Doesn't sound fun to me, but then, that's why I'm not running for office.
I cared for the kids on my own all day and then it just kept going through dinner time and then bath time and then bed time. That was yesterday. It was a million years long. The worst part is that when all of my own chores were done, I sat down in a silent house and couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do.
Every now and then I'll have that same "what do I do when I'm all alone?" moment and I'll realize that I need a hobby. There are lots of puzzling remnants around this house that allude to this phenomena. Hobbies that I've started and they're still laying unfinished around the house:
- homemade, crafty cloth books for the kids
- walls and doors painted with only the first coat (and colored buckets of unused paint, including magnetic paint)
- unfinished baby journals and empty photo frames (a precursor to scrapbooking)
- tons of unfinished chores like a videocamera with a missing charger, extra buttons scattered on counters without a jar, unfiled paperwork, etc.
- yoga gear, sitting dormant
Um, maybe I do need a hobby. I'm not sure that unfinished chores count.
In the end, I found lots of new friends on facebook- actual unfound friends plus "oh hey! we were pretty friendly back in high school..." friends. Plus a couple that Jessie would find questionable since she knows I probably don't remember anything about them, but if we have 34 friends in common, we must have been friends, right?
It's a good thing we didn't have the ice cream I was looking for, or I'd have eaten it just for something to do!
Best Moment Recently: as always, a long day at work can be cured by a long silly game of family Hide and Seek.
Worst Moment Recently: I violated the "Dead Baby" rule and read an article on Yahoo news about a car accident in which several young innocent kids were killed.
If you don't know the "Dead Baby" rule, then you must not be one of our doctor friends, or news junkie friends, or friends who still tell dead baby jokes. We always ask these people to shut the f up when they start in on stories where babies die. Some people can live in a world where they witness lots of bad things happening. More power to them. I am not like that anymore. Now that I have my own babies, I need to constantly fight the fear that something terrible will happen to them. The best way I do that is by not fixating on stories of bad things happening to babies- and yes, just hearing it once is fodder for fixation. I focus on the positive and that means NO DEAD BABY STORIES!
Thoughts of the Day: Now that it's like quarter to 11pm, the only thing I'm still thinking of is how my littlest sister called today and asked me to help her plan my oldest brother's wedding reception. Whaaaaa???? First I find out that he's going to have a baby in February, then I find out SECOND HAND that he's going to get married this September! And now Molly and I are charged with the honor of planning their wedding reception on the weekend after their courthouse ceremony. 6 weeks to get this together.
I'm going to bed.
I'm with you as far as having a moratorium on dead baby stories. Since having H, I've found that I am constantly consumed by irrational fears. Today while I was in the shower, I was convinced someone had entered our house and stolen H out of his crib while he slept. I was convinced of this because I hear a noise while I was showering; turns out, the noise was the cat jumping out of a window sill so he could barf. I never used to worry about stuff like this, but dag, if anything happened to H I could never carry on as before. It would kill me.
ReplyDeletealso, I have to say I share your tendency to not finish projects. it's one of those things that annoys me the most about myself. I fill down time with stupid activities, like eating and getting on the Internet, instead of finishing something I want to. Ugh. It must stop.
I have a hobby, but never feel like I should do it. With unfolded laundry, dirty dishes or dirty bathrooms sitting and waiting for me, I feel guilty if I think about doing non-work related scrapbooking.
ReplyDeleteUnfinished chores are not a hobby. They are just the noisy voice in the back of the mind that just needs to back off a bit.
Totally with you on the dead baby thing. I don't like reading about it or hearing about it, even in a fictional story.
Yeah, sorry about constantly violating that rule. I don't do it on purpose. Dead baby stories do bother me more since I've had kids, I'm not completely heartless. It's like when you have a bad cut or something- I'm one of those people who always pokes at it.
ReplyDeleteThough when I was a kid I remember getting really upset and crying every time we sang "Don Gato" in elementary school and the cat fell off the roof and died. I always had to run out of the room and I never got to the part at the end where he comes back to life. I can handle it now though.
yes, Lisa, you're a repeat offender. But I know you don't do it on purpose! And I'm just super sensitive like I never was before I had kids. If you were too, you'd be out of a job!
ReplyDeleteAmy, I'm ridiculously paranoid about someone stealing the kids when I'm the only one home. Somehow if Jeremiah's here, it couldn't possibly happen. But if it's just me home, I have to do a visual check on them both, especially if I did something "irresponsible" like take a shower or go outside for a moment or fall asleep. It's ridiculous, I know.
And Kate, speaking of fiction, I'm actually skipping my book club meeting this week, in part because I couldn't bring myself to read the book. I've heard that in it, the sister leaves her brother in a closet and he's not there when she gets back and she never sees him again. I can't stand that thought. I think there's something about the holocaust in there too, and not to overreact, but that's somehow not as damaging as if I have to specifically think of the children involved. My most worst DEAD BABY thought is from Sofie's Choice, which deftly involves both concepts in the worst possible way. I totally won't say anything more about that.
I agree with the dead baby rule but it also includes any story that allows my imagination to build a horrific picture. I can't cope with those stories that are conveyed just as shock...would it be news if everyone survived? The accident would have still happened a warning of wreckless driving would still be conveyed but, "Phew, that was a close call!" would never make the news!
ReplyDeleteWith you sister on everything except the random highschool facebook friends. I'm finding them and then I'm going to quiz you on them. Once this other mom told me a horrific near-death baby story from the news in the middle of a fitmom class and, maybe because of the adrenaline, I almost fing punched her.
ReplyDelete