I'm working on it.

It's a breezy day here.  The sun is in and out of the clouds which are thick and grey and heavy with coming rain, and the wind is moving them and the trees in every direction.  The light is nice, not too bright, not too golden, not too clear.  It's hard to explain, but everything is easier to see today.

Girl-the-first is sitting on the loveseat in our school/playroom reading book after book after book.  She can't read all the words yet.  But she loves going through all her favorite ones and finding the words she knows by sight: the, a, and, is, this, on, to, in.  She finds them and runs over to me with her small finger marking the exact spot on the page - "Mama, close your eyes!  Now, look, Mama! It's 'and'!"  I like this. I like it a lot.

Girl-the-second is sleeping.  Yes, she is.  She is sleeping soundly in her own room, in her own crib, in her pink sleep sack with no bloomers on.  An afternoon nap.  After sleeping all night last night.  Well, from midnight or so to seven-thirty.  It's incredible.  And restful.  I feel a little sleepy myself.  It's almost as if getting those straight seven hours have made my body and mind suddenly conscious of how much they've missed in the last fifteen months. They both want to shut down and cuddle with a pillow for a few.  They are greedy for more slumber.

As I type this, the pages for next week's kindergarten classes are rolling off my printer.  I'm scanning them ahead of time, and am so thankful for these minutes to do this.  Just a little bit of preparation makes it all so much easier.  I feel like this about most things, but especially school.  It is so much better when my lessons are prepped in advance.  If only I could get this far ahead with my dinners, laundry and grocery shopping.

Aside from the general state of the house (toys everywhere, on everything, under everything, in everything, laundry waiting to be folded, dishes waiting to be put away, and one persistent cobweb on the chandelier), things feel good, balanced, calm.  It is a good feeling.

So many times what I know to be true doesn't translate to feeling true.  And when it does, when what I know to be true also feels true, oh how nice the minutes are.

It is a good reminder to me of perspective.  Despite the hard - despite the sad - despite what can feel like a forever of struggle - life is so, so, so good.  It is better than what we deserve it to be.  I am thankful, filled with gratitude for this goodness.

Oh. Yes.

Last night, very, very late last night, after a near-death showdown with child-the-younger over whether or not she would fall asleep in her bed, (she did finally, but alas, only stayed put until four), the boy and I managed to enjoy the chicken we'd been trying to cook for a few days.

It's hard for us to cook grown-up meals with any regularity, especially those like the ones we used to prepare back in the pre-parent days of our lives - meals with grand and sometimes expensive ingredients, cooked with special techniques and lots of wine. We manage it every once in a while, but spaghetti is seen at our table much more frequently than Linguine con le Vongole (although we actually did prepare that for Christmas last year and it was amazing).

All that aside, we finally, after returning the first, smelly package, had the chicken, the Pimentón Dulce, the Pimentón Picante, the flaked chili, and the citrus. Both girls were in bed. The grill was hot, the chicken marinated, the Stella, cold, and the football, well, it was not going so well, but what can you do? Anyway, the dinner made up for the ballgame.

Like the day Camelot fell, or the day mankind got high, or the day the music died, I will always remember where I was when it happened. I'm talking about the big East Coast (represent) Quake of '11 (that's Oh-One-One, y'all). Not that wimpy mess out in Colorado. What was that anyway? A two point one?

Anyway, back to my story. This is for posterity.

It was an ordinary day in Savannah, Georgia. The kids were up, lunched, schooled and cleaned. The kitchen was a mess, crumbs from the sixteen different types of food I'd tried to feed my one-year-old for lunch littered the counter and the floor around the stove. The laundry I'd been working on for the last month, week, day, along with a random menagerie of toys, lay in small piles around the old dining room, while even more toys and dirty socks (my one-year-old likes to carry them around in her mouth during the day, but that's another story) found scattered homes throughout the living room. I still needed a shower after the two-diaper-change poop incident, and the kids were sort of sharing a toy with one another in the playroom.

"Finally," I thought as I set my lukewarm water down on the desk. "I can finally get this space organized." I sat down at the worn chair, pulled the trash can closer to me and began sorting through the stack of mail and miscellaneous paper.

And then it happened.

My phone, which was sitting on the desk next to me, began shaking. At first I didn't know what to do. I glanced at the kids and then back at the still shaking phone. It made a surprisingly annoying sound as it knocked against the wood. In that moment, I decided. I grabbed the phone, hit the slider bar and knew immediately exactly what was happening.

It was my breaking news alert from the Washington Post, letting me know that I had just experienced an earthquake.

When I look back on it now, it all makes sense. The crumbs on the kitchen floor, the scattered clothes and toys, the pacing cat, the unhappy sounds coming from the girls as they struggled to hold onto the same toy, their small hands just barely able to keep it supported ... it was the quake. And all I can say is thank God we are all safe.

I mean, "We all almost died."**

This afternoon I learned that our friends, two people we love and have spent many good times with, are ending their marriage.

I don't want to gossip about it, or debate the faults. I'm just sad.

Sad for them. Sad for their children. Sad for their futures without one another. Sad for the memories of the good times that will be hard to remember now. Sad that it's really happening.

Sad that it's at the end.

Things here are hard. It's how life is. And the end of a marriage, no matter the ins and outs or the whys or hows, is a terrible rending of what was made to be one, a whole, together. It matters not if the hearts leave as friends or foes; the leaving is still a leaving, a tearing, a pulling apart of what was once meshed with hopes of forever.

My heart hurts for them.

Press on.

Blogger just erased the three paragraphs I'd written. I think that's probably a sign that I didn't need to write it. I'm starting over below, with less venom, I hope.

