Save Me!

The rain, the rain, the rain. I may go absolutely crazy if we get one more day of rain and since the weather channel is predicting 6 more days of it, sign me up for the nut house now.

I mean, why do we live here? I could move to Bermuda, Brent could teach there, the girls and I could live in shorts, we could live in a shack by the beach. Why do we live here? What makes it so hard for us to contemplate moving? I mean, there are other houses, other gardens we could plant, other friends to be made, grandparents can visit...geez, they'd probably love an excuse to go somewhere warm.

Today I went on strike, unfortunately without telling anyone, so the day turned into a whiny ("when are we having breakfast?") sort of a day. I am ashamed to admit I am still in my pyjamas. Mind you I didn't wear them to bed last night, but still the slovenliness of it all boggles my mind.

I also made the poor choice of flipping through a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder during the long damp and mouldy stretch of a day and, close on the heels of reading "Plum Creek" to the girls, I am again astounded that Ma didn't smother them all in a fit of depression or during her own form of weather induced craziness. I mean , I have books, the Olympics (don't get me started on how late I am staying up for those), phones, movies and stores to go to (I sound lazy and self indulgent...other than the Olympics and books I have partaken of none of those things lately- poor me). What did Caroline Ingalls have in her that kept her going, out on the prairie with three small children, a dog, and a husband who, let's face it, kind of did whatever the he** he wanted to do including packing them all up countless times to trek across the country.

I want to be like Ma, but I'm afraid lately Roseanne (remember that stupid show?) is closer to reality...and I really don't like that.

If only the sun would come out...

Yeah, What She Said...

I love Catherine, not in that way, but you know.

Speaking of which...yesterday I went to my friend's ultrasound and before I met up with her I went to the gift shop at the hospital. I decided I would get her a pink hat and a blue hat. You know the hats I'm talking about, right? Those newborn hats that, really, do they ever fit a baby's head? I did not think my children had freakishly large heads, despite the episiotomies (which is a post for another time and another place), but I could not get one of those hats to stay on either of them. They just would slide up, up, up their forehead and POP! Off they would come...the hats, of course, not the heads.

Anyway, I digress. As I took the hats up to the lady at the counter she commented on the two hats and I replied "We're going to find out the sex of the baby today", which, since I am not pregnant made it sound like it was 'our' baby. My friend and I. Who is another woman. And while at the risk of sounding like that Jerry Seinfeld episode (not that there's anything wrong with that), I had this driving need to clarify what I meant to the woman I didn't even know. I started backpedalling while at the same time having a "how do I explain this without sounding homophobic/narrow minded and snotty" conversation in my head, which I am sure made me look like I was having a seizure. She then (with a look of fear in her eyes) tried to talk me down by saying how many pregnancies there seems to be around lately (HELLO? I know that) and I replied that "Yes, a lot of my daughter's friends are pregnant"...MEANING that their friend's mothers are pregnant. The lady looked confused and said, "Oh is it your daughter's ultrasound today?" And I then ended the conversation by shooting her.

No, unless shooting invisible laser beams from my eyes counts. I just said "No, just a friend of mine" and left barely able to stop myself from shrieking "DO I LOOK THAT OLD?!?!". Of course, I then sat down, opened the newspaper I also bought and read about a 47 year old grandmother who was having a hard time covering her medical costs. That woman is only 6 years older than me. Indeed.

Deflated

I hate (oh, I mean dislike because we "don't say hate in our house") that I was in such a good space this morning when the children were gone and now that they are home again I'm a screaming, pouting witch. Pleasant picture, no? What does that say about me that I am a better mother/person when I am not with the children???

It just drives me crazy that in this grand gesture of 'helping', Brent takes the girls out to give me some time to myself. Of course, I immediately translate that into "time to clean the house". Four hours (yes, four whole hours to clean, re-organize, and purge and I am STILL not finished) everyone arrives home with sneakers on the just mopped floor going on about ALL the fun they had and "Where's all my stuff?", "I don't like the room arranged like this!", and my all time favourite from dearest husband "You made the choice to stay home, we thought you were going to relax, there is always time to do this (making a sweeping gesture at the 5th load of laundry, the vacuum and the mop), you should have relaxed or come with us".

And I guess on some level he has a point, it (the housework- the ENDLESS bane of my existence) isn't going anywhere, but I want to get on top of it, or at least see the top of it, so I can go and enjoy other things. I am (obviously) behind on stuff and I want to (yet again) make a bigger effort at maintaining a reasonable level of cleanliness by not procrastinating, and the only way I see to do that is to do a HUGE clean-up and then proceed from there. Truly though, when did I become the keeper, cleaner, and manager of EVERYTHING?

I think (at least today anyway) I want to go back to work full time and then I won't have the time to even care about all of this and everyone will have no choice but to pitch in or it will all, literally, fall apart. Full time work means more money, not being 24 hours a day responsible for the care, education, health and well-being of the two girls, the house will stay neater because we're not in it and I get to talk to other grown up people about SOMETHING other than homeschooling and housework. Sounds kind of appealing to me right now.

There, I do feel better having got that off my chest. Not the first blog entry I wanted to have, but there you go.