Category: Fretfulness

. . . most things I worry about never come to pass.

I Need Therapy. Or Sunshine.

It’s a minute until 11 p.m., my self-imposed bedtime, yet I haven’t blogged. I spent my morning reading the boys’ history book to them, quizzing them, discussing U.S. history with them, waiting for them to find a sharpened pencil and to stop grabbing at each other. I learned more than I did in high school, and not just about history.

And so, I didn’t get as much laundry done as I should have. And my formerly clean kitchen is a disaster.

Tonight, I’m feeling jealous of the most famous Mommy Blogger of all, which is undeniably the stupidest feeling I’ve had this week. I want someone to give me a plane ticket and sit me at a table and think what I have to say about blogging and motherhood is worthwhile. I also want to fit into her pants.

As I said, stupid emotion. I can’t even believe I’m confessing.

What else? Well, today, our main television died with a click and the smell of smoke. The picture had been flickering and fading in recent days, so I was not surprised, but my 3-year old daughter was sorrowful and said, “Mommy, I’m sorry I broke the t.v.” I went right out tonight and bought a new one at Target. To my great mirth, a teen aged boy was sent to fetch my 27-inch television and load it into my car. I could have beat him arm-wrestling and I certainly outweigh him. And my skin is clearer. But still.

He and his cohort finagled that television out of its gigantic box and into my front seat. I probably should have given him a tip. (Tip: Never mix bleach and ammonia.)

Tomorrow’s Friday, which should bring waves of joy to my heart. And yet. Saturday my husband will be attending a daylong workshop. Woe is me. I thought about taking the children somewhere on Saturday, but honestly, the boys would be annoyed if I interfered with their Saturday morning cartoons and my daughter’s nap time is at 1:30 p.m. Kids! How can we have fun if they are so inflexible!?

My desk looks like an office store exploded.

Could I possibly be any more inspiring and fun?

Now, go read someone with 40,000 readers a day.

At Least My Kitchen’s Clean

I tend to be moody, morose, melodramatic. No, really. And I used to nourish that part of me, that glass-half-empty, woe-is-me, gloom-despair-and-agony-on-me personality. Your dad is sick? Mine died. Your pants are tight? Mine won’t zip. Your hair is frizzy? Uh, did you see what is rooted to my head?

That sad fog creeps in tonight, blotting out the horizon and erasing the forest, but not the trees. All I know is that my Reluctant Student has issues with sequencing, with memory, with his multiplication tables. I’m in the lull between reading books. January 2006 was the rainiest January ever here. My right pointer finger hurts. I’m retaining water and I have a cavity but no dental insurance.

See how good I am at that? I wandered through my entire adolescence in a melancholy mood. I can mope with the best of them. I know that once I start, I could end up drowning in my own bad press.

At least now I know it’s just a mood, not a fact. The rain will stop. The fog will lift. A forest lurks behind the trees.

Time Warp

All four seasons collided today in my back yard. After the preschoolers trailed in wet leaves, I realized the lull in the rain practically required me to rake up the slimy leaves.

So, at naptime, I donned gloves and boots and ventured into the soggy back yard. I raked leaves (autumn), while the sun shone (summer), noted the green shoots from crocuses and daffodils in the flowerbeds (spring) and yet, it is January (winter, according to the calendar). The afternoon was so pleasant and my mood reflected the sunny skies. That’s what I love about the Pacific Northwest. Sometimes the seasons merge together or appear out of order, unlike the snowy winters of northern Michigan where a relentless cold wind blew west to east, leaving six foot drifts of snow by winter’s end.

The rain eventually stops.

I’ve queried several friends and relatives, pleading with them to tell me what to do. Should I go to school, with the eventual goal of becoming a nurse? Or not? Am I too old? Nearly everyone has encouraged me to pursue schooling . . . and I think that’s probably the wise thing to do. I told myself to day I can always quit–at any step, I can quit. The important thing is to start, take the first step.

