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I Heart Preschool

Preschool starts back next week (Glory!). I have a bone to pick with preschool. If preschool were nicer, it wouldn’t have abandoned me all summer in the raging, never-ending heat. Where were you preschool while I tried to keep the boys alive under the Elmo sprinkler? Where were you while they ate their ice pops in the bathtub because it was too hot in the driveway? Where were you while our family rolled lethargically around the couch demanding goldfish and juice boxes [Toby and Charlie] and pretending to be asleep [me]? Now here you are again just in time for my boys to play outside in the mild(ish) fall weather instead of dangle whiningly from the fridge door. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad you came back, but your timing is less than impeccable. 

I forgive you preschool.  Just the sight of your golden head peeking over the horizon like a seraph makes me gracious.  With a couple of free mornings every week, I’m looking forward to sitting in my coffee shop again, plinking out whatever comes to mind and dumping it into cyber space for posterity.  It’s the good life.

Boundaries

I am going crazy. I used to only feel this way at the end of the day, mostly when I was out of Chai. Now I am ferociously neurotic and weepy from the moment Toby pokes me awake in the morning, to the moment he pokes me awake the next morning. Just the fact that I’m writing about this again is just so insanely redundant. My only consolation is the respite this little journal gives my friends.

Have you ever felt like someone was rubbing a scouring pad over your nerves? I cannot explain how perfect an analogy that is for my life. I suddenly hate talking. Toby will not stop asking questions. Repetitive, idiotic questions. “Why are we going to move?” he says.
“We’re not moving,” I say.
“Why not?” he says.
“Because we like our house.”
“What happens when our house gets old?”
“Lots of people live in old houses. It’s fine, dude.”
“Will we take our windows when we move?”
“WE ARE NOT MOVING,” I would yell if my head wasn’t already detaching itself to escape.

Was there really a time, a severely misguided moment, that I worried Toby would never talk? Did I really lack even a shard of foresight?

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Summer Blessings

I know I haven’t written on my blog since, oh I don’t know, the Bush years, but believe me, I’m just saving my Shalom here. Nothing makes mommy grouchier than interrupted concentration. Like the “preschool is out and we can now leech every last drop of your humanity all day” variety. It is really much easier to abandon any personal accomplishment and surrender myself to the cause.

Which brings me to why I’m writing this post. Well, first it’s my birthday and the hubs mercifully gave me my laptop and car keys in trade for the children (I love that man). Time to myself is just logistics, however, because I have a deeper motive. My “cause,” my inspiration, my muses, are blooming like fresh summer roses and I don’t want to forget a single moment.

See, I’m crying here. Even through these days of interminable sameness, there is a violent need to hold on. First, is the growing. Growing documented daily by Toby in astonished hand-to-forehead comparisons. “Everyone!” he shouted this morning outside The Snooty Pig. “I am taller than this bench!”

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Presently Ever-Present

Ever-present, in reference to the children. I don’t mean this as a sentimental nod to togetherness. I mean it in the “climbing in my lap while I pee,” “tapping my hip while I cook,” “clawing at my shirt as I type kind of way.” We are only one week sans preschool and my independence is rocking itself back and forth in a forgotten corner.

I know I will miss these days. Even in my current delirium there are moments when it feels good. We loiter around the house like sleepy cats, doing what we want to do. I tickle Charlie right under his collar bone until he laughs so hard he can’t breathe. Toby sits in my lap while I wash the caked dirt off of his feet with a rag. I love those things, I do. Lately, though, there is that “laying out in the sun was heavenly, but now I’m really blistered” factor stifling my pleasure.

Part of it is the constancy. My mental calendar unfolds into one long row of empty boxes marking the pilgrimage to Fall. The bleak highlights: Tues. Shopping at CostCo! Mon.-Thurs. Swimming Lessons! Fri. Trash Day! I see myself bumbling along, leap frogging from one mediocre affair to the next and hoping I don’t drown in my own guilty ungratefulness.

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You Had Me at "5:15"

After a few more weeks of pure baby devotion, I slowly went back to running. Once I could rest, I saw that I wasn’t completely starting over. My legs felt sore, but my lungs hung in pretty well.

I sputtered along as Emily’s half-hearted, second-rate running partner though our schedules were different now. Emily needed to run in the afternoon, the worst time of day for a baby. I couldn’t keep up while pushing the baby jogger, and I refused to dump a cranky infant on my husband the minute he walked through the door. Emily was my friend and it hurt to see the close of our era. We met to run here and there, but in the end, I casually drifted away.

For awhile I didn’t do much but gawk at my baby. I couldn’t be with him enough. I had no idea he would take over my heart, no my very being, with such ferocity. If I planned to do anything for myself it would not be at his expense. I hated to give up running, but in comparison, I really didn’t care.

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Blah

Oh, the loveliness of winter. And by lovely, I of course mean banishment to the lonely prison of our living room with just the bickeringly swell company of each other. It should be cozy. It was cozy in November. Now it is the guilt-inducing festival of Noggin. Want to watch Backyardigan’s? Dora? Oswald? Sure! In fact, I’ll make you a 100% carbohydrate lunch that you can eat right on the couch! You won’t even have to be conscious! I’ll poke the fish crackers through the gap in your teeth and you just keep breathing. In the music video version I link arms with my boys and sing “So Happy Together” but with Slash playing a menacing guitar rift in the background to symbolize the depravity of our existence.

Today was unseasonably warm so I marched Toby and Charlie outside with a rather unfriendly command to ENJOY THE FRESH AIR. (Fresh air that my germophobic self won’t completely trust since the neighborhood is trading gastroenteritis like cups of sugar.) I thought the sunny pardon from our bleak indoor netherworld would motivate self-entertainment so I could veg out under the sun. It was quiet for all of one nanosecond before Toby became Socrates, pondering life’s mysteries while flinging lumps of potting soil into the grass with a plastic shovel.

“Why are the Wonder Pets not too tough?” he asked.

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Fingers in Ears/ Eyes Squinting Shut

That is my kitchen right now. It is a “landfill”. I am trying not to notice because:

a) My last post was one WEEK ago.
b) I am currently reading Twilight and it is literature *crack*.
c) My dear husband went to a movie and I am NOT going to spend my golden alone time vacuuming.

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Locomotion Videos

My dear friend Jessica asked me recently if I knew of any good train videos for boys. I broke out into evil laughter because our DVD cabinet is like the Blockbuster of live locomotion. So, if you are in the market for some little boy *crack* here is a synopsis of Toby’s favorites:

Real Trains For Kids
If you really hate yourself and sanity in general, you will want to buy the “Real Trains for Kids” videos. This genius took his Best Buy video recorder and parked it on tracks all over New Jersey. Hours of live train action. Literally, hours.

All About… [Fast Trains, Garbage and Recycling, Airplanes]
The “All About…” series is badly-acted and illogically-plotted, yet addictively entertaining to a three-year-old. They do contain a lot of information if you want your child to be well-versed in sanitation or railroad construction.

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