tears will fill a river to ferry my heart

today was the kids' first official day "off" from school. i feel like i should go ahead and jump head first into summer fun, but i am just not there yet. aaron went to a Cardinal game, i was generally crabby, and the kids were a weensy bit challenging.
bedtime whack-a-mole was especially lengthy with one and then the other popping back out...
"love you mom"
"night mom"
"see you in the morning mom"
all set to me gritting my teeth trying not to scream at them to get the hell back to bed.

and then tears. from A this time, not me, though I could've cried too.

i wandered back into her room and she was sobbing.
"what's the matter?"
"i just lo-oo-oo-ve you (hiccup). i don't want you to die"

she was so sad.
in fact, she has been so preoccupied with this lately that it is starting to freak me out a little. Maybe i should get some tests run...

i just held her and told her i am not dying and when eventually (hopefully in the very distant future) i am gone, i will always be in her heart.
she cried and cried (and so did baby S from the other room because it was feeding time) and i just wanted to freeze time. there i sat with her little arms around my neck, her tear-stained face buried in my shoulder, asking "will you always be with me?" and i fast forwarded to a teenage A who wonders "why won't mom leave me alone?"

i can only hope i don't forget what her beautiful face looks like at 4 precious years old with fat tears stuck to her longer than long lashes, her tangled, pink princess night gown, and her down-turned mouth saying how much she loves me.
because even when she is pushing me away and demanding independence she will always be with me.

times go by so.... NOT slowly

I will post again tomorrow when the reality sets in that I have two kiddos off at school- I am ready for it, but not. I never planned on sending Aila to preschool when she was only 3, but financially, we just couldn't say no because our (awesome) school has a great deal for families. So tomorrow, the alarm will again be set and this time I will be shuttling two precious pieces of cargo off for someone else to love on. This is just the catalyst I need to start blogging again :) It has been a really long summer with lots of things to post about, but my laptop is perpetually cranky and won't upload pictures to Blogger... it has been enough to turn me off! But for a Back to School survey, I had to see what I could do. I asked the same questions of Nolan as last year, but for Aila, we are all new.

NOLAN:
What do you want to be when you grow up? Scientist!
Where do you want to live?  Illinois- he said I am allowed to visit whenever I want
What kind of car will you drive? I'll paint it myself- a Skylander car
Are you going to get married? Yes
Will you have babies? Yes- a boy and a girl
What's your favorite color? Red and Blue
What's your favorite food? Roasted Broccoli!!! and also Roast Beef- he likes to roast
What's your favorite thing to do? Go to the park
What's your favorite TV show or movie? Super Mario Brothers (staying power) and Sponge Bob (puke)

AILA:
What do you want to be when you grow up? Princess Belle
Where do you want to live? With Renee' ("the neighbor with the grandpa and that's where i want to live")
What kind of car will you drive? A purple one
Are you going to get married? Yes
Will you have babies? Yes- a girl (named Alyssa)
What's your favorite color? Purple and Pink
What's your favorite food? Bread
What's your favorite thing to do? Go swimming
What's your favorite TV show or movie? Princess shows and the Tinkerbell movie

here comes the rain

motherhood is not all sunshine and roses.
there are sunny, flower filled days for sure. and they far outweigh the torrential rainfall of tantrum induced tears and the shear stress of rearing miniature humans.

but if i'm being honest, some days it is hard to focus on the happy because the hard is just so obvious. when you are ridiculously sick from spending three days covered in the snot and tears of your sick kids and haven't had any sleep all week for the same reason. when all you want to do is sleep off the funk and the kids still need fed and bathed and played with... yeah, then.

today is a stormy mom day. and damnit, if i could just sleep all day, the sun of tomorrow would probably peak out a little sooner. but i know that can't happen so i guess it's a good thing flowers need rain with their sun if they are going to blossom. maybe my little people flowers need it too.

hmmph...

i had the most bizarre feeling all day today.
i just felt... wrong.
disconnected.
i didn't feel any real sense of purpose other than feeding my children. though they still have full bellies, they are also still in their pajamas and it seems pointless to change now with bedtime on the horizon.

i kept frowning, wondering... what was wrong with me and suddenly i had a smashing revelation.

I WAS BORED!

i have not felt bored since i was 17 years old.
although that is surely an exaggeration, it has been quite some time.
one more week till finals and Christmas break and i may FINALLY be figuring out how to balance all the madness.
except none of our 18 loads of laundry are folded- but they are clean so that is balance enough... at least for a woman in the same sweatpants as yesterday.

when can you justify the cost of therapy??

sometimes i think i must be the worst mommy in the whole world.

lately i have had 16,004 things to do with time for about 6. the kids have been here every day because i am not teaching for two more weeks and so i don't have any time to myself to do business things or prep class things or even pee alone- such are the stay at home mom issues that i am familiar with, except that i still have working mom things to do on top of them.

and seriously when oh when will N settle a bit? the tantrums are STILL going strong and that mouth of his.... we are starting a part-time preschool type scenario in a few weeks and i am almost embarrassed that i am sending a 16 year old moody teenager to the 4 year old room..... except that he is also one of the greatest personalities i've ever met. he does really need to go though because he hangs with adults too much and has learned the fine art of back talk- i guess from me. is that what i sound like?

