Missing My Kids

Today has been a somewhat strange day. My good friend, Bethany, and I did a kid swap last year, so that every other week, we'd each get a day off. The week we didn't get off, we'd have the other mom's kids (that weren't yet school age). It's a nice system, especially for scheduling doctor appointments, hair appointments, shopping in general where kids would be bored, errands, etc. Today was my first day off of the new school year. The weird thing was that I didn't know what to do with myself. I had most of the day, and I did the things I set out to do, and I was done by around noon. And I didn't get my kids back until school was out. I really missed the girls.

Part of me wanted to go hang out at the school and be a fly on the wall where Big Girl was. But I don't want to be a distraction to the teachers setting routines for the kids, and of all the kids in there, I know my girl needs the routine to be well established before we can go about wrecking it, even for something like me just being there to watch. And I don't want to be one of THOSE parents. You know, the ones who don't give their kids any space to just be. And the ones who are constantly second-guessing what should be done about or for their kids. Yeah, I'm not going to be that way. So I stayed away. I want the professionals doing their jobs without interference from me. If there are problems, I'm happy to be a team player and work together to find solutions, but for now, I'll just stay out of it.

It's amazing how much just taking care of one kid gives direction and focus to a day. When Little Girl wasn't with me today, I felt so completely free, it was too much. I need some boundaries and semblance of schedule. Someone to come and tell me she's hungry so I'll make lunch, or snack or whatever. (That's why I need my hubby home at night to tell me when it's time for bed! Although the early wake-up call is changing that somewhat. We'll see what the "new normal" is after he comes home.) And I just plain missed her too. She's got a lot of spunk, and she's not boring. I was pretty boring today by myself. Maybe I'll have enough things to do next time to fill my day without her. That's another 2 weeks off at this point.

My table is pretty much done. I'm leaving it in the garage until tomorrow so the last coat will be good and set before it comes inside. I'm a little disappointed with my last sanding job on the table leaf. I'll probably leave it outside a while longer and mess with it some more, but for the most part, the job is done and we'll have our table back inside tomorrow afternoon.

Time for me to go make dinner. It will be our last one on the card table! YAY!

The song in my head earlier today was from the Galactic Cowboys. "Puppet Show" was the song. Don't know why I had that going, but whatever. Maybe I heard it last night going to bed.

Last night I tried something a little different. I went to sleep with my iPod on. I don't know how long I was actually awake with it, but I kept turning it down every now and then, and finally, I just took it off and rolled back over and went back to sleep (I had already dozed off at least once). That was probably about an hour or so after I first went to bed. It was a way to keep the song in my head from keeping me up, which has happened quite a bit lately. Instead of my brain being active, playing its own song, it was being fed something, and then I was free to drift off. I'll have to try that again. And I could even do it with Hubby back if I need to. With ear-buds it wouldn't disturb him at all.