The Grass Is Always Greener...

I spent a good portion of August waiting for the day that the girls would start school. The charts I made to help A understand the amount of time left before her first day at preschool was also helpful for me because I watched with a bit of glee as each sticker was placed indicating another day closer to the momentous occasion of First Day of School for each of my girls. August was a difficult month because unlike July we had very little in the way of organized activities to attend or a planned vacation to prepare for, enjoy, and then decompress from. It was pretty much the same day in/day out and I started to find it hard to come up with new things for the girls to do to occupy their time. They actually do play very well together - up to a certain point. Once they reached maximum levels of exposure to each other I started to hear the screaming ("YOU MESSED UP MY TOWER ANd I DON'T LIKE YOU ANYMORE!!!"), the complaining ("SHE CALLED ME [insert string of nonsense syllables] AND IT IS NOT NICE TO CALL SOMEONE NAMES!"), and the outright violence (smack "OW! SHE HURTED ME A-PURPOSE!") . At times like those I would give them the necessary talking-to and/or the necessary time-out and often after things had simmered down a little I would offer them some screen time in the form of a video game or a movie. I would give them some down time where they were not focusing on each other and it had the added benefit of allowing me some time to relax or get something done without having to act as constant referee. But, overall, things were generally unhurried and somewhat relaxing.

Then school began and life switched gears. The mornings went from carefree and unstructured where the girls could play for a good long while before I bothered to ask them to get dressed and start the day. Now mornings are the rush of eating breakfast, packing lunches, getting dressed (and if I can fit it in I like to be able to take a shower but it's a luxury that isn't always possible), and brushing hair (never an easy task in this house, at least for one particular 6.5 year old drama queen), checking backpacks for requisite items - all before the 8:15ish arrival of the bus. As soon as R is on the bus and headed to school I am herding A and E into the car for the drive to preschool for an 8:45 drop-off. Somehow we rarely get there before 9:00 -- thankfully the school is only 10-12 minutes away otherwise we would be arriving much later than that. Every minute counts when you consider how short a 3-hour preschool day is, so I like to be there as early as possible. Those three hours are precious because it's the only time that I have only one child with me and it makes errands that much quicker and easier. But then there is the fact that E likes needs to nap between 10ish and 12ish. So I'm usually dropping off A, making one quick stop at a store for an errand, and then I am rushing home to get E down for her nap so that she can get the maximum amount of sleep before I need to put her back in the car and run up to school to pick up A. And that's all by either 11:45 on regular days or by 12:45 on days that A stays for lunch (a blessing, but one that I don't care to pay the extra $5 fee for every day because it just gets too darn expensive). While E is napping I'm often trying to get diapers/clothing washed, laundry folded, checking my email and reading a few choice blogs (those highlighted are often my sanity savers because I know I am not alone in this crazy merry-go-round called Parenthood and they are great for a laugh or two mostly at the expense of the blogger), doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, wishing I could finally get around to the vacuuming (something that seems to happen way too infrequently these days and our living room looks like some mice had a party and littered the floor with breadcrumb and dried noodle confetti - not a pretty sight on a dark green oriental-style rug) - ya know...the usual. I have good days and not so good days - some days I have these mini anxiety attacks where I feel like I'm forgetting something important or like there are not enough hours in the day or days in the week to accomplish what I'd like to get done. The "attacks" come and go and I have days where I feel like "Feh - whatever gets done, gets done" but I then another day will come with obligations up the wazoo or R will have a particularly rough start in the morning and it will set me on edge for the rest of the day.

I'm just feeling like I need to get off the freakin' treadmill of life for a few days -- and it's only September! The girls are enjoying school and I'm enjoying having them at school, but I do long for those somewhat lazy and carefree (highly relative terms, mind you) days of summer just a bit now and again.

Geesh - it's like I want to have my cake and eat it too, huh?