That's what happened while I innocently meandered the aisles of the store, planning on the shrimp and vegetable stir-fry I was going to make, and texting a friend about how I was ready to drive off the rails. While I purchased a bag of cinnamon and apple "fries," I was also wondering if the reason why my derailment seems imminent is because I haven't visited Dr. Jin in more than six months. Maybe it's just a matter of balance and some herbs, I thought, heroically. Yes, heroically.
Back to the window.
Henry was doing his usual lacrosse practice of throwing the lacrosse ball against the side of the house (above the window) over and over and catching it. Except for this time when the ball crashed through the window and shattered glass flew everywhere in the dining/homeschool/cluttered room, including all over Oliver who was preparing his lemonade stand:
He evidently cried for a moment in shock and fear (which was, I'm certain, resoundingly mocked by his older brother), but he's laughing in that photo because the first photo was snapped with Valentine in the background, peeing, and as I'm slightly frazzled and mad (in the unbalanced sense of the word, not angry) from walking in on the shattered glass scene, a very grumpy chef, an ineffectual Teenager trying to clean up the larger glass, and a seizing daughter who appears to be acting much as she always does right after I declare that she's doing just fine weaning from her benzo, I began to chant:
Milk, milk,
Lemonade,
Round the corner,
...
Perhaps that's inappropriate and not the best way to market The Entrepreneur's wares.
Especially given this a few yards away from his stand:
Yesterday, we had to have a new one installed and where else does one put the old one? I am wondering whether it could be a planter or even one of those charming little libraries that dot the suburbs -- I've been dying to make one.
I have thus cleaned up glass, vigorously vacuumed all the rooms of the house (because why not while I'm at it?), bathed my seizing daughter while musing about the cost of redoing the bathroom so that it'd be safer to give her a bath (which moved into how am I going to do this? how am I going to do this?), put Sophie's seizing self safely in her chair post-bath, put the groceries away and trimmed the peonies that I bought in a reckless moment at the store, thinking that peonies might keep the train on the rails, peeked in on The Teenager to make sure that he's studying for finals and not playing games.
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ReplyDeleteHow was your day otherwise?
ReplyDeleteBest,
Bonnie
Whew! It's a lot. Yes, it is too, too much. But it is not, certainly not, boring, and I cannot help but think it's all going to be okay when i look at that photo of Oliver in his lemon suit laughing. I sort of love this post even though I know you didn't love it while you were living it, and I wonder, if this is on the rails, then what would be off the rails? I have faith that Sophie will stop seizing again, and one breath at a time, you will do it, you will do it, you will. That doesn't mean I don't wish you didn't have to. xo
ReplyDeleteIt also occurs to me that you are doing three completely different types of mothering with each of your children, usually simultaneously and if ever there was a post that revealed that, this is the one. I bow down to you.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even have to read this to know how the window got broken. I had many things destroyed when my son played lax.
ReplyDeleteYour grace in the face of gale-force winds continues to astonish me. Wishing you sturdy rails, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThe burning circus tent of tragicomedy. Perhaps your tone does not reveal all, but it sounds like maybe you found some calm in the storm. I hope so.
ReplyDeleteBurning circus tent cannot be topped. Ordinary life, as lived by some, is only for the brave. xo
ReplyDeleteYou know how I always say you are the best mother in the world?
ReplyDeleteI'm saying it again. And the job ain't for the faint-hearted.
What 37Paddington said. I am bowing.
ReplyDeleteMe too, as two kinds of mother, merely. And I am adding, as I bow, that it's very important to teach all our children poetry. Such as "Milk, milk, lemonade," or, I'm blanking on the one I recently taught my kids - fongool, can't remember but it was not "Milk, milk" but similarly appropriate (too...early...) -- and " The world is too much with us; late and soon..."
DeleteYou get the idea.
Love,
I was scrolling down to echo 37Paddington as well. That is a lot of different hats to wear. And damn. It is too too much.
Delete