Erica's Eructations

We have been given an unreal gift by friends and my parents, friends gifting us a cabin for the weekend of our fifth anniversary, and my parents agreeing to take care of our kids while we go. I have not been on even a day of holiday for a year and a half, and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. That's my level of response at the idea of this weekend, just sort of mindless screaming, a combination of yearning and hope and want and fear and nervousness and jitters and panic and exhaustion. I know, if that's not a reflection of mental health, THEN WHAT IS?!?!?

Just being honest here, people, just being honest.

So, tonight I got the kids their H1N1 vaccines at a very well organized shot clinic at COSI. Tomorrow is home group, Thursday night is conference night at school, and we leave Friday around noon, so ... when am I going to pack? Oh, that's right, NOW! I should be packing. But I'm so tired I'm power yawning and I am literally finding it interesting to sit here on the couch and watch my husband kill the undead in his current favorite video game. That is sad. I really need to pack.

Then there's organizing the food. Do I want to bake my own bread for our weekend away? If so, that dough needs to me made tonight, as well as room in the fridge to store it. And what about organizing a shopping list, or making sure the menu works? Oy. The getting of things done. I'm exhausted more just thinking about it.

And then, we get to be away from our kids for the first time ... ever! We have never been away from two kids! THAT'S AWESOME! I'M TOTALLY TERRIFIED! Will they be ok? What if they miss me? What if they're sad? What if they NEED THEIR MOMMY, their evil, awful, horrible Mommy who leaves them LEAVES THEM every stinkin' day to go to work, abandoning them to who knows what (the tender care of their loving father, perhaps?) and then just goes away for the weekend leaving them with barely trusted strangers (my own, adoring, able, uber-parents, Pappy and Jojo, who can out-parent me any day of the week and twice on Saturdays? with back up support from Amy and Greg, the adoring aunt and uncle who could likely juggle my kids, their kids, and everybody else's kids without blinking an eye? Is that who you're leaving them with, Erica?) HOW CAN I EVEN CONSIDER SUCH A THING?
Oh, God, I can't wait.
I'm the worst parent in the world to do this.

So, basically, there you are, I'm an exhausted, irrational mess who is not getting anything done but may wind up having a very nice weekend anyways.

My glasses just broke again. The nose rester oner thingy just snapped off. Stupid glasses.

I'm cold. Why am I always cold? I am turning into my mother. Also, I need new slippers. Winterfair, here we come!

I will be in my thirties for just one more day, and then after tomorrow, I will be one of "those people," the people who seem so mysterious and odd and slightly out of touch, those people who are "forty and over." Don't look at me like that. You know you look at them that way. In two days, I will be one of them. I think I'll fit in just fine.

To celebrate my mother gave me a pair of her favorite pants, and as she knew they would, they have become my favorite pants too, and now I never want to wear any other pants. However, I only have on pair, so it could get sulky and awkward around here.

I have failed to get a babysitter for my family birthday dinner on Saturday night and I feel stupid about it. That's probably my biggest fail. That's what's making me feel like a failure. I'm almost 40 and I still don't know how to schedule a sitter in time to be taken out for a really nice meal. Probably I won't be able to find anyone and I'll have to stay home while my whole family goes out to a fancy restaurant to celebrate my sister being in town. It will serve me right for being a super doofous.

Today I made an adult friend cry, but I really didn't mean to. It occurs to me, though, that maybe all the parents and students who are not in my class and have never been in my class have something right when they whisper frantically behind my back how I am the meanest teacher in the school and very scary and to be avoided at all costs. I was trying to make things better! I was trying to make the adult friend and the students more successful! Cue tears of despair. I don't know, but I feel foolish and awkward.

(HA! Husband just read off the dinner plan for tomorrow, and it's all left overs, his left overs, and all on him. SCORE!)

Mostly at my job I feel like it's impossible for me to make anyone happy with what I do and that I am constantly found wanting. I'm assuming this is true of everyone, and I know I'm not unique, but I'm sort of really feeling it today, especially with all the conflict and struggle over this unit matching up with that enrichment activity and totally rearranging all my lesson plans in a frantic, disorganized way for much of the morning as I desperately tried to figure out how we got so behind and how we are possibly going to get those stories written for the play by next Friday they HAVE TO BE DONE BY NEXT FRIDAY!

