SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days

Nuther One of Those Days

Nuther one of those days for me. My two-year-old gets me out of bed at 6:30 after 4 and 1/2 hours of sleep...my fault for staying up late. I nearly sliced my pinky off with a cheese cutting tool making breakfast for the kids. I didn't get to make my own breakfast, but fortunately Maddie didn't finish hers.

After I managed to get myself bandaged (with gauze and tape since all we had were Thomas The Tank Engine band-aids), I pack up the kids and my gear for the YMCA. First stop is the store for some band-aids. After I managed to get through the checkout with protests in stereo for not buying treats, I get everyone loaded back in the truck before realizing I left Maddie's diaper bag at home. But what point was there in getting it? I go all the way home to get her traveling bathroom kit, bandage myself again before I head off to visit the Y, and the staff in their 'Kids Korner' doesn't bother to change her stinky. What's worse, it was dried on. The Y's sitters didn't even bother to tell me and I didn't check before leaving, so we had to keep the windows down the whole ride home...'cept on the interstate. Yuck!

I guess that's just a small part of the day...I stayed in most of the day. Humid as heck outside. Watered my garden twice. The rest of the time it was on the computer or wrestling with the kids and putting Maddie down for her nap after lunch...which is getting more difficult every day. "No. I don't need nap!" CRY...CRY...it's over after 5-10 minutes, usually. I've got it pretty easy, I imagine. But the interruptions from everything to can I have a snack to 'Maddie is eating my crayons!' can be daunting to the creative mind.

Luckily, Alex is my look out for part of that time...if he isn't engrossed in some show on PBS. Then, I have to haul Maddie to the bathroom for a tweezer session to pull wads of stuff from her nose...or hose off all the washable markers on her hands, face, legs, dress and toys.

I'm ready for school to start and it's still another month! The two of them really do get along well...most of the time. They manage to fight over THE ONE TOY...like we had only one toy in the whole darn house. I take it away and in under five minutes or less they are fighting over something else. I threatened to throw away all the toys. So, later the six-year-old threatens the two-year-old to hand it over or 'Daddy will throw it away.' He gets a time out for that tactic in hopes that won't become an issue again.

Whew! That's sort of what the days are like. Still seems pretty easy. I can't have my cake and eat it too with the writing thing. I'm just biding my time until fall. We could get a sitter. My wife claims it's not in the budget. But really, we don't manage our money that well. We seem to be able to spend more than we take in each month and still manage to stay afloat. It's funny adding up all the expenditures, knowing on certain days when we felt we could splurge, we really shouldn't have. And we never consult the numbers to find out how much we actually are spending. Just feels right by taking a quick glance at a check book or an online statement.

Anyway, the point is, I'm the sitter. I'm the stay-at-home Dad who doesn't have time for his craft because of a crazy wife who thinks I shouldn't take the kids out to the McDonald's play area once a week for a kids meal and sundaes....while she's fisting 20's from the hospital ATM machine and paying nearly 20% in fees for each transaction...silly woman. But she's got the big paying job and I'm the one at home twiddling my thumbs having a good old time raising the kids...while my writing suffers. I blame everything and everyone else for this...but really the honus is on me.

If I want this writing career to restart, I have to take the bull by the horns. Haven't been up to it. Sometimes, I think I'm ready for a fight. But I can't launch, knowing all my fuel is wasted on lift off and I go nowhere from there. Got to think smart. Plan. Maybe, someday I'll return to former glory and beyond; I'm not going to publish a book of poetry and call it a career just yet.

Brian