When it's quiet enough to hear your own brain ticking...
It's Sunday afternoon. The house is so quiet I can hear the dog breathing heavily in the next room, deep in doggy slumber. The clock ticks and my keyboard tapping are the only other sounds in the house. Clear, latewinter sunshine streams in through windows that are impatient for their spring cleaning.
The older boys have gone off to pick up one last birthday gift delivered through Toys R Us, and Simon is fast asleep. For the past two days my head has been crowded with ideas to blog about, ideas large and small, serious and frivolous. And now, in the sleepy quiet of midafternoon, I can't commit to any of them. And still I itch to type, to tell, to talk to you.
There are other things I should do. If Beloved and Tristan were to walk through the door, I'd jump guiltily up and close the laptop as if caught slacking on the job. After having a house full of people yesterday, and coming nowhere close to 'company clean' before everyone arrived, you can imagine that there is some tidying to be done. But the mental cobwebs are humming louder than the crumbs in the carpet, so I will let them call the tune just now. At least until I hear the crunch of tires-on-snow in the driveway.
I give up. I wanted to be literary, but there is also stuff I want to tell you. And I know, realistically, I'll not get the chance to go back and edit this properly, so once again I'll just heave the words into cyberspace as they come to me and leave them there, unedited and raw.
I think I'm done being sad for now. I was feeling kicked around by the universe for quite a few days, but feeling sorry for myself doesn't seem to have improved the situation. The sunshine, and the warmth of my family and friends yesterday, and the joy of watching two preschoolers and a very happy dog on a hike through the woods this morning seems to have penetrated the fog of self-pity I was stewing in. (Can you stew in a fog? Never mind, I said we're not editing this.)
The thing is, when you've decided life is treating you poorly, you can always find examples to back you up. In a short 24 period on Friday I found out I flunked my French exam (I don't usually fail, so I do not deal with it well) and messed up financially in a minor but meaningful way and found out we'll likely have to invest money we don't have in a new washing machine and had my eldest son scowl at me pretty much continually for the entire time between getting home from work and going to bed and had a fight with my husband over the fact that I've been feeling sorry for myself and realized it was time for Simon to give up his bottle and had some kid hanging out with the questionable teen from next door barf all over our lawn and driveway.
It was not one of my better days.
Going in to the next day was no hell either. I absolutely could not get Simon to nap, and the only person in the world who gets more cranky when tired than me is Simon - and we were expecting a house full of people for Tristan's birthday party. I had put him down for the third, maybe fourth time in an hour when I heard the unmistakable thump of a preschooler aerial drop. I crept to the top of the stairs and listened for crying, but all was quiet. Then ever so slowly, the doorknob began to turn and with exquisite care, he opened the door and peeked out. When he saw me, he immediately began to whimper - I'm not sure if it was from fear of getting caught or remorse from the hard landing. The second exodus was less than ten minutes later, and the window-rattling thump was followed immediately by a burst of surprised and angry tears. His, not mine. He never did nap. No breakouts today, but the hike in the woods might have had something to do with that.
I feel bad. I don't have any pictures worth posting of Tristan's birthday party. That's the last of the negative thoughts though, because with the exception of the fact that I absolutely forgot to buy candles and we had to use the "1" candle left over from Simon's birthday last year on Tristan's cake (he was very understanding, all things considered) we had a lovely day celebrating Tristan's birthday.
Crunch of tires-on-snow... it's not quiet anymore. It sounds like I'm done.
The older boys have gone off to pick up one last birthday gift delivered through Toys R Us, and Simon is fast asleep. For the past two days my head has been crowded with ideas to blog about, ideas large and small, serious and frivolous. And now, in the sleepy quiet of midafternoon, I can't commit to any of them. And still I itch to type, to tell, to talk to you.
There are other things I should do. If Beloved and Tristan were to walk through the door, I'd jump guiltily up and close the laptop as if caught slacking on the job. After having a house full of people yesterday, and coming nowhere close to 'company clean' before everyone arrived, you can imagine that there is some tidying to be done. But the mental cobwebs are humming louder than the crumbs in the carpet, so I will let them call the tune just now. At least until I hear the crunch of tires-on-snow in the driveway.
I give up. I wanted to be literary, but there is also stuff I want to tell you. And I know, realistically, I'll not get the chance to go back and edit this properly, so once again I'll just heave the words into cyberspace as they come to me and leave them there, unedited and raw.
I think I'm done being sad for now. I was feeling kicked around by the universe for quite a few days, but feeling sorry for myself doesn't seem to have improved the situation. The sunshine, and the warmth of my family and friends yesterday, and the joy of watching two preschoolers and a very happy dog on a hike through the woods this morning seems to have penetrated the fog of self-pity I was stewing in. (Can you stew in a fog? Never mind, I said we're not editing this.)
The thing is, when you've decided life is treating you poorly, you can always find examples to back you up. In a short 24 period on Friday I found out I flunked my French exam (I don't usually fail, so I do not deal with it well) and messed up financially in a minor but meaningful way and found out we'll likely have to invest money we don't have in a new washing machine and had my eldest son scowl at me pretty much continually for the entire time between getting home from work and going to bed and had a fight with my husband over the fact that I've been feeling sorry for myself and realized it was time for Simon to give up his bottle and had some kid hanging out with the questionable teen from next door barf all over our lawn and driveway.
It was not one of my better days.
Going in to the next day was no hell either. I absolutely could not get Simon to nap, and the only person in the world who gets more cranky when tired than me is Simon - and we were expecting a house full of people for Tristan's birthday party. I had put him down for the third, maybe fourth time in an hour when I heard the unmistakable thump of a preschooler aerial drop. I crept to the top of the stairs and listened for crying, but all was quiet. Then ever so slowly, the doorknob began to turn and with exquisite care, he opened the door and peeked out. When he saw me, he immediately began to whimper - I'm not sure if it was from fear of getting caught or remorse from the hard landing. The second exodus was less than ten minutes later, and the window-rattling thump was followed immediately by a burst of surprised and angry tears. His, not mine. He never did nap. No breakouts today, but the hike in the woods might have had something to do with that.
I feel bad. I don't have any pictures worth posting of Tristan's birthday party. That's the last of the negative thoughts though, because with the exception of the fact that I absolutely forgot to buy candles and we had to use the "1" candle left over from Simon's birthday last year on Tristan's cake (he was very understanding, all things considered) we had a lovely day celebrating Tristan's birthday.
Crunch of tires-on-snow... it's not quiet anymore. It sounds like I'm done.
Said DaniGirl at 1:43 p.m. #
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