I'm glad I'm not an NFL referee. That looks like a dangerous job. You're the only fool out there in dress pants with no pads or helmet. Looks scary to me.

Aaaannndddd, that's all I have to say about that. Or any of that.

Last night I was asleep by 8:55, topping the night before by a whopping 25 minutes. Whoot whoot! Go me.

Home group pot luck tonight, followed by a little "engaging suffering" activity seems to have been a bit of an antidote, it's 9:49 and I'm still awake!

The weather this week is due to be lovely. I rode my bike twice so far and I think I'll do it again tomorrow. I really like riding my bike. I need to remember that at 6:00 on cold mornings. I really do like riding my bike.

I think that now I'll go to sleep. Staying awake is hard.

I must not be, because I'm dehydrated at night, dehydrated enough that my body gets desperate and launches into night mares in order to get me out of bed and go drink 24 ounces or something.

Last night I was fixing the plumbing (now the bathroom sink is stopped up. Why does my plumbing hate me? Because I am a negligent home owner, that's why.) in my dream, which was sort of like a nightmare, but with a pleasant surprise, it wasn't that hard! And then I had to go to Brian and I'm all, "So, what do you think we should do?" and he's all "silent, morose, we have to make a big decision I don't like thinking about so I'm going to be all non-communicative with you" (not that he does this THAT often. I told you this was a night mare. Hi, Honey.) and I'm all (get ready for it) "Well, if I don't take that job offer I got in Yemen, then we'll never be able to work overseas again. I just don't know why I went to the job fair if we didn't want to go overseas, but now that I have the job and we need to leave in six weeks, we need to decide either to get organized to do that or give up international education forever."

!
?
You can see why a husband would go all interior on that sentence, and clearly, dream-incarnation-of-husband already knew what I was going to say, and he didn't want to talk about it. Neither did I, I mean, WHY did I go get some job in Yemen if we wanted to stay here (which we do). And now what were we going to do? How were we going to sell the house in six weeks? Or should we rent? Could I convince Andy and Amanda to move down two doors and live in our place instead of in Terry's? Is it illegal to make your neighbor's tenants break their lease to become your tenants? And what were my parents? my boss? my KIDS going to say?

Needless to say, I woke up because UGH! Who wants to be dreaming that? I'm still upset.
Then I was awake for three hours, so I got up and worked more on The Report Cards That Will Not Die. Then I went back to sleep sort of and sort of slept with kind of disturbing dreams that left me somewhat awake but mostly disoriented and functioning on only the lowest of levels. Then we had a team arguement from other rooms with Emma who wanted to wear "fancy" clothes to pre-school where there is paint and dirt, her arguement being that she "wasn't going to jump around" at school, and our arguement being, "tough, we're not arguing about it, and if you don't stop cooking that little temper fit you're working on, then you'll be going back to bed in 5, 4, 3, 2 ..."

So, all this to say, I need some hope that today isn't going to suck, because right now, I've been at work for over half an hour, finished the Report Cards of Death, and I feel like my thoughts are moving through molasses and I wish I'd called in sick, except, WHO WOULD HAVE WRITTEN MY LESSON PLANS?
suck.

Hi, my name is Erica, and I am thirty-nine, fifty-one weeks, one day old. This did not prevent me from celebrating my birthday early, however, with one of the best parties I've ever been to.

Sure, it was a party for me, which made it extra awesome for me to attend, but still.
AWESOME!
I wanted a party where I could invite anyone I wanted to, which was going to require more space than my wee home allowed. I also wanted a party where I didn't have the kids waiting upstairs to sabotage my enjoyment of it by waking up wailing or being super finicky about going to bed or whatever. They actually seldom do this, but they LOVE having people over, and they HATE missing out on stuff, so I didn't really want to run the risk. I wanted to have a party with wine and cheese and awesome bread and my cake that I love so much.

And that's what I had.
We managed to reserve and rent the Wild Goose Space which gave me all the out-of-my-home-room that I could ask for. I felt absolute freedom to invite anyone I wanted, and I did, although I definitely failed to invite some people just through sheer disorganization and forgetfulness. We had wine and cheese and I made good bread and created 4 or 5 cheese trays to scatter about on tables, dripping with chocolate and grapes and home made candied pecans. My sister got all the paper goods and my Mom brought other beverages and candles and flowers and my friend Ariel made my cake and my husband made a nice music mix AND brought the wii so people could play that and my party? Was awesome. It was candle light and conversation and good food and wine and fun and comfortable and lovely lovely lovely. It was way better than I imagined it would be and confirmed for me that this has serious potential to be a great decade.

