You ready for a big shock? Hold onto your computer chair. Your children will not be miniature versions of you. Yeah, you think you already know that. Until you’re looking at them, and you see the differences. Until they like things you don’t like – like mashed potatoes and swimming. Or they don’t like things you do like — like french fries. Or they can do things you can’t — like draw REALLY, REALLY well. They really are separate little people. I was looking at my older daughter today and thinking about our differences. Then I thought about how different I am from my mom. Mom and I talked on the phone — I guess it was yesterday now. Thirty years ago on this date, I was due. What I mean is that September 11 was the due date my mom was given when she was pregnant. She was naive. She sat around all day waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Finally, she asked my grandmother if she should go to the hospital (she was living with my grandparents as my dad was in Vietnam). My grandmother said why, are you having contractions? Mom said no. Well, why do you need to go to the hospital? Well, the baby’s due today. To which my grandmother replied: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Another thing I was musing about? This beautiful villanelle that my husband wrote for a lost love. The words are touching, beautiful, romantic. I can’t find it on the computer. I guess he deleted it. But my favorite part goes “All the parts of me you touched are gone.” It is based on the fact that you shed your skin cells. And he was sitting there thinking about this girl and realizing that he had shed the entire layer of skin cells she had touched. I think it was a moment of finality. His feelings for her obviously hadn’t died, but all the parts of him she’d touched were gone. *Sigh*

He doesn’t sound the same when he reads his poetry as he does when he is just speaking. There is a different quality to his voice — a different cadence. He is performing.

You know, I feel lucky because I know him. The thought occurred to me tonight that the girl my husband wrote that villanelle about may never even have read it. Not to have heard those words – how sad. Her loss is my gain. And I think I know the beauty, the pain, the balled fury that he is. He is a thunderstorm — flashing grandeur, spinning tornadoes, rumbling thunder. He’s also a quiet summer rain — cleansing, pure, tranquil. I don’t feel like I am finding the right words.

Whatever he requires, whatever he wants, I want to give it to him. I want him to be happy, and I need him to love me always. I wrote about dreaming that we fought. It was horrible because when I awoke, I had that feeling that we really had fought. I had to shake myself out of that feeling. Until I did, nothing was right in the world. I need him. So simple. So overused to the point of triteness. But there really isn’t any other way to say it. I just wish he was home right now.

(Andrew, just in case you ever come across this diary, this grammar bitch has finally got to get it off her chest. “Noone” is not a word. It is “no one.” I feel better now.) Ah…

I’ve figured out a temporary solution to my problem with the hot water heater/no hot baths. I had a similar problem at the apartment I lived in when my oldest was a baby. I got around it then (because I was naive and didn’t know that hot water heaters could be adjusted) by boiling two kettles of water and adding it to my bath. Worked like a charm then. So I just finished a long, glorious bath in my huge tub. I used my pumpkin spice bath gel because autumn is approaching, so I want to smell autumn-y. After I dry off a bit, I plan to follow up with the pumpkin spice body lotion. Mmmm… smells yummy. I love scented bath items. I have lots of that stuff, but I will never turn down more. Bath and Body Works is heaven. I have raspberry, lavender, and honeysuckle (my favorite scent in the world, but lavender is my favorite to wear). I could do some serious damage in Bath and Body Works. I don’t really like perfume, though. I prefer to layer on scent by using bath gel or cream, lotion, and if I really want the scent to linger, body splash.

