My Mother Told Me There'd Be Days Like This...

Oh Lord, the past few days have been hard. I feel as though I am in a motherhood funk; loving my children so much but just not in synch with them. Everything seems more like a chore than a privilege. Finley is fighting off the last of a cough and fever, Evelyn is teething and going through acute separation anxiety. Bless their little hearts. They need their mother to be on top of her game right now so I do my best.

To make things even more pleasant we are off to a bad start with our neighbors who just built a lovely home next to the vacant end of our property that we plan to sell to my parents. They brought in a backhoe to create a planting bed for planting a hedge and without asking, used our property as the staging area. We had a nice pull -in area off the road up there that made a place to park on that side of the property and was also the access to the road up on that side of the property when we go for walks. The neighbor kids also ride their bikes through our property as a shortcut, with our permission. I was going for a walk with Evelyn and Finley on Friday and after having to plow my way through the dug up ground with the stroller, which by the way, usually handles anything off road with aplumb, I was irritated enough to go knock on the neighbor's door. They had also knocked down a dead fir tree that was on the property line and just left it on our property where it lay across the main path through the lot. I tried to be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt but he seemed irritated that I was asking him to move the tree since it was blocking our easy access to our yard. A reasonable request in my estimation, especially when he had not asked permission to tear up 50 square feet of our property. ARGGHHH. I hate confrontation but I abhor a breach in principal even more!


That little interaction with the neighbor didn't help my mood as we went on our walk. We were testing out a new route through the back of our neighborhood that was recently linked up with a new little shopping area and convenience store. The developer put sidewalks in all the way up to the strip mall so it was potentially a great little stroll to run an errand without having to get in a car. What we didn't count on was the huge mud puddles on our back roads and Finley slipping and falling in the mud on the way home, and then having his boot sucked off his foot when he tried to step out of the mud so then he had a wet and muddy stocking too. Poor little fellow. Evelyn decided at that moment that she had been in the stroller long enough and began crying and it began to rain on us again. After trying various versions of a piggyback ride with Finley and Evelyn still screaming in the stroller, Finley got in the stroller instead, and I held Evelyn all the back to the house. I was exhausted and still in a foul mood. The neighbor had actually moved the tree off our path way by the time we returned from our walk.

Walks usually put everything right with the world but not this time. I think my late nights have caught up with me. So what am I doing up right now???? We are getting ready to leave for Whistler tomorrow and my friend is coming in from out of town to visit so it will be a busy day with a lot of time spent in a car. I hope it doesn't do us all in!

On a brighter note, we had a blast on Saturday night, March 15, doing a Sound of Music Sing Along at the church. We had a good crowd and lots of kids. We brought Finley's sleeping bag and a bunch of big floor pillows and the kids sprawled out up front and we enjoyed the big screen experience made possible by our new screen, digital projector and video license. How fun! I forgot how long that movie is, however, and we didn't get home until almost 11:30 p.m. We actually made it to church the next morning which seemed a small miracle in itself, since we woke up late and we still got both kids bathed (and we even got showers!) and out the door in less than an hour and 15 minutes. Phhewww!