Today was the sort of day where everything feels like a failure. Maybe because its Monday. Maybe because Chris is sick and home improvements are taking up time. I made it to the post office, I rescheduled my traffic school, all the kids got dressed, I made soup from scratch, and I folded laundry. Later, the girls played very cleverly as fashion designers and I let them do whatever they wanted with certain fabric. I made some little doll clothes for them this weekend and they're still into it. This was all good, but I feel like I'm not doing enough. Eleanor could be taking in more than I'm giving her. I think. Its really hard to schedule extracurriculars for them or get into a flow of learning or painting or whatever when we have to stop and get ready to go to work/sitter. I don't know if I can succeed at homeschooling and working . I've gone over it again and again but the other options are worse. Its just hard.

I was reading through my recipe box tonight. My mom gave it to me eight years ago, when we weren't getting along. It's just the size for 3x5 recipe cards and covered in Beatrix Potter type characters. It has recipe cards with the same little squirrels and bunnies in aprons. She bought it at a gift shop and the tag said 13 dollars, which gave me a sick sort of guilt that she spent so much on something so trivial - but. I sift through it now, filled with recipes, and they remind me of the people who gave them to me, of the time when I only had one baby and everything was so bittersweet. It contains my grandmother's handwriting and I run my finger along her letters and remember her. I appreciate my mom now. We talk on the phone and I enjoy her company. So much has changed in the time I've been a mother. I think about how I'll look back on these days. I can't imagine I'll regret the time I spent with them homeschooling. I look at all the recipe cards I printed out that say allrecipes 2001. I tried so hard to cook healthy and interesting meals. It was so lonely then. I'm never lonely now. No matter how much I think that I need to stop this treadmill and catch my breath, it can't. And its OK. I would tell the new mom me to relax. I feel the 40 year old me rolling my eyes at me now. 'Relax. Be happy. You have three amazing little kids who still think you're cool.' That treadmill just makes me feel like I'm hyperventilating on the emotional roller coaster that I'm prone to. Up and down. That's where Chris comes in. I've had friends in the past who did not understand our relationship. Probably people I got big ideas with, friends I dream with. Chris is the ground. constant. real. He is the guy standing on the grass holding the string and I am the wildly colored kite that flies around in circles and smashes into the ground. I love him so much.