Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play Collapse

I woke up on Monday and was slammed by the Depression Freight Train. Well, maybe the “sad” Freight Train is more accurate since I can’t qualify for being clinically depressed unless feelings of crappy-ness persist for, what, two weeks? Let’s hope this is a short trip.

Anyway, so it was/is basically a combination of the Monday blues and feelings of motherhood failure and that sensation of being at the bottom of another mountain that I have to climb (yeah, that would be the week, aka, my reoccurring mountain). And a few other things.

Motherhood is nothing if not a chance to feel like a failure every day. Does that make sense? What I am saying is, this is the job I want to excel at and it is difficult because my managers (Madeline and Avery) are not very good at giving feedback. Plus, they totally overact at the slightest injustice (Avery screams if she is not allowed to touch my computer; Madeline falls into hysterics if she can’t open her toy backpack.) Children are SO dramatic. Sometimes their little overreactions are funny. Other times, it’s just draining.

And there are no short cuts. This morning I gave them breakfast: blueberry waffles, melon, cheerios and teddy grahams (the cookies were just a desperate shot to get them to eat anything). Everything ended up on the floor. Normally, after every meal without fail, I pull out the dustbuster and clean up the floor, wipe down the table and clean their bibs. But today, I am just so tired. I figured I’d let the breakfast mess mix with the lunch mess and just clean up once. So I released them from their seats and let them play in the kitchen while I cleaned the coffee maker and got the coffee ready for tomorrow, which seems like a priority. While I was distracted by coffee grounds, they proceeded to step on every chocolate cookie, crushing them into 1,000 pieces and getting them all over their feet and the floor. Who knew so few cookies could be reduced to a mountain of chocolate dust? So my little dustbusting break caused me twice as much work. See what I mean? No shortcuts.

I always feel like I am not entertaining them enough, or stimulating them enough, or taking them on enough walks, or arranging enough playdates (or any playdates, for that matter) or feeding them enough or doing anything enough. The books that give a week by week play by play all expired at a year, and I am swimming in the insecurity of “Should they be using a bottle still?” and “How much milk do the need?” and “When are they going to give up that morning nap?” I’m playing it by ear at this point, trying to trust my gut, and that is not easy for me. I sometimes get non-Organic milk and I feel like I am poisoning their little systems. I feel like I don’t give them enough food variety. I don’t change their little sheets enough. The list can go on and on.

So it was Monday and all that as in my head and the week stretched before me, sliced and diced into segments of wake, eat, nap, eat, nap, eat, bedtime for them, bedtime for us. Repeat repeat repeat. I love routine and ritual more than the average person but sometimes even I—the one who abhors changes and the one who craves order—wants to shake things up. My brother and his family are in China right now and I keep thinking that could have been us too. Instead Nicole is slogging off to another week at work and I am here with the girls, trying to add spice to our all-too-regular routine days.

It’s August, and that is my least favorite month of the year because it is the final hurdle between me and my favorite time of the year. I long to wear sweaters and jeans and boots and scarves and mittens. I have a lot to look forward to this fall, so I am ready for it to begin. We are going away a few times and we have the whole wedding in October and apple picking and Nicole’s birthday and fall foliage. I can’t wait.

I also had the horrifying experience of browsing through the barnes and noble website and seeing a book written by an old acquaintance. I was shocked that she wrote a book and even more shocked by the subject of the book. She is not a very nice person. Never was. She was mean and obnoxious and rude and arrogant, and she would admit that too. So to see her now, a writer, an author of a book, a fiction book with decent blurbs from halfway decent writers on the cover. Hello, Green-Eyed Monster. There is no money to be made in publishing a book (you have to me a mega best seller, like Stephen King, in order to really see anything other than a tiny advance) but this book has Hollywood written all over it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is snapped up ad turned into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. To see another person (I know) accomplish something I would love to makes me feel more feelings of failure.

So this new author’s success lead me to start looking up some of these old friends and coworkers and acquaintances and seeing what they are up to. But I don’t have the energy/ego to reach out to anyone right now, because my biggest accomplishment is buying a new Wet Dry dustbuster, and that makes me feel a little inadequate. No book or big promotion or giant bonus or new job. I know, woe is me. Talk about dramatic. Let’s hope I feel like myself again soon.

Pictured above, the floor after mealtime. Madeline was clearly not in the mood for, specifically, cut-up tomatoes, mozzarella, pasta, chocolate teddy bear crackers or Cheerios. But you can probably surmise all of this just by looking at the floor. Also pictured, Skye in China picking out dinner. This is why I am happy to NOT to be in China. What would I eat? I would lose like 20 pounds. By the way, Mina said SKye's bathing suit cost two dollars.