Time...

First let me say, I don't know how this happened.

I haven't blogged in forever, in part because life has somehow gotten even busier, and in part because, well, things have been... different.

Somehow, we have reached the point where all three of our children are in school.

I'm pretty sure that I just put N on the bus for kindergarten and had two boys at home all day, both still in diapers. Diapers that I spent my days changing, in between making breakfast, and snacks, and lunch, and snacks, and dinner...and snacks. In between nursing a baby, and pouring formula into bottles, and milk into sippy cups, and juice into plastic cups once they could finally sit at the table.

I was just spending my days turning on--and tuning out-- Elmo, and doling out cut up bananas, and Puffs, and Cheerios to a baby sitting in a high chair and a toddler sitting--well, sitting was never his strong point.

I was just thinking how nice it would be when someone was finally in school--even if just for a little while--so that I might get a chance to catch my breath.

And then, it happened.

All of the sudden, one was finally out of diapers, and in school. And, as often happens, the other was all too eager to follow.

Now, most days everyone is in school for at least part of the day. No one is wearing diapers. Not even at night. I think this was supposed to make me jump for joy. But instead, it made me hold the remnants of the last pack of diapers in my hand, and stare at them as I wondered what I was supposed to do with them now. I couldn't just throw them away. And giving someone the last ten diapers from the last pack of diapers seemed a little...odd. I was sure this would also lead to me giving an unsolicited explanation about how I didn't want to just throw them away, even though that would have been a perfectly reasonably thing to do.

Ultimately, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep them around for a while--kids do regress sometimes you know--and I put them back on the floor next to the changing table.

Which I guess is technically now just a "dresser", since no one actually gets changed on it anymore.

It turns out, those times we think will never end--the sleepless night, the diaper changes, the crying babies, the constant feeding--well, they end. And when they finally do end, we realize that it was much, much sooner than we thought they would.

We thought they lasted forever. But in reality, it wasn't that long at all.

All of those things that  have ended have now been replaced by other things. Kindergarten, and rainbow words. Viola practice and two hour long dance classes. Making lunches, and helping with homework, and trying to find time to volunteer equally in every child's classroom. Or at least discreetly enough that they don't notice the inequality.

Gently removing a crying three year old from my leg and holding back my own tears until I get far enough down the hall. Explaining to a kindergartner that we don't have to decide who we will marry when we're five--in spite of what that girl in his class tells him. Listening to an eight year old talk about the mean kid, and thinking of all of the thing I'm supposed to say, before ultimately telling her that some people are just jerks. Giving myself credit for saying the word "jerks", instead of the word I really wanted to say.

Searching in the back seat, and the front seat, and under the seat for something that begins with the letter 'G' that can be brought to Show n Tell. Wondering if a 'Gross' three week old lollipop counts, and deciding that it doesn't. Deciding on a toy Giraffe, and hoping the dirt passes as part of his coloring.

Wondering if I forgot anything. Realizing, always, that I did. Filling out field trip permission slips in the school drop off line. With a purple crayon.

Trying not to lose my mind.

At least some things don't change.

There are other things, of course, that have stayed the same. The other night, I found O asleep in our bed. I thought of moving him, but I didn't. At least not right away. For a few minutes, I got to smell his hair which--somewhere beneath the three-year-old boy scents of sweat, and chocolate, and Spiderman shampoo--smelled vaguely as it did when he was a baby. Eventually, I carried him to his own room, and put him back in his brother's bed, which is where he has taken to sleeping.

As I did, Jimmy came up and told me there was a deer in the neighbors yard. I went downstairs and watched through the front window, as she stood there in a heavy rain, appearing to wonder how she had ended up here in our suburban neighborhood instead of the safety of the woods she was used to.

Right there with you, sister.

And then something caught my eye.

A fox made his way across our front yard, across the street, and into the neighbors yard.

Do fox eat deer? It seemed unlikely, but this deer was clearly out of her comfort zone.

I briefly wondered if I should open the front door and yell. (I never could watch those nature shows.)But she sensed the fox--or read my mind--and with a few leaps she was gone.

Leaving the fox to stand in her place.

I thought of staying to watch him, and to see what other wild things might stumble into our neighborhood. Did these things happen all the time, and we just didn't notice?                                                                                                                                           

Like children growing in their sleep.

But then I remembered my own wild things, and that they would be up in a few hours, and I went to bed.

At sunrise, I woke to one crying about a lost Lego, and one yelling "Stop crying! You're getting my bed wet!"  The third, not-quite-as-wild thing, stayed under her covers until the last possible moment. Truly, her mother's daughter.

And yet, in spite of mostly early risers, we managed to miss the bus. Everyone was finally dressed and under orders to Get in the CAR, as I was making sure they had lunches, and book bags, and  violas, and homework. As I grabbed the car keys, eyeing the clock, I heard B outside yelling "O! Come look! A MUD PUDDLE!".

I tried to get the words out of my mouth. But the word that wanted to come out wasn't the one I was supposed to say. I tried to say it properly, "Stay away from the mud puddle!", but that other word--the one in my head, and on the tip of my tongue, and seemingly in every part of my being at that moment--that one wanted to come out, too.

Must.not.say.the.F.word.to.the.children.

Breathe. Repeat.

No, I didn't say it. But in my determination not to say it, I couldn't seem to say anything. At least not quickly enough. In fact, I wasn't the one who spoke at all.

It was B, as he said "Mom...I kind of fell and got a little muddy..."

So he went inside and changed, and the other child--the one who I then discovered had neglected to put on socks in the rainy fifty something degree weather-- was sent inside to put.on.some.socks.

And I still managed not to say the F word.

I know some moms make oatmeal from scratch, and have organic, gluten free cookies waiting after school, and have a craft planned for every free weekend. They have play dates on a moments notice, because somehow their house is always clean. They occasionally, shamefully confess in a whisper that recently, they had a rough morning where they actually raised their voice.

But I tend to think that most of us aren't those moms. I think that most of us are moms who sometimes struggle not to say the F word, as we think alot about the time. The important kind of time--the time of sleepless infants, and curious toddlers, and adventurous preschoolers--and the kind of time that we sometimes start to think is important-- the watching-the-clock kind of time, the I-have so-much-to-do-kind-of-time, the kind of time that prevents us from playing in mud puddles before school.

I dropped everyone off at school that morning on time and in dry clothes. Also, without having heard their mother utter a single expletive. And then I drove home, and did the dishes without anyone "helping" me. I folded clothes without having to stop to turn on Thomas the Train. I talked on the phone.

At one point, I even sat down and drank coffee and flipped through actual grown up shows. Like The View, or The Talk, or Talking About the View. Oh, I don't know what it was called, OK? And to be honest, as much as I have longed for the days when I might once again be able to watch something on TV that wasn't rated G, I found myself distracted by the thought that these people actually get paid to talk about absolutely nothing.

So I turned it off, and listened instead to the sound of silence.

And I liked it.

But only for a little while.

In fact, it wasn't that long at all.