Balance

I feel the need to move that very depressing last post out from the top of my blog.

So I'm going to talk about *something*. And that *something* is, for lack of ability to think of anything else to talk about right now, how off-kilter the balance of me vs. kid time is.

We hear it a lot; you need some time for yourself, some time away from the kids, blah, blah, blah. The fact is, I damn near NEVER get that. The proof of that is everywhere; Fran says "do you want a recording of this radio program I liked," I say, "is it kid friendly," "no," "well then when would I listen to it?"

If I can't fucking listen to a cd recording of a radio program he liked, what does that mean?

I don't have ANY time without the kids anymore. ANYTHING! I go to sleep when the baby goes to sleep at night, and wake up when one of the kids wakes up in the morning. I slink into the kitchen like some half-made mama prototype ("coffeeeee, must have coffeeeeee"), pour cereal or throw fruit at the kids to get them off my back, and carve myself an hour of "me" time drinking coffee and staring at the computer.

Can I even CALL it me time when I'm still the ONLY person in the house with the mental capacity to realize that scissors + outlet = bad idea?

It isn't that Fran is not GIVING me free time, it is that I have, at this point, found "me" so completely subsumed by my kids that I don't even know what I'd do with it if I asked him for it. And he doesn't see the point either...what would be better than all going out and doing something together? Isn't anything else really a waste of precious time?

Well, no.

But I have lost my balance so badly that I've fallen almost entirely on the kids-are-my-life side of the fence. It is pathetic. OK, so maybe I jump up and down and *LOOK* at the "me" side of the fence every now and then. But nah, I'm not walking that line in a healthy kind of way.

I'm hoping that starting in at school will help me to reclaim the "me" out of this. And that is pretty pathetic too, is it not? That I expect some external thing to force me from the funk?

And Then Daddy Died...

This seems a recurring theme in the kids' make-believe play of late. It bothers me for two big reasons (as well as the, er, general unsettlingness of the kids pretending someone is dying outside the context of dealing with anyone we know of dying...).

1) The play almost always centers around mama-reads-book-to-baby, daddy-goes-off-battles-dragon-and-dies. Gender stereotypes much?

2) I've been dwelling in my own little way on the probability of Fran dying before I do just because he is darned unhealthy and has family history working against him. He's nearing 30, the age when people just mysteriously keel over with the "OMG I can't believe he had a heart attack, he's only 30!" except, well, we can't say it was unforseen for him. His dad had one in HIS early 30s. And while the kids get to jump up and head off for round 2, I might not get that. The thought of raising these kids without him is completely terrifying, but I keep poking at the idea with my brain, as if it were some sort of wound I needed to examine thoroughly to determine just how bad it is. "If Fran were to die tomorrow," says my brain, "it would be for Naomi like a bad joke gone on far too long: cut it out already and just give me my dada!" These thoughts HURT me physically but are difficult to banish, particularly with the kids playing "and then daddy died" every couple of hours.

*Sigh* this is a real downer of a post, I know. Nobody wants to think about their husband dying, right? To wonder about whether they even COULD keep it somewhat together for their kids if it happened. But these are the thoughts rolling around in my head and I want them out.