There is one profession that I'm not cut out for: Daycare provider/Nanny.

Mom ...Yes! SAHM? I don't know. Days like today and yesterday certainly give me a reason to stop and think it over!

I love my children more than well...anything....but I don't think I'm cut out personality-wise to deal with the never-ending stream of shennanigans that plagues us during the Summer months. I'm getting a taste of that this week during Spring Break....

Yesterday was our first day off...and we were suprised with some fabulous weather. My kids, of course, fought non-stop with each other (even going as far as to chase each other around our block throwing shoes at each other . There was the whining, "I'm bored", etc....and I thought my head was going to just twist around and rocket into space. Then my 3 1/2 year old just took off and went to a neighbor's house without my knowledge. I turned around in the garden and...he was gone. I was so mad at him that I went to go and get him...and came right down to his level and said in my firmest voice "you do NOT leave the yard. You are not allowed to walk off and go to other people's houses". My neighbor's jaw dropped and she looked at me like I had just beaten him or something. But really, it just made me so fearful that he would run off like that and be gone in an instant.

Then a neighbor boy came over and started running with my older boys through our backyard and our playhouse. This kid was slamming the doors of our playhouse and banging his body and baseball bat against the windows of the house while my children laughed and went along with him. Last year, the same kid broke one of the windows in our play house by intentionally hitting it, one of the plant hangers and 2...not just 1 but 2 of our plastic deck chairs.

I went outside, bawled them all out and told the kid to go home. My kids were embarassed, my neighbors probably were hoping I'd move back to my trailor... all in all, it was not a good day.

I was hoping that today would be better, but I'm unnerved by the constant running in and out of the house, the tattling "she called me twerperitis", "he won't give me my jelly candy", "he's doing this...she's doing that...." On top of it all, my 3 year old is just desperate for more freedom. He wants to run outside and play, but I can't let him go into the front yard. All of the other kids want to play out front or head over to our dock to look at the melting water and so he ended up standing in the backyard crying and sobbing, "I hate you mommy. You're not my friend anymore" while I worked on the oh-so-fun task of cleaning up a winter's worth of dog poop with a shovel/bucket. The best part of course though is that my 3 year old is now running around spitting on his hands, clapping them together and then trying to shake hands with my daughter's friend who is here visiting. So the girls are screaming at my little guy...who is absolutely delighting in his new power.

Zoe was sick last night....again...It seems like she has had a cold since December, really. Last night she was up in the middle of the night coughing so much that I thought I would have to take her in to the ER. It absolutely sounded like she was choking...and it seemed endless.

I only slept a few hours and...I'm just beat today!I feel like hopping a plane to the caribbean....I wonder if anyone would notice?

The good news in all of this is that I had my CT scan yesterday and it came back clean. I am still in remission! The chest pain and shortness of breath is easily explained by scarring that is evident...but the cancer is...gone. It's such an anxiety-provoking issue for dh and I...and yet I know that now chances are that we have beaten this. It's gone.

My heart goes out to Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow. I cried today when I turned on the news and found out that his cancer had returned and is metastatic. Obviously, I don't know these public figures personally...but I can feel how devastated they must be....and I feel devastated for them. Life is sometimes terribly, terribly unfair!

With my good news yesterday, I also discovered that our pussy willows have bloomed. We have 3 huge, natural pussy willow trees growing on the edge of what we own of the pond. I love pussy willows...they are beautiful, unique plants that are environmental indicators...where they grow...the environment is healthy.

[img]src="http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b271/kmmath/P1010818.jpg[/img]



Personally, I celebrated my continued remission by taking on a painting project! I picked out a color for our downstairs family room (formerly white walls) and decided to go for it. Since my yellow/red fiasco a few years ago, I have leaned towards natural beige colors, so this was a stretch for me. When dh found out that I had gone to Home Depot and bought paint he was ... very concerned (to say the least). But now...he loves it:

Before: (ahem, forgive the mess)




and...
After: (again with the mess...)




It looks much more orange in the pics than it actually is, btw....it is a kind of a terra cotta color...the only thing that bums me out is that it matches the woodwork so well...we almost need white woodwork to get it to "pop", but I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to get off-white curtains for our sliding glass doors and windows and some off-white throws for the sofa....after I clean up, of course. [/quote]