.. in which our heroine looks on the bright side of winter, feels guilty, and uses the F word twice...
One good thing, okay, the only good thing about winter arriving (and it has arrived, complete with many, many snowflakes and freaking 90 km/hr winds) is that our house really comes into its own during the dark days of the year. It is a Winter House, and if you don't know what I mean by that, you should come over some time in the middle of July for lemonade and chill out with me in the stygian gloom of my living room. Eggplant walls, maroon sofas and heavy wood furniture do not exactly serve to lighten the mood and make one's soul sing a happy spring tune if you know what I mean. I know home decorating magazines (Guilty Pleasure #1... you'll meet them all eventually) say that your rooms, like your wardrobes, should take on a new look for the changing seasons, but, well, sorry, carting my entire living room ensemble down to the basement each spring and decking the place out in light linens and wicker are just not gonna happen for numerous reasons, one being that, oh yeah, I'M NOT FUCKING INSANE.... but, um, anyway, as I was saying, this house is dark, man, and in the summer I basically hate being in here, because it's like spending time with 14 suicidal depressives, you know, just a wee bit of a downer. That's OK though, because in the summer you should be outside anyway, right? So I only go in if I absolutely have to: to use the bathroom, sleep, and toss High Intensity Child into her room for time-outs.
In the winter though, this place becomes wonderful. It's quite amazing: the walls transform from gloomy to glowing. The dark pall becomes cozy, the somber colours appealing. It's like my house suffers from reverse SAD, and every spring says, "oh fuck, here it comes again, damn bloody sunshine" and goes into a four month sulk. I can't explain. But it does make the coming of winter a little more tolerable. Thank goodness, because winter time in
Ah yes, the little ones. Old High Intensity is at nursery school right now, and the baby, Little Miss Register-Absolute-Nil-on-the-Richter-Scale Low Intensity, is upstairs sleeping. Wow, is she a good baby. You will not believe this, but since she was born (five months ago today!), except for one night at a party which I'm not going to count because something was obviously wrong, she has cried for maybe a grand total of 15 minutes. Truthfully, it's probably been even less than that. She doesn't cry. If she really needs something she gives out something that resembles the sound of a polite little cough. If her need is really, really urgent, the cough will sound a little less polite, but no crying. It certainly works in her favour. If she does cry, wow, does that get us running. Old Miss H. I. cried so much I sometimes just had to ignore it, for sanity's sake, which of course resulted in her almost being killed on at least two occasions that I can think of. My mom bought her the Peter and the Wolf soundtrack for her first birthday, and I've played it for her about 7000 times, but the subtle lesson of that tale has not been learned, and she still screeches over the most minor of things. I'm hoping this means she's destined for greatness, although why this would be so I'm not willing to think about.
I'm gonna be honest here, I started this blog so that I could complain about things, and because of this I really need to clarify one thing before I go any further: I absolutely adore my oldest kid. She's funny and smart and already she can draw better than me. I am the model of patience and kindness when dealing with her (HA HA HA), but she can, um, wear me out, and I need a place where I can vent about that. The reality is, when you're trying to deal with a kid who will not stop screaming for love or candy, and it happens, like, five thousand times a day over NOTHING, you start to feel, I don't know, like an absolute failure, like the worst parent in the world, like something is wrong with YOU. Sitting down at this computer and writing about it is like going to a curtain-drawn room and lying down with an ice-pack on my head. Sweet, sweet relief. Sweet, sweet escape.
Yesterday, That Guy Who Lives in the House and I were squawking at each other over something, and while we were in the middle of it, she drew a picture of a girl and boy standing beside each other with a circle around them and a slanted line running through the whole thing in the manner of a no-smoking sign. "That means no mommy and daddy," she told us in a really pissed off, slightly disgusted tone of voice. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Honestly, I really do try not to argue with him in front of her, but sometimes... sometimes... Anyway, I feel absolutely terrible about it, because of course the argument was about something trivial (well, not really... he WAS two hours late...) and so what am I teaching her about controlling emotions and putting things into perspective when I myself can't seem to keep things in check? Obviously her over-reactive personality is all my fault, and, oh, boy, do I feel bad. *sigh*. I will try harder, I will try harder.
Incidentally, I am an absolute Luddite, and am having a hard time figuring out how to keep the beginning of my paragraphs indented. I also seem unable to utilize the spell check, which has me absolutely terrified, as I am a terrible speller. In Grade Two, I won a chocolate bar for Best Speller, and then along came the word "sheep" and it was all downhill from there. (Damn those ee/ea words, damn them I say!) That Guy will have to guide me through all that when he gets home. There, I knew there was a reason why I kept him around here.
Baby's coughing. Gotta go.
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