i'm really frustrated with my lack of consistency, about anything. i get all worked up about something, do it for a few days, or weeks, or whatever... then i fizzle out. this is a weird example, but it's what made me think of it just now... i'm looking at our tarantula terrarium. we have a rose-haired tarantula named helga. a few months ago, while at the pet store buying some crickets for her, i found out from the spider expert at my local petsmart that we were adding crickets to the terrarium way too infrequently, and not keeping the habitat moist enough. that was why, spider man said, helga seemed to never move about, or finish off the crickets we were giving her once a month. tarantulas rely on moisture for energy, so by not spraying her habitat with water every day to keep it all rainforestey for her, we were basically starving her! she didn't have the energy to go after the crickets, and they would end up dying in the terrarium. spider man said she should be eating four large crickets a week, not four a month. i felt horrible, and went directly home to spray her little habitat and feed her new prey. so, my point is, i had this revelation months ago, and i have been so bad about keeping her terrarium moist and populated with crickets since then. i was really good about it for a couple of weeks. why can't i maintain any sort of steady rhythm, routine? it's the same with housework, eating healthy, etc. i feel all over the place, not on track. it's disconcerting.


well, i have to share a sweet rowan story now. rowan loves his daddy's belt. josh only has one, a brown leather one with a silver buckle. it is rowan's favorite toy. he plays with the buckle, drags it around behind him like a puppy, wraps it around table legs and his own legs. anytime josh's waist is within reach, like when he's lying on the couch or the bed or the floor, rowan makes a bee line for his belt and tugs at the buckle and fusses until josh takes it off and hands it to him. then he proceeds to play happily with it for hours.

this whole thing makes josh deliriously, almost tearfully happy. growing up, josh had quite a different feeling about his daddy's belt. and to see his son gleefully unafraid of it, not even knowing what it would be like to feel a fear like that about your own father... and to know that rowan will never know that fear... it's really beautiful.