I thought I would pull some of these old blog posts out of the archives and post them again! Hope everyone has a stellar weekend.
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Today was a great day.
The culmination of the Chinese water torture phenomena that I call "summer vacation" came to a head this morning.
My morning was spent slightly hung-over from the "back to school" celebration bottle of Shiraz I shared (I use that term loosely) with my husband last night, and urging my apparently half-deaf children to get dressed, eat and brush their teeth.
The urgings were gentle at first; however as the requests (orders) went unheeded, the urgings morphed into a full-blown freak-out in which bodily harm was threatened and I practically drop-kicked the children out the door.
The uber parents walked with their children, hand in hand, to the bus stop and waited with their precious spawn until the bus arrived; my children walked, shell shocked and confused, wondering what exactly just went down with their mother.
I let out a whoop that probably was heard within a five-mile radius.
More caring parents might have thought longingly of their children a bit during the day, concerned that they were new students in new schools. One of them was beginning his first year of high school, even.
I thought only of what I was going to eat for lunch.
I believe the problem with the summer was that it was jam-packed full of changes and wackiness for the adults. The stress from these changes "trickled down" and produced whiny, demanding children.
They were endearing, occasionally. Generally in slumber.
I would gaze down on them and feel slightly guilty about the several times that day that my shrieks scared not only them, but our poor little dog, a scrappy Cairn Terrier. (His name was Sven, and he had begun to skitter away from me quickly whenever I entered the room).
I've always been a bit sensitive to stressful situations . It might be an gross understatement to say that I don't deal with stress very well.
My husband loves me despite this character flaw, and has only had to take the drastic measures when ~for several weeks straight ~ I laid in bed, gazed out the window, and set the the Counting Crows CD on repeat.
I suppose I could understand his concern.
I think I have mellowed with age. Like a fine wine, if you will. Or a Golden Retreiver.
The freak out events occur on a less regular basis these days.
I would love to have my children speak of me as my husband speaks of his mother. "I don't remember my mother ever yelling at us," he says.
I'm pretty confident that my kids will not say that about me.
They will most likely say, "I remember that first day of school when we were living in Florida... and her head almost exploded! It was the weirdest thing. The dog was hiding under the bed and the neighborhood kids were scared to come to the front door."
That will most likely be my legacy. And I think I will be okay with that because my eight year old told my husband he missed his mom today.
I think I probably missed him a little bit, too.
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