I am feeling better today. I went out and had breakfast with Steve and baby Maggie after we got Sarah to school. Bless her heart. It was raining this morning, and I didn’t want her to have to stand in the rain at her bus stop until the bus came, so I drove her to the stop and waited with her in the car. The bus arrived. Sarah got out of the car as quickly as she could with a backpack tangled around her feet and ran to the bus. The bitch bus driver closed the door and drove off like she never even saw Sarah. Another mother honked her car horn at the driver, who apparently didn’t think it was meant for her. I was pissed. Sarah burst into tears and ran back to the car. I comforted her as best I could and told her it would be okay, I’d take her to school. Her school board is going to be hearing from me tomorrow. NO ONE treats my kid that carelessly. Even if the driver didn’t see Sarah, then there’s still a problem. The driver is obviously not as observant as she needs to be if she can unknowingly close a door right in a 7-year-old’s face and drive off. I don’t think it is asking too much for a bus driver to allow a second grader an extra second, especially when she’s running. Ticks me off because Sarah likes riding the bus so much that she told me the other day she wants to be a bus driver when she grows up. I told her she can do or be anything she wants. And today, after school, even after what happened, she told me she still wanted to be a bus driver when she grows up.

We had supper at McDonald’s. I am addicted to the Big ‘N Tasty. I didn’t even care that it had cheese on it. Sarah got Chicken McNuggets. She is the only kid I know who doesn’t really like french fries. Not even McDonald’s french fries. How can she be my kid?

Then we went grocery shopping. I got baby Maggie her first step 2 foods. The label said they could be fed to babies from about 4 months. She’s nearly 6 months. I went for it. She is such a good baby. I swear, she rarely complains, and she is hauled all over the place.

Sarah seems to be adjusting to school just fine.  She has homework every day except Friday.  There is a large Hispanic community where we now live, so I have been teaching her a few words in Spanish.  She seems very interested in it.  My husband mentioned [his post is no longer available] I woke up late and made her late for school this morning.  I felt simply awful.  I know how much she is probably worried about making a good first impression, and I hope she was okay.  I am so concerned with being a good mother and handling this move as well as I possibly can.

I don’t know how I feel right now.  Allergies are definitely kicking my ass.  I suppose I feel down.  I feel very unmotivated.  I just really want to find a job, but looking right now feels overwhelming.  I admit I need help.  I feel unattractive.  My hair just hangs limply.  I feel so tired.  Everything feels overwhelming.  Doing things seems like such a major effort.  And then I either screw them up (like getting Sarah to school) or they go unacknowledged, so I feel like I shouldn’t bother.

Welcome to my pity party.

Well, I really wanted the job, but I didn’t get it.  I was initially upset, but I feel better now.  Three hours of driving with the music at top volume, singing so loud that I was actually (I think) annoying the girls – my stepdaughter and my oldest daughter (nearly 6 and 7 respectively).  Let’s see – what did I have in the CD player?  The Jayhawks, Abba, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, the Violent Femmes, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and the Black Crowes.  I think that was all.  I owe my odd affinity for Abba to my childhood.  Mom used to play Abba records all the time, especially Saturdays when we would clean up the house.  So don’t make fun of me – it is all about being wistful.

I was tired, but the drive home, singing – I don’t know.  It somehow rejuvenated me.

I love having all the kids here.  Even if they are loud and get on my last nerve with the running, jumping, and yelling.

It has been an intense week.  My grandfather died.  I have never met the man.  Never even talked to him on the phone.  He was 80.  He had had his voice box removed a few years ago.  Then, a couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.  The kicker?  Then, he quit smoking those unfiltered cigarettes.  Why bother?

This morning my grandfather’s stepmother died.  She was almost 100.  She was a sweet old lady – she loved getting/writing e-mail and she loved Tiger Woods.  She tatted me a beautiful doily for a wedding gift the first time I got married.  I don’t know when it was that she married my great-grandfather.  Mom and I were trying to figure it out on the phone.  She says she thinks my dad’s grandmother died when he was about 10 or so, so it had to be after then.  My great-grandmother died in one of the most horrific car accidents I’ve ever heard about.  She drove under a semi truck and was decapitated.  Dad said he thought his world had come to an end.  So I don’t know how to feel about all these relatives dying when I didn’t know them well.  I am closer to Mom’s side of the family, mainly because Dad was abused as a child and has as little to do with his family as he possibly can.