If you had told me thirteen years ago that the day would come when I wouldn’t long for a newborn baby, I would have slapped you and then collapsed in my bathroom in a heap of self-pitying tears. For those were my infertile days, the days when everyone had what I wanted (babies) and I had what I didn’t know was valuable, namely sleep and free time.

This was my second week of babysitting an almost-3 month old baby girl. She has chubby thighs and a baldish head and the loudest scream I’ve ever heard come from an infant. She has no “fussy” stage. She is either deliriously happy or screamingly furious. I only have her half-days and every day has been different. She appears to have no rhythm whatsoever, so I can only hope that she’ll ease into some kind of schedule. And I hope she stops spitting up down my back.

I’ve been in the same mode–childproofed house, toys in the family room, sippy cups in the cupboard–for twelve years. And I’m tired of circling. I’d like to land and do something else, ride a shuttle to an airport, for instance, or go sightseeing (figuratively speaking, of course). My friend yesterday reminded me that the children will fly out of the nest before I know it. (And yet, I’d like to have a schedule which doesn’t revolve around naptimes–I’m intolerably demanding.)

My own almost-3 year old daughter has been hitting her playmate and “best friend” who is also almost three. Yesterday, she had four or five time-outs. When I scold her, she crosses her arms, purses her lips and shouts “NO!” at me. Which is cute and all, but must be nipped in the bud. He throws a cup at her. She smacks him. She tosses sand his way. He pushes her.

Today, I had nine children at my house at one time. Nine.

I thought I’d be a whole lot more like the mother in “Little Women,” which is nonsense, of course, because I don’t even wear dresses on weekdays or do needlework. And I don’t have four girls. I really did picture myself with a set of docile children, doing craft projects, sewing, reading, pleasantly remarking to one another about ideas contained in those books. Ha! This afternoon, the boys were all in the back yard brandishing fake swords at each other.

In my kitchen this morning, I found an overflowing sink full of dishes–which accumulated since dinner last night. I did every single dish last night before I left. I am so sick of washing dishes I did not dirty. I know, I know. I should make the boys do their own dishes. I should.

At least they fix their own lunches. That’s something. TwinBoyB spent thirty minutes yesterday lovingly making himself scrambled eggs. Then I saw him take a bite, then another. Then he stood, put the plate on the kitchen counter and walked away. I said, “HEY! You made them, you eat them!” He smiled sheepishly and said, “They have eggshells in them.”

My husband has been working diligently on our overgrown yard. For some reason, the previous owners planted every manner of invasive plant you can imagine. We have English Ivy everywhere, laurel hedges that never stop growing, holly bushes that keep sprouting up, bamboo which is determined to take over the neighborhood, and just for fun, blackberry vines which will not die. Ever. The world will end and the blackberries will sustain the lone survivor who was down in the subway bathroom during the Last Catastrophe on Earth.

Yesterday, he took one thousand pounds of stuff to the dump–the old yellow couch I painted the living room walls yellow to match and a cat-scratched hand-me-down ugly brown recliner. Our living room’s kind of empty now, but we are getting another hand-me-down couch which we think will be better. Since he was going to the dump anyway, we gathered all the broken things scattered in the backyard and tossed them, too. The yard seems so much more sanctimonious and self-righteous, which is only fitting, really.

Anyway. The other night, we were all outside. The kids were playing basketball with my husband and I was yanking waist-high weeds. Then he came over to clip more ivy. I gave him some helpful pointers, and he said, “Dear, when I want your help, it will sound like this–‘Mel, will you tell me how to do this?'” And I retorted (in love, of course), “Well, when you do it right, I’ll say something like this, ‘Hey, you did it right!'” (I’ve never said, “Hey! You did it right!”) We’ve been married eighteen years. We joke like this all the time.

Then he pointed out how I put the “mean” in meaningful and we brainstormed about possible uses of that slogan. I think it would be a great blog tagline. “I Put The Mean into Meaningful.” I like it.

Now, a true confession. (I read this on a blog and I can’t remember which one. . . sorry!) Someone was complaining about people who don’t return shopping carts. Well. Sometimes I don’t. But only if I have a cranky baby in the rain far from the shopping cart return thing. I never park in handicapped spots, though, and that’s got to count for something. Doesn’t it? And I never scratch my key along the shiny side of cars that park badly and annoy me. That counts for something, too, right? And I’ve never smashed a windshield or even written my name in the grime of someone’s back window.

And now, my judgment for the day: This woman is stupid. What an idiotic series of things to do–marrying that man, helping him escape and then committing murder.