Letter to Self

Dear Subconscious and Future Self,

You should have gone to bed much, much earlier last night. Why an earth you slummed it around for a self proclaimed "personal time" until 2am is beyond me considering your responsibilities. It seems though, that you have made a habit of staying up late surfing the web, reading magazines, books and slothfully picking up the clutter around the house and emptying your kitchen sink.

I suppose I should congratulate you for getting up and showered this morning in time to get Maggie off to school with a full tummy of cereal and toast, and orange juice, and milk (my how your daughter can eat! Must be another one of those growth spurts.) And you handled your son pretty well this morning with his nipple sucking mouth clamped lips on your very tired sagging breasts. You got him dressed and fed too -- I see that he enjoys toast and orange juice in the morning now as well. Nice going milk weaning mummy.

Not quite a smooth transition at Maggie drop-off though was it? Though it was nice to have your daughter greeted by three eager friends wanting to play with her before she even opened the door, your mummy pride of her girl power slightly outweighed her feeling of overwhelment by all the excitement of her three little friends. I saw you looking over to the teacher assistance for some help as Maggie held tightly to your hand, mouth clammed shut, and Ryan wriggling to get down from your hip and race off to the touch and feel table. The juxtaposition of "mummy proud moment" and "mummy oh dear my daughter needs more help than I realized" was brief, but it was there. Thankfully for you, Maggie rose to the occasion and ran off in excitement with her buddies and Ryan managed to divert the traffic of well meaning affection from other four year olds by racing back to your pant legs.

Your exit from the pre-school with Ryan today was relatively smooth considering recent history. Convincing him that the flowers outside the school would be much more interesting than the slide in the school play area was a sneaky ploy of distraction and it worked beautifully -- this time. I don't think you could fool him again tomorrow. I suppose your success here and recent flirtation with "proud mummy moment" spurred you to take on Trader Joe's without a shopping list. You did well to remember the two cartons of milk, smoked turkey, grapes, asparagus and tilapia -- shame about the other twenty dollars worth of groceries you got that you didn't really need. And what about the yogurt? You forgot the yogurt again.

Back home went pretty smooth. You learned that Ryan is more cooperative with getting out the car and in the house if he gets to walk to the back gate and say hi to Jewel the dog. Groceries were put away before they perished, Ryan got a healthy snack and a nap. And you, you miraculously managed to lay down on the sofa to rest for forty minutes too. Whoop-Whoop! But, would some of that time be better spent in cleaning up the dirty dishes lining your kitchen sink and what about the pile of laundry waiting to be folded? Good move with turning the radio on and listening to Dr. Laura , there's always one caller that lights a fire in you and kudos for the healthy chicken salad lunch. Spoiled it with snacking on a some candy later in the day though didn't you?

It was after lunch that things started to go wildly out of your control. Ryan slept late for his nap which you ignored -- which made you late in picking Maggie up from pre-school, which meant she saw the mummy made muffins for classmates birthday, which meant she couldn't leave without having one, which meant you only just made it to her swimming class on time only to result in one very frazzled annd worn out you. Maggie did do a great job at swimming though and Ryan clapped along with you as she floated on her back and made real effort to use her arms in making some swimming strokes. It was sweet, and enough to recharge your batteries and de-frazzle you.

Until, you hit the shoe store. This is where I think you lost your senses all together. How you thought you could fit in one more errand at the end of the day, especially a shoe store, and still make it home in time to cook dinner without any serious meltdown from you or either one of the kids baffles me. If I asked you today would you think that with one hour to spare you could get to the shoe store, have you daughter try on shoes, make a sensible decision about which pair to buy (if any) and get home in time to prep a quick snack for the kids, feed the dog, great the cats and cook dinner? Though it seemed totally reasonable at the time to you, it was a crazy, crazy move.

I'm glad you realized that it was pretty dumb to pay 65.00 dollars for a pair of shoes for said daughter, though it is understandable and a somewhat common mummy mistake to be made. Consider the duress you were under -: All other wide, high arch fitting tennis shoes did not fit. One dangerously climbing and wondering stinky diapered toddler, who thought it was his job to bring you shoes of all shapes and sizes. One well meaning sales clerk who thought it was funny to say "smells like someone is holding a package in there diaper... don't worry I'm used to the smell with my niece..." who also acutely described your sons cry as one that sounded like a mechanical cow. Plus one not so cooperative four and a half ear old with very difficult feet to find shoes of any kind that fit and support her feet while also looking attractive enough to wear. Nonetheless $65.00!!! For shoes. For a four and half year old. Were you mad or just temporarily insane? I hope the latter is true rather than the former.

Reuniting with an old mummy friend at the store next door (should I point out here that it wasn't a smart choice to extend your errands to two more stores or would that be redundant at this point?). You clicked, you connected and you rejoiced with each other. Both of you enjoying each others sanity in parenthood -- or lack thereof. Discovering each of your second bornes shared the same birth date and are both boys was pretty cool too. And the store owner is fast becoming a friend. How nice of her to give a "free" truck toy to Ryan and help Maggie write down a wish list on those post-it-notes. It was awfully cute how Maggie raced home to stick them to her bedroom wall.

Your evening couldn't have ended more sweetly when Maggie turned to you and said, "Just one more thing Mama. I need to give you a great big hug and a great big squeeze. I love you." Moved by the freewill of her affection you said, "Maggie, you make me happy every day." to which she replied, "And you make me happy every day and every night. I love you mummy."