We’ll worry about portion control later.

We’ve been talking about finding joy in the little things in my little corner of the blogosphere lately. Tonight, I found joy in a (seemingly, to anyone else) small thing. But this small thing happened to make my night.

If you’ll cast your minds back, waaaaaaaay back to the beginning of September, you’ll remember my sweet little Gracie was just starting kindergarten. I was all verklempt and full of new energy and love and happiness. Everything was chocolate milk and rainbows – even making Gracie’s lunches. (Guess where this is going.) Oh, I still love enjoy like making Gracie’s lunch with her each night. We get to talk and it’s nice to have something the two of us can do together. Something that can become a constant as she grows older and makes her way through each grade and maybe wants to go do other things than talk with her mom.

But, if I’m being honest, there are nights when I dread The Making of the Lunch. Verily, some nights The Making of the Lunch sucks. (That’s right – I said it. I said it with bad words.) I have been exhausted this week dealing with largely unbloggable matters that have drained my emotional abilities to deal well with stuff like eating, sleeping, and making lunches. Okay, fine, I’m exaggerating, but I’m still kind of tired by the end of the day, okay? Man. Anyway, I walked out of the girls’ bedroom from tucking Bee into bed and walked into the kitchen to investigate some suspicious noises I had heard while reading bedtime stories. I thought Gracie might be getting out her three choices for snacks (something she sometimes prepares for my approval or veto). I was surprised to find her opening a brown bag and preparing to put her lunch in it. Her entire lunch (except the turkey – she forgot her rolled-up lunch meat she usually takes in a baggy). She had gotten out some crackers, a bag of fruit snacks, loaded enough Cheetos in a baggie to feed half her class, and even buttered a slice of bread! That means she got the loaf of bread down from the dish rack, opened the twistie-tie, got out a piece of bread, somehow reached up to the third shelf in the fridge and negotiated the full butter tub from behind some Sam Adams and the corningware full of shepherd’s pie, got a butter knife and buttered the bread.   !  This from the girl who still asks me to button her pajama top! True, I didn’t look inside the folded bread because I was afraid of how much butter I would find…

I was speechless. I still am. She even got out a napkin and wrote the “Dear Gracie,” and “Love, Mom” with room in between for me to write her a note. Such a small act of kindness as packing her own lunch moved me almost to tears.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a round of Uno or three I’ve got to play with my favorite five-year-old before I send her off to bed. What – you didn’t think I was letting her get out of bonding with Mom, did you?

*This post was pre-blogged Tuesday night in the interest of extra Wednesday morning alarm snoozes.

Things I miss from home…

I know: this is more free-thinking than it is a highly organized, make-you-laugh-until-you-cry, story-telling kind of post. But some days you just gotta focus on the happy instead of work days that make you crave a stiff drink and long-absent friends. But, hey – focusing on the happy, right? Yes. I decided to do another edition of Mrs. E’s homework assignment; a simple list of those simple joys that sustain us through days that might otherwise end in flames. Little things. Happy things. Inexpensive things.

One more thing about the list and then I’ll shut up and post it already. You know, we used to do this a lot in high school – make lists like this, I mean. My friends and I would take a sheet of notebook paper, scribble “I think…” across the top, and then let fly whatever thoughts we thought appropriate. “I think…Mr. Kelleher should stop being angry that only girls are in AP History…that people should mind their own business…that the senior advisor has it out for us…” etc., etc. We we would post them in the Coke Room (a popular hangout for the seniors; also a closet-sized room where sodas and candy bars were sold to students). Sometimes they were signed, sometimes they weren’t, but either way you almost always knew who had posted which list. I remember they were always very cathartic.

Anyway, I read Gayle’s lovely list of where her heart dwells and it made me think of home. It made me want to write of home. And we all know that once I want to write about something, it might percolate for awhile, but the thoughts always find their way to paper after awhile. Here you have it (finally, I hear you say!): the things I miss from home.

The smell of lilacs…sleeping with my windows open…afternoon thunderstorms in the summer…corner stores…grinders…Boston accents…easy access to Boston sports teams’ apparrel…being close to family…blueberry trees bushes that yield fruit the size of grapes…hugs from my mom…cellars…friendly, rumbly thunder…snow days…apple picking…the colors of fall (that aren’t limited to green, brown, and shades of dead)…woodsmoke…front porches…windy, curvy roads…hills…churches with steeples…stone walls that run through the woods…black raspberry ice cream…Niko’s Pizza…the doorjamb in my mom’s room that has all of our heights marked on it…woods that I don’t mind exploring because they have friendly snakes without rattles…my dad’s crunchy chicken…pine trees…maple trees (with whirlygigs to stick on your nose)…back stoops…Dunkin’ Donuts…Friendly’s…Gibby’s ice cream…walking around my neighborhood…the Italian Festival…my girlfriends from school…the possibility of running into old friends…the library…Dorothy Pond…driving around and seeing places that mean something to my family and to local history…my mom’s house that I know so well, it’s like a dear old friend.

