Keeping it together

My therapist Gary told me this afternoon, "I'm not sure how you're keeping it together." This is what I pay him for. Gillian commented later this evening that reading the blog seems like only part of the picture. Surely I must be losing my mind off camera. I assure you, though, you're getting my emotions at the time. As I've told Gary, writing makes me feel better, so the act of writing it out makes things seem not so bad.

Today has been rough, honestly. As I talked to Gillian briefly, though, it occurred to me that it's the transitions that are hard just like for Ian.

I was trying to get work things done but I also needed to go check up on Rich. As I left Gary's, my tire pressure monitor went off. When I pulled in the driveway, I discovered a giant screw in my tire. I felt like Rich was being cranky but he assures me he wasn't. I know he was concerned about his tingling hands but I was losing patience helping him troubleshoot it this afternoon. Mostly I was having a hard time trying to be two people at once.

Rich was losing patience with Ian which was making me lose patience with them both. I just wanted to be left alone with a cup of tea. I didn't want to haggle over how many mini Reese's peanut butter cups Ian could have this evening. But in the end, it all worked out. We got the tire fixed so we can take the van to Richmond. I managed to bathe my son with seconds to spare before we rushed back to pick up the van from the tire center. We discovered Rich can drive himself places just fine so my days as the chauffeur for our household are numbered (thank you!). Rich walked twice today for a total of over a mile. Shilo walked our dogs. I had a nice phone call with Gillian and a nice car ride with my mom (as we raced back to the tire center). I'm sharing the couch with Shannon right now as we both peck away on our respective laptops in the wee hours of the night. Things aren't so bad.

Part of it is that I tend to write at the end of the day and it's my opportunity to gain perspective. All the things that were driving me nuts at 6pm have faded by this late hour. So I am keeping it all together. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard sometimes. I just appreciate the process.

Homestyle cooking

Previous to the last few weeks we rarely ate at home. Weekend breakfast is Panera. Lunch is wherever we are while we're out running errands. Sunday dinners are Qdoba or Moe's because kids eat free and Rich loves Mexican. Rich usually assumes "what do you want for dinner?" meant "where do you want to go for dinner?" He loves to eat out. And there are some advantages to it. He can have a salad and I can have a steak or vice versa. There are no dirty dishes. We can incorporate it into whatever shopping we may be doing that evening.

But the portions are too big. I don't like being shoehorned into a combo that has way too many starches and not enough veggies. Why don't they make a combo that is an entire bag of frozen broccoli with four ounces of meat?

When our kid was in the "luggage stage" as a friend called it we could just park his little car seat bucket next to us at the cafe and enjoy some conversation. These days, though, our kid is incredibly busy. He wants certain foods. He may not be hungry when we're hungry. He gets bored quickly in a restaurant. He doesn't always have a good indoor voice. It just gets more complicated. And don't get me started on paying $6 for a kids meal that goes untouched.

So I've been enjoying our eating at home this week. Tonight Ian had macaroni and cheese, a hot dog and 4 bites of soup. He also ate half of my bagel about an hour later because he always eats half my bagel. Meanwhile, I had chicken soup and (half) a bagel as soon as it finished in the crock pot. Rich wasn't hungry yet so he read his book and about 30 minutes later had a small bit of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich I made him. We still all had only marginally similar meals and we certainly didn't sit down as a family and say grace, but I'm not expecting that. I just want my kid to be able to eat for the 15 minutes he's hungry and then go play trains if he wants so I can eat in peace.

I can eat an entire bag of frozen broccoli if I want. I can have 1/3 of each of the leftovers in our fridge from all the previous meals we've had. I can wait to have my slice of pie until 10pm.

Sure, we have more dishes these days but we also have a perfectly good dishwasher. The only downside is we have a lot of leftovers. Our chicken soup produced four storage containers of extra soup after we'd all had our fill, so I took two containers down the street to my folks'. As luck would have it, Mom had been sick all day today and was just getting up from a nap. She was hungry and wasn't sure what she was going to eat so my chicken soup delivery was just what she needed. It was nice to chat and catch up while she had some healthy food.

I do miss the Panera blueberry bagels, though.

A day in the life

Today I have: Packed Ian's lunch and dressed him for school. He had to put on his socks and shoes before leaving but could wait to change his shirt until we got there. We stopped at Wawa (of course). I got him to school and read him one Thomas the train story before peeling him off of me into the arms of his teacher. I rejoiced that there were no tears.

I met with developers and service folks. We had a few meetings. I approved a few development items and had some suggestions for how to fix a few things.

I went to Wal-Mart (against my better judgement) and scored more sweatpants for my husband, some sweatshirts for him and an entire new wardrobe for Ian where each item was $4 or less. I also found several high protein snacks to try to put weight back on my husband.

I left just in time to get to my nail appointment. I filled the shop in on our last two weeks as we struggled to get slime green nail polish off me. I now have "red pearl" nails for the holiday season. I also used Amazon Prime on my phone to buy my nail tech's Christmas present for my hairdresser, thereby blowing her mind.

I fixed Rich lunch and had a snack of my own. I worked on some emails. I wrote a custom search to show how to find borrowing overdue items to possibly block patrons and created a video showing how it works.

I hunted down the sour smell in my minivan. I think it was one of the seven cereal bowls hidden in various crannies of the passenger compartment. I brought the trash can in and started a load of all the clothes from Wal-Mart. I picked up the geriatric cat that was contemplating peeing in the living room and delivered her to a litter box as a better option.

I took the dogs for a brief walk to get some sunshine while Rich napped. I discovered and disposed of the cat poop the geriatric cat produced for us in the middle of the living room while we were on our walk. I worked on some more emails, talked to some co-workers and made some more notes about products.

I took Rich out to get him a 700 calorie smoothie to help put some weight back on him. I talked to my mom while driving through traffic to retrieve my son. I met one of his new teachers who says Ian is working on his listening ears, whatever that means. I let my son go outside without a coat and gave him a smoothie.

I emptied and refilled the dishwasher then brought the Wal-Mart clothes upstairs. I fixed plates for Ian and me of the delicious pork loin our neighbors made us. I had an in depth discussion with my son about trying to go potty before bed, only to have a tearful conversation in the potty about expectations and communication. I watched Busytown and nursed my son into unconsciousness. I carried all 42 pounds of him upstairs, all the while contemplating how much one of those banister chairs cost. I waited patiently for the geriatric cat to finish hacking up her hairballs so I could clean those up (thankfully off the tile) before returning dishes to the neighbors. I answered some more emails.

And I took a picture of Rich and me on the couch, just so I could document us together this day. It's low light and grainy but we're both smiling. It was the one where he looked the heaviest and I looked the lightest, so win-win.

I'm going to strip the bed upstairs shortly since my son wet the bed last night (hence the potty discussion). And then I'm going to have a cup of tea. Or possibly a hard cider.