I know a terrible fact about myself, though, that threatens to trip me. I am sequential in my approach to life and tasks and sometimes this is a problem because I can’t do a particular thing until I do something else first. For instance, I can’t bake cookies until the kitchen is completely clean. And I can’t work on scrapbooks until my house is tidy. Can I go to class while my laundry remains wrinkled?

I’m worried that I can’t possibly start school until every thing else lines up in impeccable order, which is clearly impossible since I live in a house with four children, three cats, school-at-home books stacked on my desk, a cupboard jumbled with Corningware and Tupperware without matching lids, and thirty-seven unmatched socks who’ve lost mates.

I am distressed to skip ahead when all this isn’t quite lined up and resolved. But this will never be lined up and resolved and I must lift up my eyes and focus on the future. For in ten years, I will be fifty . . . but will I be fifty with an interesting, lucrative, flexible job or will I be fifty, wondering why I never did get my act together?

Well, for now, that question looms stark while the answer remains blurry around the edges. But I think the essence of the answer involves accepting the jumble around me and forging ahead.

Tomorrow I will make a list of the steps I should take. One step at a time, even if that voice in my head is screeching in panic about the random insanity of starting something when everything else is half-unraveled. That’s not crazy, right? That’s progress.

All Whine. No Cheese.

I woke up this morning from a terrible dream in which I was heading to jail for an unknown crime and in my arms, I held my daughter. Halfway there, I said to the friendly lady driving the SUV, “Oh wait. Will I be able to take my daughter with me?” and she laughed and said, “No. She’ll go to daycare.”

Perhaps it says something about me that the idea of being incarcerated didn’t faze me, but the thought of my daughter being tended by strangers freaked me out. She’s a clingy vine of a girl and to pluck her from me would be to kill her. Or at least turn her into a whiner.

So I woke up feeling panicked and despondent and that mood has plagued me all day. In a classic downward spiraling thought pattern, I’ve reminded myself of all that is wrong and sad in my life.

For instance, my bangs are wonky, and by that, I do mean “askew.” My natural curl has developed a devious mind of its own and if I could, I would set my head aflame in revenge. I can’t decide what to do. More bangs? Less bangs? No bangs? Bang-bang! I need a revolver. (No bangs is a bad idea. Have you seen my forehead lately? There’s a reason for that.) I need to call my colorist. Maybe that would make me feel better. I need a stylist, too, one who works miracles.

My house is shabby and not in a chic way. Although I am not too proud to accept hand-me-downs, sometimes I wish I had three wishes. I’d spend one of them on a nice, new, custom-built, furnished home. With a view. From my vantage point, I am within view of the following second-hand items: television stand, couch, lamp, chair, desk, Little Tikes kitchen, coffee table, kitchen table, kitchen chairs, trash compactor, preschool-sized table, shelf, buffet, piano, kids’ desk . . . and though I am normally satisfied with my thrifty purchases, not today. Today I’m despondent because my daughter was ripped from my arms in a dream.

My age annoys me. I fully intended to be a young mother–a young, stylish mother–and then infertility pushed me in a corner and my twins came when I was 28. Not too old, right? But then, a second child when I was 33, and the last when I was 37. Now I will most certainly be the oldest kindergarten mother. Which. Okay. Fine. Big deal.

I would like to note that when my mother was my age, I was in my second year of college. See?

And what about the Rest of My Life? Anvilcloud will say this is typical for my age but angst still feels icky. I intended to start prerequisites for a nursing degree this year, but I postponed it for another year. How can I fit another duty into my life when I already want to run away some days?

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. See that? Time’s ticking away! I prop my elbows on my second-hand desk and cradle my forehead in my cold hands. Cold hands! I practically have one foot in the grave already! My hands are cold and soon, my heart will stop pumping entirely and my daughter will wail her loss and they’ll roll me into a grave and that will be that.

I won’t have any cool accomplishments to put in that newspaper obituary. I can’t stop reading the obituaries, which is why I am aware of how young some people are when they die. Plus, the fact that my own dad was 47. FORTY-SEVEN. If I die when I am 47, I only have six more years. Six. More. Years.

