A Long Time Coming

A month or so ago with B, I let him ride his bike ahead of me and I was walking/jogging. My loop is down a P shaped dead end. He went right, I waved him as I hit the split, implying, “we’ll meet up!” and then we didn’t meet and I was like… FUUUUUUUCK and continued to run the circle, but he ended up turning around (so I never met up with him) when I didn’t follow behind him instead. And he waited back at the split and he cried and I nearly did but apologized that I made a miscommunication and he did the right thing.

Then today, I let J run back and take a picture of a cooler we were texting w C about buying for our trip. L shaped path, with racks in the middle. “We’ll meet at the cat litter” but she found us at the Hotweels because that was on the far side way of the main way nearly to the cat litter aisle. Also “took pics of a few things I’d like for my birthday list!” Cool. Oh, dad said yes get the cooler. “Can I get it?!” “Can you lift it? It’s light but maybe awkward” “yes” “okay”

A minute or two later, I was like… maybe we’ll meet her it might be too weird to carry that far, so we went back where we’d have met her, but distracted by a different cooler display in the middle racks and went around one of those to measure (so we were on the other side of the big aisle, one or two from the turn to the other main aisle) she doesn’t come past us. Okay, let’s go meet her in cooler aisle.

Do not meet her along the way. The cooler is gone (there was the one left). Okay, she’s got it, maybe she took a zigzag to cut the corner and got distracted by something else to look at. We walk back to the cat litter. No sign. Back to the original cooler location. Still no. Begin to panic w B in toe and his new sandals are bothering is feet. I ask a girl working near by - teal shirt black shorts, have you seen her? Noo… okay. Maybe she went back to the checkout since it’s heavy. She was insisting she wanted to go by herself to get the potato chips we’re leaving for my mom. Not at the check out. I really start being like she was nabbed. This is it. This is it of course we’re going on a trip fuck. I start shouting her name while deciding to go to the Customer Service for a holler over the intercom. Luckily, some other tween pokes her head out after hearing PANIC MOM VOICE and waves at me and I shout her name again and the tween’s like pointing at me and looking where J was to show her and then we reunite and JESUS CHRIST. I immediately hugged her and said I was sorry that wasn’t her fault and she did the right thing. (She did go to the cat litter and didn’t see us and then also turned around and we kept missing each other.) She didn’t cry (yet) but was definitely also panicking.

My student loans are paid in full!!!!

13 years later (including the pandemic pause)

And WHY is my cat still doing this.

SIGH.

“Have a 90s childhood” they say.

No, sir, that is “I waited until I finally laid down and peed like I do all the time, except I didn’t take the care, because nothing matters, to make sure it was on straight” on purpose. You are seven and a half. I am more than happy to have you wear pull ups because of night time peeing. I KNOW that’s a thing that is not entirely in control until physically ready. That’s FINE. That’s not what this is.

This pissing in the pull up because it’s easy is fucking infuriating because ITS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO. BECAUSE HE DOESN’T NOT WANT TO.

THIS IS MY LIFE.

My ILs leave for a long weekend work trip tomorrow, then they’ll be home for 3 days then we all leave for nearly two weeks.

Then 3 weeks of summer will be done.

Then I only have to struggle through 6 more weeks of summer.

maybe part of my “problem” is that I didn’t lose myself to motherhood.

Some of the moms at this party are talking about how they’re starting to find hemselves again and I’m just thinking, perhaps I’ve been so damned stressed and burned out is BECAUSE I’ve been myself this whole time. I know who I am and what I want.

I zero percent want to take the kids to across the street neighbor’s birthday party at a jump/foam pit/repelling/all kinds of stuff you should probably avoid with a fingernail about to fall off. And one absolutely fine, but likely to injury himself other child who will throw a fit if I decide we need to leave early because TWO HOURS.

But also, why are these birthday invitations coming via text? Okay, text isn’t the problem, it’s the nothing besides date time and place??? And then DEFINITELY why group text (again, I get it from a sender perspective but duuuude 12 notifications that everyone hearted the text to acknowledge they received it Michael Scott NO)

Is it drop off? Are there gifts? Is this a 1-2 kid party or half the grade and friends and family party? I ALSO don’t know those people or how many little kids have internet on their devices and how locked down they aren’t.