Back to life, back to reality

Pin It Yep, it's time. The children have now had three weeks off of school, and I'm a little stressed about that. We had a mostly good visit with Jim, but he's gone again and it's time to get back into a normal routine. How much fun is this going to be?

Here's the thing though. I don't want to. I'm sitting here alone in my house while the kids are at awanas. This is when I usually do lesson plans. All of the stuff is in front of me to do so. It's not hard, either. All I'm aiming for is finishing up plans for January, which, if I'm looking at my calendar correctly is ONE WEEK. Five days. I don't want to do it. It'll get done though, because as much as I don't want to do it, the very thought of lazy kids watching TV is even less appealing to me.

I'm feeling a little over-responsible. It's been nice to just kind of play around the last few weeks, and I heard a few comments on how well the kids got along and all. Well of course they did. They had no responsibilities, nothing to do but play and be entertained the entire time. Essentially they were on vacation. I'm kind of wishing we had done SOME work while he was here. For one thing, he didn't get an accurate picture of real life around here, and another, for both them and me, a certain amount of laziness has taken hold, and we have found that we like it, and would like some more of it, please.

More of it is not going to happen, though. At least I have taken today basically "off" to kind of relax. Yesterday we dropped Jim off and then I took Madelyn to her Upwards game. This was a colossal error in judgment on my part and I ended up leaving before her game even started. (Sorry, sweetheart, you made two baskets and I missed them. Mommy was a bit of a basket case herself though, and needed to be at home for a while.) I've got one child who is having a hard time, and cried and cried and cried last night. In trying to comfort and get this child to sleep, I got an email that Jim had arrived in Germany, and flew first class over there.

Okay, may I be a little TOO honest here? (I know what you're thinking ... that's never been a problem before, why should it be now?)

It made me a little resentful. He has a nice, comfortable flight, and I'm exhausted and cleaning up the mess he made, and being careful to appropriately answer "but why did he leave us, mommy?" questions to his child, who is hurting. Would I ever choose to do what he's doing? Never. I know it's tough, and I would always prefer to be with the kids, even when they're crying and trying to understand, and I'm tip-toeing around to make them understand what I don't understand myself. I know that his job over there is tough and important, please don't think I'm minimizing that. I'm sure he would choose to be with them too if he could, except that he didn't.

Maybe I just need a good night's sleep. Things the army doesn't tell you #52: If you are out of your house for eight months, chances are great that your wife will not be able to sleep in the bed with you when you get back. The kids have been in and out of the bed on a regular basis while Jim's been gone, but ... um ... they're little, and they don't snore. ;)

I'm really rocking the "seeking contentment" right now, aren't I? I'm full of whininess and complaining, and evidently, I don't care who knows it. I'm questioning whether the whole two week leave is a good thing or not - even though we DID have a good time, and he loved visiting with us and I'm sure needed the break, I'm not questioning that at all - it's just the going away again part is tougher than I thought it was going to be, and the thought of "it's just two months!" is not really so much comforting right now. I would like to hide under the covers for a few days, but I suspect that isn't really an option. (Although ... hm ... Gabbi has some pretty fine pancake making skillz, so at least the kids could have their carbs in without me ...)

I'll get it together, and it will happen sooner rather than later. Actually just typing this out helps somehow or other. For one thing, many of you will pray for me, and I know how that helps. :) Another thing, there's a certain amount of accountability for just putting it out there.

And please don't send me hate mail telling me that I'm not being respectful to my husband! He reads this and will tell me so himself if he feels this way. This is a really weird place we're in, and selfish though it may be, if typing this out helps me to deal with it, then so be it.

And with that said ... a teensy bit of motivation has come my way, so I'm going to make some lesson plans for the rest of the month. Five days, right?

editing to add -- lesson plans are done. Tomorrow and the rest of the week will go much more smoothly because of that.