I want to be alone. I’m lonely! I want to sleep. I want to stay up late! I want a clean house. I want to ignore housework!

I need one of those fancy psychiatrists to patch my two halves back together again and infuse me with cheerfulness.

Do you know that my 99-year old grandmother still worries about her weight? I want to stop worrying about my weight–and my wonky bangs–before I turn 99. Is that too much to ask?

Of course, I can count my blessings, name them one by one. I can. I do. I remember. But sometimes, the skies stay gray all day, my brow stays furrowed, and I feel like weeping.

This ridiculous moodswing brought you courtesy of:
–My Uterus–
–now wreaking havoc for thirty-one miserable years–

The Tenth Circle of Hell

Dante’s Inferno describes nine circles of hell, which feature such punishments as being trapped in a violent storm unable to touch each other, being forced to push rocks in opposite directions, being turned into a thorny black tree, being chased by ferocious dogs, being in a desert of flaming sands wehre flames rain from the sky, being whipped by demons, being placed head-first into a hole while flames burn the soles of the feet, having your head put on backwards so you can only see what is behind you, and being frozen in a lake of ice. (I remembered none of that. I had to look it up. What a pitiful education I’ve had.)

What Wikipedia will not tell you is that documents have been recovered which suggest a little known Tenth Circle of Hell. Which is where I spent the afternoon yesterday.

Chuck E Cheese’s The Tenth Circle of Hell is crowded with children who have no quiet, indoor voices, and catatonic adults who languish in booths watching over their territory. The adults appear to be shell-shocked, which is due to the high cost of tokens, which are the Lifeblood of the Tenth Circle of Hell. The token machines taken credit cards now and soon, they will be able to fill out the paperwork for your second mortgage.

But I thought I could survive unscathed, even though to enter you must accept the Mark of the Beast a hand-stamp. At precisely 4:00 p.m., we arrived with birthday present in hand. The mother of the birthday girl had twenty-five plates lines on the long table. No children were in sight. They began to trickle in fifteen minutes later and party seemed to sort of officially begin at 4:35 p.m.

I was lucky, though. Near the long table was an unoccupied booth, big enough for two. I marked my territory with my jean jacket and “Family Circle” magazine, then sat and watched. I read my magazine (“Love Your Life: 25 Ways to Feel Calm Every Day”, which strangely enough, didn’t mention a thing about sitting in a booth at Chuck E. Cheese’s on a Sunday afternoon), glancing up occasionally to see my son acting crazy.

He goofed off with the others. The animatronic creatures had been replaced with a fake movie camera which projects the images of the crazed children on two big screens. The girls seemed to be auditioning for MTV, while the boys took turns throwing themselves to the floor and karate-chopping each other and shaking the camera violently. Periodically, my son would hurry over and ask if I’d seen a particular stunt he’d done. At one point, a bunch of hapless employees joined a costumed Chuck (can I call you “Chuck”?) as he danced a few numbers. The bored manner in which these employees danced was a delight.

At long last, pizza was served. At long long, pizza was finished. At long last, tokens were distributed. Ten tokens for each child. Knowing ten tokens would never be enough and hoping to parole myself Chuck E. Cheese’s the Tenth Circle of Hell for at least another year, I bought twenty bucks worth of tokens–which works out to 105. I redeemed myself by actually tagging along and playing games with my boy and his friend (who was mooching tokens from us). (I had long since finished my magazine.) I demonstrated my propensity for gambling by plugging token after token into this game in which (in the words of this website,) “The coin or token will land on a flat surface or surfaces which have a sweeper(s) and/or a pusher arm moving across the surface or surfaces.” I could easily put all 105 tokens in that machine, but I didn’t.

When we spent all the tokens, turned the 311 tickets into a receipt, and “purchased” our cheap trinkets, we went back to see if the cake was being served. No. It was not. Instead, birthday party mom had distribute goody bags which contained torturous noise-makers. Suddenly, the room was filled the sound of ten thousand crows having their tailfeathers plucked out one by one and dog-whistle kind of whistles, which oddly enough, considering my state of near-deafness, I could hear.

