If only there were 25 hours in the day...

AKA The Longest Blog Ever/The Blog That Actually Took 25 Hours to Write (So sorry)

25 hour day. Right. That's what I was thinking earlier today (Friday) when I first started forming this in my head. Now it is nearing 1am and I am just sitting down to write, with still a few things left on my to-do list. But I did enough for the night that I can be here with a clear head. So 25 hours is still feeling pretty scant to do all the things on my list.

I'm in the basement, by the way, sitting with the bunnies. This is where they live. I hope that doesn't sound harsh, but they get the run of the basement and believe me, the setup they have is pretty sweet. They are, nonetheless, starved for attention. It is pretty much my duty alone to give them attention. Zach gives the dogs attention. We both care for all the animals, but as for who is going to sit down with which species, that was sort of decided without discussion. It just happened this way. Jacob is helping with the rabbits a lot these days. He loves to sweep up the poopies, give them pellets, and recently has started taking pleasure in 'giving them good attention', as he likes to say.

And so every time I come to the basement to do laundry or distribute hay/pellets/sticks/greens, one or more rabbits scamper toward me for as much love as I am willing to dish out. I am down here at least half a dozen times a day, and each time the guilt stabs at me like a dagger. The dogs do this too. Merely walking into the room causes their tails to start flip-flopping, and they lift their hopeful heads to recieve the single pat that is my continual promise for a better tomorrow; a tomorrow that marks the optimistic hope for more time. The love flows from me, never ceasing, but it is time with which to give it that I am lacking. There is never enough time and there is always someone who needs attending to.

Now it's Saturday, a day later and I just want to get this posted. I prefer to write about things when I am still living the reality of them, so I'm just going to get this all out so I can move on to today, because today is a doozy.

On Thursday I swore I was going to work out, yet I spent the last 3 hours before I had to go to work rearranging the house so that Mango can't get to anything else important. The Vonnegut book was the last straw. Jacob was all into it and I just kept telling myself I would do one more thing and then be ready to work out. Eventually I realized I was not going to work out (which just means the elliptical machine we bought with wedding money a year ago, and maybe some free weights - on Sundays I go to the real gym, if I'm lucky). So I thought I would at least get to shower...and then 10 minutes later it turned into a shower, but no shampooing. And in the end it was just me washing my face, putting on a bandana to cover my messy hair, and finally changing out of the clothes I slept in. To my credit, I do a pretty good job of appearing clean, but I sure sound like a scum bag, don't I?

Work was work and then I came home, still swearing I was going to work out. It never happened. Jacob was already asleep so Zach and I watched The Office, one of 3 shows we still keep up with.

Friday was a new day, full of possibility to catch up on my to-do list. It took Jacob and I 2 hours to get out of the house. The only reason it didn't take 3 hours is because I decided the rearranging I did the day before was not good enough and that maybe I should just bring Mango with me so that she didn't even get the chance to tear apart the house which saved us an hour of cleaning up. I had a plan, but it went to hell at the end the driveway with Jacob telling me he really, really wanted to see Daddy. I was heading to the grocery store to pick up stuff to make Zach a lunch, but I figured that by the time I was done with that and all my other errands it would be dinner time. So instead I just took a right out of the driveway to indulge Jacob's wish (well first I backed up and ran back into the house to get the shoppng list) and headed to the deli place down the road. I got a subb for Zach and something for Jacob and then we headed to Daddy's work to find him. It was very crowded with the load-in for a big show going on this weekend, so Zach met us in the way back, outside his building and we found a picnic table near the stadium to settle down on.

After lunch, and a million stops along the way to the car because Mango kept finding more people who wanted to give her attention (but none of them wanted to take her home with them), Jacob and I headed away from the college and began the 'day of errands'...and 5 minutes later Jacob was asleep. A quick detour to my mom's house took care of that problem. I dropped Jacob off and traded him for Marisa. Marisa is my 4 year-old niece who spent a year being baby-sat by me two days a week. A year that ended in a really bad scene in CVS waiting in line to pick up pictures just before last Christmas. Highlights from which follow:

~ Marisa running away multiple times, out of sight, causing me to lose my place in line. Then laughing away, "Stacey, I got away from you, haha, come get me."

~ Back at the car, me shoving her wriggling body into the carseat, screaming at her then 3 year-old self for knocking all of the candy off the shelves.

~ Me in the front seat, with both children strapped up and safe from harm, as I took a quick glance at the photos, realizing they made copies of the wrong ones. It was vitally important as part of someone's Christmas gift.

~ All 3 of us, hand in hand, insanely going back in because I no longer cared what kind of mother I came off as. Then the looks of the people who had been so glad to see us go, their faces now blasting me, "Are you crazy, get those kids home!" Yet not one of them took pity on me and gave up their place in line.

~ The van screeching into the parking lot at my sister's work to hand off the demon child because I had a very real fear that I was going to do something abusive to her.

And that was the end of watching Marisa. I had to be done, for my sanity, for Jacob because he was getting this angry, frustrated mother. I realize I sound like a really bad mother, but I am not. I know I am a good mother. If there is anything that I do well, it is this. I am honest, loving, respectful, compassionate toward Jacob. I never pass up an opportunity to tell him I love him, that he is great, to give him a hug. When I do get mad I explain myself and apologize. I am careful and thoughtful with my actions concerning him. But everyone has their worst moments.

