october

I hereby proclaim this a summer blog, with no promises for anything other than a monthly check-in throughout the school year.

I made what felt like a huge decision last month to not attend this BlogHer writing conference that starts tomorrow night. My bloggish friends are in town for it. I could have gone. It probably would have been fine to take a personal day on Friday, nervous though it makes me with a preschooler who still catches every cold and needs me to have a plethora of days available to stay home.

But I didn’t. It didn’t feel right. I am not devoted enough to my writing right now to spend money on a conference. I don’t want to go listen for a day, feel inspired and then come home and dive right back into the hard work of the job that pays me and the family that I love. I knew how that would make me feel after – gross and guilty, like I’m somehow not doing enough because I can’t hold down a demanding, exhausting and exhilarating full time job plus raise a kid plus take care of a house and a marriage plus write a memoir. I should not feel guilty for that.

I still want to be a writer but I am going to be a librarian first.

How are you?

Things that are happening:

Work is craze-tastic because of space crunches related to construction that creeps ever closer to completion each day. I thought that I wouldn’t mind at all since my child will be benefiting from the fantastic new building. I thought I could handle working in a tiny space because, after all, I enjoy cruise ship cabins ever so much. I thought the most difficult part would be the constant flow of noise from the classroom next door, the constancy of hearing another teacher talk to her class over the not-a-wall bookshelf that divides us. In fact, that has turned out to be the easiest. I barely hear her. We are considerate neighbors and she has arranged things well. It’s the size. Apparently, I would not enjoy a cruise ship stateroom so much if I had to share it with 10 Second Graders. I try to cling greatly to the bit about a benefit for my child. Cling cling cling.

Ahead, after this crazy space crunch, lies total crazy uncertainty and intense opportunity. I love opportunity and change. I despise uncertainty but must live with it. It does not do good things for my sleep. I am mind-remodeling, mind-collection-weeding, mind-cataloging…. and when it gets to be too much, I tend to sew half the night just to feel like I can accomplish something, start it and finish it and control it even if I don’t actually know what I’m doing (I made a skirt! And a shirt! And some pants for Beckett that were cute but split down the butt seam the first time he wore them!). I have a constant ache in my face, one of those weird fibro signs that I am stressed out. One week I couldn’t move my jaw properly because I was clearly clinching in my sleep. I feel run down and dragging, disorganized.

But. Hopeful.

Things aren’t perfect in our family at large or with our house and certainly not with our finances. But Wes and I stumble along, barely speaking about more than the mundane for weeks and then struggling to be sure we check in or talk or just sit together more often. Know what we talk about most? You don’t really want to know. It’s gross.

OK.

We talk about our little boy, our glorious and beautiful four year old and his amazing, astounding brilliance and perfection.

Only after he goes to bed, I promise.

We sneak in and stare at him while he sleeps. We tell endless funny stories. We scan his endless writings for photo albums. We stare open-mouthed at his dramatic song performances. We revel in his insane reading abilities. We cuddle him no matter how often he asks, no matter what we should be doing instead, because we know it is fleeting. We are having so. much. fun. being his parents right now.

We would do it again if we had lots and lots more money. If Wes could stay home for several years and then we could afford lovely private schools for multiple children and if we could still afford to travel and gallivant and buy nice things… we would have more. But we can’t. So we won’t. It sucks sometimes. But other days it is totally perfect.

"Dirty Sock Band, please play Bad Habit Boy"

This week he is obsessed with The Dirty Sock Funtime Band and with the book It’s Not the Stork. Which means we have endless handwritten song requests to the band (he is seeing them on Saturday for the second time) and endless, weird quotations from the bird and the bee in the book (“If the fetus grows as big as a watermelon, will the mommy pop?” “Hope not!”). His best friend’s baby sister will be born this week. Some days Beckett talks of wanting a brother or sister. Other times he talks about how much he hates babies. Mostly he just talks about how he is a rock star. Which he freaking is.