“And after midnight we’re all the same
No glass shoe to bring us fame
Nobody to take the blame
We’re falling apart…”
-The Birthday Massacre

It’s Sunday and I am sitting on the couch with my daughters while they watch episode after episode of “Strawberry Shortcake” (annoying as hell – I hate how every “very” is replaced by “berry”… very cute, in the want to gargle with ammonia sort of way). The sun is shining and the day hasn’t gotten to the unbearable sticky heat of the summer yet.

Outside, the neighbor’s beagle is howling. This is nothing new. That man buys one poorly behaved dog after another. Actually, I don’t think they start out that way – he makes them that way. He’s kind of an asshole. His other dog is a very aggressive dog that even when tied on a leash staked into the front yard, will lunge after anyone who passes by. I actually wait for the day the dog charges me because (even though I love animals) I will happily take the dog bite in order to find some way to totally make that man’s life hell. I don’t confront him usually, because it wouldn’t surprise me if he pieces of people jammed into his freezer. He’s odd, for sure. His beagle is usually howling at 4 a.m. – there have been days that it’s woken up my youngest (you wanna talk pissed off? Find me on the day I’ve been up since 4 with my kid after that asshole’s dog has howled her and everyone else in the neighborhood awake).

Sigh. Deep breath. Chill about the dog.

I’m actually in a pretty foul mood today anyway because I’m exhausted. I watched a movie last night and then stayed up far too late reading. I have to read in bed everynight (this annoys my husband to no end) – it’s the only thing that slows my brain down enough for sleep. I was sleeping for maybe two or three hours when he woke me up to tell me to go check on our youngest because she was crying. I went into her room and she was throwing a tantrum about wanting her “favorite book”. She wouldn’t tell me what book,  she wouldn’t stop screeching, and I finally got her to settle in with “The Polar Express”. The trouble is, that’s a fairly long book for the middle of the night, reading by the glow of a nightlight so I did what any self respecting parent would: I totally made up the text. MY version of “The Polar Express” is considerably shorter than the original. Once I stumbled back to bed, I could not fall asleep for another forty minutes. This is the hardest thing for me about getting up with the kids – it always has been. I cannot fall asleep easily once I’m awake and engaged in conversation or whatever. My husband then just about sat on me to wake me up at six this morning – he was leaving for work and our oldest was already awake (what the fuck? She usually sleeps until 8 – but says she heard “someone downstairs banging dishes around” – um, thanks). I’m running on empty today, and am not feeling good about the sleep deficit. The first thing to go when I’m tired is my pleasant and  sunny nature, so being on solo mom duty is not the ideal situation for the day. I may have to enlist my mom to take the girls off my hands for an hour or so to get some downtime.

The week has been alright, though I admit that earlier in the week, I was in a huge slump. I guess it was partly the post-excitement let down after the previous weekend, but I think part of it ran deeper than that. I am not one of those people who has “pie in the sky” dreams. I have dreams and things I want to do, but typically crush them for myself because I am a realist for the most part. I have these ideas of what I can and cannot do. But, I had a dream and a goal that I felt was attainable, and I had a hard time not being able to share it with a friend who had at one time been so encouraging of my reaching for things that weren’t necessarily in my sight line. Not being able to was hard. In the few days following my internal meltdown, I’ve built my head back up again. Meeting my goal and doing things I’m proud of myself still mean something, even if I share it with no one – it means something to me and I realized that that was enough. It’s enough, it has to be enough, and it’s all a matter of continuing to move forward. That’s not to say I won’t melt down over the same thing at a different time – I’m sure I will, but, I’ll remember it will pass and I’ll just move on.

July is nearly half over, and I can’t wait until the summer is done too. Happy Sunday, ya’ll. Hope it’s a good one.