I would love to tell you all that I have been away these past few days coming up with brilliant blogs and eloquently composing them in the late hours of the day and that I have several ready to post. Unfortunately, that would be a lie and I hate to do that to you, so I will tell you the truth. I have been busy and yet also very boring.
Lately, I feel like time is just flying by, I mean it's November already, my children are almost ten months old, how could this year have happened so quickly? Why can't I remember most of the first four months of this year? Will I ever get those memories back or is that some sort of defense mechanism set in place to make sure that we continue to reproduce? Earlier today when I posted that picture of little Coop, from several months ago, I couldn't even remember him looking like that. He transformed so slowly and right before my eyes that I don't even remember it happening.
I can remember that those first few months were hard, and I hardly slept, but I also yearn for those times. That they would have lasted longer, that we could return there again and soon. And yet, at the same time, I try to move to sippy cups, encourage walking and repeat the same word dozens of times just to hear their soft voices mimick me. I feel pulled in these different directions. I told the manager today that if they could all be like Bailey and Cooper I would have 50 more. And in some aspects, I really believe that.
At the same time, however, I feel like we are busy almost nonstop. At least there are times in the day when it's going, going, going, nonstop. It makes finishing a boring book more difficult, (at this time I cannot recommend Nefertiti: Book of the Dead by Nick Drake, maybe, if I ever finish it, I will change my mind and recommend it, but yesterday it put me to sleep in the tub). This morning I was running around trying to pay quarterly taxes, put kids down for a nap, laundry, my "4th" post, putting away Halloween stuff, and getting ready to meet my sister and Grandmother for lunch and I felt like my head was going to implode. It doesn't help that I have pathetic organization skills and I was trying to do all of these things at the same time.
Maybe it's true what I've heard, about this time in your life going by so fast. With the children's first birthday quickly approaching I wonder if all of the years when they are small will pass this quickly. If it will all be a blur. I am thankful for my journals. I start projects all the time, especially ones that are meant to chronicle this time in our lives. I am working on half a dozen Christmas gifts (one of them was actually supposed to be a birthday present for someone who was born in May and never got finished), several scrapbooks, photos in Lightroom, Thanksgiving invitations, and several blog ideas. I am trying to read several books a month and get up the courage or whatever it's going to take to run (yes, I quit after one week in June). I have (mostly) good intentions but my personality is fighting those good intentions and I am not sure who is winning.
As if the real things, the physical day to day things, aren't taking up enough time, I have recently decided to be a more positive, nice person. I had decided after some self-reflection that I am not always at my best and that I tend to focus on people's worse. I wanted to correct this and began right away with the mother in law as my first project. I have been trying VERY HARD, with some success. But then my Dad was in town this weekend and he does some very frustrating things, and I may not have been as nice to him as I could have been, but then he did call Ralph Nader an arrogant SOB in front of the kids.
With all the running around and being so busy I am finding that one of my flaws is just expressing itself more and more; I have been late on several occasions recently and where as I do have two small children, it would be a lie to say it was their doing and since I hate to lie to you I won't. I am late because I think I can do more than I really can in a the time that I have. I want to squeeze in more minutes, any ideas? It all comes back to the poor organizational skills. I will make lists all day and into the night but they never seem to really help me stay on top of things, but boy do I love to sratch things off of them.
In addition to everything else going on I have been fighting the urge to get whiny and depressed. I don't know if it's the election or the climate change but I have been having some ups and downs (mostly downs), which are only made worse by the fact that I don't want to seem down and out in front of the kids. As of this weekend, I am hopeful that things are on the up and up, that good things are coming, that I need to be in higher spirits. I have been hesitant to call it depression, but it is not a comforting feeling. It's the kind that lead to lying in bed for hours watching the time slowly change.
Speaking of time change, those of you who live in a state where you don't recognize daylight savings, be thankful, especially those of you with small children. Daylight saving sucks for children. They don't understand it, they want everything as before, by yesterday's clocks. It isn't the worse thing but it is yet another period of adjustment that we could do without. On the brighter side it is light when Ward goes to work. On the darker side, it is dark by 5:15. I always hated that when I was a kid.
Before I go, I must say something about trick-or-treaters. We put alot of energy into Halloween. We get dressed up, we put out a Graveyard and buy $10 of Dry Ice. Halloween is something we look forward to, that is why we put in all of the effort and buy bags upon bags of candy. This year however I noticed something I really didn't like. RUDENESS. Maybe it's because I have children now, maybe it's because we're in an economic crisis and I could have put the $20 in candy to good use elsewhere, but I couldn't get over the rudeness from the children who came by our house. I had ONE trick-or-treater whom I heard a 'thank you' from. I understand I am a stranger but these kids had no problem taking my candy. But I had a couple of trick-or-treaters who were down right rude, one of them was so nasty exclaiming "Hey, I only got one piece!" that I momentarily thought about asking for the one piece back. Maybe we live in a ruder part of the country, but I was really disappointed in the manners of most of our trick-or-treaters. It's as though many of these kids thought they were entitled to candy. I think it is a bad sign what I saw Friday night, some children are shy and possibly afraid of people dressed as Vampires and Witches, but some children appear to be completely without manners.
OK, I need to get off my soap box and let Nefertiti put me to bed. It takes at least two days to reach normality after the time change.
-june
