I sit down with my coffee, I have a window seat. I watch buses and cars drive down fourth street. My index finger typing one letter at a time on my iphone. Dropped off car for oil change, a smile comes over my face. The gift of Pure unattached time, nothing that needs to be done, I can just sit here and drink coffee until they call and say my car is ready. A bead of sweat emerges on my upper lip as the heat of my coffee moves through me. When I first sit down and take that first sip, no one to watch, don’t need to worry Jack and Fiona are climbing on something, I almost cry, not from sadness but from the lightness and thankfulness I experience in this moment. The thankfulness that I am alive, that I get this small break, no stress. To look back on my crazy week. A week filled with potty stories, poop on beds and butts. Jack pooping in the backyard. I can’t find it anywhere. There’s poop and dirt in his butt crack as if he dragged himself along the dirt like some dogs do to get that last dingle berry off. Days of no naps, going into the nursery to find Jack and Fiona stomping in their pee on the floor laughing. Deep breathing. Stay calm. Keep my cool. Did it. It’s all going by so fast. They’ll be out of diapers by next Spring. Time goes by so fast. I am grateful I have the opportunity to experience raising children, against all odds. I love them so much. This will probably be my last moment spent alone in the next four days, we’re headed up to Mendo for vacation. My brother and his girlfriend are coming, and I’m so excited! It’s the first time Danny and I have gone on vacation together. The babies will be over the moon, they LOVE Danny!! All is good. I am thankful. I hope the world can pull out of this cycle of negativity and despair. I really do. I know how fortunate I am, just to be able to sit here and enjoy a cup of coffee.
Category: family life
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The sky is bright this morning, the light shown through my bedroom windows, I take out my earplugs to see if I hear the babies awake, no, all quiet. I expect it to be nearly eight, but when I look at the clock it’s 6:30. It feels good to have some time before the babies wake up, then I hear, “Mama” It’s my little boy. Fiona’s still sound asleep. “Do you want to watch one show or come up for breakfast?” I ask. “One show” says Jack. I turn on the T.V., we still have one more day rental of Zootopia, Jack is watching it for the third time. We all watched it together in bed on fathers day, it’s actually a pretty good movie, I like it. “Did you leave the house today?” Alan asked me last night. “No” I said. “You haven’t left the house since Friday?” I haven’t, today will be the first time, and in that space between Friday and today, I’ve had to clean up constantly. Yesterday it took me nine hours to finish the dishes. Staying at home with toddlers takes a lot more work, I clean, then Fiona spills a whole box of spaghetti, I ask her to help me pick it up, but in the meantime I need to run outside to the back yard to check on Jack, the dog runs in, the spaghetti gets broken and strewn all over the floor, it becomes a major mess really fast! And Jack and the sand box, finally he’s getting some major use out of it, but little miss won’t stay up there unless I stay up there. Fiona wants to be glued to my hip at almost all times. To combat this, I feed the babies yogurts and watermelon in the back yard, this keeps them occupied. I squirt out finger paints and lay out tons of paper, I set up their dream situation, water, stuff to make a mess with, this keeps them busy for thirty minutes or so, I work on the dishes and study my sign language. Then they start coming in the house and it’s time to spray them off with the hose. Then naptime, and today they go right to sleep.
We had fun yesterday, I was supposed to have a sitter but she couldn’t come to work. I have no days off this week, only when the babies are at Early Start, school, but that’s not too much and one day is sign language class and one day is our parents group, but I’m taking advantage of it, the time with Jack and Fiona, time I will never get back again. I have a book, “Jennifer’s Walk” from when I was a little girl. I love the book; the little girl looks like me when I was a little girl. I told the babies how it was my book, that it was VERY special to me, (It has regular paper pages) “please don’t rip it” I tell them. I pretend as I’m reading it it’s a story about me when I’m a little girl. Jack loves it, he calls it “The Jenny Book” At the end of the story the mommy is waiting for her little girl with lemonade and cookies. I love that part, a wave of sadness flashed over me right then, missing my mom. She was there for me. I am here for Jack and Fiona, maybe even more than my mom was able to be there for me. But she did make cookies and sun tea, which I thought was so cool. Jack is really watching Zootopia, I brought him down a banana, cliff bar, and glass of milk. Fiona’s still sleeping. The sky is bright blue this morning, it might be a hot day. I hope it’s not too hot after school for a hike!
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Thank God for my notebook project. I would be lost without it. It gives me space to breath. Right now I’m working in one GAP collab and six personals.
My nose feels huge and sore today. My head aches and I think I have a sinus infection. I can’t tell if it’s hypochondria. It’s been hard to write. I feel I have to reflect deeply on everything I write, how it may sound, the tone it takes. I don’t want to give the impression I’m unhappy. I want to write about the ever growing pile of dishes and ants. I tried to keep the house clean. I failed to do so. I ended up exhausted with the same amount of mess. I spent hours cleaning on Sunday. It smells like rotting food, dirty diapers, and green snot rags. I don’t want to sound unhappy. I’m just reporting the situation, getting it out there, airing my dirty laundry. That makes me happy. I’m communicating, I’m talking about things. I don’t know why I spend more time writing about shit instead of flowers. All the good things, it’s the bit of misery of living that’s got it’s hook in me. What I see through my eyes, how I feel, maybe it’s my anxiety, my inherent craziness, being an artist is crazy.
It’s almost time for the babies to wake from their nap. I wanted to make “The Greens Early Spring Vegetable Soup”, Fresh Baked Bread, and Bittman’s “Salad Nicoise”. But there’s no way I can do all of that and take care of the babies and clean the house. I need to pare it down bigtime, I’ll make a simple list, the most important to-do’s: 1. clean the kitchen, 2. make snack, 3. dinner, the Salad. Then it will be bath time and bedtime. As for our afternoon activity, we’ll pick fresh plums off the tree to bring to school for snack tomorrow. (My car is so disgusting, maybe we should clean the car. No, that requires too much work.) Oh God, As I glance over to my left dozens and dozens of little crumbs peek at me and the smell of rotting food reminds me I have to take out the trash. And I think about how I might have a sinus infection again. One time someone asked me if I really thought I was a manic depressant after I had written about it here. “no” I laughed. “But my mom was, and I definitely suffer from the highs and lows”. That’s what I told my husband too, about my writing. “When I’m PMS’ing, I get depressed” I said. “I write anyhow, and it may sound sad.” The emotions come and go. What’s true one moment may not be the next. The other day I said to my brother, “It’s interesting how when writing people can make a judgement about what I write, they can make a comment about my emotional state, and how I think about something, even if they take what I’ve written in an unattended way, but when I paint there’s no way for someone to prove exactly what a painting is about. I think that both are art. Some people say it matters that people get your true meaning from your art, others have said it’s up to the viewer and as the maker it’s not your responsibility to make sure everyone gets it, what it means to the artist who made it .
I’m letting the babies take way too long of a nap today. I should wake them up or they’ll be up late again. And it’s time to attack those ants, dishes, garbage, dirty diapers, crumbs, to get up and do something.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 