Derail Your Own Train

Fall, it’s not you, it’s me. I love your morning fog and your evening dark. I love the swish of tires on wet streets, wearing my gum boots, wrapping scarves around my neck, raindrops falling on my head etc. I love sleeping in my bedroom with the window open so there is a cool breeze, huddled under a warm quilt.

But I love those things, let’s be honest, when I don’t have anything else to do. Getting out from under the warm quilt at 4:55 in the goddamn morning to feed a baby who, let’s face it, is not going to waste away any time soon? Not my favourite part of Fall.

Last week I was ON. I made a fresh, hot meal every night. One night it was risotto. I don’t remember the others. I was up, out of the house, everything was clean, the cupboards were stocked, the children were, um, well, they’re still breathing right now so I guess they were fine?

This week I am OFF. I have spent three separate afternoons wandering around the grocery store, waving off the helpful grocery store people, “No, I don’t need help finding anything; I’m just thinking.” (Ha. That’s a good one.) Laundry idles in the washer until it needs re-washing because of that mildewy smell. There are four separate sippy cups of milk in the fridge; I do not know which is the most recent. Our front porch looks like it got hit by a Toddler Desert Storm; summer toys and remnants of sand (No. More. Sand. Ever.) everywhere and every time I come home I say to myself, self, you should clean up the porch or the property values will decrease even more and myself says back, bitch, the economy is tanking and you can’t afford to move anywhere except Abbotsford so get inside and find the chocolate.

Thankfully we have freezer food until my cooking mojo returns. (Except I think I will toss the container marked “Potato soup – BAD.” Why would I keep that? Since July?)

I should stretch more. And drink more water.

And I’m pretty sure the internal dialogue while nursing my infant isn’t supposed to go:

Self: “Aw, someday he won’t fit in my arms like this.”
Devil Self: “No, because he will live FAR FAR AWAY and I’ll get to sleep in.”

That’s how I know it’s time to re-implement the sanity journal. Even if I have to get up at 4 am and prop my eyelids with toothpicks to do it.

I know it will pass. I know. The days are getting shorter but they feel longer. That parenting coin just keeps flipping; Trombone is brilliant and ornery, Fresco is adorable and engaging but, I think, should have come with hearing protection.

I got used to a routine with Trombone; hell, I created the routine and None Shall Fuck With It. It allowed for the barest minimum of everything I needed: coffee, alone time, time with SA, time with Trombone, time for laundry, time for mindless internet surfing, er, research. Enter Fresco. Who is not at all a crazy-maker, just an almost-6-month-old baby who has needs and wants and refuses to stick to anything remotely resembling a routine, outright REFUSES and it is
driving
me
mad.

Well except that he poops every day at the first hint of sunrise, even if sunrise is behind heavy cloud. Whatever. We all have our obscure little talents.

I know how silly it is to expect anything at all from our day-to-day except survival. I still do. I have high expectations. Despite my best intentions, I have high expectations.

But I am still treading staunchly through my days, left foot right foot, one day at a time and I know things will swing up and down again hundreds of times before they ever level. It is all right, really.

For example: the cat has stopped trying to sleep on the change table.

Oh, AND Saint Aardvark is making beer on Saturday, in our kitchen.

I will take what I can get. The end.