Whirlwind week+

Sam’s been gone for over 10 days now on a business trip. The schedule we have now, though, demands that I need help. However, we have, once again, lost another babysitter. (long drama-ridden story! OY!) So, I had to go it completely alone while he was away. In some cases that meant literally needing to be in two places at once, with those two places being a good 40 minutes apart. That was not a good day, let me tell you!

I’ve said it before (on my old, archived blog) and I’ll say it again. You single moms – I don’t know how you guys do this without help. You must be super-woman or something, because I am counting down the minutes until I can catch a break!

But in the end, I survived. I managed to to be in those two places 40 minutes apart – nearly at the same time. 🙂 Even when the universe kept throwing even more unexpected obstacles in my way. I did it. And even though the house is thoroughly trashed at this moment (and I have 0 interest in picking any of it up), I am much less stressed than I was at the start of this adventure. (Maybe it’s the knowledge that the worst is behind me!! LOL! Who knows!)

We’re in the middle of getting the closet worked on – so my week included having an electrician come and rewire the cable we found that was stapled to the wall of the closet (that was apparently the only source of DSL for the office), and then a painter coming in to strip all the existing hardware out of the closet, including the baseboards, then clean it up and paint it. Zach’s day care was closed on monday, so I couldn’t work that day, then on Tuesday my email died thanks to Postini. My clients contact me via email for projects they want me to work on, so nothing came in until late that evening – and then it came flooding in – so I was desperately trying to play catch up the rest of the week.

Yeah… it’s been fun.

In any case, life returns to normal come monday. Whatever “normal” is…

Let’s play, what would you do…

Your kids have been beating each other up all weekend long. You’re all sitting on the couch watching TV, the kids are fighting with each other (nothing new), you are overcome with tiredness and actually fall asleep on the couch.

When you wake up, the kids are no longer in the room, and the house is quiet. You:

a) Go upstairs and look for the blood trail. It can’t possibly be this quiet in the house without one of them killing the other.

b) Go back to sleep. Whatever the problem is (and you’re SURE there’s a problem somewhere!) you just don’t want to know.

Puppies and babies

I‘ve gotten into a new TV show recently: Dog Whisperer. It’s sort of like Super Nanny, but for dogs. Cesar Millan probably understands dog language better than my own dog does. He walks into a room and the dogs just seem to know he is not someone you mess with. The last episode I saw was on Friday night. This one was about how to raise a puppy the right way. Probably more than really understanding what that right way is, I realized that there are a million wrong ways. My dog is an “old man” now. Lazy and not even vaguely interested in being active (at least not more than for short bursts). When he was a puppy, he was a handful. I think it was at least 4 years of puppy insanity before things finally started to settle down with him. And right around that time, we came home with Rachel. I’m not sure if he just grew up, or having a baby in the house sobered him. Either way, it’s been a long time since we had to deal with the crazy puppiness.

Ironically, you’d think after watching a show about puppies, it would make you want to run out and get one. “To see a puppy is to buy a puppy.” But something about highlighting everything involved in training a dog, especially when it’s a puppy, made me glad to have my older, mellow, old-man of a dog.

There’s a lot of truth in that with kids too. I’m not the kind of parent that cries because my kids are no longer babies. Each age leaves behind one set of challenges and exchanges them for another. I loved when my kids were babies, but I don’t miss all that went along with it. The spitting up, the nights without a good sleep, the diapers, the not-knowing if they were eating enough, etc. etc. They were cute, and I have the pictures, and I love looking at them, but I’m actually pretty happy to not be living in that moment anymore.

Zach especially. He was a somewhat easy baby in the beginning, but things quickly turned around, and he has really become one hell of a challenge. It’s not just because he’s a boy either. Even though most 4 year olds have very little impulse control, I still see other boys his age that seem to be able to control themselves better than Zach can. This is not a phase I’m loving right now. I’m taking pictures, and I’ll look back on how cute he was, but when we get past this crazy phase he’s in, I will not be sorry to be on the other side.

Sloppy Joes

This recipe was really yummy. Made it tonight. Rachel had seconds (a sure sign I actually made something good!)

Super Sloppy Joes

not-so-thirty-something

...and thus begins my last year as a “thirty-something”. Of course merely saying that kind of puts the whole use of the phrase “thirty-something” to waste and gives away my age. Oh well.

I let too many days slip by without notice. Holidays included. It’s not good. Time passes too quickly to not be mindful of it. I think that’s one of the points of having a holiday – if for no other reason to notice the passage of time. I’m not having any kind of party. We probably won’t even go out to dinner. There’ll be no cake or candles. We really don’t have any specific plans until next week. The actual day of my birthday will be pretty uneventful. So, I’ll need to try and do something – if for no other reason so it doesn’t slip by unnoticed by even myself.

It’s kind of ironic, when did birthdays become so un-fun? Zachary walks through a grocery store and can pick out a dozen things he wants for his “next birthday” (yes, he just had his birthday). These presents he wants can range from things as simple as a box of cereal to as complicated as a trampoline. But even though it’s just barely a week past his birthday, the excitement for the next one is already building. But for me? I feel like something is missing. It’s not that I dread birthdays because of age (although I do dread getting older in general), it’s like there’s still that anticipation but for something that never comes.

I don’t know. I do know that I can probably learn a lot from this guy. I hope if I lived to be 113 I could be so eloquent.