Stupid Monday.

I get a lot of anxiety on Sunday nights about the upcoming week (seven more stinking nights of making dinner. whining. overwhelming responsibility.), but usually by Monday mornings, I'm all starry-eyed and making big plans (potential! uncharted territory! fun! discipline!).

Note to self: neither of these emotional responses is to be trusted.

Yesterday my two big plans were these:

1. Enter the lottery next year for the St. George marathon.
2. Give the baby a bottle and thereby make it possible for me to go to mutual without feeling antsy at about 7:30 every week. Clearly a brilliant plan with absolutely no possibility of failure!

So I broke out the breast pump, sterilized the beast, felt like a dairy cow for half an hour last night, and then repeated the process tonight. As I was cleaning up after tonight's milking, the baby started to cry. Almost gleefully, I sent Paul upstairs with a bottle of fresh, warm milk. Ah! That heavily guilt-riddled feeling of near-freedom when you think that maybe you might, once a week, get to leave that sweet, cuddly bundle of preciousness you waited and cried for and prayed over for too many years and too many miscarriages! 

It was only near-freedom, though. The bottle was anathema (and deeply offensive) to her. She preferred the empty tanks to a full synthetic one--and then continued to tell us both how thoroughly wronged she had been.

Stupid Monday. Stupid plans. Thank goodness for the mediocrity of Wednesday when things will get done and there won't be time for silly ideas or senseless worry. Yay, Wednesday.

*******

• Yes, we'll try the dumb bottle again at a less anxious time for the baby.
• Yes, maybe we should get some bottles/nipples that aren't nine years old (CC refused every bottle I ever tried on her, so all the bottle feeding apparatus we own is from Caleb's long-ago babyhood).
• Yes, I'm going to find a way to get away for a few minutes at some point.

Three weeks.

On the 4th of July, CC was highly suspicious of fireworks.

 Last night, for the 24th, her tune had nearly completely changed.

She'd choose the next firework, hand it to Paul, and then come back to sit on my lap where she would tell us who the firework was dedicated to (me, Grandma, Grandpa, or Cecily herself). If it screamed, she'd say, "Oh! It's singing a song for you! I don't wike that song. It hurts my ears."

Wishing.

Whenever I have uterine pain, I blame it on endometriosis (what reason is there not to?). Feeling a little sorry for myself yesterday over some sharp waves of pain, I told Paul I was going to be ticked if I had to have a hysterectomy at 34. Caleb--who has been praying nightly for another sibling--said to me, "What's a hysterectomy?"

Me: It's where the doctors take out a woman's uterus and ovaries and all their inside-girl parts. Then they can't get pregnant anymore.

Caleb, looking alarmed: But... they can still adopt, right?

To remember #3.

Paul started a new job last week and therefore spent the week in California. In my week of single parenthood, the unrelenting duties overcame me (the children! why do they insist on being fed all the time!), and I lost my wedding and engagement rings.

On Friday, after I'd done the first three levels of looking, things were getting serious. CC said to me, "What you doin', Mama?"

"I can't find my rings, " I told her.

A light came on in her face: "I know where dey are, Mama! Dey in da bafroom! I go get 'em for you."

Minutes later, she returned empty-handed. "I not find 'em, Mama. Dey not dere. Wet's wook togevver! We can wook in my woom and in your desk and on a sewing machine and in Bubba's woom and we find 'em, Mama."

So we wooked and wooked, but we didn't find 'em.

When Paul got home, he asked CC, "Do you know where Mama's rings are?"

She looked at him, shook her head, and sighed, "I wooked and wooked."

So wise for a two-year-old.

Postscript: Paul took the drier apart and found the rings, slightly broken, but found.

Karate.

When I think of karate, I think of Rex Kwon Do.

Regardless, we signed Caleb up for karate for his birthday and he has loved it every single day since. He worked hard to earn the money for his gi (and, yes, he does replicate the face and stance of the kid on that wikipedia article with astonishing accuracy, especially for never having seen it), and he's even earned the first two stripes on his white belt.

This might be more impressive if I actually knew what any of that meant, but the enthusiasm he has for a place consecrated for the learning of moves is enough for me.

To remember #2.

On Friday night in the hospital, my parents brought the kids in to see me after my surgery. Caleb--who had been fairly nervous all week long--mostly wanted to squeeze in next to me on the bed and rest his head gingerly on my shoulder. CC wanted nothing to do with me but needed to closely examine each inch of the room.

At one point, a nurse came to give me some medication or other in my IV. CC stood at the foot of the bed, stared me down, and repeatedly declared, "It not gonna hurt you, Mama. It not gonna hurt. It not hurt you, okay? You be just fine."

She was right.

To remember.

On Easter morning, we were watching Music and the Spoken Word and I was trying hard to do CC's hair. I'm always trying hard to do that girl's hair, but it was especially difficult on Easter because there was the coffee cake for breakfast, and there were Mickey Mouse sand toys in her Easter basket, and Daddy was at home instead of at church for so early on a Sunday morning.

So I was frustrated and she was bouncy and I barked, "CC! Do you want ponies or not?" (Gosh! What a threat!)

She calmed down and started stroking my wrist, saying, "I wuv you, Mama. You da best mama in da whole world. I wuuuuuuuv you soooooo much," and on and on.

Caleb, of course, was perfectly behaved.