“If I were home more, I’d...”

            You guys, is this real life right now? It still feels like we are in a movie. A comedic thriller, of sorts, combining your worst fears with some of the best memes of all time. We joke, but not because we don’t respect the reality of the circumstances. We joke because we need a reason to laugh now, more than ever.

            I’ve ignored this blog for years now. A lot has happened the past few years. I earned my bachelor’s degree in psychology. I am about to start applying to get my master’s degree…if I ever nail down the one I want to pursue. The Paradox of Choice is so real in my life right now! The oldest of my spawn is married now. The baby of the family is about to be in high school. My middle daughter continues to make me feel like she is the one raising me, and she is less than a year away from being a legal adult herself. Needless to say, life keeps David and I pretty busy. In fact, I spend a lot of time making excuses for my shortcomings by saying things like, “If I were home more…”

            Well, guess what? I’m home more for the time being. David’s job is still considered essential, so he leaves for work everyday. But the rest of us…we are HOME. School, travel sports, and my current position as a substitute teacher are all on hold indefinitely. I know we will get back to our regularly scheduled chaos eventually, but that chaos is something I find myself regularly complaining about. Personally, I don’t do well with little downtime. I need time to withdraw, escape, allow my mind to wander and process all the things. All the things just feels like too many things, most days. It’s safe to say that I identify the most with my self-proclaimed introvert friends. I would rather sit somewhere quiet and read. In fact, the busiest times in my life will find me giving up several hours of sleep, just to find that time alone I crave. 

            This week, I’ve really had a chance to think about the things I would like to get done with this gift of time that has been bestowed upon me. My girls still have homework online, so that needs to be a priority. 14YO (yes, the baby!) is working on Punnett squares, and I am sort of geeking out in the hopes she lets me help her. It took me one human biology course to realize how much I enjoy Punnett squares. Apparently, I’m way more of a nerd than I ever allowed myself to realize. 

            I’m okay with that. 

            The first task I tried to knock out was cleaning up my laundry room. While I’m definitely not finished, I made a huge dent in there. Did you know I have a sink in there? I mean, I guess I knew that, but it’s just been so long since I’ve seen it. At some point, a few small pieces of laundry must have fallen off the top of washer and into the sink. I found little, bitty odd socks and teensy-tiny panties. It’s been such a long time since anyone in this house had such small feet or such a pint-sized backside. Yes, it’s been that long since I’ve seen the bottom of that sink! I didn’t get much use out of the sink for several reasons, so it’s no wonder it’s been so long. But, it’s still ridiculous nonetheless. The faucet is “splashy” and makes more of a mess than is worth it, and the newer front-loading washing machine and dryer are larger than those types of machines were when this house was built. The sink is back in the corner, and there’s not really adequate space to make it easily accessible. 

            But my usual excuse of “I’m not home enough” is not really going to cut it, given the current circumstances. So, I plan to try to work on those things that I always put off, because I’m “never home.” My two youngest have also started to do things they don’t usually have the opportunity to do. For instance, they have been fighting more. Now, I’m not talking about the usual bickering that comes with fighting over clothes or who gets to choose dinner. These girls have the opportunity to fight over actual space, leading to pushing, screaming, and chasing each other with spray bottles. I, for one, love it. Those kinds of fights have always been so typical between siblings, but often get missed because we are all too busy to really infringe on each other’s space. 

            That is so sad to me! I feel like we learn so much about ourselves and other people when we have those typical squabbles with our siblings. Also, our world just became a whole lot smaller, even if it’s only temporary. We are bound to have to elbow each other out of our way at one point. 

            So, there might be quite a few more posts from me over the coming weeks. I mean, what else I am going to do with my time? (Besides sharing memes...I will be doing that no matter what!)

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?