Timing

So much of life is timing.

Buying a house then, bad timing. Phoenix seemed like a deal, the prices already sliding. We thought our timing was good.

Buying a house now, still bad timing, but for different reasons. Boston real estate means that now we talk about equity in terms of our losses. The word equity can be about fairness, but we can't even begin to think of it that way.

There is the timing of going back to work. The timing of the children, five years apart. Good timing? Bad timing?

This winter I am baking in a new oven, in a new place. Two years and three states, five different ovens counting the temporary housing in between each move. It is a nice enough oven, but I don't know it well enough yet. The timer goes ding and I still can't be sure that what I have prepared is ready.

On the plus side...

The mudroom is not heated and thus cold enough to act as beer storage. It's like I got a ginormous new walk-in refrigerator.

"I'm not going to break a fit."

Little Guy has this expression - he says "I'm not going to break a fit." It means he's trying to hold it together, not have a tantrum, not get himself in trouble. He says it while squinting his eyes and clenching his little fists, like it takes every ounce of his being to hold it in.

I think it's the perfect expression for what I am feeling right now. Seven days of having sick kids, another snow storm, shoveling onto piles so high that they fall back on you, Hubs out of town...

but I am NOT going to break a fit.

Does this sound like cabin fever?

Whenever Hubs is out of town, I have this fantasy that I can snap my fingers and multiples of me will pop up, ready to get to work. There are four of us at bedtime - one to read to each of the two children, one to walk the dog, and another to clean the kitchen and tidy the house.

Somehow, even though these "extras" are all me, they have distinctly different personalities. The dog walker stays up too late, drinks too much, and is one of those women who thinks of the dog as her child. The mothers both read as many pages as the children want, one sews costumes at Halloween and the other bakes perfect pies. They are both in great shape. The housekeeper is the writer because she sees everything that goes on and also because the mothers are too tired and the dog walker is a procrastinator.

I wonder if I might be spending too much time alone with the kids.

It could always be...

You know you're having a run of it when the only way to cheer yourself is to imagine how much worse it could be.

Little Guy got a virus on Friday and spent the better part of the weekend moaning and whining and not sleeping. A virus on top of the stitched ear. Today he tugged his good ear and said it hurt.

Good grief.

Yes, a raging ear infection in the good ear. He's been glued to me since Thursday and I'm tired. All that on top of a bunch of other stuff that has been going on with me. Stuff I won't go into, because, well - you know, it could always be worse.

But then again, it could always be better.