Just Because I Said I Would

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack!  I know. I can hardly believe it myself. 

It's cloudy today.  Perfect day for the playground, but my baby is a hot mess of clinginess this week, and I just can't handle dealing with her, Z's wild boy desires to jump off high things and E's likely meltdowns over bees or kids who can run faster than him.  So, home all day it is!

I woke up at 7 today to the sounds of M howling like a monkey.  I got her up, fed her, and she begged to be back in bed before she even had her usual bowl of oatmeal.  Then she slept until 10.

It was *so* nice having free hands and eyes to hang with the boys for a while.  We did all kinds of fun things for an our and a half, and it.was.glorious. for all of us!  Having a baby in tow who tries to eat all the things, who wants my arms, who can't crawl and find us is hard.  I am envious of my friends with kids my boys' ages who get to activity it up all summer.  But next summer will be better.  And the summer after that?  Life will be gloriously devoid of strollers and diapers will be on the way out and life can be all kinds of fun together, while my friends are toting around drooling, heavy babies.

There is always a sacrifice.

I'm sitting here looking at our newly stained fence.  We went off book and broke the HOA's rules and made it an unapproved shade of brown.  Until they remove the "dirty fence" infraction from our account, I'm going to be nervous.  Being a rule follower is hard.  I know a lot of first-borns get the perfectionist trait and only children even more-so and my racing heart over this fence immediately makes me feel sorry for E.  All the "no, not like this!" that I have given him over the last four years are probably going to create in him this same ridiculous anxiety. "Cannot. Screw. Up. The. Thiiiings!!  I don't know why, but I must.do.it.right. or ... orr... I don't know why, but I must do it right!! Heads will explode!"

I really, really, more than anything want a haircut.  I wish I knew someone who would come to my house to do it since schlepping along with the kids is an impossibility.  My last haircut was over 8 months ago.  In a style that shouldn't be grown out.  I look weird and feel weirder.

Today Ethan asked me if he could be in a spelling bee.  My heart sooooaaaars! I'd love to be one of those mamas out in the crowd.  But I also hope he wouldn't scream bloody murder if he lost.  We've been talking about how all these kids just scrunch up their noses and say "thank you" and some even smile.  That it's okay to lose, and totally flipping out is not what people do, even if that's how they feel inside.  Must teach all the things.

I tutored a neighbor in math when I was in high school.  And I tutored Math and English in college.  And then I taught English as a second language in college and after college, and all those people told me that I should be a teacher. And I always screamed inside because that's not what I want to do.  Even though, it probably is exactly what I'd want to do.  Getting to do it now with my own children, though, is the best.  I will happily be their teacher of all the things.

We're going to the library when M's naptime is over.  I hope she won't be a screaming freak.  I neeeeed to pick up my Asperger books!  Neeeed!  Not that I'll have time to read them, but, you know. They'll be fun to have sitting in the house for three weeks.

I really need to clean up.  My mom's coming over tonight and staying til tomorrow afternoon.  I am not entirely sure how that's supposed to really help me, but it might.  We'll see.  I want so badly to let her see the house how it *really* is when it's just me and the kids, but I'm afraid she'll worry about us.  And the good Lord knows, my Marmee needs nothing else to worry about!  We're totally fine in our pig pen.  It's our own gross, and that makes it less gross.

I miss my husband.  A lot.  But I would much rather have him leave and have the hole than to take him for granted and forget how good I have it with him.  September.  J home, anniversary, birthdays, walking baby (just guessing), moving.   A tidal wave of *LIFE* is coming.  I guess I should be resting up!