keep on trucking

*this post's sentiment is sort of inspired by Rachael's but she'll always outwrite me. Every ding dang time!!

I mostly blame it on the rigors of Simon's schedule and the fact that we live near approximately zero family and the ever changing and evolving needs of the kids but I haven't felt in control of well - pretty much anything in a really long time.

But! There have been lots of glimmers of "is that a stride we're hitting?" lately and I don't want to jinx (Simon is big into jinxing things and he's made me paranoid) it so instead of biting off more than the child rearing, light (light!!) cleaning, and meal making that devours my days and evenings and middle of the nighting I'm just enjoying the little flashes of light that just might overcome the cloud of overwhelmed that seems to follow me and my melodramatics around all day every day.

I took the kids to Target this morning because my bottle of Excedrin was woefully empty (me + Excedrin are simpatico ... we all have our things) and even though Theo can't get the hang of sitting in those poorly engineered front seats (seriously - he is a solid sitter but the tilt along with the strangly seat belt is too much) so I had to carry him while holding Julia's hand and pushing the cart with my thorax -- it was okay. I almost eye-murdered the idiot that idled and watched me load and buckle each of the kids into their car seats and put the cart away so that he could get a spot two spaces closer to the store front but ... I refrained. I under-my-breath death wished him and gave him two angry pocket birds instead. Calm down, I'm like 23% kidding.

After a few fussy and frustrating weeks with Theo I finally figured out that he just wants to be around his peoples. His peoples not being his parents but his peoples being his siblings. He's content to sit in the basement and watch while they play game after riveting game of their current trifecta of favorites: sleepover, ballerina, and trucks - repeat.

Sebastian will stop hanging on my kneecaps if I give him something to clean - (a loaded Swiffer for the floors, a freshly Windexed mirror to muck up all over again, or a baby wipe to attack the pleather couch) - his second favorite pastime after playing trucks. The truck thing is endearing but out of hand - he eats only out of his dump truck, sleeps with ALL of his trucks, bathes with the truck that doesn't make noise, opts to cuddle with his herd over any blankies or warm bodied mothers in the morning, and heaven forbid I try to change a diaper if he isn't accompanied by at least one of his posse to hold his hand through the torturous process.

Oh, and he calls them, "truckies" - much to Julia's horror.

"No, Stub-bastian. They actually are called, 'trucks'" ...

And Julia is happy if she's wearing no fewer than four tutus (pictured at the tippy topy) at a time and has an audience of at least one for her ballet performances that involve a lot of graceful high kicks and dizzying twirl after twirl after twirl after twirl after twirl after twirl after twirl that make the rickety tilt-a-whirl at the parking lot carnival look downright pleasant.

This week is sandwiched by two call weekends and the rest of the year isn't looking much better and surprise! Simon has an extra week of night float to enjoy before Christmas but that's the name of the game for now. It won't kill us - I don't think.

Simon and the kids haven't kicked me out for introducing kale to our meals (smoothies for the kids, dressed with lots of flavor and fruit and smiles for Simon) and one of these days I swear I'm going to break out of the Annie's (¡Organic!) Crack and Cheese lunch rut that the kids have grown far too attached and accustomed to.

So we're trucking.

At an imperfect pace but it's really nice to finally feel like the world might not come crashing down around me the majority of the time.

You know? Tell me you do.