Busy, But With Purpose

At some point in the past month, my employer has woken from a complacency slumber and recognized that they’ve been paying my bills and providing lovely health insurance for a high-maintenance family of five while I sit around and yawn all day, waiting somewhat impatiently for them to give me real work. Now they expect me to DO said work, like, all day long! That is so unfair! And then? When I come home, my kids expect me to DO stuff with them! Like feed them, and bathe them, and read bedtime stories or some such nonsense. And then? Since I made John fire the cleaning people two months ago, I have to live up to my own crazy expectations and keep the house from looking like a pig sty, which means the sticky substances on the kitchen floor actually have to be CLEANED, not just covered with a rug a la Pottery Barn Casual. And damn if all that doesn’t take up a lot of my blogging time.

I don’t really see why John can’t help more with the mopping and toilet scrubbing, you know. He’s only about seven months behind on his photography clients’ incessant needs; I say, they want your talent, they’ll be willing to wait. He says, yes, but I want to get paid and also don’t want my heart to explode inside my body from all the pressure. Details. At one point last Friday (as he told me only after the magical elixir of a Los Cabos “Cabo Bueno” margarita was coursing through his veins at dinner), he had a client in his office making an order, a client in our dining room filling out a contract, Bryce and one client’s kid playing in our living room, a tile restoration contractor in our bathroom to give us an estimate, our home phone was ringing (that was me calling, because I like to add to the madness, WEEEE!) and his cell phone was ringing (me again, don’t ignore me, dammit!). When he told me that, the question I’d been meaning to ask him, the one involving WHY IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU SO JUMPY YOU’RE DRIVING ME INSANE AND NOW YOU APPEAR TO HAVE AN EYE TWITCH, suddenly seemed unnecessary (or maybe dangerous). Also, his recent and constant “joking” about how it’s about time for us to hire a nanny, hey maybe we could ask around to find out if anyone knows of a good nanny, you know I think it might be time to get ourselves THAT NANNY, made a lot more sense.

So I wanted to write about a few things this weekend, but with the afore-mentioned sticky floors and the husband with photography appointments scheduled every waking hour and the kids who wanted to EAT and TALK TO ME, I never had a chance. I tried to remember a few highlights, though. After all, John and I originally started this blog for that very Purpose, and I am anal and refuse to stray from The Purpose lest the earth fall off its axis. And so I give you the Weekend Highlights Pursuant To This Blog's Purpose:

1.) By some miraculous fluke, both kids napped on both weekend days. On Saturday, this allowed me to clean the entire house (Productive! Impressive!). On Sunday, this allowed me to take a two-hour nap (Lazy! Slug!).

2.) While grocery shopping with Quinn, near the end of a long and harrowing trip involving dozens of bags of chips and several minutes of self-inflicted guilt over the crap I’d be agreeing to feed the kids this week (with said mounds of chips I'd acquiesced and put into the cart), Quinn said, “I love you” while I was scanning the frozen section. I smiled at him and hugged him and he said, “And you’re pretty, too.” The animal-shaped pancakes I’d just thrown into the cart had nothing to do with it. He just loves his gorgeous mother, so shut up.

3.) I took the kids to the park on Saturday afternoon. There was a two-year-old boy there who was enthralled with the matchbox cars Quinn had brought with him, and followed him around even though Quinn kept clutching the precious toys until his knuckles were white and saying, “these are not your cars.” The little boy’s dad stayed close and kept trying to distract him with all the cool ladders and slides. Eventually Quinn (while still clutching the cars and keeping a cautious eye on the kid, mind you) started competing for his dad’s attention! I moved them over to the swings and the little boy and his dad were right behind us. I would push Quinn and he’d say, “no, I want THAT DAD to push me!” Yeah, it was humiliating. But I totally wished that two-year-old would have said, “this is not your dad!” to Quinn. That would’ve shown him.

4.) John and I attempted to take the kids to the neighborhood pool on Sunday afternoon. We started talking about it on Friday, bought several million dollars worth of water wings, kickboards, noodles, and pool toys, bribed them with the promise of a fun-filled afternoon at the pool in return for a long, long Sunday nap, spent 45 minutes chasing and cajoling them into their swimsuits and sandals, slathering sunscreen, going over the rules (no running, no pushing, and when we say it’s time to go, no humiliating the parents), loading the car with towels and snacks and necessary pool items, buckling them into their carseats, and driving there only to find when we arrived that it was closed because it had been vandalized the night before. After talking to some other forlorn swimsuit-clad patrons, John returned to the car and said to me through my rolled-down window, “Somebody broke in and trashed it, and they have to drain and re-sanitize it because they CRAPPED IN THE POOL!” Yes, I fully expect a call from Bryce’s summer camp teacher today about his colorful new phrase.

5.) After dinner with my mom last night, Bryce was once again discussing the wonders of the solar system. Somebody mentioned the sun, and that it wasn’t a planet, but a star. He piped up, “Yeah. The sun is a BIG FREAKIN’ HOT STAR!” I’m going to have to write lots of letters of apology to his school this year, aren’t I?