Busy, busy, busy

I love summer. Everything's so much better when you can wander around barefoot.

We went to Canobie Lake Park on Saturday. The kids were mostly great, except for my poor little Samilicious. He just doesn't like big crowds of people, I've decided. He wasn't miserable all day, but he didn't smile much at all, spent a lot of time begging me to go somewhere and nurse him, and was just, in general, unhappy. He wouldn't ride any of the kiddie rides, wouldn't go on anything without me, wouldn't play in the water slides. He perked up somewhat when we were eating, but then would descend into unhappiness. Not misery, not grumpiness, just not happy. But the girls had a blast... I really want to go back without children (which has got to be just a side effect of dragging Sam around, because the last time we went, two years ago, it wasn't anywhere near as difficult, because Sam was just a year old. He hung out in the sling all day and was utterly content.

We got a flat tire on the way home. 10:00 at night, with five kids in the car, an hour and a half from home - never a good situation. Fortunately, Marc was able to change it, the spare was also really low on air, so we had to drive to get air in it, and then make our way (slowly) home. We didn't get to bed until after 1:00 a.m. The kids, thank goodness, slept the whole way home - and Marc and I had a lovely little ride together...

Sunday was nowhere near as much fun. My washing machine died, so Marc spent the morning trying to fix it, but ended up declaring it dead. Heartwrenching for me, as I'm a girl who loves clean clothes... but my fabulous landlord bought a new one and it's going to be delivered tomorrow.

We had Sarah's friend party at Claytime - which was awful, as per usual. I hate parties with the ex... she introduced herself to all the parents coming in as Sarah's mom (which is totally right, she is Sarah's mom) and this is Marc, Sarah's dad. If she mentioned me at all, it was as "... and this is... Melissa." Just some random chick crashing an eight year old's party - not as the stepmother, the one who cooks, cleans, and cares for this child every single weekend. Being a stepmother is an incredibly thankless job, almost all the time, and it's not just thankless, but actually frustrating and demeaning at times like this. But (and here comes my pep talk), the girls love me, and are happy to tell their friends when they ask that I'm their stepmom - and Lilli's already ten, Sarah just turned eight, I don't have that much longer of being forced to attend these friend parties, right? And in the end, the ex can pretend all she wants that I don't exist, but I do - and will continue to, so it doesn't matter that she doesn't acknowlege my presence in the girls' life. The girls know, and Marc does - and ten years from now, I'll only have to see her at major life events of the girls, and it'll be a non issue. Sure, ten years seems like a long time - but my exposure to her will lessen more and more over time, right?