The other morning as the we were getting ready for the day, The Girl asked to see The Boy’s new school agenda. To keep things equal- I suppose- the school down the street supplies the yearly agendas for the children. Of course, The Girl found their selection for this year to be utterly dorky, not having one redeeming feature.

As she flipped through it, she noticed that The Boy had filled in a section which asked how much he weighed. Now, The Boy has always noted his weight in his diary, I thought because it helped to fill the page, and so at any moment- should I ask- The Boy can tell me what he weighs.

As she read his weight out loud, my stomach shriveled in horror : The Boy lost 4 kilos over this summer and now only weighs 2 kilos more than his 5 year old sister. The Boy is 10 and The Baby is no Sophie Tucker.

I know why he lost the weight, and if I can’t put some padding on him within a reasonable amount of time, he is going to have to see a GI specialist, for eating beyond the basics required to sustain life leaves his stomach in a dreadful state indeed.

Horrified. Really.

This Friday, The Father and I are going into The Big City to view lots at an upcoming auction. In fact, we are also planning to bee-bop- by there on Sunday as well, for we learned at the last auction ( our first) that our note keeping needs work- although I was remarkably well organized. For me.

But we had a wonderful, do- something- together time at the last auction and have decided to attend them on a regular basis. After all, our house is bare and there are lamps and rugs and furniture and doo- dads up the gazoo at these auctions. At very affordable prices and having interesting , don’t- see- that-every- day features.

I have already read through the descriptions of all 3,500 lots.

Twice.

And you wonder where I have been.

I even took notes. Oh, wouldn’t The Boy just love getting a stuffed ( like in taxidermy) crocodile for Christmas ? Or a fistful of Roman coins ? And a silver backed hair brush for The Girl, ala Titanic… And what did I spy that I noted for myself ? An old telephone from Belgium, one that must be cranked up. Wouldn’t I love that and isn’t there just a snowball’s chance of me finding that under our tree this year ?

Nope, The Father has bought all of these little wireless phones and they have replaced all but one of my Bakelite phones, that one that the more astute of you noticed hanging in our kitchen. Why, if we wanted to, we could take our calls on the toilet. Now.

But it is simply screaming to be asked : who, really, wants to take a call while taking a dump ?

Beyond me, old fashioned creature that I am.

I avoid ( as some of you know) our new fangled phones as much as possible : I miss- poignantly, I must add- cradling the weight of a phone between my neck and chin. I cannot adapt, I miss whispering into the pierced circle of an old fashioned phone.

However, yesterday I found myself on the phone- new fangled- from just about 8 o’clock in the morning until- on and off- 11 am. For as well as being our, oh, let’s see : The Girl is 12 and so it must be our 22nd wedding anniversary, yesterday was also The Girl’s first day at her new school.

She wanted me to go with her on the bus, simply to show her when to push the button, but I couldn’t come, dragging The Baby back and forth to school got in the way, although I suppose that if The Girl had wilted, wept a bit, I would have gone, found an alternative. But The Girl is made of stronger stuff than I and headed off to her new school all.by.herself.

On the bus.

Sortof. She had me on her little handy, dandy telephone for most of the time she was gone. I shared her moments stepping off of the bus, told her where her school should be, calmed her when she announced that there were only big kids going into the building, no little ones, like her. I waited with her for the bus home.

Of course, here at casa kitchen, I was foaming at the mouth to know how it had gone. I guess that I was expecting miracles, for of course the most enthusiastic response I could get out of her was that it was…

are you ready for this ?

Fine.

Mummy is taking a nap !

Last night at two, I woke myself up sneezing again. I couldn’t believe it. I was furious. I spend all day trying to stay awake and then cannot sleep at night. I came here and set this place to zero days showing and tried to stop sneezing, to calm down.

A large wad of toilet paper in my hand, I decided to simply let my nose ooze all night. As I lay there, I decided to breath through my mouth and- for whatever reason- my sneezing stopped and I was able to catch a few hours of sleep.

These sleepless nights and sleepy days are wearing me down, leaving me grim and baggy eyed. It doesn’t help that I also have an aversion to this place right now.

The problem I am having seems to be two- fold. First, when I started this, it was to keep track of the kids ( aw, aren’t they just the dickens ?). But they aren’t 2 and 7 and 5 any more. They are 12 and 10 and almost 6, and sharp veils of privacy are descending over the antics of the older ones, as well as my reactions to their at times tedious behavior.

And then I’m reading this book about the Curzon sisters. Much of it relies upon the diaries that Irene and Baba left behind and reading bits of those show me just how pertinent and human an old fashioned, open diary can be. And this left that track a very long time ago, if, indeed, it was ever on it.

I don’t know where to go from here, I’m tempted to think that it is time to go back to the private writings, like those I started when pregnant with The Girl and kept up until I came here.

And yet, I would miss goofing about with those I have met on line.

Perhaps first I should get some quality sleep, and then decide the fate of the world.

Continuing in my Clariton, Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, Walmart cheap version of some antihistamine induced funk, I wonder what is wrong with me- in that striving for Uber Mummy part of my soul- at times. We have all had the blues, haven’t we now ? So indulge me. It’sa drugs talking…and my frustration and being….crippled at the moment.

