The Summer Countdown

The summer is on. Only one week in, and I'm already a screeching mess. It's almost, pretty nearly, impossible to take both of my children anywhere together, when I'm alone. On rare occassions, I can take them both to the grocery store. I can stuff my boy in the cart, with a snack and a cup, and hold my daughter's hand on the cart handle under my hand. I have to keep an iron grip on her, because she'll take off down the aisles to dance, spin, and flap to the muzak, and sometimes feel up the other customers. One poor man got his butt patted lovingly by my daughter. I had to grab her, apologize, and move on. Luckily, he was amused and didn't seem to care. I figured he must have kids of his own and gets that they're a little freer with their affections. These trips mean I can only buy what fits in the "seat" area of the cart, or my son will start tossing things out. Other than this, we're stranded here at home and my shifts are about 17 to 18 hours at a time. My husband leaves for work, and I'm here, holding on for dear life. I do get my respite caregivers coming once or twice a week. And instead of just holing up in my room, and getting away, I try to clean the HIDEOUSNESS of the house. It's all just getting so...well, a hamster cage comes to mind.

We did go to the beach on Friday night. It's been hot and humid in San Diego, for us anyway, and we didn't get there until 6:30 pm. And it was still busy. My husband and I stood guard as the kids just kept walking deeper and deeper into the ocean. The nice thing about this beach is there's rarely any rip currents, and the tide was coming in, so no matter how hard they tried to go in, the waves would just pick them up and push them back up to the shallows. They've learned to jump over the waves, and hold their breath, and bob up when they get bowled over. It's a relief.. We used to have to keep an iron grip on their arms while the waves pummeled us. The only downside is they scream and cry when it's time to leave. And they usually fall asleep on the way home. I hope to repeat the trip this week. It was lovely, and it was fun for them. And they slept really well...