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1) When I wake up in the middle of the night and look at the clock and realize that I have several more hours of which to do Sleepy Time, it is absolutely delicious. DELICIOUS.

2) Yardwork. I know. It’s weird, but I love working in our huge yard. I did two hours of weed-whacking yesterday and my arms feel like spaghetti but it was so worth it. Well, except for when I whacked those huge weeds and the weed guts flew into my eyes, like blood spatters from a CSI crime scene. Gross.

3) That first sip of coffee in the morning. GLORIOUS.

4) Hugging my husband and snuggling into his neck.

5) Hugging my kids and snuggling into their necks.

6) Listening to my cat George snore. It’s super cute.

7) Pretending I can sing as well as Idina Menzel and belting out songs from “Wicked”. I also have been known to warble a few “Glee” related songs, especially anything Mercedes or Rachel sing. It’s quite an ego trip to pretend that I sound like these ladies.

8. Going to garden stores. Garden stores are my Rodeo Drive. I could easily spend thousands of dollars in there and not even blink an eye. I would have absolutely ZERO guilt.

9) I love listening to Henry play by himself because he tends to make up the most interesting scenarios. For example, the other day he was playing with his Hot Wheels and sending them zooming off a precipice and it all had something to do with having to go with the bathroom. No idea what was going on there, but it was hilarious.

10) Getting my hair brushed or cut sends me instantly into a trance-like state. I always feel bad when I go to get my hair done because the nice ladies are trying to chat me up and I’m all “can’t talk in a trance MGHHHHHHH”. I seriously get all glassy-eyed and can’t move my arms or legs. It’s weird. If I had a million dollars I would pay someone to brush my hair for two hours a day. Any takers?

What are your things that make you silly happy?

• I hadn’t been invited to a get-together
• my house was/is dirty and I was going to have to spend much of the day cleaning it
• bills were mounting, and though technically we’re fine, I like to have a certain “cushion”
• my body is doing strange things that are just mostly annoying

And on and on and on. I went for a walk and mulled things over, turning different scenarios over and over in my head, feeling more in the dumps every minute, with a giant wave of resentment and bitterness washing over me.

Was it enjoyable? No.

Did I keep doing it? Yes.

Got home, jumped in the shower, and started praying about it (for those of you who read my posts from last year about how I wasn’t sure if I believed in God anymore, rest assured that I do. I think I had to get to a really dark and lonely place for Him to reach in and grab my by the scruff of the neck. We’re good.).

And as He usually does, God pointed out a few things. First of all, did I *really* want to be invited to this thing? Or was I doing the whole high schoolery deal of “if I’m not invited everywhere than I must not be wanted or loved and I’m going to die alone and be eaten by my cats”. Yes, that was EXACTLY what I was doing.  I had JUST been talking to the Hubs about how we needed to keep healthy people in our lives that don’t suck the life out of us, since we kind of have a lot of things going on that take up a lot of time and energy, and God was honoring that prayer. It hurt my feelings that this person didn’t invite me, but so what? God knows what I needed, and it wasn’t two hours of gossip.

In this season of my life, I have so much going on that it behooves me to guard my energy and my emotions fiercely. And I don’t always do a good job at this. Having a teenager, a special needs child, and a ten year old princess is a lot of work. Add a husband who is home 24/7, a full-time job (with two interviews for really cool gigs next week), a house, pets, and all that goes along with all that, and you’ve got a GIGANTIC HUGE LOAD OF RESPONSIBILITY.

So which would benefit me and my family, who are my first responsibility right after God, more?

Two hours of really vicious gossip that’s fun at the time but leaves a horrible aftertaste in your soul?

Or perhaps a quiet walk with my husband, a morning baking bread and drinking coffee, and getting work done so later I can read stories with my 12 year old and listen to my teenager talk about his day and sing songs with the Princess on the piano?

Not even close, I think.

Ever have one of those days where everything just seems like SO MUCH EFFORT?

Like, okay.

Every day, I clean the house.

Every day, within, oh, like TWENTY MINUTES, the house is destroyed again.

No one seems to notice this but me.

Nobody seems bothered by it except for me.

I look around, and 99% of the mess is from other people.

PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN MY HOUSE.

Don’t they see this?

Doesn’t it bother them?

Apparently not.

I’ve gotten housecleaning burnout, people.

Send help!

Send chocolate!

Send me some kind of electric doodad that will make these slobs clean up after themselves!

Preferably a light saber-type doodad.

That would be MADE OF AWESOME.

It’s tempting to think about having a “pause” button when you realize that your child has the mentality of a four year old, a five year old on a good day, and that he will never ever ever change. He will never grow out of this, he will never wake up suddenly and shake it off, it will never be cured. This is the way it is, for better or for worse.

