October Catch-up

While it may not seem like I’ve been un-bloggy lately (Yeah, if Shakespeare can invent words, then so can I. And yes, I just compared myself to Shakespeare.), I have been. I’ve had all sorts of posts a-brewing in my head, and a severe case of writer’s block afflicts me. Actually, that’s not altogether true. In my head, there is some mellifluous prose just waiting to burst out. But I haven’t felt like it. I have a teeny tiny bit of free time each day, and I’ve had other priorities. Like cleaning parenting getting ready to go back to work cooking watching Ally McBeal on Netflix Instant.

This is the last day of my maternity leave. Well, I suppose Sunday is if you count the weekend. But today is my last day on my own with Emma before The Great Return. I feel like I should have a long, heart-wrenching and meaningful post about how I feel about all of it, but honestly all I can think to say could be summed up in a few sentences. I’m excited about a new school year, but my heart is shattered over leaving Emma. Anything else I could say is just a repeat. It’s a dichotomy that my head and heart have trouble processing, and I really won’t truly feel anything definitive until I get there. So I guess stay tuned for that. My guess is it will be ugly.

But rather than dwelling on the looming future, I will give you a little glimpse of the last few weeks. Honestly, I don’t know where the time has gone. I feel like it was last week that I came home from dropping Ben off at preschool for the first time and drinking in the wide expanse of time. The last couple of months have been a blur of poop, puke, crying, TV, and laundry. It’s cute that I thought I would have free time. But it hasn’t all been a seeming trainwreck. I’ve loved my mornings with Emma, and my lunches with Ben. I’m not sure how so many days went by without a shower or breakfast, but I made it anyway. Here I sit, smelling like milk and sweat. There’s a basket of clothes that need to be folded, and the kitchen table is covered with my adventures in sewing (I’m attempting to replace the velcro on some diapers I bought used. SERIOUSLY, WHY DON’T ANY OF YOU STOP ME WHEN I TRY TO GET CRAFTY.). But my heart is full. When I’m done here I will not clean up; I will take a nap or watch TV.

This month we got a new speaker dock for our iPods, so we have family rock band time again. We started a fake life group with our friends that’s just our two families having dinner then studying the Bible while our kids watch a movie. My garage ate my mom’s 30+ year old sewing machine, so we went halvies on a new one. I’ve knitted a lot. I bought a book on crochet. I turned 32. We went to Disneyland with our dear friends, the Dunlaps. We went to the zoo. We did Halloween-y things. Ben and I made cookies. I finally bought the last ten stamps needed to send out Emma’s birth announcements, and I ordered return-address labels. Seriously, please don’t hate me for being bad at mail, like announcements and Christmas cards and thank you cards and general correspondence. I’m really really bad at it. Anyway, we’ve just been enjoying our lives.

We have a lot of things coming up. I start work again, of course. Then there’s Matt’s birthday, and Thanksgiving. Matt’s family is coming down for another visit. And through a strange and complicated turn of events, we’re moving downstairs. It may seem like a lateral move, but we’ll actually be acquiring a front and back yard, and we’ll be living stair-free.

So that’s where we’ve been. Maybe later today I’ll post some pictures. But for now I feel like taking a nap.