Friday, May 19, 2006

One

I am a pomegranate seed
alone
longing for red tough skin to hold me
and for the other seeds ripe firmness to be pressing tightly against me on all sides.
I am a watch wheel
alone
yearning for the casing to enfold me
and the smooth working fo the gears, shafts and cogs to soothe me into spinning usefulness.
I am a Whitman's chocolate
alone
stolen from my safe yellow box
naked without my little cellophane nest and all the other chocolates whispering around me.
I am one single tear
alone
spilling down a cheek
away from the safety of skin and the pool of sorrow carried within.



Okay, feeling a little melancholy today...

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Sleep?

I'm so tired tonight... I figured out that in the last week I've slept about 20 hours. If you're supposed to get 8 eight hours of sleep a night, I should have gotten about 50... I love my girls, but I need a sleep break! I want to just go away for a couple of days and sleep all day, maybe read a bit... Probably not... I just want some sleep! When did I get so old?!!

Both of my girls are sick and so they've needed to be comforted a lot at night; Plus, my husband has been sick and snoring like he's trying to raise the bodies in the cemetary 6 miles from our house. I don't want to see any dead bodies rising, and stumbling to our house to destroy him for his audacity, his sheer volume. I admit that for the last two mornings I've been that dead body... I've imagined waking up as a vampire or zombie, rising from my slumber and destroying the one who has disturbed me.

Love is an amazing thing, but after three hours of sleep, (which is what I got last night) I think I'm ready to just scream in his ear the next time I hear a snore...

Friday, May 05, 2006

I looked up today and discovered that I've become the crazy Mom that always used to bug me, make me question whether they should have brought kids into this world. You know the one... The woman walking calmly through the grocery store while her child wails in their shopping cart, the one walking through a silent library with a screaming toddler tucked under her arm, the Mom who walked out of the restaurant leaving a pile of food on the floor under her child's chair. Yup, that's me. That's who I've become

One evening fairly early in our marriage my husband and I went out to a restaurant with our pastor, his wife, and their two boys, ages 3 and 5. The boys spent the entire time running around the entire restaurant (not just our table, or even just our area), screaming, crying, grabbing food off of other people's plates, and generally making everybody in a twenty foot radius miserable. I remember my husband and I turning to each other after getting in the car and saying "no way".

Well, here we are. Parents of two girls, a three year old and a seven month old, and no, we don't let they run screaming around a restaurant (no, our seven month old isn't running yet, but that's not the point here) while we calmly discuss food and life with each other. No, we don't let them do just anything, express every emotion on the planet in everybody's face around them.

However, you do find that some things just aren't as important as you thought they were. I am so excited that my three year old can finally feed herself that I'm quite willing to let her drop a quarter of her meal on the floor. And it is impossible for me to go by myself to the library, so I'm quite willing to take her into the adult area, let her run around in my sight while I choose some books, and then carry her screaming away from the wonderful labyrinth that she's just discovered will allow her to hide from me.

Yup, parenthood ain't easy, and actually being there isn't anything like what I thought it would be. Way better, and some things just aren't as important as I thought they were- like screaming in quiet places, and food on the floor.