Missing the Middle

If you work in an office, I bet this morning a co-worker has already asked you some variant of "So, how was your weekend?"

(If, like me, you work from home and your only interactions are with tiny people and household pets, perhaps you have had this same conversation with the cat.)

Today I don't have a clue how to answer it. I feel like we had about seven different weekends this weekend, and not in the "it was so long and relaxing and awesome that it feels like it just went on forever!" way, but in the "wait, how the heck did all those highs and lows get crammed into two days?" way.

Saturday morning, I was on a mountain. (Um, in mountain pose, at least. Saturday mornings come with an early morning yoga boot camp class these days.) Saturday night? I was spending some quality time in a ditch. (Nope, there's no cute little "just kidding, it wasn't a literal ditch!" note to add here. It. Was. A. Ditch. The highway glazed over with ice awfully fast, and we did an impressive little spin into a snowy ditch. K, for what it's worth, was a total trooper about the whole ordeal, which made waiting for the tow truck much more tolerable.) I feel like that's pretty representative of the weekend as a whole.

On the "awesome!" side of the weekend: K helped me make a blueberry-nectarine cobbler for dessert Friday night (she will proudly tell you that she is a "good helper in the kitchen," and she totally is. I measure and she dumps the ingredients into the bowls, I prep the pans while she stirs things up, and the whole time she provides entertaining running commentary "What's that? Butter? Butter makes my tummy happy!") I survived my boot camp class and managed to sneak in a toddler-free trip to Target on the way home (Target!). The house got cleaned, K kept herself amused long enough to allow Bob & me to watch the original True Grit movie (we'd seen the new one on a K-free date over the holidays.)

On the less-awesome side? Well, the ditch. The ice. And snow. And rain. And thunder. K's insistence on reminding me every hour or so about how she has an ouchie on her face because I accidentally sliced her with my ring last week. (I KNOW. I'M SORRY. STOP MILKING IT.) The addition of several tractor stickers to the hardwood floor. The way I totally snapped at Bob for trying to share fries with me when we went to dinner. (Losing weight maaaay have made me slightly neurotic about looking up nutrition information on restaurant websites before we go and I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY CALORIES THOSE HAVE ARE YOU TRYING TO SABOTAGE ME I ONLY ASKED FOR ONE.)  There may have been an incident involving a diaper blowout and the upstairs carpet. And now Bob is down for the count with some bug that hit him suddenly in the middle of the day yesterday.

This weekend was so all-over-the-map that I'm not even bemoaning the fact that it's Monday! (Well, not too much anyway. I still did a bit of token whining when opening my work e-mail this morning. I haven't lost my mind completely.) This week promises to bring with it a whole lot of crazy (lots of obligations and starting mid-week we're going to be joined by two extra children while their parents are out of the country!) but -- as long as we can keep it on the road and in between the lines? Bring it on.

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Hello, Weekend. How YOU Doin'?

Blizzards, doctor's offices, and a heavy workload: oh my! This is one week I'm not sad to see go.

I'm hopeful that the weekend will be better. K seems to have (mostly) rebounded from ColdOfDoom 2K11. She's still a little . . . snotty (and I mean that in every possible way) but she's left Zombieland and has returned to business as usual: today she ran laps around the house, naked, pushing her shopping cart and yodeling at the same time. Ah, to be a toddler.

After devoting the first half of the week to nursing duties, I finally got caught up on my actual OhYeahIHaveAJob work. Tall stack of manuscripts & playing catch-up & having to delicately deliver (a lot of) bad news to some clients = one huge sigh of relief when I closed my work e-mail window for the week earlier today.

Also? The house is cleanish. (Cleanish is about as good as we can hope for these days.) K took a long nap this afternoon after I finished my work, and while there's (always!) more to be done: the laundry is put away, the floors have been cleaned, all important/food prep surfaces are clean, and the dishes are done. I call that a win. Um, just don't go into the bathroom.

Now K is doing her best to lure mice into the house by leaving little crumbles of cheese curds all over the newly washed floor, and we're (kind of) watching Shrek, and not too long ago she told me, "Mom, I love you too much." So, yeah. Things are better.

Still, I'm itching for some time that doesn't include diapers or animation or, well, work. Which is why my Saturday, I'm hoping, will be full of this:



Bob, you're going to take K out for some father/daughter bonding time tomorrow, right? :-)

It's National Delurking Day, guys! If you read this blog, please leave a little comment to say hi, and tell me: what are your plans for the weekend?

Sundays

This is being posted on Monday, because. . . well, because Sunday was a Sunday, and the weekends always end too soon.

I’ve never been a particularly pleasant person to be around on Sunday evenings. When I was in school (way back when!) it was the grumpy “fine-I-guess-I’ll-finish-my-homework-and-shove-junk-into-my-backpack” time; in college it was . . . well, it was pretty much the same – until I got smart and signed up for as many Tuesday/Thursday classes as I could; when I graduated and started working in an office it was that awesome “in just eight short hours I get to go back to giving up my life in exchange for ten dollars an hour and no benefits” feeling. More recently, I’ve spent Sunday evenings wondering who decided to schedule “Time for Twos” so darn early on a Monday morning. (Nothing says “hello, new week!” quite like twenty crazy toddlers crammed into a tiny room at the library.)

And, of course, Sunday evenings have, for the last five months or so, meant time to say goodbye to the last 48 (mostly ;-) blissful hours of playing house on the weekends with Bob. (The drive between our houses and our respective work schedules and his long commute make seeing each other on “school nights” a challenge.)

That’s what Sunday nights used to mean, anyway. Bob signed the closing documents for the new house on Friday. Project Cohabitation – and the promise of happier Sunday evenings for everyone – is a go. 

*This photo snagged from the real estate company's website. We haven't even had time to take our own pictures yet!