The Thing about Things

Tired.

Done.

Tired.

Did I mention 'TIRED?'

We've now reached that point in the year where we suddenly realize that we are juggling way more balls than we are capable of juggling, so we have to decide which ones we will drop. I usually choose housework to drop. (The use of the word 'usually' was totally not necessary.) This is also known as the last month of school. There are also sports-related things, graduation-related things, and friend-related things. Because, things.

The last month of school is a magical time where they decide to wrap up an action-packed school year by ADDING EVEN MORE THINGS. To celebrate all the fantastic things our kids have done and experienced this school year, let's create more things! The biggest problem with this way of doing things is that, mentally, we are already sort of checking out. The weather gets nicer and we begin to spend much of our day envisioning what we will do this summer.(Read: NOTHING) One of the many fun things they typically squeeze into the last month of school is their morning to celebrate MOM. They celebrate mom by making her wake up an extra hour early, loading her up with carbs, and taking a picture of her to commemorate the occasion. I don't mean to sound ungrateful because I think it's fantastic and I know it takes a lot of work to pull it all off. That being said, my children did not get their photogenic qualities from their mother. In every single picture, I sometimes look scared and I usually look angry. This year, I looked drunk. I will consider that an improvement in the realm of my vast collection of bad pictures. As a bonus, my kid looks like she's made of plastic. Like, she's an actual doll.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Exhibit A:

Hey look, that drunk lady brought her life-sized doll to school!

This is in no way the photographer's fault. The photographers at these things are always great. I've seen dozens of fantastic pictures of other people to support that. They seem to turn out really great as long as they don't contain ME. I should gather all the pictures of me in these events over the years and make one hilarious album, but that would just be adding another thing to my list, and that is so not happening right now.

I know I'm not alone in the school-age children spring fatigue syndrome that parents feel, but I also know that I don't have it the worst. Right now, I'm really feeling for my parakeets.

My parakeets just had their second clutch of babies. Their first clutch consisted of four eggs, two of which actually hatched. I was so impressed with the great parents that they turned out to be. They really seemed to be a great little team and took amazing care of their first two babies. However, just as the first set of babies were out of the nesting box full-time and eating on their own, their father started picking on them. I noticed his aggression and that mom was nowhere to be seen. Upon checking the nesting box, I found mom protecting a NEW SET OF EGGS. After a week or two, there were a total of seven eggs in the new clutch. A few weeks later, over the span of a week or two, six of those eggs actually hatched. When they were all tiny, it didn't seem to be very different from the first clutch. But, now they are almost ready to eat on their own, but not quite. They still need to be fed by their parents, but are almost as big as their parents. And there are SIX of them.

I have never felt more empathy for a feathered creature than I do these two parakeet parents. They go through food like CRAZY, the babies chirping to be fed. All. Day. Long. Sometimes, they just sit on the perch outside the box, side by side, half-leaning on one another and looking DEAD TIRED. Until the chirping starts again. Then, they have their own little parakeet argument about whose turn it is to feed the little parasites. They fight a lot more now. Sometimes, they just stare at each other for extended periods of time, while it almost looks like they will bust out a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to help them decide who gets the next shift. (David and I used to use the same approach to decide who had to change the next nasty diaper when ours were tiny!)

Just know, Fred and Ethel, I have never felt like I understood you as much as I do right now.

Well, time is a-wastin' and it's time for me to get back to TRYING TO DO ALL THE THINGS. If I stall around long enough, I won't have time to clean the kitchen.

And that would that really be such a bad thing?