The Bigs looked forward to their recital for weeks. Not one bit of stage fright, even on the big day.

 The Bear got to go third. He did a little Mozart Menuet (a very, very simplified version) and it went off without a hitch. Look at that face. He looks so sweet.

The Princess, playing the first movement of Fur Elise got to go second to last and she was so pleased. Her favorite slot is very last, since she was once told that the last performance is remembered the most. She is sweetly oblivious to sharing the spotlight. Sing it with me! Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble…

At the end comes the group shot. Aren’t they all gorgeous? Bright, shining, happy faces.

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Except one.

He made that horrific face in every shot. Despite my hollering to cease and desist.

A little over three weeks ago L had her baby girl. We went over a few days later and man, she’s gorgeous. L and J even handed her over and I got to hold that little pink, sleepy bundle. She has so much hair! And she has her daddy’s face and her mama’s long, long fingers.

Funny though. For the first time, I didn’t die a little when I handed a baby back. I didn’t sigh and wish I had a set of teeny ears to nibble or cheeks to caress. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me until later that I spent most of the visit talking and snapping pictures. I’d been fairly okay with getting that couple of minutes of baby grabbing in and then I was done.

I think I’m done.

In the past, whenever I heard a friend say those words I would inwardly recoil. How could you ever be “done”? How could you ever give up the possibility of a fuzzy little head tucked against your neck at three AM? Or those itty bitty nibblet toes? Or the worshipful look in a baby’s eyes when they recognize your face? They couldn’t say it in words…they just knew. And now I think I know, too.

It feels like there are other things to do now. I want to finish school. Heck, I want to concentrate on the kids’ school. I want to learn Latin and conquer my gardens and paint my hallway and run until it feels good. I want a little more autonomy. 

Unless God has other ideas, I think I’m okay with an empty belly. I’m ready for nights of sound sleep and days devoid of diapers. (Even the cute newborn size with the belly button divot.) My eyes are less on the horizon and more on the ground immediately in front of me. And I’ve got three little sets of hands to hold as I go.

Have you ever gone through a period where you had a hard time finding your joy? Not like crushing depression or anything, just a vague sense of unease and discord. Dang, I hate that. SO. How’s about I count my blessings as a way to cover my ears and yell, “La-la-la-la, I can’t see you, I can’t hear you!” to the black dog sitting at my feet.

• The sun is out! Part of yesterday and all day today the sun has come out. More is forcasted all week. And – get this! – it’s supposed to get up the 70’s later in the week. Now that’s livin’.
• We are nearly done with school and will actually get a sizable summer break. All that’s left is history and as the Princess says, that’s not really work.
• My uncle J, who I have not seen in almost 20 years came to visit and we got to meet his awesome wife. That’s a whole other blog post, but suffice it to say that they are overwhelmingly cool. Like, really cool.
• Even though my gardens are half weeds, I am happy because we live in a part of the country where stickers don’t grow. Honest! No goat heads, no burrs. We can run in the grass barefoot without fear.
• What I thought was an overwhelmingly horrid allergy attack may partly be blamed on a cold. That would mean that half of what I’m going through would be short term. Never before have I welcomed a virus so wholeheartedly.
• It’s almost strawberry season. And Washington strawberries are unreal.
• Sibling rivalry rules! The Princess and the Bear are trying to outshine each other in piano practice.
• Didn’t have to clean up any cat yak this morning. No hairballs first thing in the morning (before coffee, even) is the start of a good day.

See? Good times.

We’re big fans of Jim Weiss around here and sigh over Greathall Productions’ catalog whenever it comes in the mail. When I found an unabridged copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the Bear’s current favorite! book! ever!), read by Jim Weiss, at the library – well, happy would be an understatement. And the Bear vibrated with joy.

I was also pretty surprised to see it. We have the catalog pretty much memorized, and I hadn’t seen Oz listed. I double-checked the website…nope. Not there. Amazon? No. I ran the ISBN through rare and used sites, and no. Nothing doing.

Dare I say it? I was thisclose to pirating it. I had tried my best to pay for a copy, but what’s a mama to do? That’s when I saw the tiny print on the back of the box.

