Mommy-tracked

Catch-up

This last six weeks have been crazy. Crazy at work, crazy at home, crazy with extended family, and hey, school starts tomorrow, so you only get a list of high- and low-lights, not a real post:

* Funny: Youngest loves to be read to. Loves to drag books to a victi-, er, reader and demand reading ability. Overheard while fixing dinner: Middle child, in best four-year-old plaintive wail: "C-, I don't know *how* to wead!"

* Stress: My younger sister had her appendix out three weeks ago. Genetically crummy appendixes run in our family, so now I live in fear for my kids. Interesting appendix facts: One in 15 Americans has their appendix removed. Some folks (read "us") are genetically predisposed to getting appendictis because of a smaller opening from the intestine to the appendix, which allows crud to accumulate and eventually get infected.

* Social: I finally get to go to a conference. One week to SPJ in Chicago. Drop me a line if you'll be there, or know someone I might know there, 'cause I'm on my own, all alone.

* Silly: My three kids, in a kiddie pool, dumping water on top of their heads in 100 degree heat, and laughing like loons.

* Depressing: My grandmother slipping into full dementia. She's now out of her assisted living apartment, into a nursing home. She's already tried to escape, multiple times. She's winging among decades, sometimes three or four in a 10-minute span of time. One minute I'm me, another minute I'm baby me, yet another, I'm not even around, she's 18 and a housekeeper in St. Louis. It's exhausting for the entire family. Some of us are coping better than others.

* Sweaty: It has been insanely freakin' hot here. No rain to speak of in weeks. But at least no sinkholes or power outages (sympathies to the St. Louie folk).

* Heartburn: Is what the Cardinals are giving me. I can handle losing years better than this schitzophrenic mess of a season.

* Scary: School starts tomorrow. I have a fifth grader and a pre-kindergartener. Two more years, and my youngest will be in pre-K, too. Babydom is finally done here. I'm a tad verklempt.

* Proof God has a sense of humor: My youngest has a temper to match her red fuzzy head. Lucky me. My husband calls her Mini-Me.

Stop laughing. All of you.

posted by Sherrie @ 8/16/2006 08:01:00 PM