Sunshiney happy today

The sun is out - we had a glorious weekend, and I feel so much more like me today. Jessica Mary danced off to summer camp with a smile on her face, she's really happy there, which in turn, makes me happy. Marc is off to work and Sam and I are hanging at home waiting for Miss Jordyn to come play with us.

I went to services at the synagogue on Saturday morning with Jess. Almost everyone there that day was much older than I was - and I still don't have the foggiest idea what they're doing most of the time. But I was still happy to go, it's nice to listen to the Hebrew and read along in the prayer book, even if most of what I do is just day dream. I was especially happy to go with Jess, and was pleasantly surprised at all of the smiles and little pats she got. I think most of the people there were very happy to see a little girl in a pretty sundress sitting so patiently thru the service. One woman gave her some candy, and a little old man patted her head when we slipped past him. It's a nice way to do Shabbat. Which is still my favorite part of the week, and my favorite part of Judaism. Of course, coming home to a messy house took a little bit of the bloom off my day. We went to the library in the afternoon, and I could feel myself rejuvenating just being surrounded by all those books. There's something so thrilling about floors and floors of books and I can take out as many as I want...

Jess has recently started being more and more interested the woman's suffragette movement - I've read her a couple of books about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer - and I'm loving that she's so curious. It was one of my passions when I was younger, I read everything I could find on the topic and I love passing that down to her.

Lazy summer

I've been slacking a bit on blogging... no real reason, I'm just lazy these past couple of days. Thursday morning, I didn't bother getting out of bed until after nine o'clock, which is unheard of for me. By Thursday night, it occured to me that I hadn't showered since Monday - and I still couldn't work up the energy to haul myself up out of the recliner to get into the shower. This morning, I made myself get up bright and early, take a nice shower, pack up the kids and the car, and head out to the lake. Only to realize that all the lakes in Worcester are closed to swimming because of all of the rain. Apparently we've got high bacteria levels, and even though both lakes I checked had kids swimming in them, I couldn't see myself letting my kids go in. Drove all over Worcester to find the one state pool that's open (because the town pools have been closed all summer due to budget cuts), only to find out that they don't open until the afternoon. At which point, I gave up, directed the kids to the nearest playground, slathered them in sunblock and sat down with my book. We got home around noonish, I stopped for ice cream cones for lunch (I know, fabulous parenting - but sometimes, ice cream for lunch is a GREAT idea) and came back here for Sam's nap. Which has lasted and lasted and lasted, I'm beginning to think he'll never wake up.

Both kids are slightly sick - Sam is a little congested and Jess has had this cough for weeks on end. They don't feel sick, but you know how you can tell that something is just off? That's where these two are... things have been well here with me, other than the appalling lack of energy, Marc and I have been bickering off and on about his lack of helpfulness at doing stuff around the house - but I think my general lack of energy has factored into it. Normally, I just do it all and don't notice it, but lately, I'm noticing it all the time. The dishes have become my newest pet peeve. I hate washing dishes. The only thing worse that doing them, is knowing that they're there, in the sink, just festering and waiting for me to wash them.

I have a scary suspicion that I'm pregnant. Of course, I always think I'm pregnant. Marc says I've successfully predicted 47 of my past 2 pregnancies. Before I had Jess, I had an extremely unplanned pregnancy that resulted in twin miscarriages at 10 and 11 weeks. The pregnancy caught me by surprise - which is to say, I was more shocked than I'd ever been to realize that my period was late and OMG, I was pregnant - so I compensate now, subconsciously, by assuming that I'm perpetually pregnant. Given that I'm not on any birth control, there's always a chance that it could be, so we'll wait and see... and as much as I want to be pregnant, I'm scared of it as well. For a whole host of reasons, but one of the main ones is that my closest friend and cousin is going thru infertility issues and this will hurt her. I hate the thought of causing her pain. But I hate the thought of not having another baby as well... so right now, we aren't using birth control, but not actively trying (i.e.. charting, trying to have sex on the right days, etc.). Plus pregnant - that's just a scary prospect all the way around... But I'm so incredibly lazy and have no energy all this week... we'll see...