Two days ago:

This blog started out a long time ago as a random place for personal therapy. A place I could come and work stuff out on my own, without the pressure of a time table or the need to do it on some kind of schedule. And I guess it is still that. A random place for random thoughts.

My sweet, totally precious little baby girl will not sleep. It seems to me as if there was a time when she did sleep. But I could be making that up. I mean, it's been so long since I slept like a regular person, I'm sometimes not sure what I'm remembering and what is wishful, wishful day-dreaming.

Amid what seems to be one of those 'terrible, horrible, no good, very bad' days, when everything that could be a wreck actually is a wreck, the sound of a big sister working so hard to make a little sister laugh, and the successive sound of that little sister laughing at her big sister's efforts is a much needed gift.

This could've been a post about my failed, "too-cool-for-east-coast-sense-we're-from-cali-y'all" diaper bag purchase. And maybe one day I will post about that ... I do after all, have a tag for things I hate. But in a springtime fueled effort to focus on the positive, I thought I could rave for a bit about something I love. And the latest in the long (yet somehow not nearly touted enough) list of those things is my brand new, finally got it right, Skip*Hop diaper bag.

It's hard to be a good mother. I know some people say it's not hard, that it just comes naturally, but I disagree. No matter how much you love your children, no matter how long you waited for them, being a good mother does not come naturally.

"Are you sad, Mama?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "Mama is just thinking about things."

"Oh," she said. "I'm thinking about things, too."

"What are you thinking about?" I asked her.

"Well, Mama," she said. "I'm thinking about you."

"Me?"

"Yes, Mama. I'm thinking about how kind you are and how good you are and how good you are at playing outside with me."

The jazz is pretty good. It's left over from the seventies, and tonight, it is the background for blogging. We're having 'movie night' - sans picnic, which is our usual accompaniment to this kind of entertainment. A regular movie night includes pizza and ice cream at our little play table in the playroom. Alas, tonight, we ate a boring old dinner at the regular table. Still, the Aristocats hasn't lost its charm, and O'Malley and crew seem to be making up for the absence of Little Caesar's and vanilla dish.

It's just on eight o'clock here. Both the girls are asleep. The husband is well out the door. I am wearing my new birthday slippers (and they rock) and drinking coffee that is hot. Not cold coffee as is usually the case. Not even lukewarm coffee, which is the kind I am so thankful to get on Saturdays when my mister is home to help. But hot, just-about-burn-your-tongue-but-still-perfect-for-drinking coffee.

I.am.so.tired.

Today was one of those days ... the kind of day that there's no way to pretend your way through ... the kind of day you just have to push hard against ... kind of like kicking your way back to the surface of a fast flowing river after a sharp and unexpected plunge to the bottom.

The lack of sleep is starting to get to me. I think I sense it most in my apathy toward the number of cupcakes I'm eating in one day and in my inability to find a pair of matching socks.

Child-the-first is bearing up well. She has a few dark circles, but really, I'm amazed at how well she functions on so little sleep. Today, while she did stay in her bed during afternoon quiet time, she didn't sleep one wink. In fact, she confessed to her sweet papa that she 'read the whole time'.

Child-the-second is bearing up, but I think today's shriek-fest proved the bearing is definitely not in the upward direction. I don't know if I've ever heard a baby scream so loudly for such a long time with no breaks. And it's not like I haven't been around colicky babies before.

Husband-the-hero arrived home in the nick ... and somehow, God bless him, he managed a trip to the store with both girls, (yeah, for more cupcakes ... and rust-free beer), during which the younger fille made not one peep. In fact, le bebe deuxième was asleep when he returned. Hero-daddy is currently reading to both of them in another room to give me a continued break.

As bedtime nears, my prayer is that both of these tiny persons will fall asleep quickly and deeply and stay that way until well past sunrise. I'm old and not used to this kind of night time party anymore, and frankly, the cupcake-crutches I'm depending on are starting to add up ...

Pressing on.

3.75
$3 and 75¢.
That is what I paid for the beer I had last night at dinner.
In contrast, my husband paid $4 for his.
His TWO.
That came in a can.
A can that held 4 more ounces (each) than my bottle.
Did I add that my beer was a Miller Lite?
Yes. A Miller. Lite.
And his?
His was a PBR.
I should say, his were PBR-s.
Plural.
...

Ahhhh!! But don't be deceived! I got waaaaay more for my money than did he.
Because my beer,
my three-dollar-and-seventy-five-cent-plus-alcohol-tax-bottle of Miller Lite (yeah, that's right),
mine came with a big ol' mouthful of rust.

RUST.

At least, that's what the manager told me it was when he came over to apologize for the before-then-unknown substance that was all over my tongue and lips after I took my first, before-that-second, happy swallow.

He said he was sorry about the rust, but you know, it's just one of those things that happens with their old cooler if they forget to rotate it ... something about condensation ...

And then we opened our napkins to see two sets of dirty silverware. This after our server introduced herself and explained how just a day or so ago, she'd been throwing up with the stomach virus ...

REALLY? I mean, REALLY?

That's Laundry. With a capital "L". "L" for lots and lots of laundry. "L" for little clothes for little people that are literally resting in large piles outside the little ones' bedroom doors. "L" for loved, which is what these little people are: loved by those who gave them all these clothes and loved by those who will wash them. "L" is for bLessed ... which is what we are, to have so many items with which to clothe our little ones' bodies.

"L" is also for laughter ...
feel free to exercise some as you envision me in my scrubbing gloves standing over the utility sink with my favorite little blue bottle ...