Missing day

I didn't get here yesterday - I realized at about 11:30 as I was trying to drift off to sleep and decided that I wasn't getting out of bed.

My little family made it back safe and sound from Grandma & Grandpa's house, despite the snow that caught them off guard at the beginning of the journey. They were full of tales of time spent with their cousins - Shae especially, who is only a few months younger than Julia, spent the entire weekend with them. It was nice to hear their stories and see their huge grins.

Of course some of that didn't last long - they both came home a little under the weather (and are both home today) and by bedtime there were tears and whining.

I have to admit that I got frustrated - I had heard all about how wonderfully they behaved all weekend, how they were polite, didn't fight in the car, ate without having to be fed (I know, someone shoot me now), didn't whine, didn't cry... and they come home to bicker, whine, pout and cry (not to mention sneeze horrible stuff on me, but that is not really their fault).

My guilty thoughts were "They weren't gone long enough." to "My first weekend alone in 7 years and I spent the whole time sorting out this house for you to come home and be like this?" and some other places we need not go.

I felt horrible at my thoughts - I was supposed to have missed them like crazy and I didn't. Bad mother. I admit that when Julia flew through the door with a huge grin on her face and threw herself at my legs my heart sang. But until that moment I was fine.

Perhaps absence only makes the heart grow fonder if you don't spend 6+ hours cleaning up what your son refers to as a bedroom - and it was a mess the two of them created. I spent at least an hour picking teeny tiny elastics off the floor and hundreds of tiny stickers. I sorted and put away - where things belonged. I pulled dirty clothes out of the backs of drawers full of stuffed animals. I... oh I should stop there before I make it sound worse than maybe it was. Some of it had been building since we moved in 3 months ago, some of it had been in the week before when I flatly refused to clean his room.

He came home to a clean room - my wonderful organized friend Natalie called mid-afternoon and offered to help me move the furniture around. A whole new clean room. And what did I get out of it? A nonchalant "Thanks Mama."

Oh boy, is November a glass is half empty kind of month for me or what???

I am trying to figure out where to go from here. I did not give up working to be the cleaning lady. I was just up there with he-who-is-too-sick-for-school-but-not-too-sick-to take-out-stuff making him put stuff away. There were already socks under the bed and his NHL hockey pucks all over the floor.

And so now I am the nagging cleaning lady. This is why I didn't post yesterday. Grumble grumble grumble.

we'll try this again tomorrow.