change into after elliptical workout, yoga or swimming), completely stuffed shower bag (I don't understand how all these things fit in, and I swear I use them all!),  swim suit (for Wednesdays) and a shabby and scratched all the way red MP3 player (I suspect the manufacturer's information provided on it was a shameless lie:  it WAS actually made in Switzerland, and now this  9 year old, AAA battery powered freaking dinosaur will outlive me and my grandchildren).

There is also a lunch bag with an 8 hour supply of food that goes into the car, a bottle of water with lemon and a thermo mug with rooibos. If the day has started right, I should have already has some breakfast and my 1 legal cup of coffee. So far I've been very good about it.

It took me less than a week to change the settings on how I need to run my day, so that now I still get the necessary work/study time. A few little changes I notice now are:

1. I spend less time running the errands, doing grocery shopping or ordering items for home.
2. I write down every single minor to-do thing in my agenda, even reminders and day menus, and sometimes - short grocery shopping list.
3. This helps me to keep my mind clear at all times, and focus on reading, doing analysis, research, writing, being on the phone. 
4. And help develop new ideas and thoughts, Which, again, I then need to write down in my agenda - not to spend any of my RAM on it. I do like the way this cycle works.
5. I sleep less, but function well so far.
6. I start getting the sense of pressure and emergency thinking that I only have a few more productive months ahead of me. And then daily routine will need to be reg-established to stay on top of things. Again.
7. A friend of mine shared her experience with getting a professional license was to study 12-14 hours a day non-stop, not leaving her study area. Another connaissance said she could complete all studies and obtain the actual license all during her pregnancy. I know my situation is unlike anybody else's, but it's still very tempting to speed up and double the efforts... Why on Earth not try...
8. The German language does calm down my mind and spirit. I've long joked that Rammstein is my best meditation and fall-asleep music; now I realize that jokes aside, - there is something reasonable to it.
9. Changed my library location for ordering and picking up books. 

Days got longer, warmer and sunnier. Not my accomplishment by any means, but helps staying active and after a long hard winter feels just like having the weather and nature back on my side :) 

Watching and giggling

Finally could start to watch the 3rd season of the House of Cards (American version) - very entertaining. Kudos to the movie crew for bringing in the real Pussy Riot, I was surprised to find out it was actually them! Not sure the girls were invited to star in any similar projects in Russia after they were released.  Kudos to Lars Mikkelsen for picking up Russian and putting on some Russian accent for his role, I assume that couldn't have been easy :).
My only two questions on the dinner at the White House scene were:

1. Why would the Pussy Riot bother to make a provocative toast in the language very few of the present would understand? Why not speak out in English - if you really want to shame off your president in front of everyone?

2.  Even with all the Cold-war era and post-Cold-war era stereotypical behaviour the Russian president demonstrated - teaching the American president how to drink vodka, how to chase it with pickles, singing Russian folk songs and hitting on the first lady - is still too  shallow and superficial. Why wouldn't he bring in his pet bear? :) Or show his hosts and other guests at the dinner how to have a shot of vodka AND eat the shot glass after that? :) Or pull everyone into a paint ball shooting or fishing contest right after the dinner? :)  There seems to be no growth  in the outrageousness and insanity of the Russians - as perceived by the West - within the past couple of decades... very disappointing :)

Meanwhile... (couldn't resist)

                                                     (taken from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31901078)

Less is more.

Over and over again, my personal experience proves that the less useless stuff, time consuming and non rewarding activities and negative people I have in life - the more of all the opposite actually fits in :).

I am ready to believe that any type of clean up in just one area of life alters the energy flow on a very major scale, and creates a domino effect on attracting new things, people, knowledge and situations in other areas. It is especially interesting to watch new people enter your life and new situations being created out of thin air. 

On a scientific level - I can rationalize having only that much space to fill in, and then filling it up with something necessary and fit for my life. Once something does not fit my life anymore - space needs to be created before new opportunities, habits and events can take their place. What I find fascinating though is how much more value those new things bring - if we don't just look at the space, time or energy they consume (and it is obvious it costs us all time, energy or space to own anything) ), but also at what we get back - emotionally, financially, for the sake of health. 

Less is more. It is the simplest formula of instant life re-organization and improvement I've discovered over the years. So simple in fact, I smile wide every time I see it has just worked again without me even realizing it. 

I had a feeling there would be something crazy about this week

when I found myself dancing at Bistro Al Vino around midnight on Saturday, shocking the clubbers around with the mere looks of my 3-rd trimester belly (at least I think this time it was the looks of belly at the dancefloor that widened the eyes of those around).

In the next 4 days I managed to cover the Litigation section of REG (to those who find themselves having an urge to do the same - don't even attempt!); survive the last week of Dr. Chill's daycare; take a Friday exam and while running errands all day after that - to get a huge screw in my rear tyre and to actually discover I have one - by the hissing sound I heard while unloading my truck. Some things just need to happen 1.5 hours before you need to pick up your kid from the daycare, and on the day when you need to also get ALL his things out of there, so you DO need the car! Thank God, miracles do still happen to me :) and the car shop across the road from the daycare fixed the hole in less than an hour!

Next day I assembled Dr. Chill's new furniture in his new room. Never again! - the skin on the palms is rubbed and hurts like crazy. I was lucky to get help from Dr. Chill though - he does an amazing job putting the screws in the proper wholes, bringing and holding parts and pieces. And once he got a hold of the screwdriver - he immediately personalized his table by punching a dozen of holes in his brand new table top, before I could reach out and take away the screwdriver. What a sweet cutie, aaaargh...

Sunday, after brunch with friends - the annual pregnancy and baby-wear swap took place. Now there are a few minor things to get, and I'm ready for enhancement of my motherhood experience :)

Little project of the week  - Dr. Chill allowed to brush his teeth every single day of this week. Another little victory, given his gums are full of bumps, and the teeth are not showing yet!..

On a larger - scale - in the month of February -  the trip to the 2nd new place to visit this year has been booked.  The date of the month has been arranged, but not taken care of, for health reasons. Still counts though :) 

5 new books read in February. Plans for the on-going education modified slightly. Plans for the education for the side-project - are moving forward. 

I wonder now, how do you take an international trip with a 4-5 month old baby and a 2 year old toddler? Say, to even Canada? And how do you find time to study for 3 different areas all at once? And what comes first in my side project - education or experience? :)