Anna says:

A couple weeks ago Niamh broke a mug of my grandfather's and I cried. I was already homesick and stressed feeling. Then a couple days ago I was scooting Niamh away from the table so she couldn't get to my current mug. Anna had me explain to her why I scooted her and I did.
"... and if she breaks your mug you will cry and weep!"

Weep??? I don't think I'll weep for pete's sake. I cracked up laughing.
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We were dropping off a friend from church at her house after the service. It was the first time we had given her a ride so Anna inquired, and I explained. Later in the trip, she piped up glibly from her booster seat in the back, "Ok Mommy: you can just drop me off at Tim's."
Ya, right. Dream on.
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This summer it will have been 2 years since my mom was able to visit.
Yesterday Anna packed a little backpack and said,
"I'm going to Kansas City. I'm going to find Mimi! Bye!"
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Pulling into the grocery store parking lot, Anna sighed romantically and said,
"Oh, isn't this a marvelous place?"
Wow, we need to get out more.

If Niamh could blog

Dear Blog,
It's really too bad Mommy's hips aren't bigger, so that there would be room for entire villages, as well as myself, of course. She could be an incredible asset in war torn areas. She could go in, and carry everyone on her hip, and they would all be safe there! I am invincible there; it would be great for all those poor people to also be safe there. She wouldn't mind. I know when I am scared, which is pretty much anytime I see a person that is not my parents, sister, or grandparents, and I start to quiver and bawl in fear, I'm always relieved and safe as long as Mommy holds me. And of course the milk is so comforting! I'm sure Mommy wouldn't mind sharing that with everyone across the world who needs comfort too. She doesn't mind me having some whenever the mood strikes me, which is most any time.

*smiles*sigh* I would share her hip with other suffering individuals in the world.
Mmm, happy thoughts. Mommy's hip... mmm... I'm safe from the vacuum. She's tricky my Mom. She can carry me while she changes clothes, brushes her teeth and washes her face, washes the dishes, does laundry, did I mention vacuums? I love my Mommy. :)

Would you like some cheese with your whine?

I feel like I'm losing myself. Not in the spiritual, absorption-into-God cool kinda way either.
I used to have a niche in an Irish session- don't anymore. Could no longer hold my own there.
I don't feel I fit in at church, in a university, with fiddlers or in a symphony, with my blood family (the family I came from, not Chris and the girls). It is confusing. Where do I fit? With whom?

I feel reduced to a function. I have thought a lot about this post from my friend Katherine, where she says, M is for Mom, not maid. I laughed out loud when I read that, saying, Oh, is it?

I suppose it is part of life, and its cycles. I had seasons where I could develop my interests and pursue them, and now I am mostly tasking. The predetermined to-do-for-others list every day more or less indicates that I am an adult now, as opposed to being someone to be pitied. I am a grown up and everyone has to do it, whether they are at a paying job all day, selling their life for a house and groceries, or at home with the kids wiping bums, your time is not your own.

I hear a ''Suck it up, Princess'' somewhere in my head, and I know where from.
You know who you are. ☺

Don't worry, I'll get over myself. Misery loves company, so here I am sucking you into my vacuum. Oh - sorry! I thought you were the curtain! my bad.

Anna's quote of the day: ''Wow, Mommy! You are so tall!!''
Also, she has renamed the 7 dwarfs: Lumpy, Dumpy, Frumpy, Bumpy, Zitsy, Ritzy and Ditsy.
Lovely, isn't it?

I'm stealing Martha's quote of the day thing.
I have a couple from today.
after hearing Jesus Christ sung in a song, she asked,
"Why does Jesus cries?"

Eating and enjoying an apple, she exclaimed,
"God makes the BEST food!!"

These don't compete with Martha's quote from her son,
"Why would you be tired, Mommy?"

"I don't know Pablo Rodriguez."

"Neither do I. Does he play the fiddle?"

Makes sense, eh? No?
I know.
But it is what I swore I heard someone say the other day when in fact they had said,
"I don't know a thing about fiddle music."
Don't ask me how I got the 2 confused. I really must be half deaf. I'm sure Chris would concur.
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So I've gone back and forth with myself a lot on whether or not to talk about MS stuff here, but that is part of the reason I started this blog, to have a venue to say freely what I mightn't otherwise, as stated before.


I've started taking walks. The weather is nicer (positively heavenly today), it is good for me, I need the exercise, the girls and I need fresh air and to get out of the house. Thus the institution of a new tradition.
But during and after each walk I've had some kind of weird malfunction. The last time it felt like my dentist had rammed shots of Novocaine all over my thighs. The good part, I suppose, is that recovery time seems to be getting progressively shorter. My first walk left me unable to control my feet well enough to stepdance for the whole evening, but my last one was better within 10 minutes. So that's cool. I'm still unnerved to be seeing pretty much daily, not entirely predictable activity, however. Had some emotional upset from it too, but am not going around all freaked out or anything. I still feel confident that whatever happens should be gone soon enough, so when it comes on I don't get too worked up. That does not mean I like it.

I get periods of weakness, where I can't really lift Niamh, or cut through cheddar cheese, but it passes. It was bad for a while where I didn't have the strength to lay Niamh down in her crib. That was an unmentioned reason why I couldn't get her to sleep in her crib for a long while. I couldn't lay her down gently enough, I would always wake her with a plunk. How I groaned after the work into the last 45 minutes of getting her asleep and getting that close to total crib-sleeping nirvana, only to have my hopes of free(er) time dashed on the rocks of an unhappy, sleepy child's cries. It is hitting me more, the potential reality of a reduced functionality in the future, a future that I can imagine now. Maybe that sounds fatalist, but as I pointed out before, that's not always entirely bad.

That'll suffice for my complaining today. Loves to all y'all.

One final thing that is probably only funny if you grew up as a long-haired female in the 90's like me:
Do a Google image search for scrunchie. Kinda cracks me up.

conspiracy theory #1

I think Weight Watchers got together with Christie to make sabotage packaging. It is singularly the most noisy plastic to manipulate that I can think of, making access to the cookies an affair of volumous announcement.

In other words, you can't get them quietly, no way, no how. There is no hiding it.
Everyone in the house will know -
JEN IS GETTING A COOKIE.
*crinkle*crackle*rumple*
JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.
*crack*smoosh*gerkl*

This is not helpful.