Sometimes

We have an open space behind our house, and on the other side of it are a few family "farms"--not really farms, but folks who keep a few horses or sheep or cows. And one of those farms now has some lambs, and in the evening, when it cools down and we open the windows (because someone decided to live without air conditioning, wacky insanity!), you can hear them, and it makes me want to go live out in the middle of nowhere. It would be interesting if I ever ended up being of one mind, instead of always being all "Black. White. Black! White!" with a little "Chartreuse!" thrown in for spice. I love living in a neighborhood with, you know, neighbors, and people, and stuff within walking/biking distance. But I would like to live out in a forest in a house with real shutters and pine needles and shit. There's nothing to be scared of in a forest. Other than a forest fire. Which, okay, pretty scary.

Yesterday we biked to school, then I biked home, then biked back to pick up the kids, and we all biked home, plus I planted ALL the ground covers in that nasty clay soil we have out here (adobe hut, anyone?), so by bedtime I was all worn out. I stuck the Girl in my tub and the Boy in the shower, then he went to play with his Legos while I got in the shower. As I was getting undressed I hear this voice chime from the tub, "Mama, I can see yo bottom!" and I turn to see this forehead and eyes peeking up over the edge. "Oh, I'm sure you can," I said, because it isn't exactly the kind of thing you could miss. "We're both girls, and we're in the same family, so it's ok." Then we had this song: "Yo bottom, yo booty, yo CUTE LITTLE bottom!" Let me just point out, in case I haven't made it clear, there are many adjectives that one could use to describe my butt, BUT cute and little are not two that spring to mind. So nice to have children and their tenuous grasp on reality around the house.

Earlier in the evening, some of our neighbors from the old house passed by on a bike ride and stopped for a minute to talk. The Boy was off playing with some neighbor kids, but the girl and the old neighbors' boys ran around for a few minutes. At one point, I don't remember how we got here in the convo, but they said to me, "You're always so patient." And the woman said, "I always wished I could be as patient as you are with your kids." And it was funny, because this is the woman that I had a complex about, back pre-Lexapro when I was going into my Freaky Depressed Recently Divorced Non-Religious-Based Hermit stage. I was convinced that she thought I was Crap Mom and you know the drill. Then when I went on the meds and was seeing Dr. Zen, at some point we came to the conclusion that hmm, maybe some of that was in my own head? And I should just try not to project? And eventually I quit thinking she was always avoiding us and blah blah blah. And now here was this same woman, saying "I wish I could be patient like you" and looking kind of, what? Sad? And I said, "That means a lot to me, you saying that, because I don't usually feel very patient. I usually feel like a total shrew and then I lay there at night thinking about what a crappy mom I am." She breathed out, "I feel that way all the time." "No," I said, "I know you do, we all do, but none of us are. We're fine. We just don't believe it. You're doing great."

It's a holiday over here today, so of course we're celebrating by watching..."Sleeping Beauty"! "Mom, how can da fairies carry da princess?" "They probably used magic." "OHHHH!" Happy 4th, or happy Tuesday, depending on your locale.