Dead weight

It feels like the past week has been busy, but I know that's depression talking. I've been busy mostly sitting around, with some online job applications and childcare searching for flavor. Not the 35+ hours a week of "employment-related activities" I'm supposed to put in. I feel like I'm dragging a load of bricks on my back all day long. Everything just takes so much more effort. The only way I get any housework done is if I just sort of close my eyes and start picking stuff up off the floor- then I'm able to just sort of shuffle along with the momentum.

The good news: I found childcare. There's a single mom who lives ten minutes away who is licensed for daycare. Two kids of her own (3.5 yrs and 3 mos), and one other daycare child (6 mos). So when Allie is there during the summer, she'll have a total of seven. To put that in perspective, Kindercare has seven two-year-olds per teacher, and one teacher to fourteen preschoolers. And I feel extra good about the fact that bringing my kids there will allow her to be home with hers, and maybe even quit her weekend job. She has good back-up caregivers, too, so I don't have to worry about her getting sick. That's all happy stuff. Now I just have to wait for the county to authorize payment. Then I can start job hunting in earnest.

I don't like having to put them in daycare. Not because I don't think Erin or even a center like Kindercare can do an adequate job of taking care of the kids. Mostly, I'm just going to desperately miss them. I'm becoming somewhat jealous of their time already. But my other choice is to do in-home childcare myself, and I just don't think I'm suited to it. I've done it on a volunteer basis, and it's definitely very different from simply taking care of my own.

Allie's class for kids whose parents are getting divorced was over the weekend. I'll have to write more on that later. Jeff and I have a co-parenting class next Tuesday. Our date to go over paperwork had to be rescheduled for 4/12. We came in for the appointment on the 27th, but it turned out that I'd misheard, and our appointment was actually the 22nd. Oops.

I am so sick of paperwork and phone calls and appointments I could vomit. Answering the phone is probably the hardest thing for me to do. With very few exceptions, I just want to hide when it rings.

I feel like such a whiner. Things could be way, way worse.

The worst fifteen minutes of my week...

would be the time between when my kids are dismissed from their groups at church and when they are all safely buckled in their car seats. Getting them together, ready, and to the van is what might be called an adventure, if your idea of thrills involves simultaneously:

1. hollering at a four year old to, "please come back here, wait for mommy, please wait", while he runs blithely down the sidewalk, now and then stopping and turning around so he can flash you a huge isn't-this-a-great-game grin

2. (and) being hollered at, by a different four year old, "mommy please don't leave meeeeeeee," because she is falling behind as you attempt to catch up with the child from item #1

3. (while) carrying a very squirmy two year old who wants to get down desperately, so he can walk all by his big-boy self...usually right into the street

4. (and) trying desperately to keep the six year old from A) egging on child #1 by chasing him, B) distressing child #2 further by taunting her, or C) jerking child #3 around by the hood of his jacket when you put him down, or toppling him over in the same manner.

Personally, it isn't my idea of adventure at all. I like roller coasters and hiking. Road trips. I don't enjoy herding four wound-up kids down a sidewalk an hour before their bedtime, with a 35-minute drive to look forward to (you all have no idea how long and how loud Eva can scream). But it's worth it, more than worth it, because I am immeasurably blessed to be part of the Porch. They- you- are a second (far more supportive) family. So thank you.

And this week, I discovered that for the price of one cookie from Caribou ($1.50), I can actually get them to all head in the general direction of the car, at approximately the same speed. Bribery, yes, but entirely justified, I think. It's like buying sanity.