Its called Life.

This was what my husband said last night as I was laying across our sitting room sofa lamenting on how hard my days seem right now. How stressed out work has become, how there are 12 non-work things that all seem to need to be done in the next 2 months and no time to get to them, how people have been letting me down by lapsing on their parts of the bargain expecting that I will be monitoring things, etc. He was unpacking his suitcase from his 3 day stay at the Hotel Mandarin in Washington DC for a seminar, half listening to me, and probably half wondering why he came back to a woman who sees the glass not only as mostly empty, but leaking profusely and chipped all at the rim... "Its called life" he said. This, I took to be, a combination of "end of conversation"  and  "do you think the rest of us don't have some stress these days too?"

I went downstairs and ate the top centimeter (give or take) of a pint of gilato and watched the last 10 minutes of Biggest Loser. Doing that, out of the carton with a spoon, makes me feel like this is not really a serving that needs to be counted. And I do it standing up.  And it did make me feel better. As did the 8 hours of solid sleep that I got thereafter. And the shower that I took this morning. And having Mark take Daisy for her walk, Daisy exiting her depressive state that she stays in every time Mark travels (note she was my dog for years before Mark and I got married, how does she think this makes me feel) and Sadie waking up happy too. All things that weren't really happening when he was gone. The day looks slightly brighter.

But all of this does raise a question in my own mind, and that is... is it right to convey to a 4 year old that her mother is stressed out and has an unpleasant outlook, at least some of the time?

See, to Mark's point of "Its called life," I always remark that my parents never appeared this stressed when I was little.  My father was home by 6:05 every night (sure he left at 7:30 am) and there was no blackberry or cellphone or computer for him to work on later in the evenings. I remember his routine of watching the news every night (CBS) for 30 minutes, and then catching up on reading the paper, and my mother often having a glass of wine over a bucket of ice and reading her romance novels. I don't do either of those things. 

Two nights ago I ironed one half of a linen table cloth that we used for a birthday party in our dining room a few weeks go, and that felt like 30 minutes of luxury. I say half the cloth because it quickly became apparent that there was no good way to make sure that the part that I ironed stayed clean when I was having to loop it over this skinny ironing board in our basement laundry room where a shedding Daisy had been bathed recently. I gave up and will take the table cloth to the cleaners and have it professionally pressed I think. But at least now it is folded instead of draped over our second floor landing where it was for over a week.

But I digress. From my eye as a child, my parents weren't stressed and had it all taken care of. They weren't necessarily effusive with their happiness either, most of the time. But I can count on one hand the times that I have seen either of them cry (the death of each of their parents) from sadness. Sadie probably sees my eyes well up with tears of frustration weekly. OK, daily.

I don't ever want her to think that she is the reason for my distress. Because honestly, she isn't. I have two friends who are struggling with infertility at 44 and 40, and I know that their stresses are so much greater than mine. When I stop to think and really reflect, we are so incredibly blessed.

But then I am at work, fullish time instead of partish time like I bargained for, with a husband who travels a lot either for work or for family matters, an ailing mother in law who I am so sad for but who I also probably resent for entering this life stage right now when I would rather Mark and I be frolicking with a happy four year old, taxes to do, a Disney trip to finish planning, a dog with a mole growing over her eyelid that seems to irritate her cornea now once a week, a house that can't ever get uncluttered, 5 weeks before said house and yard needs to be decorated for the Virginia Garden Tour, a soccer team to coach, yada yada yada.

I feel so very behind. And I never feel like I am catching up. Sure I could take time off (and likely, probably will have to) to do my taxes, get the house and yard ready, and finish organizing our itinerary for Disney. But who wants to take time off for administrative matters like that. It just seems so overwhelming to have so much "admin time" just to be a 41 year old married mother of one these days! And that's not counting work admin time. I just remembered I have to check on a carpet we ordered that was supposed to be in during the first week of February. How shocked I would be if just once, just once, someone called me to say "you know that carpet that you ordered, I just wanted to tell you that it would be coming in in X days" instead of me, four weeks after the time frame, frantically remembering in my mind "that carpet should have been in a month ago, I wonder who I need to call to find out what the status of that is?"  It is just baffling to me how many lists of outstanding items that I need to keep going. And those of you who know me know that I was never one to earn the Most Organized award.

So that's my lament. That's the flip side of the coin.

This morning Sadie was slow to leave for school, wanting to finish building a parking garage out of Magnitiles.  She is methodical and each garage has a swinging door where matchbox cars fit in, all per her design. We have to go, I kept telling her. Her remark back to me "Mommy, you are not being very nice, and if you keep saying that, you are not going to be my mommy anymore."  OK I have never threatened that, ever --- not even in my mind where a lot of threats reside and don't get uttered. And she said it in this calm fashion, not even out of anger, and continued to build her garage. I took off my 4 tote bags (purse, lunch, gym clothes, work) plus my return box to send back to Zappos and built the rest of the garage with her. We then left for school and listenened to the Veggie Tale cd in the car that is still playing in my mind. When I dropped her off in her classroom, she was the second child there... not late as I had been threatening after all.  Now if only I could put her in charge of doing our taxes.