After all, I have everything I want.
I have Jesus.
I have a loving husband.
I have two incredible children.
I have wonderful family.
I have a great church.
I have awesome friends.
I have super community.
I have a job that I love.
I have a house that I love, even if it is a bit small.
I have (most of) my health.
I have a car AND a bike that I truly enjoy.

I have it all!
I am the richest person in the world. I have everything I want, and I have time to enjoy it, pray God.
I am overwhelmed by goodness.

-I keep yawning super hard and stretching my mouth too wide open.

-My feet are cold and I need new slippers. I need to remember to tell Mom. She gets them for me every few years and Winter Fair. I NEED new ones.

-My report card comments are not all word processed even though I tried. I just couldn't focus and concentrate much tonight even though I wanted to. Now I can't have my birthday party without the stupid things hanging over my head, but I'm too tired to go on. ah, well.

-I'm worried that no one will come to my birthday party tomorrow.

-I've had the most incredible two days of professional development at the yearly independent schools conference which, thank God, happened here this year. I'm so grateful because I got to see 10 really great speakers and not have to travel for it. I just have too much to process now, and it's totally clogging my brain.

-Now that we have a wii, Brian is back into playing video games. They come and go in spurts around here. After everything I heard about the harm video games can cause over the past two days, I'm feeling pretty skeptical, especially from that one speaker who talked about how certain games are designed to actually trigger dopamine addiction by altering the blink cycle of the player. That pretty much freaked. me. OUT.

That's it. I'm still yawning too much. I'm going to go soak my feet in hot water to heat them up and then go to bed.

Three friends posted last night!
I am SO HAPPY!
YAY FOR POSTING!

I love Indian food, but I don't make it much because I'm not that good at it AND I think I sort of got turned off on it during pregnancy.

Yesterday my husband tried dal for the first time in his life, and wow. Did he nail it or what? He SLAMMED that recipe, SERIOUSLY!

Tonight he met me at the North Market for dinner and we had Indian food again, chana masala and palak paneer with rice for me, and can I just say "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" once again? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Who knew I would ever love spinach and chick peas this much? I never would have. I was so picky as a kid.

Tonight I made the spicy baked chicken spice rub from our Indian Cookbook (Madhur Jaffrey is a very good woman, and I love her. From afar.) and rubbed it into a whole bunch of chicken wings. I added lots of mushrooms, and they're all going to marinate all night until my husband bakes them for me tomorrow. Then he'll make me rice and heat up that dal, and when I get home tomorrow I'll add peas to that rice until they heat up, and then? I will have my third Indian dinner in a row.

Awesome.

William the Method Actor woke up at 5:50, which made sense to him, since he thought it was 6:50 (stupid day light savings time. I hope you sit on a tack.) William the Method Actor became mildly lonely, and wished for some company, but since he hasn't learned how to crawl out of his crib yet, he would have to make the company come to him. "Hmm, what's my motivation?" thought William the Method Actor. Searching for proper motivation, William the Method Actor began tossing his stuffed animal friends over the side of his crib. Then he contemplated them for a while, building up the sorrow he needed to motivate his communicative efforts, meditating on how Dog-dog! Racoon! Mama Dog! You were all once so near, and now, so far, so tantalizingly unreachable! Anguish, depression, deep sadness built up in the heart of William the Method Actor, and behold, he cried. HE CRIED OUT HIS SORROW TO THE UNIVERSE! (OK, maybe only the rest of the house, but, still, we're talking drama here, people. Can't we excuse William the Method Actor for employing a little exaggeration in this situation?) OOOOOOOOOOOOO THE SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!

Daddy went in and restored his friends and lay him back down.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Mommy went in and restored his friends adn lay him back down.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Daddy and Mommy let him wail until he'd built up a convincing level of perseverance in crying, and then Daddy went to get him so that he could squash Mommy's windpipe as he crawled all over her head to get "up," whatever that was supposed to mean, hello! You're already "up," Dude. ch.

William the Method Actor wins by 6:15.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, scene.