I know there are more things I’ve forgotten, but this was enough to make me happy in my heart. Now it’s time for a glass of wine and then the sweet distractions of the girls and finally, maybe, sleep.

Ways to wile away the weekend.

Looking for ways to wile away the longest. weekend. ever? Here’s some advice of what to do – and what to stay away from.

DO take advantage of the stopped clock by knocking some chores off your list. There never seems to be enough time to clean, so maybe that will be the trick you need to make time speed up a little. Clean the kitchen, do four loads of laundry, change all the sheets, and bake brownies and cookies for your neighbor’s charity garage sale. When you realize that barely any time has gone by, individually wrap the baked goods.

DON’T get carried away. I mean, why bother emptying the kiddie pool that’s been acting as your rain gauge during the omnipresent rain? And you didn’t really need to mow the grass, did you? I mean, the lawn isn’t even shin high yet!
DO take time to relax after all that hard work by watching a few movies. Extra points if you catch up on fun hits like Mama Mia! and Hairspray. (Why, exactly, was everyone heaping praise on John Travolta for that role? If there was charm in that character, I missed it.) So-bad-it’s-funny horror movies like The Gathering are also acceptable.

DON’T watch Terms of Endearment just to see what all the fuss is about when you’re already feeling crushed and lonely and you haven’t heard from the girls in two days. Heavens to Betsy! An entire box of tissues, gone.
DO run errands like grocery shopping, the weekly Target run (and then back again when you realize you’ve forgotten the Tylenol PM), and other odds and ends.

DON’T speed, rush traffic lights, or listen to sappy music on the way. You have an entire weekend to kill.
DO get caught up on projects, like that Christmas one there for someone who may or may not be reading this… Or the baby blanket for your friend (one-and-a-half bunnies down, two-and-a-half to go).

DON’T forget to take two (count them – TWO!) nice, long, hot baths with that book you can’t put down (Year of Wonders, review to follow shortly).
DO kill some time by getting pretty for your upcoming trip to Philadelphia (squeeeeee!) to watch your sister defend The Diss. Get a pedicure, have your brows reshaped, get your hair trimmed and your scalp massaged. It’s too bad I heard at the end of my weekend about a new massage parlor that just opened up in an up-and-coming shopping plaza – $39 for an hour-long massage. I would have really splurged.

DON’T forget to do the one thing that was really on your To Do list this weekend: clean the guest room for my sister’s upcoming visit. I’ll have just one night back in town before I have to turn around and go back to the airport to pick her up. And there is way more than one night’s worth of work in there.
DO go out and run for two miles so you…

…DON’T feel bad when you splurge and make shepherd’s pie for dinner.
Phew.  Is it Monday yet? Because I’m running out of ideas.

By the way…

I should have mentioned (and I would have, were I sure that my author’s note wouldn’t have counted against my word count) that this post was an assignment handed down by the fabulous Mrs. E. over at Easy Street. We had to come up with a list of things that we would miss if we were gone, inexpensive little things we take for granted each and every day. I don’t always take these things for granted – heck, some of them aren’t even tangible things – but they’re things that are near and dear to me, just the same. And I needed the reminder.

What’s your list? What would you miss if you were taken from this earth (…or maybe just thrown in the clinker)?

Katie’s Everyday Insta-Cures for Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Days

Flirtatious smiles…Making children laugh…Venti nonfat lattes…That second glass of wine…Emails from friends…Packages…Finding a book you can’t put down…Crawling into a cozy warm bed at the end of the day…Wandering alone in a bookstore without children or anywhere else to be…Finding forgotten money…Runner’s high…Getting a text message…Watching Pride and Prejudice…Splurging on a Cadbury Egg…Long hugs…Giving in to a kiss…Playing Boggle with my sisters…Tom Brady’s smile (and his TD passes)…Wrapping Christmas presents…Writing the perfect turn of phrase…Singing with my friends…My mom’s warnings to be careful…My girls’ need for “One more hug!” before bedtime…Morning coffee…Knowing the answer to inane trivia…Impressing people for the silliest reasons…Hearing you made someone’s day…Laughing fits…Reciting scenes from The West Wing word for word…Winning challenges…Snowstorms…The first feeling of fall…Going back home… My cute little bookmark with the elephant charm…Sharing secrets…Indulging in my guilty, irrepressible love for Stephen King stories…Pasta for dinner…Getting flowers (or weeds) picked by my children.