Sometimes, I wonder why I can’t say this, to the world at large ( ready ?): I have three beautiful children. Fact is, I find each adorable and smarmy in their own way, but I am always aware of the fact that I am biased. That is my job, you know, a face only a mother could love and all of that. But to blast that out to the world ?

Maybe just saying that your kid is beautiful is just one of those cliches of this day and age. It is short, it is simple. To me, being beautiful means, in the general use of language, that one is better looking than the average bear.

But- of course- beauty can be very many different things, a perceptive soul, a kind heart, a wicked sense of humor, a grasp of street smarts that won’t end. But it seems easier just to say, wow, my kids are beautiful.

You know, that strikes me as a prime example of an empty cliche.

Maybe that is why I can’t bring myself to say it.

Or maybe not. I really am drugged to the gills at this moment.

If I can’ t get a handle on my allergies by Monday, I am going to pay a call on GP. More often than not, I have to take so many pills to stop my perpetual sneezing that-at this heavily be-drugged moment- I most likely could be found to be legally brain dead. While I am not sneezing, I am unable to think, to be productive. Oh, I can swab decks and all, but thinking ? Forget it.

The main culprit seems to be the bedroom. Yesterday, I finished boiling the last of the bed clothes, but still, I snuffled and wheezed and nearly strangled half of the night and spent today ah-chooing ad nauseum. I’m thinking of buying an air filter for the bedroom. Should that fail, perhaps I shall go in search of a wandering Moujik, whose feet I can sit at and dunk cookies into tea with, a starets whom I can look up to and rely upon.

The most tedious part of it all is that after almost two weeks, it is beginning to drag me down, my mind wanders into melodramatic places which I would prefer to avoid. For example, I always assumed that I would bake cookies with my children, dye easter eggs with them, teach the girls fine needle work.

Truth is, I would rather be drawn and quartered.

I’m not quite the mother that I thought I would be. Not that I find myself to be a bad one, I just thought that I would be a different sort of one.

You know, your basic Uber- Mummy, not your run of the mill, oh- so- human- sortof- Mummy.

I don’t see much of The Girl these days, for the younger children and I are already on a school schedule, while she still does not start at her new school until Monday.

So I get up at 6.45 and am back from the little hell hole down the street at 8.30. Around 10 she ambles down. By 10.50, she is catching the bus to the manege.

During the few minutes that I saw her Tuesday morning, I mentioned that on Monday, a lot of her old class was spotted at the school yard, visiting, I suppose. She supposed that they were bored and had nothing better to do. And then she added that she wasn’t bored one bit, she certainly had more interesting things to do then hang out at her old primary school.

This morning she took my camera and a wad of cash, for she is going to spend the night at a horsey girl’s house and then the next morning they are going into the Big City to go shopping. I gave her money for lunch, money for two tops and money for school supplies. I do hope that she starts buying her own clothes, as I no longer have a clue as to what she likes and dislikes.

I encourage all of the children to be independent, to do things on their own, hoping that they won’t end up introverted, rather helpless weenies like me. It seems to be working.

And while she drives me nuts most of the time that I see her , forcing me into uber nag mode, I find that I miss her and hope that I see more of her once her school vacation is over.

Tuesday in a nut shell : I sneezed from 3am to 9pm.

Amazing how stupid that much snot can make you.

Today I was just plain old stupid. I spent all day caught in one of those absurd lacunae which occupy my mind : for the life of me, I could not figure out how or where to put the include path for the php play- around.

And here I am, actually rather motivated ( for me) and cannot get past Go! for love or money.

And.Keep.Trying. Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again.

To the exception of all else and to no avail.

Update : even dumber , that’s HTM, not HTML. But it works.

Sortof.

But it is php ! And there is always tomorrow ….

Of course, I did have Bambi in my face the other two times that I stood in the playground today, but heavily fortified with coffee, I was able to avoid having her in my field of vision.

But my, the catty comments that raced through my mind. Finally, as I walked home, I pounced upon a comment that I could live with : she looks like a female version of Marlon Brando playing Stanley Kowalski.

Yes, that will satisfy all parts of my soul. After all, I prefer being an intellectually pretentious housewife to being a common cat.

See what happens when you pick on my boy ?

As usual, I awoke a few minutes before the air raid alarm from WWII went off at 6.45. As usual, the first thing that I did was mop up cat piss in the kitchen.

Some things never change.

The Baby was delighted to see her teacher once more, actually stretching up ( remember, this is the very tall woman with very large- bat, bat- eyes) to kiss her hello.

The children in the school yard looked so small, now that The Girl’s group has moved on. I stood and chatted with The Boy until the bell rang.

Some things never change.

All in all, the first morning went better than I had expected, but I suppose that is because I did not bump into Bambi. Seeing her would have put me in a mood most foul, I am guessing. But I’m human, flawed. No matter how politely one attempts to put it, anyone who tells you that they don’t want your kid playing with their kid because your kid is a bad influence simply is not going to become your bosom buddy, a face that you look for in a crowd.

Nope, not a way to make friends and influence people.

And just about the last person that I wanted to see this morning.

Or ever. Nope. I’m not going to let that puppy go. Not going to rise above this one.