Today my husband exercised his spiritual leadership and proclaimed today a day of low-key rest to help us recover from the past week and a half of stress and busy-ness. Actually, he dictated a whole weekend of it, but I HAD to get going with my report cards, so he gave me a special dispensation to spend 4 hours at work, which was good, because I got a lot done. Despite that, we have actually had a pretty low-key weekend, and I am grateful. I'm not entirely recovered from it all, but I'm grateful.

Day light Savings Time? How much do I hate thee? If the morons who dictated your existance experience the melt downs we did today, they would have reversed their ridiculous decision at once. Why do we torture the most fragile members of our community, our children, with this stupidity? We live in a 24 hour economy, folks, we don't NEED this malarky. I say, this spring? Let's leap forward 1/2 hour, split the difference, and just sally forth without any more of this nonsense ever again.

In spite of this, I will attempt to make hay while the sun shines and get back on my bike to ride to work tomorrow. I've been doing really, really poorly with the bike riding. I need to get back on that thing.

I took a football-nap today for the first time this season. What is it about football on tv that makes for good napping? I don't know, but I'm taking total credit for the Bears finally winning a game, all because I slept through their broadcast. So there.

I made chai today, which makes me a chai-wallah. I love that term. Chai-wallah. It was super yummy and my house smelled good.

I'm weighing in on the political scene here in Ohio. Could we in Ohio please stop trying to handle legislative issues with constitutional amendments? Come on, Issues 2 and 3. You're not constitution-worthy. You're legislative business, and I will vote against you based on that alone. And gambling interest people? Stop it. You shouldn't be allowed to throw up a ballot issue every freakin' year, and you shouldn't be allowed to try to amend the constitution to get gambling in the state. You make me mad. Go away. I hope you lose, and I will make a point of voting against you.

Attempting to follow in his sisters footsteps, William is stubbornly resisting learning sign language, using all instructional opportunities to try to learn verbal approximations of words instead of just picking up signs. Now he sort of says 'again.' Since he seems to need a lot more exposures to words before he can or will use them, I don't sense this strategy will work for him as well as it did with Emma.

My birthday party is this coming weekend. I'm worried that I forgot to invite someone. Did I invite you? Do you want to come? Let me know.

Today Bikini, the neighborhood cat, got hit by a car while my neighbor was inviting him over for what was likely going to be a good snuggle. My neighbor, Andy, was working on adopting Bikini, who had apparently been abandoned some years ago, adopted for a year by a different across the street neighbor, and then put back out to fend for himself again. We called him Bikini because it looked like he had a bikini on his back shoulder blades. Emma called him Zucchini because ... why not?


Bikini was an attention whore. He wanted it from anyone, would take it from anyone, and was on the prowl for it all the time. He would even take attention from my toddlers more than half the time they offered it: a rather impressive choice for any small animal. He would sit on my lap if I was outside, or your lap, or whoever would hold him, he wasn't picky, he just wanted the love. Sometimes he acted as if he wanted to come in, which I never allowed because I don't do cats. I am done with shedding pets, DONE I SAY, and I am highly suspicious of the whole litter box regime, especially since it seems to require regular cleaning in order to be successful. Hello! I hate to clean, therefore ... NO CATS! But I respect anyone else's decision to manage a litter box, I even respect your complete ability to successfully carry out the necessary tasks at which I know I would fail. Bikini's independence and flair for non-bitter-out-door-living made him the perfect cat for me. All the cat affection and attention I could want, no litter box or cat hair in my house. I liked Bikini Cat a lot, on top of which Emma and William positively adored him. So I was delighted when Andy and Amanda took a liking to Bikini Cat. The last tenants who kept an eye out for him had moved on, and he needed people with more love and sympathy than me to be nice to him. Andy and Amanda fed him, left him water, invited him in a few times (which sort of freaked him out, but he was getting used to it), made him a cozy warm box to sleep in on their front porch, and snuggled him whenever they were outside. This is why it makes absolute sense that he came running when Andy called. Bikini was rapidly falling in love with Andy, and probably vice versa.

But he was also a cat with a lot of street smarts, so it absolutely boggles my mind why the fool cat would come running without checking traffic. He got hit, and then Andy and my husband took him to the vet, and having his injuries declared in-curable, the decision was made to send him on home to Jesus.

Now Bikini is gone, and the neighborhood feels empty and still and lacking in personality. Some other cat is out there yowling about some other nonsense, but it's not Bikini, and it's just hollow and sad.