Oh, why don’t you just go away.

Sleep has always been a fickle friend of mine. I love sleep. Luuuuuuurve it. I want to marry it and have 8,000 of its babies. I think sleep has figured this out, though. It seems to know when I’m stalking it and then it starts avoiding my calls and stops hanging out at its usual haunts. And then, then, its gangsta friend Big Bad Insomnia starts stalking me.

I hate insomnia.

I don’t have to wrestle with it very often. I’ll go through a bout of it – usually when I’m stressed or thinking too much or questioning existence – every few months or sometimes as infrequently as once or twice a year. When I do get it, though, it’s a tough bugger to shake off. The panicky feeling of whether or not I’ll be able to sleep only makes it worse.

At least, though, I have (what I consider) to be the “good kind” of insomnia: Delayed Sleep Insomnia. Our dear friend Wiki refers to it as “Onset Insomnia” and, ever helpful, points out that it is often associated with anxiety disorders. (You don’t say.) Terminal (or Late) Insomnia, on the other hand, is often associated with clinical depression. At least with my insomnia, once I fall asleep that first time, I’m golden. Some nights it takes an hour, some nights three or four. But once I trick myself into letting go and floating off, I won’t have another thing to worry about…until the next night. But those early-wakers, man, they never know if they’re going to fall back to sleep or not. I can just imagine how it would be when they woke up on any given night, wondering if this would be the night they would maddeningly lie awake for hours, or if they would harmlessly fall asleep in just minutes. That would just mess with my head. My own insomnia has its worries, but of the two poisons, it’s the one I’d pick.

I’d rather not deal with it at all, to tell you the truth. Some nights, I just lie there and play the cards I’m dealt; I figure that even if I only get four hours of sleep, at least I’ll be tired enough to sleep the next night. Some nights, I “don’t deal with it” by giving in entirely. In fact, I have a sliding scale of “not dealing with it” in that way. If it’s just a teensy little worry that I won’t be able to sleep, I might partake in a glass of wine or two. (Shoosh, you in the back. I do know that some experts say that wine could exacerbate my sleeplessness. It makes me sleepy as soon as I stop drinking.) If matters seem a little more dire and I have time to plan, I might take a Benadryl. If there’s less time to plan, then I use Tylenol PM. (Naturally, because Benadryl makes me bounce off the wall for a few hours whereas Tylenol PM has a more immediate effect.) If all of these means are exhausted, I’m at the mercy of that gangsta bitch, Insomnia.

Some of my friends have suggested I try some Lunestra. They’ve had good results. To be honest, it sounds perfectly lovely. But the last doctor’s visit I made was to request a few sedatives because I’m afraid of flying. If I follow it up with a request for a sleeping aid, I’m afraid I’ll be met by cute little gents with very pretty butterfly nets. So maybe I’ll try to hold out for awhile. I think I can manage: I had a bout of insomnia for several nights last week and have been sleeping fine since. Then again, this week has been incredibly, over-the-top stressful, smattered with not a little bit of (wait for it…) anxiety. So we’ll just see how the sleep goes tonight, shall we?

There’s a hole in my pocket, dear Henry, dear Henry.

School is killing me. Gracie has been in kindergarten for almost two months now and while I’ve lost the fear of Gracie losing her way in the halls or mixing up her bus assignment, I have grown a much more acute fear: that of the school fundraiser.

I saw the coupon book and a whole ream of accompanying literature when I was emptying out her backpack last week. Later that night, Gracie pulled the coupon book out and held it up with the most earnest expression on her face. “Oh, yeah, Mom: can you please help me sell these? I can’t talk to strangers!” Poor, sweet, innocent soul who hasn’t yet been broken by the school fundraiser. I assured her that I would indeed help her sell the coupon books. I looked more closely at the papers and realized they wanted $20 for those suckers. Wait…maybe we are the suckers. Still. I figured I could buy one, her dad could buy one and grandmother could buy one. Three books would be a respectable showing.

Then, there was a sign on the door when we arrived at daycare the next morning. Daycare was sponsoring the Make-a-Wish Foundation (one of my favorite charities) and would be holding a raffle for a week’s worth of free tuition. Tickets were $10. Now, I happened to owe daycare $10 already because Gracie stayed the day on Columbus Day since kindergarten was closed. But, like I said, I adore the Make-a-Wish Foundation and hello! Free tuition! So there was another $20.

