What's up, Wednesday?

This has been an odd day so far.
And it's barely lunchtime.
Let's back up to last night.
You saw the earlier post about the combining
of babies and stomach bugs. It wasn't that bad.
Two episodes: one major, one minor.
Around three o'clock I had to move from
my cozy pillow top to the nice, firm floor of the nursery.
I don't think I've "slept"
(we'll call it sleeping, for argument's sake)
on the nursery floor since January. Maybe February.
So anyway....that was the night.
And that kind of night leads to the kind of morning
where the mama doesn't get up with her alarm.
She hears it go off in her bedroom and rolls over
very quietly and carefully
so as not to disturb the nearby baby who is sleeping.
I think we finally all made it downstairs
and got breakfast in motion at 8:30---yes, it had to be
that time because I was standing there stirring the
Cocoa Wheats when the doorbell rang. It was the
A/C guy here for his 8:30 appointment....and I was in
my nightgown. I told Lovely K to let him in
(he's a familiar face around here) while I raced
to get on some clothes.

It was a beautiful morning.
I mean, inspirationally beautiful.
Golden sunlight pouring in
on my horribly dirty kitchen floor.
So I got inspired to clean.

Usually when I have the choice between
following our day of school charted out before us
and house work, school work always wins.
As it should.
That's the priority.
But if you have seen my house lately,
you know that house work can't keep being a lesser priority.
So today it won.
House work won.
I picked housework over everything else.
Actually, what I did was send the big kids out

to the patio table with their assignments
(and I know they're partying and not doing them,
but today I don't care)
and I swept the kitchen, mopped the kitchen,
dusted the living room, cleaned some baseboards...
And next on my list is vacuuming the rest of the
downstairs floors and then mopping them.
And dusting the dining room.
I think after this spurt of cleaning,
I will break out the tub of fall decor in the basement
and scatter some decorations about.

Lloyd Dobbler came up and asked
if we wanted to go eat lunch somewhere.
That was odd.
I wish we could.
I wish would could just load up
and go eat somewhere.
But we are not doing that.
We look like homeless people
and we don't have money flowing like a river
through our pocketbooks. We will eat here
where it doesn't matter what we look like
and the bologna sandwiches are free.

I don't know why the day seems odd
...but odd in a good way.
I feel good despite less restful sleep than I am
accustomed to getting. It feels good to throw off my
academic yoke and be a housewife for a few hours.
As I was singing along with James Taylor
and cleaning a dusty baseboard,
I wondered if I would be like this more
if my kids were in school.
My dream was always to be the stay at home mom,
never the home schooling mom.
I wonder what that reality would be like.
Not that I want them to be in school.
I really think that home schooling is the best for them.
I just wish it didn't all fall on me.
It's a lot of work for me.
It fills my plate to over-flowing.
It's the reason I feel like I am always behind
and that I never have any time off.
I'm always on duty.
It would be like if you were a judge
and you lived in your courtroom
and where ever you went you always had to take
the stenographer
and the bailiff
and a couple of lawyers.
Oh, and the stenographer has to bring a lot of equipment,
isn't potty trained,
and can't feed herself or walk.
And every thing you say and do is going on the record.


Well, there's more to do today!
And those sandwiches
aren't going to make themselves....