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Amanda's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 4/9/07 -------------------- 3/12/07 2/16/07 1/5/07 11/29/06 11/13/06 10/27/06 10/11/06 9/19/06 8/13/06 7/30/06 7/19/06 7/15/06 7/4/06 6/26/06 6/21/06 6/19/06 -------------------- Amanda's Introduction

To be alone for an hour...

July 15, 2006

Is it karmic justice that we don't appreciate our single, child-free years until we are married with a toddler?  And by we, I mean me.  This week, I would trade many, many things for  just a weekend of sleeping, reading, cleaning....  All of the things I didn't appreciate having time to do five years ago.  I squandered whole weekends on idiot boyfriends or bad movies when I could have been sleeping or reading a juicy novel.  Silly, single me. 

Yesterday was a day to try the patience of an Irish Catholic mother, much less a tired, allergy-ridden mommy who started teaching a new class this week and has to deal with the hectic scheduling that goes with that.  My son is at the stage where he can't make decisions.  Or rather, he makes a different decision every five seconds.  And whatever I give him in the end turns out to be the wrong thing, and he's on the floor wailing. 

Plus he's so into "experimenting" that he doesn't listen when I tell him, "Don't open that bottle of (fill in poisonous liquid) and pour it into the cat's bowl!"  Repeat ad nauseum, until the whole house is covered in a thin layer of milk, baby wipes, laundry detergent, and cat food.  He's gotten adept at putting himself into time out. 

By the time my husband got home yesterday I was taking short breaks in the bathroom, locking the door while my son wailed outside, "Mommy potty, pivacee!  Me potty! No away!"  Ben scooped up Cai and took him outside.  I shut myself into my office, turned up the '80's music, and squandered some time answering e-mails and reading about the fighting in Lebanon and TomKat's missing baby. 

After pretending to be young and squanderingly single again for an hour or so, I was ready to be a mommy again.  We took a family walk in the park with the dog, had our favorite food for dinner, and danced on the bed to Creedence after bathtime.  When I am miserably changing "Shek" to "Puppies" (Lady and the Tramp) sixty times a day, I forget that living in a tiny apartment with only two cats for company and lots of lonely bedtimes was mostly miserable, too. 

If only I could go back and tell myself to read and sleep more instead of wasting time on those guys...

Who knew I'd someday lose so much sleep wiping black lipstick (from a long ago Halloween) off of every surface in my house?