The day after that, I walked in to collect my darling daughters from daycare and found notices on their classroom doors. Each classroom was building a themed basket to raffle off to benefit (again) the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Gracie’s class was building a Movie Night-themed basket. They were asking for donations of movies, popcorn, and snacks. Bee’s class was building a Dinner-Out themed basket and was asking for $5 to go towards a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Don’t get me wrong: I am all for helping out local charities, but I just pledged $20 towards Gracie’s fundraiser, $10 for Gracie to stay the day last Monday (when it used to be $10 more than her current tuition for her to stay fulltime during summer months), and another $10 for the tuition raffle. On top of the 8% rate increase daycare just imposed. And a 500% increase in the annual registration fee. I feel badly that the girls will be hurt by not participating, but I am Tapped Out.

I am glad school is teaching our children to give of themselves and of their (parents’) money to worthy causes, but there is also something to be said for knowing when you’re pushing your luck. And if you ask me, that is ALSO a worthy cause to be teaching our youngsters. Wouldn’t you agree?

In which pumpkins were picked.

(Picked? Plucked? Picked up and hurled to check for bouncability?)

In between all of the madness and business of this weekend (and good things, too! Like, babies!), I did manage to shuffle the girls off to the local pumpkin patch. I was worried about whether we would get there, and if we got there, whether any of my children would be alive. It was a bad sort of morning. The girls weren’t listening, but they were complaining about everything. Gracie was practicing her stint as teenager-in-training (years in advance) by acting perfectly normal one minute and then collapsing to the floor the next, in tears no less, because it wasn’t fair! And didn’t I realize I was ruining her life? Needless to say, I was short on patience when I finally got everyone into the ever-lovin’ car.

Thankfully, I had one of Those Moments as I pulled onto the road. I thought about how this was supposed to a fun family outing and really we were no where close. So. Since someone elected me the Grownup-in-Residence, I decided I had to change my own attitude first. (I know! A rare moment of maturity for me.) I cheerfully announced that we needed to start over and have a good rest of the day. I declared myself happy in the most ingratiating happy voice I could muster. Bee followed suit (as she is wont to do these days) and Gracie sulked (as she is wont to do). Thankfully, Gracie came around to see things from our shiny, happy perspective before we got there. Otherwise I swore I was going to keep driving until she was ready to let go and have fun. Darn it.

I’m glad I hung in there because we ended up having a perfectly lovely time. Sunshine and pumpkins have that effect on little kids. (And mommies, too.) They ran around and pointed out great! big! giant! pumpkins and itty-bitty, cutesey wittle pumpkins. They posed for pictures on benches and climbed on hay bales and played in a house constructed entirely of hay. They clambered over tractors and pretended to mow people down (downright scary, they were) and wandered through a miniature maze made of yet more hay bales. In between, the girls were nice enough to stop and flash the most fleeting of smiles in my direction so I could snap a million and one pictures. Of course, not a single one of the pictured in which they deigned to pose next to each other came out nicely. But that’s the way that goes, I guess. There were quite a few good ones of each of them alone (particularly one of Gracie laughing after she pretended to kiss a scarecrow). So I will be happy.

Hey, for $6 I got: three giant pumpkins, two happy girls and a whole new outlook on the day – what more could I want? Pictures, you say? Well, here you go. (The ones that don’t reveal my girls’ super-secret identities, at least.)

The House of Horrors! (and Hay!)

To prove they once liked each other.

To prove that Bee sometimes sits still. Sometimes.

A little perspective is always good.

Today’s not the time for If Questions. After I came back from lunch yesterday and found a breaking news email about this story, I spent too much time asking myself ‘what if…?’ Like, “What if it were my child who went up that balloon?” I couldn’t stop thinking about it, agonizing over it. My stomach was in absolute knots. I couldn’t stop picturing Gracie in that boy’s place and imagining how terrified she would have been. Perspective like that changes the way you go about your day.

It didn’t seem to matter whose house was visited by the Tooth Fairy.

It didn’t matter that I had only slept four and five hours the past two nights thanks to recurring insomnia.

It didn’t matter (as much) that Gracie left yet another cardigan at school (two this week) or that Bee lost another sweatshirt at school (two this season).

The political “discussion” my guy and I were debating via email seemed less important, my To-Do list seemed shorter, and whether or not Gracie got a green or yellow (or worse) for behavior at school seemed trivial.

I was just happy to see the twinkling eyes of my girls and their happy round bellies poking out from under their shirts as they ran with arms stretched out to hug their mum. I might not sleep again and the girls might whine until I pull all my hair out, but at least we’re all safe. That’s all that matters to me.

Love smiles big beautiful smiles.

Because sometimes as a mom, you fall in love with your baby all over again. And it’s the same kind of pure love that you felt when they first placed her in your arms. This was one of those moments.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone!