Hmmm... blogger won't let me put a title up there. Odd. But if I could, it would say Slowly getting back to normal

or as normal as it ever is in this household. Ha!

My baby girl turns 4 this week. I would say that she is at my favorite age for her right now. When she was a baby, she never liked to snuggle, she was always cranky and stubborn from the second I went into labor. Most of that hasn't changed but now at least she is very snuggly and she has the most wicked sense of humor. Even her stubborn antics usually make us laugh.

So her impending birthday and the fact that my neighbor and I are having a garage sale in a couple weeks convinced me it was finally time to start cleaning the baby stuff out of the basement. 11 containers of baby clothes to start with today. I thought I was prepared, didn't think it would be a big deal, but promptly burst into tears as I opened the first box and took out a little set of 3 mo. shorts that Charlie probably wore twice. Justin at first was taken aback; he couldn't figure out what the big deal was. And then suddenly the lightbulb flashed and he said "it's hard for you to accept that those clothes will ever be worn by anyone other than Charlie." And yes. Because he will never be a baby again. Do most moms struggle with their kids getting older as much as I do?

But surprisingly, the moment passed quickly and I got through those boxes in record time. Had everything folded and sorted. And then Charlie woke up from his nap, saw the piles, figured it out, and HE burst into tears. Totally didn't see that one coming. He started grabbing clothes left and right and hiding them in his room. We sat down and had a long talk about getting bigger and how cool it is to be six years old. I'm not sure he's convinced. He stretched a 6-9 mo. yellow vest and wore it for hours. In the end, I got most of it back and re-sorted and it's ready for the sale. He is really not going to like it when I start on the toys.

And while I was in the dispassionate discarding mode, I started throwing stuff away. Just boxes of stuff sitting on the sunporch, in the basement. Where does this stuff come from? Why don't we throw it away as we go? Why do I have 2 broken printers sitting out there - did I really think they could be repaired? It felt good to purge and to think about emptying out all the old stuff. Because that is our plan. We are moving ahead with the remodeling idea. Lots of times we suffer from inertia - in the past we might have let that dryer go for months before admitting defeat. Now, not so much. I think we're tired of living like people just out of college. It only took 12 years! We're going to reclaim this house, reclaim the un-useable space and get rid of all the stuff we've been holding onto just for sentimental reasons.

And finally... Live Earth. Did you watch it? We were a captive audience here. Listened to it on XM non-stop and watched lots of Bravo when we really liked an act. I caught the entire UK show and a fair amount of the New York one too. I thought the commercials were fantastic - except for the polar bear one. I don't know why but no matter how many times I see it, the footage of the drowning polar bears causes an instantaneous meltdown. The funny part has been watching Justin fret all day about his choices. He is in total paralysis about what to do with the water bottles. He is addicted to bottled water and he's a tiny bit OCD about germs and food contamination. So he's trying to figure out whether he REALLY needs to re-use his water bottles more than a couple times or whether recycling is good enough. Charlie (of course) wants to call a family meeting to see what more we can do. Go Al Gore! (And declare already, would ya?)

Days like today

are why I went to law school. Weeks like this one are why I know this profession is not the right one for me.

We ended up with a really good outcome today; the system worked the way the system is supposed to work and the long hours and endless preparation paid off. My clients got the relief we were asking for and more importantly, a child is safe.

But the bottom line is that no matter how well I argue or debate or frame a case, I have a fundamental dislike of conflict. And it seems to me that presents a problem in a great deal of the cases that come my way. I handle them all, I do what needs to be done but it makes me miserable inside. I invest too much emotionally in the cases, especially ones like I had this week. I lose sleep, I stop eating and I neglect all the important stuff in my life. My kids get the worst side of me - the cranky, distracted, over-worked side. My husband handles it all so well - his job is stressful every single day but he has learned to balance it and to balance me when my work makes me crazy.

It makes me sad to admit that I don't want to do this anymore; that I invested so much time and energy into a career that will never make me happy. I'm "successful" as far as society defines that, I'm good at what I do but truthfully, that's just not enough. I feel like I need some sort of Oprah quote here. I don't have any idea what I would do instead.

In the meantime, I'm going to go pick my kids up from daycare, where they basically lived the last two weeks, and where they begged me this morning not to take them again. And then, I'm going to go home and turn on the sprinkler and we're going to play together and eat popsicles together and start to enjoy the summer vacation they've been missing out on so far.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Because tomorrow is Friday after all. Ugh. I have a pile of work a mile high on my desk at work that I haven't even had one second to think about until court is over tomorrow. Still have a queasy feeling about that.

But the weekend will bring new tidings and my friend Kat in from New York City. We will go visit with another friend Jen who is recovering from two (yes 2!) broken ankles. They took her little "help me!" bell away from her at work because apparently, she was abusing their kindness. You may occasionally see Kat on Animal Precinct where she uses her fab skills as a behavior specialist for the New York ASPCA. But her hair isn't usually very many colors and she doesn't have too many piercings so they usually tape the other girl.

So my parents are on vacation in New Mexico right now and when they drove in last night, they hit a freak snow storm. I must be really off on my geography because I thought New Mexico was next to Arizona where they are having the heat wave. At any rate, there is some weird weather phenomena going on around the country right now.

And how bad is it that I am reduced to blogging about the weather?

Okay, this is a life moment to remember

My faithful blog readers will recall my issues with our dryer (and thank you for the suggestion of Dormont Appliance!) I've procrastinated doing anything, mainly because I hadn't done any laundry in over a week until yesterday. But it emits a loud high pitched squeak heard far and wide. And there is a little bird who lives in our front yard that we believe has fallen in love with our dryer. When it squeaks, the little bird squeaks back. And sometimes, if it stops squeaking, the little bird makes forlorn little squeaking sounds that distinctly sound like "hey, where did you go? Come back!" The kids have taken to pulling a chair to window to listen for the bird whenever I turn the dryer on. Endless hours of free entertainment! Alas, the little bird will soon be permanently forlorn as Justin is getting our new dryer today. The little bird may love the squeak but mommy, not so much.

