all consuming

Montessori school starts tomorrow.

We spent the better part of this last week and almost this entire weekend, purchasing and assembling the items that are necessary for the children starting school.

We purchased three small plants for each of our children's classrooms, selected three books for each of the classrooms, picked out three new lunch boxes, filled out the equivalent of a Masters Thesis in paperwork for all three children, compiled Earthquake kits for each of our three children, and so, so, so much more.

We've had pep talks and wiped away tears.

Mine, not theirs.

When I think of how this experience is going to positively shape our children's lives, I am filled with excitement. But when I think of dropping my precious babies off to be in the care of someone other than me ... for three hours a day ... I feel nauseous. What if some crazy person wanders on to campus? What if there IS an earthquake and I am separated from them? What if there is a bully in class? What if the teacher is too harsh?

What the hell am I doing?

How is it that I feel like throwing up ... and yet also ... feel like kicking up my heels and dancing?

Last night, in the midst of getting ready for preschool - which seems to be taking more time than when I moved away my Freshman year in college - we pulled apart the entire house.

For five hours, we moved furniture.


We removed the twin-over-full bunk bed from "the boys room" (with the help of our next door neighbor) and moved it in to "the girls room". Then we moved all the furniture from "the girls room" in to "the boys room" and then, once everything was in place that we had depicted on our cut-to-scale paper model - we sat and scratched our heads and tried to figure out how in the world we could fit two full-size beds, one crib, two dressers and a partridge in a pear tree in to two rooms that are 120 square feet a piece and WHY it worked so bloody well on paper, but wasn't working "real time" at all.

I was so desperate to get the house put back together before morning because I absolutely did not want to wake up to the mess that our house had become. So once we put the children all to bed - and we knew that they were asleep - we continued moving their beds while they slept.

"Shhhhh. OK, pull it that way. OK, hold on, hold on, hold on. I think he's moving. Wait a second................................OK. OK. PULL. SHHHHH. QUIETLY! OK. OK. A little further. STOP!!! SHHHH!! HE'S MOVING."

We never could resolve the furniture placement last night, so at 1 AM, we called it quits and went to bed. When we woke up this morning, we were greeted by a house that was almost completely upside down. My chi was all out of sorts because every room was completely un-feng shui and the impeded flow of energy in a room truly effects my chakras. Couple that with my inability to walk to the bathroom and I'm a real peach to be around.


So I decided to take a break and go swimming with one of my friends.

With each stroke, I was praying for divine enlightenment as to how to rearrange the furniture in our house. When I told my friend of my woes, and inability to do anything other than dwell on where things should go, she volunteered her husband to come over and help Charlie move the twin-over-full bunk bed back in to "the boys room" and move Henry's crib in to "the girls room" along with all of their furniture which had been moved in to "the boys room" the day before.


It was really nice of her to offer up her husband, because the last thing I'd ever want to do is call the neighbor that broke his back for three hours yesterday helping us to move furniture only to ask him to come back and help again.

When I went home and told Charlie that we needed to move everything back to where it had been originally, my children's father balked at the behemoth task. But I offered up a lot of incentives including ... oh, never mind.

****

I wasn't on a blog strike, I've just been terribly busy. Nor have I run out of things to write about. The truth is, I've never had so many things to discuss as I do at this very moment. I could write two posts every single day for the rest of the year and still not write about all the things that I have in mind. But with three free hours a day, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll try.

Provided I'm not sitting in the parking lot with my undivided attention focused on the school to insure nothing happens to my babies.