We drove home from Christmas in Ohio early last night and now it's the first morning of life without a part-time job! Normally, I would be going to work tonight, but I will be at home instead! Starting tomorrow, my focus will be the dissertation while Sarah goes to daycare (Tuesday through Thursday). Starting today, my job involves caring for Sarah, bringing order to our home, and probably some cleaning. The upstairs rooms are quite dusty, the kitchen counters have dirty dishes, and the kitchen floor looks like dried dog slobber mixed with dirt and salt, i.e. could use some serious scrubbing. So my work is cut out for me. I'll try for a little progress every day...
Last night, I read the beginning of Mommy Mantras, a little book of reflections for moms. The first chapter is about anger and realizing when the 'pump is already primed'. When circumstances have already made a mom go 'on the verge' of screaming, sometimes only a silly little thing will throw her over. I found myself in this predicament last night in the Culver's restroom on our drive home. I had forgotten to bring in a pull up so on our first trip to the bathroom, in the middle of dinner..., I noticed the pull up was soggy, but didn't have a replacement. So at the end of the meal, we had to return after Tom retrieved a fresh pull up. The stalls were both busy, so I tried to help Sarah change next to a plant that happened to have beautiful, , large, shiny snowflakes on it. She wanted to touch these, reaching out, throwing her body off balance, as I tried to change her. It was frustrating. Pretty soon, I was starting to yell. When I was strapping her into the car, she now had her winter coat on (it had been warm enough earlier that she didn't need it, and the straps were too tight at first. So she was crying that the straps were too tight - I loosened them, but not enough for her liking. Then we drove off and I was yelling at her to calm down. A little thing turned into a huge emotion storm! What I gathered from the authors of 'Mommy Mantras' is that I need to be aware when the pump is primed and that awareness can help me stop myself before I go into an unnecessary 'rage'. I'll try that today...
This morning, Sarah and I will pick up Annabelle from the 'doggy hotel'. We've missed her so much. Someone gave Sarah a 'mini-Annabelle' plush dog for Christmas and right away, she started missing Annabelle more, as did we.
I awoke this morning to see the headline on Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 'Israeli bombs kill 230 in Gaza: Unprecedented attack draws protest; U.S. blames Hamas'. So as we were safely driving home from Ohio, terror rained down on Palestinians. Apparently, an election for Prime Minister is coming up in a few weeks and the Defense Minister has aims on a higher post, feeling that Israelis have wanted greater security and the current administration hadn't made that happen. So he may be elected on the wave of a grand attack, but his people will most likely face even greater suffering as a reaction to this 'pre-election security quest'. Our prayers are with those who suffer and for some outbreak of peace in the future.
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