Now Andy is probably thinking it is all his fault that Bikini is gone and that we are all so sad (and we all are, except for William who doesn't get it yet, and Emma who, upon being told the news, announced, "yes, but, I don't want to be sad." Ah, emotional control of a three year old, how I yearn for thee!). However, it is not Andy's fault that Bikini is dead. It is the fault of the people who left him all those years ago, who just moved away and left a de-clawed, neutered, really nice cat behind with no home. It is the fault of the across the street neighbor who only adopted him temporarily. It is my fault, because I have no compassion on a cat who probably deserved some. It is the fault of Adam and Eve who screwed up this world so that it became a twisted, wrong place with abandoned pets and thoughtless drivers and combustible engines and many, many worse things than that. But it isn't Andy's fault. Andy was the only one doing the right thing. He was the only one inviting Bikini in. He was the one saying, "you need a lap, and I've got one. Come on over and let's see about that attention you seem to need so much." Andy was acting like Jesus in the life of that cat.

Now I am sad for my self, sad for my children, and sad for my friends.

Now I'm really sad.

I just wanted to say hi.

There was Halloween cuteness around here, but, seriously. I have nothing new to say about it.

I sewed a whole bunch of black spots on Emma's reddest outfit, and then she pulled half of them off during pre-school because I think I didn't do a good job and I also think I was the only parent who sent their child to pre-school in her costume today. I feel a little bit of mother hood suck because of it.

William has gotten way more persistent with his "pleeeeeease" requesting without actually letting us know what he wants, and frankly, I think I'm scared of him crying, too scared in fact to make him actually push towards words. More motherhood suck.

I read three cups of tea, then I read the jr. version, then I spent a lot of time hearing about a friend's recent trip to Cambodia, then I got mad about something unrelated which I'm still mad about, then I had a really snotty encounter with a student, and now I'm pretty much depressed. I think I should take a day off of work, but I'm terrified of doing so in case I need that day later for actual illness, which I am still not sick and I have no idea how that has happened, but there it is.

Mom thinks maybe it's my medication, and I think she's right. I need to remember when my next doctor visit is to revisit my medication. That reminds me, I need to ask someone who's on the next medication we're going to try about side effects.

OK, I did that. Thanks for waiting, even though you didn't really.

Report cards. They aren't due until the Tuesday after my birthday party, but if I wait until then, I'll have to work on them instead of putting together my birthday party. But. That means I need to get them done in the next five days. And that makes me want to run, screaming from whatever room I am in, which is silly, because then I'll just be running and screaming from room to room. Sort of. If you know what I mean. I can't really run away from myself and my responsibilities. But I WANT to.

I'm going to get to go to a really good teaching conference next week that is right here in town, down town, and I'm not sure if I should try to ride my bike or drive out to school and then ride the bus in with all the other teachers. I've never ridden downtown before. Can I do that from Clintonville? I'm not sure, and with report cards, I don't think I have time to practice.

And, that's my story. I'm going to bed.

If I would just put the lap top down, stand up, and walk the 20 steps or less it would take for me to go to the back room, I could pick up needle, black thread, and scissors. Then I could come back here to this chair and cut out and sew spots onto my daughter's red clothes so she can be a ladybug for Halloween.

Why does she want to be a lady bug? I don't know, but it seems like a fair and reasonable choice.

In any case, I can't seem to move from this chair. I'm quite tired, and this chair is quite comfortable. I mean to go to bed in 15 minutes. If I were smart, I would get up and get the needed implements of spot-tacking-on and be done with this chore. And yet.

I think I might be mentally ill.

I'm so tired I can literally not move, but I just sit here feeling sad and overwhelmed and there's too much to do as the carpets and floors mock me with their sticky, crumby, dirtiness.

My Mom calls and tells me not to do anything, to take a break, and I can't remember how to do that.

I catered a dinner party last night donated for my school's big fundraiser last spring, and they invited me to join them for the meal. Sitting around chatting, these parents of older children than mine describe sleeping in past 6:30 in the morning and sending the kids off to Grandma's house for a week and staying home to sit in bed and eat junk food and hold their own movie marathons, and I find myself salivating for that sort of luxury of rest.

