Saturday, February 24, 2007

Impressionable: I was feeding Little Guy when his Big Sister Gigi came up and said, "I feed my baby too!" She climbed onto the couch beside me with her baby doll, took off her PJ top, and held the doll to her chest.
Now I understand why Sylvia Plath got up at 4:30 every day to work on her Ariel poems by candlelight.
Right now, it's 2:00 in the afternoon. My husband is used-book shopping at the local charity thrift store, my mom is reading a book, and both of my children are napping. I have a load of laundry spinning down and a Cornish pasty warming up in the toaster oven. This would be an optimal time to write a Work of Staggering Genius and Blinding Insight. However, what I really want to do is put my face in a pillow and leave it there for about a week. I'm drinking nearly a pot of coffee a day and I can still fall asleep in a blink.
I have little enough time for myself during the day. At night I'm wiped out. Getting up early - which used to come to me as naturally as photosynthesis - will likely become my sole source of "me time" of any use.
Just proving my point... It's now 7:30 the following morning, and I'm getting back to this post. The coffee is almost ready. The sun is above the ocean and behind some clouds.
I adore my family, but I also require periodic peace and solitude. I'm not out to write volumes of brilliance, I just want to reassure myself that I have a personality beyond "Mommy" and "Colleague". I couldn't do this every day of the week for the rest of my life, or at least not getting up at 4:30. Hey, much respect to the late Mrs. Hughes, but no thank you. The Ariel collection is extraordinary, but the net result left something to be desired.
My mother is awake. Time for me to get some coffee and help her unload the dishwasher. And I am going to need a nap if I'm going to make it through Oscar night.
Covet, covet, covet!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Go ahead, ask me how my first day back at work went.

Little Man threw me off my game early by waking up for a feed at 4 a.m. rather than his usual 5:30. I never really got back to sleep during the next two and a half hours.

Then I had to get two-year-old Gigi to school. She isn't used to Mommy frog-marching her out the door before 8 a.m. anymore, so this is going to take some readjustment. I left behind my son, snoozing and farting in his grandmother's arms.

I got to the office and had over one thousand e-mails in my in-box. This is NOT an exaggeration. Fat lot of good the Out-of-Office reply did me.

Before I could unpack my briefcase, Day Care called to ask me to come get Gigi, who had diarrhea again. I got her home, then had to turn right around to go back to the office. But Mommy going back to work doesn't really mean much to a sick Gigi, who picked up her favorite book and asked plaintively, "Mommy read Bedtime?"

It wasn't even 9:30.

Then I got back to work, and my colleague tells me it's time to go to the hospital to visit the guys who arrived on a Search and Rescue vessel at 5:00 this morning, having spent the previous 24 hours tossed around on what was left of a small boat in 50-knot winds with 45-foot waves, and having watched their companion go overboard, lost to the sea.

When we least want it and most need it, the Ineffable One has a way of smacking us upside the head with a little perspective.