Back to Me

So I’m back to my lazy self. After last week’s business of getting our secret weekend all set, and expending so much energy being sneaky, I’m tapped out. My new full-time work schedule zapped me, as did the return to our daily routine of dishes and laundry and naptimes and bedtimes without anything distracting to look forward to – like a super special weekend alone with my husband in a perfect hotel with a perfect view.

Dan just set off for a bike ride at the reservoir with Jamis and Max. Jamis is whiney because he doesn’t want to go – or something. I can’t figure out what’s up with that kid. And yet, I know what it is. He’s a social guy. Someone who could really benefit from having a twin, I often think, or at the very least, a boy that lives right next door with whom he can wrestle and play games all day long, every day. I want so badly to ban all media from that child’s life for the remainder of the summer, and force him to entertain himself, to live outside and become an explorer, to sit in a lawn chair and sip lemonade while reading his newest chapter book, to do all of it umprompted. But the minute – no the second – the second he’s at a loss for entertainment he says, “Mama, I don’t know what to do. What can I do?” My answers are always the same, my suggestions always the same, and he groans at all of them. So you would figure that a bike ride with his Dad in the woods would be refreshing, and that he would jump at the opportunity to have something to do, but no, he groans at that too. However, I know better than he how much he will enjoy it. How good it feels, even for him, to be riding under a canopy of trees listening to leaves and sticks crack under the tires of your bike. How good if feels to be stimulated by your surroundings and the fresh air instead of the computer or a cartoon. So he goes. They all go. I stay behind with the baby because the double bike trailer we bought was horrible and was returned, and the new one hasn’t arrived yet.

I put Ethan down for a nap – a little early, but he was getting cranky, and I didn’t feel like dealing with it. He’s such a good baby and will fall right to sleep, his sweet little head on the big pillow he likes to have in his crib.

The house? That’s what I should be working on. The house is a mess. Every corner. The fridge is empty and the house is a mess, and the laundry is in 5 different states of done, undone, partially done – dirty in baskets, clean in baskets, folded, unfolded, in washer, in dryer… okay, I guess that’s 6 states.

The day? It’s beautiful. For once it isn’t raining. There is a perfect breeze bringing soft rhythm to the air and mixing with the yappy dog who barks across the street, and the too many cars that pass along our too busy street, and oh yeah, the lawn mowers rumbling all around us.

But I am lazy. I don’t want any part of any of the work that must be done to maintain this life. I want to walk in my house and smell lemons, see everything surface clean and tidy, walk through the hallways without feeling crumbs and hair and dirt stick to the soles of my feet.

Only two more weeks until this, I tell myself. Even if it’s not tomorrow, I have something profound to look forward to.

In two weeks we will all be free of the monotony of everyday life. My mother and my siblings and me. Nine cousins who will wake up each morning, don bathing suits and have breakfast on the beach. A bagel in one hand, a bucket or a ball in the other. Babies in diapers and sunscreen wandering around. Sand everywhere, in everything, up everything. An outdoor shower. A tent for camp-outs. Long rides on the bike path – kids in trailers, kids on training wheels, kids finally taking the lead on their own two wheels. One week of noise and chitter-chatter all day long, but nobody cares, it’s not even annoying. Everyone is happy. Even when the little ones cry and whine, we are all still happy. Ahh vacation. I count down the days.

So I will do the grocery shopping today, I will do the dishes, I will clean the house, I will go to work, I will, I will, I will… I will plug away at the daily routine with as much smile as I can muster because I have something so wonderful coming my way – because a week in a house on a lake with my brother and my sister and our nine children is bliss. And nothing could get in the way of making it anything less than perfect.

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