Fall back

Cora is up at 5:30 every morning.  Every. Morning. Last night, she fell asleep on the couch at 5 p.m. and slept through, with a short break around 8:30 when she woke for a new pullup and a glass of water.  Last night was also the end of Daylight Savings Time, the magical night when grownups get a whole extra hour of sleep.  Most grownups - in this house, the extra hour means you're getting up at 4:30 instead of 5:30.  Fortunately, that sweet girl wakes up happy and full of sugar - this morning, she gave me a huge hug and said, "Momma, I love you so much!" then cupped my face in her hands, looked me in the eye, and said, "You're so beautiful, Mommy."  It's hard to be grumpy when you're waking up to such sweetness.

I'm trying to teach them Go Fish and Crazy 8s.  Cora is too little, I think, but she's smart.  I am a terrible teacher and get frustrated that I can't explain the rules one time and go.  We're getting there, though.  Cora just won a game of Go Fish and G didn't even pout.  Baby steps.

Cuppa

Tea at 11. P, that is. Caffeine fee, of course.

Thinking. Always replaying. I could've i should've done that so much better...

Tomorrow I will...  Tomorrow, I will. I will, tomorrow.

What if tomorrow never comes?  What if I never do better than I did today?  What if today was my absolute best?

I know better.

It's hard. All of it. Everything. Even when it's easy, it's still hard.

And beautiful. And perfect. And everything I always said I'd always wanted.

Tea finished, hour late, alarm early.

Goodnight. Until tomorrow.

Rambling

I've been running for weeks and my poor house looks like it.  I think I have, literally, 8 baskets of laundry to fold.  I'm going to wear these girls out somehow this morning, and while they're napping, I'm going to find something grown-up to watch and I'm going to fold the shit out of these clothes and blankets and towels.  I also want to arm-sweep every horizontal surface into a big box until they're all clear, then I'll clean them and only put back the things that actually belong there.  And throw everything away that I can't find a home for within 24 hours.  Ahh...cleaning porn.

It's Sunday morning, and it's already been a super relaxing weekend and exactly what I felt I needed when 5 o'clock Friday finally arrived.  We don't have any plans today, either, and I'm loving the freedom of not having to be anywhere.  Sometimes I just like to do nothing.  A lot of the time, in fact.  It may be my favorite thing.

Jimi's bike was stolen out of our garage last night.  After I'd left it open. Fucking fuck.  It wasn't a cheap bike, either.  He's really upset about it.  I'm more pissed.  Fucking thieves.  There are two bikes in my garage I would've given someone, if they needed a bike.  But no.  They took the expensive one.  Of course.  Fucking fuckers.

We "camped" last weekend with Mom and Dad and Dyl - stayed in a cabin on Green River.  It was the best trip - the girls got to swim at the beach and play at the playground, and mom and I had a really great night Saturday night, sitting around the campfire sharing a bottle of wine until well after midnight.  She told me stories of growing up and young adulthood and motherhood - it was really really nice.  And maybe reframed a bit of my childhood, in a really great way.

Geneva and Cora are awesome.  They've started playing together even more, especially after last weekend with no TV, and they're so sweet together.  They look for each other when they get up in the mornings, and then they snuggle together.  I'm so glad they are good to each other.  I'm so thankful they're friends.  Fingers crossed this never changes and only gets better as the years go on.

Today is a good day.

I rode my bike last night.  Only for 20 minutes or so, but my butt is sore this morning, so it totally counts for something.  It felt so nice outside, and feeling that breeze on my face as I pedal along - I really love that feeling.  I told Jimi last night I wanted to get up and go to the gym this morning - some mornings he stays in bed while I get up with the girls, and I wanted to make sure he knew I had a plan for the morning and it required him to be up and at 'em.  (He's so good to me, I am trying really hard to not set him up for failure, and I know that if I hadn't said anything, and he tried to catch a few more minutes of sleep, I'd end up pissed at him for ruining my plans I made in my head and never shared with him.  That's not very fair, and he never does that crap to me but I do it to him all the time.  So I'm working on it.)  Cora had us all up by 6, and she and I were both super congested and coughy.  I nearly talked myself into skipping the workout, but dammit, that's what I do every other day.  If I want to feel better, to do the things I enjoy, like working out, I have to stop making excuses and skipping shit all the time.  I'm 37 and I've never stuck with anything I've started except this marriage and parenting these girls and I'm probably only sticking to these things because Jimi is just amazing and parenting isn't one of those things you can just quit doing.  So I went to the gym. I walked Finn first, even.  And then I went to the gym, and it was as awesome as I remember.  I felt strong and got sweaty and my muscles got that awesome shaky feeling - I love everything about working out except trying to get myself to go do it.

The girls are sweet today.  Loving and laughing and playing together without fighting and not whining.  I bought mini ice cream sandwiches and some fruit snacks at the grocery yesterday - they are a hot topic of conversation today.  Geneva has been asking for fruit snacks and trying to negotiate her way into some all day - the final agreement is she can have some with snack, at 10 a.m.  She has to eat her carrots first, though.  (She chose carrots - the other options were broccoli and cauliflower, but carrots won out.)  That's good - she eats carrots by themselves.  Broccoli and cauliflower require Olive Garden Italian Dressing for dipping, as does salad.  But they eat veggies, dammit.

Looks like we have a Costco trip in our future today; Cora needs more Claritin. I still need to address that laundry.  Oooo!  Tonight is Game of Thrones.  I love Sundays.  I love today.  I love this silly little life.

Priorities.

Oh, it was so good.  Almost all of it.  We went to the library for preschool playtime, where the girls listened to stories, played games, made crafts, and had a snack.  Then we went to the park.  Cora was asleep when we got there, so Jimi stayed in the car with her while G ran for the playground, and Finn and I hit the trail.  I let him off leash a little ways in, and it was going fine until he pooped.  I stopped to pick it up, he kept going and disappeared around the corner.  I called for him for a few minutes, trying to decide if I should backtrack or continue on.  I'd just decided to keep going when I heard his tags and saw his fluffy white tail bobbing along in the green of the trees.  To my pleasant surprise, he wasn't covered in poop.  I fully expected him to be covered in poop.  He likes to run off, find poop, and roll in it.  Good boy, Finn.  When we made our way back to the playground, Cora was just waking up and the girls were both ready for their hike, so we went back into the loop again.  We kept Finn on his lead this time.  G kept saying how wonderful this was, and how much she loved hiking with her whole family, and saying, "Thank you, Mommy, thank you, Daddy, for taking us here today."  She is so stinking sweet.  Cora wanted to run, which is good, because she's a slow walker, but when she runs she keeps right up.  She also wanted to run along the edge of the trail and wiped out a few times because of it.  I just knew the child was going to end up down in a holler, but she managed to keep her footing along the most treacherous parts.  (There were no treacherous parts.)  We stopped at the grocery on the way home and I ran in alone to grab the few things we needed, then we went home and the girls at ham and carrots and cauliflower and had a special fruit snack treat when they were finished.  Then I let them watch something, because we were all tired.  After their show, they played upstairs a little, but G really wanted to ride her bike, so Jimi took them outside while I stayed in and took a nap.  I've washed one load of laundry.  I've folded zero loads of laundry.  We had a great day, though, so we've got that going for us.