Books on Tape

WOW.

Thousands of titles not found anywhere else. Unabridged. And the prices are really good. Lo, I am happy.

Right now I am damp. Not from the sweltering heat or from the pool. I am damp because I was at the farmer’s market, and it was raining. Again!

Right now I am wearing sweats, crew socks, and a thermal shirt with a tee on top. Not because I am always cold (which is true), but because it hasn’t gotten above the upper 50’s all day. It’s in the 40’s at night. We are still sleeping under comforters.

Right now it is so cold and cloudy all the time, the maple trees’ branches in the yard and all over town are tipped with red leaves. I have to fight the urge to pop on the heater in the mornings. It’s JUNE for crying out loud!

I would like some sun. Not a lot – this is the Pac Northwest, after all – but more than two days in a row would be nice. A week in the 70’s would be positively extravagant. Where’s a little global warming when you need it?

Well, getting my first degree would be a step in the right direction.

I was about a year short of a BA when I ran off and married a sailor. What with one thing and another – lack of maturity, moving, having babies, more lacking maturity – I put off finishing it. For, oh, thirteen years now.

I started out as an art major with an emphasis in ceramics. Then a year in, I switched to an English major with an emphasis in radio broadcasting. Along the way I had fun taking extra classes that were completely superfluous but fun at the time. I followed my bliss through a class on Beowulf, Comparative Religions, Women and the American Experience, and Film Appreciation. Then I decided to tack on a women’s studies minor. Can you tell I lacked focus?

Fast forward to now. When I contacted the college to see what it would take to finish my degree, they were fairly stumped. Where had I been all this time? Why had I waited so long? And anyone who looked at my transcripts was a little confused.

I talked to someone in records. Then a department head. Then an Associate Provost, who helped design a degree plan out of my jumble of interests. He asked me, “Well… What do you want out of all this?” I couldn’t articulate it very well. I stammered something about just wanting the piece of paper. I am a go-getter like that. He sounded mildly skeptical, but signed off on my ancient credits and referred me to the Extended Studies department. He let me know that I have 38 credits to go.

My academic advisor called me and was very upbeat about getting me going. She injected me with enthusiasm, so I got online and started looking at classes. When I saw an interesting class, I opened up the syllabus to see the prof’s name and required texts.

You know you are getting old when one of your professors is someone from your crowd at that college. Someone younger than you. I pretty much want to curl up in a ball and read Astrix comics and forget about academia. I want to go back to playing with magnets and batteries with my fourth grader and shut off the Extended Studies website and forget it. Because being a student myself is strangely intimidating and full of other people’s expectations and don’t you know I have coloring pages to copy off for the Bear and a toddler to change and supper to fix and I’m not in the mood for risk, okay?

The first step is to find a paper bag to breathe into. Then I’ll start looking up options for financial aid.

Writer’s block kills! At least, it killed my post.

I couldn’t come up with anything interesting but I started to fumble around and write about something! Anything! Then I thought I accidentally hit “Publish”, so I went back to delete the meant-to-be-a-draft post. Instead, I deleted the post about the Bear proposing to his Sunday School song leader.

Grrr. I sure wish Wordpress had a recycle bin for doofuses (doofi?) like me.

I went in to get my permanent crown put on today. I was not wound up like I was about the procedure to grind the old tooth to a stump.

I did it without nitrous. I even eschewed novocaine. After all, the last crown I had put on years ago terrified me, but I have to admit it didn’t hurt. I didn’t even have an Advil first.

Oy vey!

This tooth is on my more sensitive side. (Ha! See? I do have a sensitive side!) And getting the temp crown popped off, the residual cement gently scraped off, and the on-off-on-off adjusting of the new one didn’t tickle. I did breathing exercises until my fingertips started to tingle.

After much adjusting and trying to get it to work, it was found that the lab had gotten my permanent crown wrong. Wrong! It was not going to work. So they made a new impression of my stumpy tooth, scraped it again and cemented the temp back in place. In two weeks, I get to do it all over again.

Now there is something to look forward to.