A lot of people compliment me on my parenting style. They tell me that I am so good with him, that I am a wonderful mother, and that obviously we’re doing a great job with him. I appreciate those comments, but honestly, on the inside, I always am wondering “do you see me with him at 12:30 AM when he can’t go to sleep and has gotten out of his bed for the fourth time in 15 minutes? Did you see me with him when he was 8 and afraid of the water and hid under the bleachers at the Y and I had to crawl in under there after him and I didn’t know what to do because he was so hysterical? How about that one time when he was playing soccer, when we were still hoping that maybe he would just “snap out of it”, when he walked by me with all the other boys with that look on his face that said he was scared and not sure what was going on and he loudly said “I love you Mommy” and instead of me grabbing him and hugging him and telling him I loved him back I ignored him, because I wanted him to be a “normal” kid and play soccer and not cling to his mother? Did you see those times? Did you think to yourself how great a mom I was then?” That’s what I think to myself when I get compliments, those moments when I utterly, completely failed my child. When I betrayed who he was for the sake of my own comfort.

But then again, aren’t all mothers condemned to a lifetime of guilt? Of second-guessing? How utterly upside-down would it be for us moms to continually pat ourselves on the back and revel in the amazing job we’re doing as parents, after all. It would be against our nature to shake off our failures, our missteps, and instead embrace what was going on right in front of us.

Maybe instead of an off-switch for my sweetest, darlingest, lovingest child, I need one for myself. One that tells me how amazingly wonderful this kid is, how much he makes every single minute of my day worth more simply because he’s in it. I need a pause button for when I’m frustrated, when I’m wondering what life would be like if he didn’t have all his “stuff”, one that reminds me that even with all his challenges, he makes me so incredibly happy that I laugh for no reason, I smile for no reason, I dance for the sheer joy of him.

I’d like that upgrade, please, and as soon as possible.

I had written him a long letter two weeks earlier listing out all the reasons (the i’s all dotted with big puffy dots) why we should know each other, why he needed to get involved in my life. Apparently he agreed, thus the call.

I don’t really remember much about the call, but I do remember the crazy overwhelming emotions I was experiencing. I was talking to my DAD. Maybe this would be the talk that would make him like me enough to keep talking to me, keep phoning me, keep mailing me, SOMETHING. Anything other than the complete silence I’d been given up until that moment.

See, my Dad decided when my Mom was pregnant with my brother that the stress of having two little kids was too much, so he left. The only childhood memory I have of my Dad is a blurred image of me hiding in the closet while he was fighting with my Mom. I have no idea what they were fighting about, I have no idea if they had a good relationship or not. Nothing. I don’t have any memory of him being around. After he left, we grew up in trailer parks, shopped at GoodWill, and dug out of the back of grocery store dumpsters for food. He never visited, never called, never sent any letters. It was like he had never existed. It was like we kids had never existed.

I honestly didn’t really spend a lot of time thinking about this situation until I married and had children of my own. To me, the fact that I grew up without a dad wasn’t that big of a deal. And it still isn’t that big of a deal to me. But I will never understand how a man could leave his children. Just the imagined thought of me leaving my children makes me physically ill. How could a man wake up in the morning and live with himself after that kind of desertion? The mental effort you’d have to make just to put one foot in front of the other astounds me to this day. I know it happens all the time, but still. It just seems impossible to me.

My dad and I got back in touch a few years back, and we spent some time as a family with him and his lovely wife down in California. It was awkward. What do you say to each other? You’re not really Dad and Daughter. It’s more like Distant Uncle and Cousin. Something. I don’t know. I kept wondering why he didn’t want to know things about me. Why he didn’t know what my favorite color was, or what I did for fun, or what my shoe size was. I just wanted to be known. To be somebody worth knowing.

I’ve long ago forgiven my dad for walking out on us. My mom did a good job raising us, and I’m fine. Really. I don’t think I have any long-lasting trauma from his desertion. And I don’t really consider him my Dad; that would be my Grandpa Jim, who died 18 years ago (and who our firstborn is named after).

I still can’t quite shake the longing for a father figure to take an interest in his daughter, though. When I see Dean talking to Emma, with an adoring look in his eyes, or when he sneaks home presents just for “my little Princess”, it makes me wonder if that could’ve been me. I’m so thankful for a man who utterly dotes on his children, but at the same time, it reminds me of what I’ve missed out on.

Every Father’s Day I spend a little time wondering what would have been different about my life if my father had been a Dad to me. If he hadn’t left. Would my brother have gotten in as much trouble as he did? Would I have been able to stay in college right out of high school? Would my children have a Grandpa that would be interested in them, take part in their lives? Maybe. It’s hard to say.

But it would have been nice to have the option.

2. Too much coffee: Drinking an entire pot of coffee might sound like the ticket to productivity, but in reality, you end up with the shakes, paranoia, and the ability to see through time. Which, actually, could be thought of as a good thing? Maybe?

3. Asking your child to clean the bathroom with no prior instruction: HA HA HA. Turns out, if you tell your kid to “clean the bathroom”, and you don’t give them painfully detailed step by step instructions, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. Let’s just put it this way: a towel that has been used to wipe gross toilet water off of the floor is not resuable by Daddy in the morning, no matter how hard you try to convince Mom that it is. Also, spraying my toothbrush with Windex…not cool, man. Not cool.