Marisa is a very different child than Jacob. She is just like her mother. Her energy is endless. And when she is tired, nature works in the opposite direction. She becomes a chaotic expolsion of intensity. The talking does not end with her, and it goes in 14 different directions at once. My mother says she is just like I was, and in fact, she is more likely to call Marisa my name by mistake than my sister's. Maybe this is why Marisa and I butt heads so much; we're so alike. There was a little girl, with a little curl. And when she was good, she was very good. But when she was bad, she was very bad...

I had forgotten what it was like to have Marisa in the car, and in the first 5 minutes of our trip yesterday I almost crashed twice because I was so distracted by the fireball of energy in the backseat. Her limbs were darting around, trying to grasp at anything they could get their hands on to provide momentary relief. The talking did not stop; it was about everything and nothing at once. When Jacob's in the car he happily ammuses himself with the sights going by, and the talking is usually pretty constant, but it's an actual conversation we're having.

Being in public with her was a humbling experience, to say the least. I've been in public with her before, but Jacob is usually there too so they have each other to be occupied with, or they are crazy, but since there's two of them I get looks of empathy, rather than hatred for pulling the arm of a suddenly limp body.

After a couple productive hours back at my mom's it was time to go. I got the car all packed up then went back in for Jacob, Mango and the very new, full size, hard cover Maisy book I had just gotten from the library while out with Marisa. There was a great deal of difficulty involved getting all of us into the car so at one point I had to set the book on top of the car. Jacob in, Mango in, oh there's mom, turn, give her a hug...am I forgetting something? Not until I took the right turn off of my mom's street onto a main road and heard a familiar sliding was I suspicious. It took me about 5 seconds to identify the noise and by then my only option was to continue forward, turn around on the next street and make it back to the scene of the accident. I found poor Maisy in a nearby driveway which means she must have been run over pretty hard to be sent traveling that far. I think I can get away without having to replace the book, but I just feel awful because it was so new and so nice and now there's going to be a lot of messy repair involved.

We stopped home to deposit Mango, take care of the other 4 creatures and grab some quick dinner before heading out for round 2 of the errands. After most of them were completed we visited Daddy at work again because when there are big events going on sometimes the only way we get to see him is if we go there.

At home again Jacob was helping me put away the groceries that we finally got around to purchasing at 8pm. He was standing in the fridge when I heard him say, "Uh-oh, I forgot to go pee-pee!" That's right another cleanup. We do things so gradual around here that I'll never be to the point where I say, "Jacob is potty-trained." It's just a long, slow learing process and I am happy to let him take the time he needs. Things like that, weaning, sleeping through the night...you just wake up one day to realize it's happened but you can't identify exactly when. So Jacob's been using the 'little potty' probably since he was 18 months old because it was just there. And over time the percentage of diapers decreased and the potty cleanings increased to the point that for 5 days in a row now Jacob has worn underwear (not uncommon) out of the house (uncommon)...with no accidents, until last night. And then again while he was caught up with the imaginary play in the backyard this afternoon. He didn't even mention that it happened. I have no idea how long he was out in the cold with completely soaked overalls. I also have to talk here about the other day at my mom's when Jacob came out of the bathroom to bring my attention to the 'product' in the toilet. He's gone #2 on the toilet before, but I'm always made aware of it before it happens by the fast scamper to the bathroom, "Hurry, hurry, I has to doe poopy!" This time he brought himself to the bathroom, took care of business, even wiped up, but saved the flush for me, then came out to share the good news. I was jubulant! I was so proud of him. And all you non-parents are thinking "gross" but you just wait. It was weird, but part of me was a little sad that I hadn't been there to experience that bit of growing up.

So while I was cleaning out the urine-flooded fridge last night, Jacob kind of half laughed, "I tought you were doe-ing to be maaad." I turned, and as I embraced him I explained, "I would never be mad for something like this. I know it was a mistake, and you try very hard to use the toilet when you don't have a diaper on." The thing is, I get mad at the little annoyances after they've happened so many times it gets to be like fingernails on a chalkboard, but the big things I totally keep my cool about. For instance, the milk this afternoon. You can read about that in the next post because this one is FAR too long already. It makes me sad that Jacob thought I would be mad. Does he think my default emotion is anger? I really need to examine my temper because he said it the other day too, when his aim was off at the toilet. I've never given him any reason to believe that I would get mad at something that was a mistake.

I was going to put so much more in here, but I have exceeded a reasonable amount of writing for a silly blog. See disclaimer/subtitle at the top.

Conclusion: There simply is not enough time in the day to cover everything in this life I have created. There's always something that gets left undone; working out, sleep, that last errand, a completely clean house. I actually really like to clean. If I had my way, a great portion of the day would be devoted to it. Heck, if I got to choose how my day was spent, this is what it would look like:

8 hours sleeping
4 hours of quality time with Jacob/family time
4 hours writing/corresponding via e-mailvisiting friends
3 hours cleaning/organizing/decluttering/other housework
2 hours reading
1 hour with the rabbits
1 hour exercising
1 hour cooking/baking
1 hour of television/movies

= 25 hours -- wouldn't it be perfect?