I have no shame

I have a hole in my crotch.

Yes, I know we all do, but I’m talking about my pants.

It started out as a usual running around getting for work Monday—Getting lunches thrown together, eating in the car -- I carpool, so while M drives, I can read, eat, or repeatedly pick up Blue Eyes toys when she cries, “Pooh fell!”

And we stopped at work, M waved goodbye and headed for the bus stop and I dropped Blue Eyes off at her daycare. She glommed onto my leg, hugged me for all she was worth, said, “Bye-bye, Mommy,” and poked her finger through the hole just two inches south of my zipper.

And it was then that I realized, “Ah, yes. The seam ripped on these pants last week.” Then M. washed them. I folded them and put them away… on the top of the stack of pants in my closet. So, what was it that I grabbed for first? Yep. The pants with the window to my soul.

I guess I know now that I am a laid-back person. I have not tried to staple these shut. I haven’t panicked and gone to Target to buy more cheap jeans. I figure, eh, I have a desk job. My crotch will be tucked under Formica all day anyway. I’ll fix ‘em when I get home. Yeah, right. I’ll fix ‘em sometime this month.

And unless some perv is staring at my fly, they probably won’t notice anyway… until they read my blog.

Alone

Some people look at being alone as a bad thing. “I’m so alone.” What I would give to have a minute of alone. I have been living with my family in one room of our house since May 9. We’re on about week 10 of a long building project, and for 9 of those weeks I’ve been in one room with my husband, dog and almost-two daughter.

I love my family. There’s this complete awareness I get about my daughter when we sleep in the same room. There's definitely that closeness. She talks in her sleep like I did when I was little, like my husband does sometimes. I know when she’s having a bad day. She had a bad dream this morning. I heard her cry out in her sleep, “My juice! No, my juice!” (This is what a toddler’s nightmare’s are made of.) We’re changing daycares next week and I heard her cry out her friend’s name. “Emma!”

But what I wouldn’t give for a few minutes of alone. I’ve been getting enough sleep, seven or eight hours. And yet, I’m so tired. I want some time to read, time to just be me. Oh, what a jewel I had for all those single years—in college when I was unpopular and had all the “me time” I could ever use.

In the movie, Contact, Jodie Foster says that “No one, none of us is alone.” Oh, come on! Please? Not even for ten minutes? (And yes… I even shower with my daughter.)

*sigh*

Sometimes togetherness is overrated.

Manual Labor: Toddler VS Brick

So, if anyone ever asks you what’s so difficult about taking care of a toddler, you can spare them the usual “molding a young mind, shaping someone’s future” piffle and think about bedtime. Making a toddler hold still is like asking the same of a Jell-O mold. (They’re called jigglers for a reason.) Last night after returning to the pit-- I mean, home-in-process— I claimed the duty of changing Blue Eyes out of the crankypants she’d been for an hour and a half and into pajamas. M. went to move bricks.

I recently purchased a multi-ton quantity of brick pavers for the area that, in about a month, will be our patio. I love Craigslist. However, the pain in the tuchas part is moving them. Our contractor lucked out in seeing someone with a forklift drive by when he went to pick up the pavers. $40 later, he had two tons of bricks in the truck, weighing it down to 55 mph on the freeway. M. and I inherited the task of moving the bricks off the truck… by hand.

So, M. started moving them off the truck while I wrestled with wiggle butt to get her to lay down for more than 10 seconds—“Mama, juice!” “Mama, the dog leash!” “Mama, book!” “Elmo book? Cookie! Count! Ha, ha, ha!” “The end!” “Sing!” “No sing!”—

*sigh* Finally, after getting her to lay down by playing, “1, 2, 3, SLEEP!” I found I could pick up MY book…. And sit with her and watch her flip over, turn around, play with her feet on the wall, wiggle towards the edge of her bed, readying herself to sleep in the most precarious position possible. The more she agitated her blanket, the more she agitated me. “Don’t toddlers know that you can’t fall asleep doing somnambulant gymnastics???” Clearly, they don’t.

I traded my husband. I needed a break. So, I went and moved bricks.

There are nice things about bricks. Sure, they’re heavy, but they’re also stationary. You can put a brick down and it will stay there, without you even having to ask. If you drop a brick, it won’t cry. And if you drop a brick on your finger or toe, and you cry, “Ow!”, it doesn't giggle or say, “Silly Mama”. Bricks don’t (as M. has found out) flail and cry and kick you in delicate regions. Bricks don’t cry, “My wheelbarrow!” when you try and use it. Bricks don’t run away and climb ladders up to the roof. Bricks try your back, your muscles, your fingers, but not your patience.

Although they’re not as cute, not as cuddly, and nowhere near as fun, sometimes I just need to move bricks.