A grown adult, a man, stood blowing a whistle over and over. I was about to suggest to the three other moms sitting near me (they’d infringed on my booth territory while I was busy gambling playing games, but I’d assured them, “”Oh no, that’s fine. Stay there,” and then I eavesdropped, but sadly to say, they were very boring) that one of us needed to slap that noise-making lunatic and I was willing to offer ten bucks to the slapper, but instead, I just sat glaring deathrays at that man who eventually did stop, but not a second too soon. I had slapped him in my imagination about ten times by then. (No wonder I was sitting in the Tenth Circle of Hell with such dreadful thoughts.)

The cake was finally served and the second my son finished licking his plate (over and over and over again and then some more, was he raised by wolves, hungry wolves on the Atkins plan with a fierce sugar craving?) I marched over to birthday party mom and shook her sticky hand and thanked her profusely. And I said that I hoped she’d get to put up her feet when she got home.

We left at 6:15 p.m. I have no idea when the birthday girl opened gifts.

As we walked out in the sudden stillness of the evening, my son said, “Mom, you know what kind of parties I like the best? Chuck E. Cheese’s and Odyssey 1.”

Yeah, me, too. That and being chased by venomous snakes and being plunged into a lake of burning pitch and then, as a grand finale, being steeped in human excrement.

Swimming With the Current

Some days, I feel adrift. I bob along, tread water, scan the horizon for a boat to rescue me. I don’t feel like picking up, cleaning, interacting, washing, drying, folding and putting away. The thought of producing yet another dinner crashes over my head like a rogue wave.

I don’t sleep enough. I’m bleary in the mornings, yet night arrives and I’m bright-eyed with all the gears in my brain whirring at full speed. Before I know it, midnight arrives and I pull the covers up and calculate how little sleep I’ll get. The weariness drags me under.

My house is full of children every day. My 7-year old invited two friends over to play today, and just when those children went home (at 6:00 p.m.), the two neighbor boys arrived. Ten children were in my house at various times today. Granted, that’s fewer than Barbara parents (she has twelve children), but still. Some days these children are like an anchor–and I mean that in a good way and a bad way. I dream of freedom, of grabbing my car keys and driving somewhere. Alone.

The experts say you should remain calm. Don’t fight a current. And so, today, when I felt myself being dragged away from shore, I did what any reasonable housewife would do. I swam with the current, just paddled along, kept moving.

I tidied up the living room so at least one room looked presentable. Then, I made a pot-pie from scratch, including pie crust. My 3-year old daughter “helped” me make the crust–she dumped in the flour, mixed it a little with the pastry blender, used the rolling pin and then generously sprinkled the extra pie crust with cinnamon sugar. She grinned at me each time I showed her how to help. She gleefully proclaimed, “I am a good girl!”

And I’m kept afloat by the power of her crooked smile.

You Might Want to Skip This

I remembered tonight the time I tried to talk someone out of getting an abortion. She was twelve weeks pregnant, ready to vacuum her uterus clean, while I was trying desperately to get pregnant.

I wonder if she still hates me.

I thought of my dad today. He’s been dead for almost sixteen years. Since he’s been gone, computers have become mainstream. He once built one from a kit–and programmed it with cassette tapes. He died before everyone had cell phones in their pockets and video cameras in their closets. There are a few mysteries. For instance, what ever happened to his handgun? I found bullets, but no gun. Also, what was in the locked briefcase that I willingly handed over to a woman friend of his–she told me it contained letters and pictures from her children to my dad. (He’d been a mentor of sorts to her children.) I never quite believed her and I wish I had pried the lock open instead of giving the case to her.

When the phone rang at 10:00 p.m. and he’d leave the house, where was he going? Who left roses at his grave every week for the first year after he died?

These are things I wonder.

