Observations

It's only been two days since Brian left for a week long business trip, and I am already cherishing my time alone. The kids are great, but they are kids. Between being sweet and wonderful and playing together nicely, there is the fighting and the arguing. There is the "mine" and the fact that if one has a toy that the other wants and child number one puts it aside for a nanosecond, it is snatched up by the child number two, leaving the first child whining. Mommy can only handle so much of that!

It's almost mid-August, and summer is almost over in Colorado. School starts next week, on the 20th, for Brandon. He's going to be a big kindergartner. We have his school supplies all ready. I've only managed to find one backpack for him, and it's a Cars one. It is so hard to find a backpack small enough for a kindergartner, but yet big enough to hold school papers, that doesn't have some sort of character or graphic on it. I can't be the only parent who cringes at the thought of my kid being a walking advertisement. At least he likes Cars. I just hate having to buy character stuff when I am really looking hard for something else. I just bought Caitlin an Elmo backpack because it's what she really wanted. That's fine. But I don't want logos, graphics or characters on everything. That's why I rarely shop at Old Navy for the kids. Graphics and logos are on almost every boy shirt in the store!

I find myself longing for some order from the chaos I call summer. Yes, I could enroll the kids in art classes or sports classes, but they both seem to young to benefit from that right now. Maybe next summer. It would have given me something to do here, but I still balk at it at such a young age. But not doing anything like that means they are with me all.day.long. That gets old. For me and them. I am looking forward to Brandon starting school, and schedules starting up again. I am looking forward to MOPS starting again. I am looking forward to giving Women to Women another chance (this time I am going to be ultra picky about which study I choose, and who is leading it!). I am always looking forward to the possibility of making friends (I did make a few friends last year, but two families moved at the end of the school year. So were are almost back to the starting line). The last couple of years have been difficult and extremely long. I no longer feel like time flies by (except when I'm sleeping). Instead, it trudges uphill in cement-laden boots. My emotional highs and lows have been a roller coaster. Each time I stabilize, I find that I was really going up a hill and just wasn't aware of it until I went cascading down the other side! My home life is fine, but the life I lead inside my head is still a jumbled mess. I do feel like I've reached a plateau. A place I haven't been to in years. But my vision is still cloudy. I'm not sure if I'm at the plateau, or if I'm just heading up another hill. Let's hope that a return to the schedulizing of the P-4 household will clear it all up for me!