The weather is lovely, but I didn't ride my bike last week thanks to migraines and scratchy throats. I won't ride it again tomorrow because we have an extra late meeting and I'm still skittish about rush hour traffic. Thinking about it makes me feel like more of a failure.

So I'm back to doing too much, and to do it all, I feel like I end up pushing my son away all the time, because STILL he is forever with the "hold me, Mommy, hold me, hold me, your attention is all I crave in this life." Emma bubbles along in my wake and practices her dough rolling and beginner cutting skills and sweeping ability, but not William. I can't get anything done if I'm holding him, so ... I feel like I'm always pushing him away. In spite of the insanity of this weekend (a weekend during which I had one event canceled for me and bowed out of another just to try to keep my sanity), I was determined to spend good, solid chunks of time with him NOT pushing him away, and I think I pulled a lot of it off. I did all the tickling and singing and going outside and reading Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb over and over and over again that I could. Still. The guilt doesn't seem to leave me.

I'm back to not knowing how to stop. I have to figure out how to stop. again. But there are two meetings this week, tutoring, trick-or-treating with only one costume completed, and report cards due soon. Once the reports are over, there's a two day professional development conference (thank God, it's in town this year!) and then my birthday party, then my birthday, then parent teacher conferences, then our anniversary, then Thanksgiving, then hello, December! No, I have done no shopping and have no clear holiday plans. How do I do this? How do I stop?
I? suck.

In 8 minutes I am going to stop looking at the computer and make the posters for the walls at tomorrow's prayer vigil. I don't get to go to the prayer vigil much any more, and if I do go, I go for the first hour. It is a quiet, sparsely attended time, filled with people eager to help and me late at setting thing up. Then I set things up and set things up and then I go away and end up having no sense at all if anyone came or used the things that were set up or anything like that. On Monday I was at the church office for another reason and last month's posters will still up, so I got to see that LOOK! PEOPLE WROTE ON THE PRAYER WALLS! Awesome.

Now it is six minutes. Until 30 minutes ago, I probably wasn't even going to go set up the prayer vigil tomorrow because the next three days are slammed hard with things to do, mostly that I gave myself, and some that just sort of sprung themselves on me due to my decreasing ability to track the passage and approach of time. Take the prayer vigil. In Erica Land, it happens on the last Friday of the month. In real life, it happens on the Fourth Friday of the month. ? Yes. That means that I slammed myself for this weekend cooking for three separate groups of people, one group of which is getting super fancy food, and then there's the prayer vigil. Not my best planning moment. And then I suppose my cousin will be in town and maybe I am supposed to attend her child's baptism? Maybe? And then there are the two gaming tournaments my husband is participating in and the unannounced extended family gatherings that may or may not happen on Sunday evening and now it turns out my Mom is having a minor out patient procedure on Monday but still MOM'S ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THINGS LIKE THAT since they sound dangerous and make their daughters just a bit twitchy.
Hi, Mom.
I know, everything will be fine, and I don't have to worry because you are taking care of the worrying.

Two minutes. Two minute warning. Emma has lost her story at bed time for two nights in a row for not cooperating and that's already getting old. Come on, grasshopper. LEARN! Momma means what she says, and no mistake. I am the hard place against which you can slam yourself, my little rock, but I shall not be moved on this one. I've had too much experience with little rocks at school. Now be nice so I can read you your story and both of us will be happy.

There it is. 8:30. I'm going to go do the posters now.
Love,
Erica

After three fairly disappointing days, driven by some poor communication, left-over toddler-illness-whining and staying-up-all-night-sleeplessness, and two migraines in a row, I need to settle into the discipline of some thankfulness. You know. Look on the bright side of my life. So let's do a little of that, shall we?

-Today I came home to a house that felt, looked, and responded like a well oiled machine. My tutoring student was sick, so I was home a little earlier than expected, and everyone was still asleep upstairs. I chose to make dinner while the silence lasted, and discovered the dishes done, the floors swept and mopped, and an eerie, well organized calm waiting for me in the kitchen. Le wow! And also, my husband is awesome. A prince among men.

- He, by the way, had not only totally cleaned the house, thus pre-empting our agreed-upon cleaning frenzy tonight, but had also gotten everyone to fall asleep into actual sleep which involved sleeping. This is a rare and beautiful thing in our home, for Emma to actually nap. It's always a good thing. It makes me so, so happy. It also made making dinner really easy. My husband is uber amazing and also incredible.

