1. I am halfway done with something I'd been dreading, and it's not so bad.
As a condition of being funded primarily to write my dissertation next year (i.e., no lab responsibilities -- hurray!), I agreed to take a two-week seminar on public policy. I am glazing over just typing those words -- public policy is SO not my thing. Also? Arranging care for five children, one of whom doesn't separate very well, to take an intensive class an hour away? Yikes. But it's working out surprisingly well. I'm attending most of the classes via Skype, so I keep the mute button on except when I have a question, and nobody notices the baby here with me. My husband took a morning off to be with her during the first class, and my MIL will take care of her during the last class. I think I can I think I can. But I am tired.
2. This is yet another lesson re: the folly of dread and the power of prayer. I am seeing it in little things -- more than once she has stopped fussing and fallen asleep seconds before I needed her to be quiet because I had to participate in the class.
One of these days I might actually learn something about the folly of dread.
3. My children's favorite saint is probably St. Anthony, whose feast was Saturday. If you're not Catholic, you might not be familiar with St. Anthony -- he's known for interceding for those who have lost things. (I also ask him to pray for us if we are lost. Lost stuff, lost drivers, lost souls, you name it.) St. Anthony is associated with lilies and with sweet basil, so on Saturday evening I sent the 4yo out with kitchen shears to cut some of the newly blooming tiger lilies and made pesto from my little pot of basil. At dinner I told the kids I'd been asking St. Anthony's prayers for finding two lost items: a handknit sock that disappeared when I set it aside to fix a small hole, and the weight for the top of my pressure cooker, without which it is useless. I asked them to pray too.
My sock turned up this week -- hurray! I don't even want to think about how much time I had spent searching for it while it was hiding behind my dresser. I fixed it promptly and put it away. (One of these days I might also learn something about doing unpleasant tasks swiftly instead of putting them off.) I have high hopes for the pressure cooker weight as well.
4. I am feeling discouraged about the relentlessness of the work involved in maintaining a home. Last weekend I was talking to my husband about it. I had been caught up on the laundry and the paper for a bit, I said, but then I gave them a little foothold. Before I know it, I told him, they're like TWIN JUGGERNAUTS, crushing me under their fearsome weight. I illustrated my plight by sliding down from my chair and under the table, doing my best crushed-like-a-sad-bug face.
I climbed back up to my seat and said, "There's caffeine in this coffee, isn't there?" "Not that much caffeine," he replied drily.
5. Today I am having a Festival of Laundry. Perhaps if I call it a Festival (capital F) it will seem like more fun.
6. I've been doing extra laundry because I've been cloth diapering almost all the time. Baby Stella seems to prefer it and we aim to please around here. Verb. sap.: a person who doesn't want her bathroom to smell like pee should not let her diaper pail get as full as mine is at this moment.
7. I was going to end with a picture but my photo management software isn't speaking to me today. Here's a different kind of snapshot instead: imagine a 9yo who gets to be the oldest his week while his big brother is at Scout camp, his hair getting blonder and his cheeks just a little pink from a late-afternoon trip to the pool yesterday. Imagine two younger brothers in need of haircuts, both in slightly mismatched clothing (see above re: laundry juggernaut, crushed like sad bug etc.). Imagine a baby whose toothless grin is just about gone -- I can feel the lump in her gum -- pushing herself all the way up to her bellybutton (no! to her thighs! who knew she was that strong?) and then flopping back down to blow a raspberry. Can we play? she wants to know, and I am saying, Yes, you bet we can.
More quick takes here.
The caffeine story cracks me UP! Sounds like a good time at your pee-filled, laundry-piled house. I'd come to your Festival anyday. And I'll even help fold. As long as you keep telling funny stories.
Posted by: Sarah @ This Heavenly Life | June 19, 2009 at 02:22 PM
I can so relate to #s 1, 2 & 4. I would be very interested to read your thoughts on the folly of dread.
Posted by: KatieBulter | June 19, 2009 at 05:29 PM
We were talking about St. Anthony today. Didn't know about the feast being Saturday though.
Posted by: Maria | June 19, 2009 at 09:58 PM