I’m So Sure

When I was a teenager, my most overused phrase was, “I’m so sure!”  I still say it.  For instance, when I woke up early this morning and realized I have a cold, followed by this week I’m home alone with no help from my husband.  I thought, I’m so sure!
 
But, I took Advil, I ate my usual oatmeal breakfast and I don’t feel too bad.  It’s 10:10 a.m., so naptime is less than three hours a day.  How pathetic that I’m counting down the hours.  I used to do that when I had a really boring customer service job way back in history when I used to have a job with benefits–benefits other than the benefit of wearing black scuffy slippers all day.  I had to clock in for 7.5 hours each day and I counted down starting at about 6.5 hours.  Back then, I longed for a baby and for this life, the one I have now.  Lucky me, dreams come true.
 
Last year was my 20 year high school reunion and it was so much like high school.  I sat at a table with the two smartest high school girls (both still single) and we chatted while everyone else drank a lot and talked loudly.  Okay, maybe not everyone, but it did remind me a lot of high school.  I’m glad I went, though, because I reconnected with a few others from high school and it’s such a surreal experience to see the high-school kids you remember transformed into balding, pudgy men and actual grown-up women with colored hair that you can’t really recognize.  Why do all these people look so old when I am still so young and spry?
 
One of the women from high school has a blog and that’s how I know that last Saturday she and her husband went to Seattle, bought tickets to see The Lion King, did a training run with a marathon group, went to the Bite of Seattle, met someone for dinner, and then ended the day by seeing American Idol in concert.  They don’t have children, and I know that was not their choice, but still.  Why didn’t I enjoy my life more before I had children?  Oh yeah, that’s because we had no money and no time. 
 
Jealously is such a waste of time.  You know the last time I went to Seattle?  Um, that would be two days before I gave birth to Babygirl who is almost two years old.  The last concert I saw?  That would have to be about 8 years ago.  The last time I went to Bite of anything?  I can’t even remember that far back. 
 
My life is so small now, confined to this house, in this neighborhood.  It’s like one of those sponges–when you put it in water, it expands to ten times its current size . . . well, my life has been condensed to one-tenth of its former size.  Not that I would trade this life, but sometimes it does feel a little cramped.
 
But Friday, we have a day of freedom coming.  I think I’m going to take the kids to the ocean for the day.  And throw them in.  Just kidding. 
 
[My toddler has refused to wear a diaper this morning.  I just said to her, “Tell Mommy when you need to go pee-pee, okay?” and she looked at me with teenage defiance and said, “No!”]