if you are @ the zoo, please look for my sanity (i think it might be by the bears)

today could easily be called a disappointment. it started so right - i was effortlessly productive and smiling with the girls. and then it all just melted away - do I blame the sun for that? can my ideal day be destroyed just like a bomb pop? i think of this and wonder where I have to pull myself up. where is the string - if there was one on each part of my physical being that keeps my spirit lifted, where is the string that needs to be retied? i feel it in my heart, a desire to be free from managing. i feel the most in control when i am wandering around with no goal.

ah, yes, and so would be my problem: i was on a budget AND a timeline today.

and amongst the shrieks of a broken hearted 5 year old (love torn over a positioned for impulse buy yo yo), i let my own self pity and sleep deprivation convince myself for a minute that it was over. that the picture of newborn ellen on my fridge was a long lost memory and now i had this new creature - this mean, uncontrollable little girl who didn't understand love.

really, erin? get serious.

this delusion ended with lunch. i made lunch. i let the sobbing continue upstairs while i cooked - bacon, shrimp, pasta, alfredo sauce, peas - and then fed my over heated under eated children. i watched them devour food and reminded myself of something i said over the weekend when the 2 year old had heart break over a $0.25 ride. i said, "when they cry this hard it isn't because of the ride or whatever trigger happened. it is for a necessity: food, comfort, sleep, water". and i took lucy to the cool restroom, slowly wiped her down with water, changed her into a dry pamper, showed her what happy looked like in the mirror and we were fine.

so this frustration i am acknowledging that arises within me when i am awe struck by the persistance demonstrated in material desire or demands, i have to remind myself that that is human nature. that is the pain we all deal with. that is exactly what i have to learn to understand and guide. yo yos should not cause self destruction. parenting means saving your child's life day in and day out by offering a balance of thought and consideration along with sponteneity and impulse.

so i am feeling better about that. now on to helping myself deal with learning that i spelled cicada wrong in a previous post....

(my solution was to delete the poem where the word was written as it was an unfinished work anyway. i claim to be a poet and i wouldn't want that to rubbish up my claim.)