- We're finally eating our annual Christmas meat. Brian's uncle has made Omaha Steaks his Christmas gift of choice, and for some reason we keep them far too long in the freezer instead of eating them WHY DO WE NOT JUST EAT THE MEAT? I don't know, but now we are, and I breaded those pork cutlets and baked them very nicely tonight, which is satisfying.

-I don't have to clean or mop tonight. This is pretty important. Let's repeat it. I married the right man.

- Silly, this, but I figured out that I really am NOT going to sleep with cold feet. So I've made a positive choice to stop going to bed with cold feet, and I've been falling asleep much faster. This will be important this winter. Good to have made the decision.

-The weather turned nice, and I really appreciate it. I don't think I like the cold so well. Maybe that's a change from earlier in my life, or maybe just a frank admission of the truth. I did miss the seasons when I lived in the Caribbean, but the cold? Hmm. I think I would not miss that so much if I were away from it. So I'm grateful for a few nice days of sunshine.

- I read Three Cups of Tea because we're going to read the junior version aloud in class in December / January / February or so. It's profoundly wow and oh my goodness in nature, and I'm glad to have read it.

- So far I don't have flu. If I could just not have flu through this coming Saturday, I'll be happy. I have to cook a very big dinner for Saturday night, and I can't cancel it. I already did that once.

- I think tomorrow could be better. I think I could stop having migraines. I think I could get a step more on top of things in my classroom (it's all fine there, but I don't FEEL on top of my game like I WANT to, you know? Or maybe you don't, but, I'd just like to feel more sparkle in my teaching. And no, that doesn't mean I'm going to drink and teach at the same time. Still.). I think things could get better. I do.

- To help all that, I'm going to bed, now, and hour early. So there.

- Pirate Captains ALWAYS follow orders, especially when their Mommies and Daddies give them.

- If you chose to indicate your completion of the meal by hurling all remaining food items onto the floor, you WILL sit in your high chair until you apologize. Practicing your outstanding rendition of both the sign and verbal word for "done" won't help you. Your Mommy helping you sign "sorry," will.

- My son KICKED CROUP'S SORRY bleeeeeeeeeeeeep. !!! Slept through the night with only a little " I lost my nuk and I'm all crumpled up head-down at the foot of my bed since you ya-hoo's propped it up at the head to help my breathing, would someone please rescue me" crying, which was quickly self corrected by the time I had my clothes on and was about to walk out of my bedroom to rescue him. So I self-corrected my clothing choices and went back to sleep.

- Confession is good, because it frees one up to pray. So I managed to go to bed last night, and because I told all of you about my doofus-stupid-worrying and blatant suspicion of God, I was actually able to pray my way through the temptation to worry and fall asleep. Praise God!

- There is so much laundry, cooking, painting, and cleaning to do that I should just give up now on the idea of going out to buy my daughter long-sleeved clothing items and a piece of black felt to make her lady-bug spots out of for halloween. I am giving it up. I am laying it down right now.

So now you know why my lack of posting. I feel boring or tired or overwhelmed almost every moment of every day, so the posting is not so much.

Last night William got the croup which freaked. me. OUT man is that scary! And he was scared by it, and it's scary to see your own child scared by his inability to intake oxygen, and I would just like to take this moment to publicly thank God for keeping my children from asthma and ask Him to just keep on with the not having asthma thing thank you very much. William and I dozed / slept / started suddenly awake with distressing barking coughing, lathered, rinsed, and repeated from midnight to 5 a.m., him sweating with fever that the Tylenol couldn't touch and clinging to me even in sleep with a heart-breaking need for comfort.

Ugh.
It was yucky.
And very sad.
And exhausting.
And, like, the best thing ever.

Because, dudes, I HAVE A SON! A SON! A baby boy child I HAVE CHILDREN! And I got to hold him while he was sick and comfort and comfort and comfort him and pray over him and hold him and it was the best thing ever. Ahhhhh, precious gift that I never thought would be mine. I'm still shocked that I'm married with children, SHOCKED that God actually gave me these precious, wonderful people whom I wanted for so long SHOCKED I TELL YOU!

Either that or it all left me delirious and out of touch with reality, which, you know, sleep deprivation: it can do that to you.