I remember tonight that winter day in college when I rode in van full of my friends. We were taking a fellow student, our friend, to the airport. He’d been kicked out of Bible college for drinking with my friend, a girl of seventeen, who was underage. The underage part wasn’t why he was kicked out, though. Drinking alcohol was so against the rules at that midwestern college. I sobbed on the snowy days and for days after wept, wondering what just happened. He had been a potential boyfriend–we’d danced around the idea for almost the entire year before–and then he picked up my friend, the one who’d attended that college based on my recommendation–and they’d gone out, drinking.

Betrayal, loss, stupidity. That was a bad year for me and not such a good year for him, either. Our friendship flickered on and off for a few years after that and died a sudden death before my wedding. I wonder if he still hates me.

A local church just built a new building. The plan was to expand their existing food bank which served almost two thousand people a month, but not enough money came in for the project, so the food bank, which has existed for years, was shut down. I wonder what Jesus would think about that. I know people who’ve had to use food banks and sometimes, a food bank is what stands between you and your kids going to bed hungry.

What a cheery post! To bed I go, hopefully to dream happy dreams and not dreams filled with mysteries and faces of those who aren’t fond of me.

Light In, Light Out

My almost-year old daughter has begun protesting bedtime. A week ago, instead of turning off the light and stretching out in her crib without a fuss, she cried. Every bedtime since then has been an annoying, yet heart-wrenching portrayal of Girl Who Hates Sleep.

Actual tears roll down her cheeks and she cries, “I don’t want to go nighty-night in my crib!” Then she does that thing where you change the emphasis on each word.

“I DON’T want to go nighty-night in my crib!”
“I don’t WANT to go nighty-night in my crib!”
“I don’t want TO go nighty-night in my crib!”
“I don’t want to GO nighty-night in my crib!”
“I don’t want to go NIGHTY-NIGHT in my crib!”
“I don’t want to go nighty-night IN my crib!”
“I don’t want to go nighty-night in MY crib!”
“I don’t want to go nighty-night in my CRIB!”

After each recitation, I repeat after her. I’m trying to empathize. But the fact remains: she has to go nighty-night in her crib and her tears do not affect me. Much.

My husband put her to bed last night and his solution to her sorrow was a nightlight. He found one and plugged it in, but when he did so, he had to unplug her cassette player.

Tonight, she wanted music, so I unplugged the nightlight. For some reason, we can only plug in one or the other. (We have stupid outlets in our house.)

She cried–wailed, actually–when I closed the door and he went in to soothe her. He said she wanted the nightlight, so he unplugged the music and plugged in the light.

It’s one or the other around here, and not just lights or music. I can do one thing, but not everything. At least not all at once. And that’s why I feel like a rotten mother. Time’s ticking away and I can’t do everything I want to do with my children or by myself, either, for that matter.

This summer, I still want to go to the ocean. I need to visit my 99-year old grandmother. (She lives close by.) I keep thinking about driving up north to visit my dad’s grave–the sixteenth anniversary of his death is approaching. I’d hoped to catch up on my scrapbooks this summer. The weeds are maturing and dispensing even more weed seeds. We promised a trip to Wild Waves Waterpark. We have missed every single Concert in the Park and we haven’t been to the beach once.

Too much to see, too much to do, too much. I am frustrated.

Whine, whine, whine

I dragged myself through this day, from my wake-up call at 6:00 a.m. (Babygirl, ready for a shower, Cheerios, and a video) through the delivery of three weeks’ worth of mail and an afternoon at the church, preparing a neglected room for twenty-five preschoolers next week. And it seems like I accomplished very little, yet I am so tired.

It’s that time of year, that time when I ask myself, “How did I get this job?” I am braiding together the three strands that comprise a church’s Vacation Bible School–the volunteers, the participating children and the materials. I have details swirling around in my brain–“must remember yarn for nametags”; “need to find that animal print fabric”; “call those two volunteers to see if they are in or out”; “finish banner for entryway”; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I am juggling a billion slippery details.

Not a big deal, except my brain feels like a giant colander and the details like grains of rice, slipping right through the holes.

We already have more children signed up than we have slots. I’m going to have to stand up in front of the congregation and plead for more volunteers. I hate doing that. I hate making phone calls. I hate my hair.

Did I mention how tired I feel? Send methamphetamines.