Happy 4th of July!

I got some time just to relax yesterday and it made an enormous difference in my outlook. (It was either that or finally having some time to make a dent in the laundry.) I will have to work later today but it won't be in that panic-stricken, not enough hours in the day kind of way. Fascinating, no?

I reflect again that the day to day minutae that make up our lives (and specifically, I mean OUR lives as in my little family - I don't know, maybe the rest of your lead fascinating lives!) just isn't always that blog worthy. Charlie gathering all the coat hangers and empty Diet Mt. Dew cans (way more than I'm willing to confess to) to make a robot. Grace in a mad kissing phase - she might win the world record for the number of kisses she can dole out in a day. The bickering at the dinner table - "I'm not going to eat that" "Eat your pork chop or go get ready for bed" "This one takes a long time to chew", etc. etc. All little moments that I savor and gather into my heart but that don't translate well into this forum.

I think the real confession (and problem) is that I'm not scrapbooking. Not any of these moments. And I haven't been for some time. Somewhere back around the beginning of the year I hit a wall and I've not found my way around it yet. I play a little bit; some days I manage to actually throw a few things together but I'm not doing it in the way I always have to preserve the story, preserve those moments. It's become an enormously frustrating endeavor for me - I sit and stare at the pictures and then put them away and just move paper around. But do you ever have one of those moments when something clicks? Like literally you're walking and you feel like the idea hits you in the head? That happened to me yesterday as I walking downstairs to do the umpteenth load of laundry. I keep trying to invent the wheel. And after 3 years of doing this hobby, no wonder I feel like I'm out of ideas. But why do I feel like that? Why can't I just find ONE style that I like and stick to that? Who cares if the paper and title are in the same place; in fact, wouldn't the whole thing make more sense if my pages have a coherent style?

Okay, so that is really a "duh" moment. I know it. All my favorite scrappers have a defined "style" but I never really thought about what creates that and I finally realized it is consistency of design. Not trying to re-invent the wheel everytime they sit down to create. So the point to this very, very long-winded soliloquy is that today, for the first time in a very long time, I'm actually eager to get out my stuff, gather up those pictures and tell a story. Not out of a sense of guilt that I've spent so much money collecting all these supplies. Not out of a sense of obligation to keep the family records in order. But because I'm truly feeling the urge to create. To look at the stuff I've done before and identify the ones that make me happy and then go with that.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

The best laid plans...

and all of that. I'm going to be a full-timer again this week. I can't really complain given how flexible my job is and how much time I'm able to take off when the kids are sick during the school year but I will admit to feeling just the tiniest, teeniest bit sad about it. Ah well, the judge on the case volunteered to give up his actual vacation to see this resolved and the clients have made enormous personal and financial sacrifices so I will see it through without further complaint. And I think I'd feel a whole lot better about it if I thought it was going to resolve well but instead I feel a sense of impending doom.

So, how about that Scooter Libby commutation? I can't type the word I thought when I heard the news. I've never said that word out loud. But at least we can be certain that this is a President who clearly has given up any thoughts about his legacy. I really have no stomach for the spin from the right anymore. If they believe 1/10 of the stuff they spew, I am afraid the divide is beyond repair. I eagerly await their reaction the next time a Democratic President pardons one of his cronies. And have no doubt, it will happen. If the current state of our government has accomplished anything, it's to make me an equal opportunity cynic. So Scooter's defense fund will pay his fine and he will go to work for the Carlyle Group or some other large defense contractor or maybe the World Bank or maybe he'll just become a lobbyist for some anti-regulation, highly polluting industrial interest but either way, this whole sorry episode will soon be a blip on Scooter's memory as he lives out the rest of his life being compensated for keeping Cheney out of the hot seat.

Eh. Well, Nancy Pelosi and Trent Lott will continue to coordinate their seersucker summer outfits and the party leadership will write letters about how disgraceful it all is and the American people will go back to wondering what's in Paris' garbage today. Hey, I think I read that Prince William and his girlfriend got back together! See, all is not lost.

Brrr.... it was cold!

Seriously thought we might get hypothermia on Friday night. We forgot that when it is 50 at home, that means it's colder in the mountains and I did not pack accordingly.

I did my best packing but ended up having to work all day Friday which gave me approximately 30 minutes to throw everything I thought we might need into a big pile in the yard. The worst thing I forgot was the deodorant. Thankfully, the camp store had some.

The kids did great camping for two nights; the camp had a playground right next to our site and they were out there by 6 am on Saturday morning. My favorite part was today when we took them to Laurel Caverns and explored the caves. How about that view?

Work has turned into a full-time affair lately; I have to work again tomorrow and then I'm hoping to cobble together a few days off in a row. My dad is leaving for a 2 week vacation so I'm not sure how that's going to work out.

I really would like the time with Charlie; he's just been a little bit difficult lately and I think he could benefit from some extra attention. He's usually so easy-going but he's had his share of negative influences lately - daycare for the first time in a year and (unavoidably) being with some other kids that maybe don't bring out the best in him. Maybe it's just normal 6 year old behavior - mouthy, defiant, distracted. It's just not normal for him so maybe I need to adjust my expectations. His tic has gotten noticeably worse since we got home from vacation though; he is scheduled for another check-up with the neurologist to make sure that it's nothing of concern. I can't help thinking the two things are somehow related.

Got to go figure out what I can wear to court tomorrow. I'm shamelessly asking for clean laundry vibes!