Week ending July 29, 2007:

Week ending July 29, 2007: This week both the kids were feeling better except that Chloe was very tired and hungry from 4 days of throwing up last week. While she was ill she was an angel. In the middle of the night she was really thirsty and the inside of her mouth was dry so she was uncomfortable and she couldn’t sleep and she just asked me very politely for water. I could only let her have sips since any significant volume going in came right back up, and she just politely bargained for more. Once she was over it and her energy started coming back is when she got to be a real bear, throwing kicking and screaming fits before every meal and constantly getting in trouble and breaking the rules and talking back. That always seems to be the pattern. The kids are sweet while they are ill and they get really grumpy as they start to feel better. Also this week we dropped off the kids’ health forms at their school which led to many discussions about what school might be like in the fall. It was only this week that I realized the kids had no idea that they would have the same classroom, same teacher and same classmates for the whole year. Everything else we’ve done has been classes through the library or church where everything changes each time we go. How can they be almost 4 already? Life is just zooming by. Ever since my pregnancy I have had this recurring dream that I am in a car zooming down the highway when I realize that no one is in the driver’s seat. In the dream I then have to get through some obstacle at highway speed in order to climb into the driver’s seat. I can’t help but think the dream is a metaphor for my feeling that life speeding away under too little of my control (I know, control is only an illusion, but I’m an engineer, trying to control all the variables is in my nature). One time I had a variation of the dream in which instead of no one driving the car, I realized that the kids were driving the car. I guess at that point I was feeling like they were running the show around here! Anyway, sending them off to school seems like one more instance of relinquishing control. No longer will I know what they do every second of every day. Next thing I know I’ll be watching them drive away in my car without me. The picture this week is of Casey starting to put a skim coat on the walls in the bathroom and the kids as the audience. Chloe sat on the stool and Alex went and got his own little chair so they could sit and watch.