Occasionally, I have the energy, vision, and curiosity to want to do things with my life.  Real things; big things; things with immediate and visible impact for those beyond my immediate family.  I USED to live like that, and I’m hankering for it again (though preferably in small doses with flexible timing for now).

Today was one such day.  I had the VIBE.  I was in the ZONE.

Which was god-awful timing because it was also the middle day of three days in a row of solo parenting.  And it was pouring down rain, and no one’s been sleeping, and both boys are completely off the hook for unknowable reasons.

So: system fail.  Ambition + kids in bad shape = poor judgment and ensuing disaster.

The high point of the day was when Ezra was watching a show on tv and turned to me to explain: “I’m really good at blending in [making a hand gesture near his face that could either represent cat’s eyes or a mask].  Even when there’s fog coming down around the whole world [making a hand gesture of bird spiraling downward in flight], I can still see myself.  It’s really real.”  I love this, but I mostly processed my failure to understand it or record it (I offer here excerpts of a longer, more complex disquisition).

The low points are too many to count, but one featured a delightful little cursing bender in the basement when the boys collaboratively removed a folding door from its rollers.  Another was Malachi’s fascination with the wood stove (he made all the way to dinner still looking like some Dickensian street urchin).  And I’ll stop there.  Suffice it to say that there was blood (mine), there was urine (not mine), there was an all-out non-optional mopping of the kitchen floor.  I’m done.

And tomorrow we get to do it again.

Wading in, my ass.  I’m already in over my head.