so anyway- stuff to do and N all crazy-like and A into everything because she just started that 10 year stage where every drawer is repeatedly opened and every dog bowl overturned.
yesterday i was mean and put him in time out, sent him to his room, took toys away.
yesterday i was frustrated beyond belief.
yesterday in the midst of pointless and tedious arguing it came to a messy head.

yesterday i cried.
i do not want to cry in front of my children- i don't want them to think that i am crying because of them. ironically when i cry, it is usually because of them.
but that is not the point.
so of course i walk away to the other room and they follow me and i keep trying to walk away all the while sob sobbing with my face down because damn it, they might see. and then i can't walk anywhere else so i sit on the bed and make myself stop. (as  if you can just turn it off)

i "stopped" and then little 4-year-old arms come around me and say "it's alright momma. you can cry on my shoulder."

i know, right?
and my stinking weak-ace self starts crying again because how stinking cute is that? but now i am smiling too as he pats me with down-turned mouth saying "oh momma" "it's okay momma" "i love you" because he had to have learned that from someone awesome, right?

me. the mean mean mommy can occasionally be nice i guess.

Maybe that's why the birds fled the nest.......

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,	5
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.	10
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree. -Joyce Kilmer Today I mourn my poor fallen birch! I feel I might be unreasonably sad at its toppling but seriously.... I am moping:( This is THE tree at our first home. I mean, we have others, but this was the cool one- the big shady one- the decorative one. Sometime between 8 am and 10 am this morning, the front half cut loose and tumbled. It must have been in the street because someone just kinda tossed the broken branches back up into our yard. Upon further inspection, we saw that the inside of the tree is mulch- eaten by termites!! It is like a freaking cartoon- monster bugs eating my tree until it falls down.... so that means the bushy beautiful back side had to come down too. Without the front side to counter it, a storm could send it crashing through my house, which I am MORE attached to than the tree. It was such a pretty thing- white paper birch with the beautiful strips that come off in pieces. I gathered some large ones that I am going to get all artsy on and we will immortalize a part of our first place. It should be pretty neat but I would rather have the tree- and the 100 smacks we paid to drop the "strong" half. ~~~~~Sigh~ But- the day was not without good points too. My husband declared that I shouldn't worry about his virgin attempt with a chainsaw because "it's just like my weed eater and blower". I mean, I am no major yardsman but I don't think it is the same thing at all..... the blower will not blow your leg off no matter how menacing it sounds! My kids also had a great time watching the axe men out side the window. It just looks so empty out there- we need a trip to the tree nursery asap. But maybe first we need to tackle the termite problem. I am envisioning them forming a giant arrow like the cartoons- pointing toward my house. "Come on fellas- they took our tree- we're moving on to the house!" I need a good exterminator...

A Walking Psychology Experiment

God could have made us all Sanguines.
We could have lots of fun but accomplish little.
He could have made us all Melancholies.
We would have been organized and charted but not very cheerful.
He could have made us all Cholerics.
We would have been set to lead, but impatient that no one would follow!
He could have made us all Phlegmatics.
We would have had a peaceful world but not much enthusiasm for life.
We need each temperament for the total function of the body.
Each part should do its work to unify the action and produce harmonious results.
-Florence Littauer in The Gift of Encouraging Words

Way back when, (in chiro school maybe year 2 or 3), we took a personality test. As the above verse explains,there are four main types of personalities: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholy and Phlegmatic but often two "close" traits are mixed, like Phlegmatic and Melancholy. IF "opposite" traits are mixed, it is an unnatural combination, which "they" say is the result of masking of our true personality.

Wouldn't you know that I am a triple masked unnatural combination?! I am both a Melancholy and a Sanguine (with only one point shy of Choleric)- and they are total opposites... how does that happen??
I always held that I was multi-faceted, my high school principal called me a Renaissance child, but really it turns out that I am just a freak  mentally busy.

Today, I am chaperoning a choir competition and these kids are hilarious- junior high. That perilous edges between irresponsible kid and sorta responsible young adult.... a weird age. Awkward with an occasional glimpse of future potential. Personalities, unmasked, out there for all to see. No labels or expectations quite yet. They are who they want to be, not who they think they should be.

They are singing.
Collectively.

I mean, of course they are- it is a choir trip :) Here I sit in the front seat laughing with the bus driver and suddenly I am aware. My multiple personalities are all there wanting some attention! The sanguine in me, the life of the party entertainer wants to stand up and at the top of my out of practice lungs and with my out of shape old dancers body, show them what a real performance looks like! And then.... the choleric steps up as a lead by example professional adult and the melancholy me sits and takes to writing about how there is a crazy lady in there somewhere. I must, for some reason, remain the mysterious and very adult wife of the choir teacher (and coach- maybe he is unnatural too) who is quietly musical and very in charge. The older I have gotten, the less I put myself out there. I almost feel that to be the professional me, the fun me had to leave and that is a big shame.

Keep singing kiddos- my multiple personalities all like it in different ways.

My sanguine self- partially buried for awhile...

Chicago (the musical) 2002

-don't judge... the costume fit my character :)