Today on doctor's orders my husband took my children to the doctor's office where they waited in the waiting room with all the H1N1 infected kids to see the doctor who gave William steroids to reduce his swelling and assured Brian that the second night of croup was USUALLY WORSE! And also, we're all going to get swine flu and die now. I sort of wish we would just get it already and get it over with because, despite my determined and on-going media boycott, the general paranoia about the flu this year has totally gotten to me. It's one of the reasons I'm not in bed right now. I'm sort of scared to go to bed because I know I'll start worrying about this again, and my usual response to worrying about something is to do it dramatically in imaginary fictional movie form, wherein I methodically walk myself through the worst case scenario over and over again in painstaking plodding detail so that, should the worst come, I SHALL BE PREPARED! Which means that I will lay in bed and kill off my family repeatedly, sit by their hospital bed-sides while their tube-infested bodies breathe their lasts, identify their bodies in morgues and funeral homes, somehow survive visiting hours and funerals, and then finally come home to this echoing, empty house full of dead people's clothes and shoes and toys and precious things. Then, for good measure, I work on imagining the first several weeks of grieving that. BECAUSE I AM SICK AND SHOULD GET COUNSELING why do I do this to myself?

Yeah, I know, I should be praying about it.
But, honestly? I find myself returned to my slightly sulky, scowlingly-suspicious position on God right now, particularly in the area of health and healing. I find myself the shy, introverted four year old who stands silently in the corner at the family gathering somewhere behind her mother's legs, hoping she is out of the fray, and glares in silent distrust at the new strange adult who has dared to walk in the room. Sure, that adult might have been my grandfather, but I probably hadn't seen him in months, so how could I be sure he was still trust-worthy? I feel this way towards God, and it inhibits my prayers about this issue. And then I think, "I should not even pray about stupid flu and my family, I should pray that God direct his energies at healing elsewhere, and when he is done healing Joe, he can good and well pack up and go to work rescuing all these children who are caught up in human trafficking in a much quicker and more direct fashion than he seems to be right now, and if God would only do that, then we will happily suffer the flu." You know. As if God were limited in His power and love and mercy. As if God only pays attention to one thing at a time. As if God loved only some people and not others. As if I have not been bloody well commanded to worry about nothing, but with prayer and supplication submit my requests to God, and the peace that passes understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus or something like that.
ch.
Still, I'm going to be honest. I'm in that place.

Good thing God thinks I'm cute.
And this I know for sure, God thinks we're cute. I know this because God refers to himself as our Father, and now that I'm a parent, I know more than ever what I deeply suspected beforehand based on the strength of my previous reaction to my pets and my nephews: it is almost impossible not to be overwhelmed by the cuteness of one's own children. Most days Brian and I find ourselves weak and helpless to move or speak or do anything but laugh for pure joy because of the cuteness of these wee blessings God has chosen to give us. And this reaction feels no less than holy to me, and if we feel it, what about God? He MUST think we're cute.

Just like I think William is cute.
Which is how I'm going to get through another night of croup.
Pray for me, friends, since I can barely pray for myself.

Tonight, after bath, I was snuggled in with William, reading him his good night stories, and when I got to the first "Goodnight to the old lady whispering hush," very quietly, William said, "hush. Hush. Hush." And he just kept whispering it. And then I whispered it. And then he whispered it. And we snuggled there, whispering hush. hush. hush.

And then, of course, I died.
So he didn't get put to bed.
Until I was miraculously revived.
And then I made Brian come in and hear it, so he died too.

William has started to piece the sounds he can make in his incessant babbling into actual words. I have yearned for him to do this, after all, by this age Emma blessed us regularly with three word sentences. It is frustrating for him, this not talking yet, and he cries a lot more than she ever did just out of sheer frustration. Yet now that he has begun, I feel unsure. I am going to MISS his babbling! Did you know he can babble read Brown Bear Brown Bear and Five Little Ducks in perfect rhythm? That he can babble sing the ABC's with only a slight back up effort from me singing very quietly in the background? Probably not, since I haven't been a very good wee blogger recently, have I? His babbling is SO CUTE! SO CUTE! Oy. Anyways. He begin to talks. He can say uh-oh, no, up, juice, ya ya (yogurt, around here), and please. He says a new word or so every day. Soon he will tell us what he REALLY thinks and I can't wait. And I wish he would stop.

Parenting. The total conflicting of the soul.