Good Day

Today was a good day. I say this with great satisfaction because I have to confess, I haven't been able to say that with conviction very often lately. And I know I'm blessed, and I know my life is good, and I love my husband and my children and even my dogs, though I'm convinced the canines are trying to figure out a way to kill me and still guarantee they'll be fed every day.

Some things are a little too personal to talk about on a public diary, and then somedays I just don't care. So, you know, TMI alert!

But not today.

Today instead I will tell you about my great day. My great day started with me procrastinating on work (when I say "start", I mean after: getting breakfast fed to the husband, the kids, the dogs, then myself, then mediating a deal negotiated by the two older children about how to share the PC and the XBox for the duration of the day).

I subsequently blew the whole negotiation out of the water by comandeering the XBox360 all by myself and refused to share and by doing so somehow managed to create an environment in which Bri ended up playing with Kiki and there was much rejoicing. Yay!

I then had this amazing revelation. One of my key needs is alone time. It always has been. Perhaps I'm an introvert. I don't know. I know this. I know that if I get to a point where I'm throwing a tantrum because I don't get to do what I want to do RIGHT NOW RIGHT THIS INSTANT LEAVE ME ALONE, then I need a time out, and that time out must involve a huge personal bubble, roughly the size of Texas.

The reality is there is no such thing as a personal bubble the size of Texas when you're the mom of a pre-toddler, step-mom to a pre-teen and oh-my-God-he's-going-to-be-a-pre-teen-too-any-day-now, dog mother of two very people-oriented dogs, and a husband who has social activity needs that run roughly on the scale of Paris Hilton.

I cannot escape them by watching TV. They gather around and want to know, "What are you watching? Who's that? What's going on? Where's the remote? Is that the remote? Can I see the remote? Can we watch something else? I'm huuuuungry."

I cannot escape them by playing video games. They gather around and comment on everything I make my character do. They want me to kill innocent villagers. They want me to slap annoying NPCs. They want me to give them the controller so they can show me how it's done. And also, they want to know if they can get on the computer, so then they can talk to themselves while they do so. Which I do, too, of course, but it's annoying when other people do it.

I cannot escape them by locking myself in the bathroom. They have knuckles they use to do this knocking thing. And they have high-pitched voices they use to simulate danger encroaching upon their very souls, evil danger that I, only I, can conquer.

But I discovered one thing I can do, one single thing that I can do in absolute peace and privacy and enjoy a personal bubble of at least the size of Rhode Island.

House cleaning.

Also? Give a pre-teen the choice of scrubbing a kitchen floor or entertaining the baby? Guess which one she will pick every time?

I have discovered nirvana. Eden. Heaven. And it is good.

Also my kitchen is spotless.

And then we went out to dinner to watch a friend sing a gig at a local Mexican restaurant wherein my loving fabulous husband insisted I drink a margarita. Ahhh, bliss.

I hope everyone is having as fabulous a weekend as I am!