Soon...

Two straight days of being a single parent of five children and I feel, well, pretty much as you'd expect.

Holy crap, I love my kids, but I cannot imagine for the life of me keeping them home all day. No offense to all you homeschoolers out there, but I'd rather stick poison needles in my eyes than spend day in and day out with my children. I love them, and I love to take them to school.

Actually, the older kids are easy, it's having 3 kids under the age of 2 that really wears me down. Javi follows me around from room to room, my little shadow. I can't even check my email without him pulling on my leg or messing with the keyboard. Also he's in that exasperating early verbal stage where he wants VERY much to ask me for something and I have NO idea what he is trying to say. We have conversations like this:

Javi: "oma oma oma nailclippa oma oma"

Me: "nail clippers?"

Javi: "NO! Oma Oma oma."

Me: "Oma oma?"

Javi: "OMA! OMA!!!"

Me: "Javi, I'm sorry, but I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Javi: "Oma oma oma oma nailclippa oma oma"

Me: "Nail clippers? Do you want me to cut your nails?"

Javi: "NO!!!!! Go WAY!!!!!"

Me: "Okay, THAT I uderstand."

And the girls are rarely both content and occupied with something other than me for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. One of them is crying, or nursing, or needing to be held, pretty much all day long it seems. They're cute, though! It's why the're still alive.

We ran errands today, and driving the car was something of a break. There was napping, and mostly quietness. We dropped some stuff off at Goodwill and brought Brian a hamburger and a shake. He's working hard making his house into a functional home for 7 people. No easy feat, that, so we wanted to make sure he was fortified. It seems impossible that we will be closing in five days. I keep waiting for the army of helpful little elves* to show up and do it all for me as I sleep.

Every time I make the commute now, I think, not many more of these stupid trips. Soon we'll be in town, soon I'll be buying less gas, soon a trip to the grocery store will not be an ordeal, soon we can be out of this freak show of a neighborhood, soon Brian and I can load up the stroller on a nice cool evening and head up the street to La Dolce Vita for some creme brulee and espresso. Soon.

*Not necessarily emaciated, sexless, and naked except for the red caps. But definitely with the pointy ears.