Yay - I'm home!

Sammy on the "motorcycle." His favorite part of vacation :-)
Jessica and her camping buddy Jolene going on tour to see the island.

Got back last night around 10:30. We go up camping every year to a little campground on the ocean in Maine. My mother LOVES it up there, she looks forward to it every year, and my sister is following in her footsteps - they both come prepared with everything you could possibly need, and seem to thrive on it. I camp reluctantly - I love the ocean and I love the unstructured time, the hours spent on the beach, the way Jess just lights up when she's there. But the bugs - and the dirt, and the rain - yes, I freely admit it, I am a total wuss when it comes to camping. My stepsister lives about twenty minutes from her house, and this year, we slept at her house. PERFECT - all the joys of camping, long days at the beach, time spent with family - but a real shower, a bedroom with real walls and an actual mattress with sheets on it to sleep on.

The weather was blissful on Monday morning, bright, hot, sunshiney beautiful, and Jess immediately found her camping buddy (a little girl her age from Vermont who coincidentally is up there every year at the same time). The girls had a blast, my brother was up there as well, with his three kids, as well as my sister and her daughter. Everyone had bikes, and it was just a perfect kind of day. Yesterday was cold and rainy and yucky. I left Jess on island with her buddy and my brother, and my mother, cousin, sister-in-law and Sam went into Bath to bop around, have lunch and just hang out. We got back to the campground, and it was just gross weather. My cousin came up - he's got three girls, the oldest is Sam's age, and he's got twin nine month old girls, so we played with the babies for a while, but when they left, I looked at Becky and asked if she felt like driving home that night. We changed the kids, packed them in the car with snacks and they fell asleep almost immediately, slept the entire three hour trip home and stayed asleep once we got here. It was perfect :-)

For me, the best part of the trip was the drive back. Both kids were asleep and my cousin Becky and I talked the entire time. Grown up talk, about marriages and relationships and memories and life - there's literally nobody else in the world who knows me the way that she does and gets where I've come from, where I am now, and where I'm going. One of the things that my life is definitely missing is grown up girl time - I love an awful lot about my life, wouldn't trade Marc and the kids for anything - but I miss my girl time. So it was especially nice to have that uninterrupted time to talk with my favorite cousin :-)

Judiasm and vacation

Although the title makes it sound as though they're connected - they aren't. Just two different topics that I'm thinking about this morning.

I converted to Judaism a week ago Monday. Yesterday was Shabbat, and we went to services. Usually, I try to find a sitter, my neighbor Annie usually watches at least Sam for me, but yesterday we had to bring both kids. Marc took them to the playground behind the synagogue, because Sam is absolutely horrendous in services. He cries, yells "Let's get out of this place!" loudly, and in general, makes a total nuisance of himself. Jessie isn't much better - she's got a highly developed whine technique that involves behaving as though she's a toddler, and whenever she turns that on, I know I'm in trouble. So I went in alone, and the rabbi called me up, announced that he had brought the kids and I to the mikvah on Monday and gave me a beautiful mezzuah for my door. And then the entire synagogue started singing and clapping (in Hebrew) - it was one of the oddest experiences for me. I knew nobody there, with the exception of the rabbi and the cantor, and all of these strangers were so thrilled for me, so happy and excited to share this with me, and they were all singing in a language I don't understand... it was a tiny bit surreal. I walked back down to my seat (of course, way the back) and everyone stopped and shook my hand, whispered congratulations (or mazel tov) and smiled at me.

I felt... honored and lucky. A bit bewildered, but mostly just blessed.

Vacation - woo hoo! I'm really excited about going up to Maine for a couple of days. We're staying with my sister Aimee, and spending long, lazy days at the beach, hanging out with my mom and my sister. I'm tense about packing and of course, worried about money (why is it that I always seem to be broke at vacation and Christmas? The two times I most want extra money, I always seem to be scrambling to pay for essentials). Tonight we're having the Worcester fireworks, and I delayed our trip so that we could watch the fireworks with Marc.

