Wasn't I just waxing nostalgic about how I miss the helpless baby days, but saying how great it is now that the kids can do lots of things themselves? I think I was. Which is tantamount to holding a sign up to the universe and inviting it to please come show me the error of my ways, preferably in the most humbling way possible. Ah, yes. There is nothing that says PRECARIOUS CUSP BETWEEN BABYHOOD AND SELFDOM like the tween years, and nothing that says WELCOME TO PURGATORY like that tween with a new pair of contact lenses. You do remember that Chickadee was all jazzed to try contacts, right?...
Watching CNN yesterday, I felt simultaneously utterly insignificant AND an integral part of something bigger and more important than I can possibly comprehend. The last time I felt that way was right after 9/11, and needless to say, the last time it didn't feel particularly GOOD. Yesterday felt good. So all of this other stuff, this minutiae going on in my life... I realize that it's just filler. I don't have any illusions about it. Still, it's My Stuff, and if I don't talk about it, WHO WILL? (No one, that's who. I mean, I hope. That would be kind of weird, otherwise.) All of which is a...
So, it was kind of a long week. And yesterday I had make-up lunch plans with a friend, because last week we'd had plans and then one of my children rudely spiked a fever and needed to stay home from school and I'd had to cancel. (GOD. Like that was more important than me going out to lunch, or something.) Anyway, I felt bad for having canceled last week, so when we were getting organized and she suggested going to the restaurant where the owner backed into Otto's car, I said sure. On the one hand, Otto and I haven't been there since that happened. Sort of a silent protest, if you will. On...
I'm the big meanie who insists on regular, early bedtimes, because SOME children I know tend to be EXTREMELY CRANKY when they don't get enough sleep. And I find school mornings challenging enough without having to pry people out of bed while they complain that they're far too tired to get up. It's enough to get everyone to pack up their bags and remember their lunches and change their socks (don't ask, seriously), so bedtime is sacred. Except that the last couple of weeks have pretty much sucked mightily. Certain excretory substances we won't discuss in polite company are hitting oscillating...
When I was growing up, I loved nothing so much as those cheesy after-school specials which always ended with a Very Important Lesson of one kind or another. Sometimes the lesson was that you should stay away from drugs, because drugs kill. Other times the lesson was that running away from home doesn't solve anything. And often, the lesson was that if it's hot enough out to fry an egg on the sidewalk, it's also hot enough to fry your dog's brain. Oh, wait. That was just a commercial. Whatever. You get the idea. Similarly, whenever I did something boneheaded as a child, I always looked forward...
I'm completely out of sorts. It's not just that I got so sick, and then recovered just in time to catch some sort of sinus thing, instead, although I'm sure none of that helps. And it's not just that we've now been away for over a week, and I'm learning that in my old age a week is about my limit before I start itching for my own space. It's not even the various and sundry family drahhhhhmaaaahhhs going on, or the fact that I've seen my poor husband going through a level of stress this past week that I've never seen before, not even when his mom was in the ICU this summer and we didn't think...
We're back in New England. Give me a minute to express my great joy and excitement. ... Okay, I'm done. Look, it's not that I'm not loving hanging out with the relatives we haven't seen in so long---the kids ran off with their cousins, and for several blissful hours we adults sat and enjoyed ourselves while a thundering herd of elephants ran to and fro. Periodically the calm was interrupted by a child complaining about another child---always a sibling complaining about the other sibling, never a child ratting out a cousin, at least---but for the most part, it was bliss. But the weather, man....
Today I have been a mother for 3,898 days. Most of those days have been awesome. (Or repressed. Either way.) In 3,898 days I've not had a child break a bone. In 3,898 days I've not had to watch a child be wheeled off into surgery. In 3,898 days I have not stood, shaking with rage, over the remains of a treasured antique vase shattered by childish exuberance. (Dude. I have children. If I'd ever owned a treasured antique vase, it'd be long since given away, by now.) In 3,898 days I have made countless mistakes, and the children have vexed me in multitudes of ways, and things have been ruined,...
Some people want big-screen TVs, or fancy vacations, or other extravagances for every birthday or other gift-giving occasion. My husband is not one of them. In fact, although I tease my husband about his various dreaming about things like old cars and air compressors, the things Otto likes most are usually very simple pleasures. Like weird little day trips. So when Otto's birthday rolled around a few weeks ago, we made plans to go somewhere he really wanted to visit, and then we had to postpone it for various reasons, and yesterday we finally made our pilgrimage. To the World Of Coke. Yes,...