Daddy and his boy

Marc came home from work early yesterday, and from the moment he came home, Sam was GLUED to his side. They ate dinner together, they watched Thundar the Barbarian on the computer, they read stories, they acted out Thundar the Barbarian on my bed, they watched more Thundar, he let Marc change him not once, but TWICE (Sam normally hates having Marc change him). It was awesome. Jess and I had lots of quiet cuddle time, I read three stories to her, one of them (about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the right to vote) I read twice because she was so interested in it.

It's raining again

In case anyone was interested.

Very groggy this morning - both kids ended up in bed with me last night. Marc has been sleeping in Sam's bed because he's got this nasty cold thing going on, and both of the cherubs were up a lot. Every now and again, Marc's boss decides to have a meeting at the crack of dawn, just to make my life difficult (although he calls it the 8 am sales meeting), so this morning, I had to pry first myself up and get dressed, choke down some coffee, haul Jess up, get her dressed and shove some breakfast at her, and then get Sam dressed (every change a diaper on a sleeping boy? Immediate erection once the air hits the penis) and out the door. Did I mention that it's raining? A lot? Thunder and lighting, buckets of rain just pouring down on us...

But now I'm home, everyone is either at work, at camp, or settled down in front of Lazy Town with cheerios, and I'm starting to feel a sense of optimism and cheeriness. Yes, the coffee is starting to kick in ;-). I like Thursdays - I'm making homemade pizza for lunch, and beans and hot dogs for dinner, in case anyone is thinking of stopping by ;-). I'm also going out tonight - library night. I might take Marc and kids. Tough to tell, but either way, I'm going because they're closed tomorrow and the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday, we're leaving for Hermit Island. I think this is the 21st year that I've gone. I missed a couple, one year I was nine months pregnant with Sam (and actually delivered him in the middle of the vacation week), but other than that, it's been really consistent - and as much as I'm dreading three days with no Marc, I'm looking forward to it as well. We're going to try and go camping around here some in August as well, I have lots of fun memories of camping as a child, and I think the kids would love it as well.

It's July - come on - where's summer???

We've had rain every day in June. This probably isn't literally accurate - but metaphorically, emotionally, it feels as though it's been raining and raining and raining. And raining. And I'm cranky and miserable and just so ready for a bit of sunshine, just a little. I'd like to actually use the sunblock I bought. I'd like to go to the park, kick around a soccer ball, wander around the world instead of being trapped in my apartment.

Fought with Marc re: conversion this morning, because he said he'd feel exactly as my mother does. Confused, hurt and like a failure. This makes NO sense to me, and as it's easier to yell at him than it is to yell at her, I yelled at him. I'd feel confused, hurt and like a failure if my kids ended up in jail. If they were mean, selfish, materialistic and lazy. If they found spiritual comfort and joy in another religion - I'd be all enthusiastic, want to learn as much as I could about it and try to participate as much as I could - because it's not up to me to decide how they think about the world, how they perceive the Divine, how they process their own spirituality. I will raise my children as Jews, because I've done an exhaustive study of the religion and I think this is the best foundation for them. What they do with this information is exclusively their decision. To each her own, that's my theory. Religion and spirituality is such a personal decision. My goal is to raise kids who question spirituality, who search for their own truth, no matter what that may be. Apparently there are some lingering issues in my mind, some anger and frustration with how difficult this whole process has been, dealing with everyone's emotions and the weight of expectation and disappointment has been exceptionally more time consuming and emotionally stressful than I'd expected it to be.

And I'm now officially done discussing it. With anyone.

Moving on... crappy, rainy day - and what else to do in that situation but to make cookies? That's my plan for the afternoon. Sam and Jordyn will be here and we obviously won't be doing much of anything else :-)