Day: July 19, 2005

Witching Hour

Since before we had kids, Jerry has always had to decompress when he got home from work. He’d come home, sit in his rocking chair for about half an hour, his hands jammed under his legs, and rock (too fast, in my opinion, but I guess that’s because I get dizzy). And then he could let his workday go. He wouldn’t be crabby or stressed or anything from the day’s activity, and even though his rocking chair ritual annoyed me on some levels, I admired his ability to meditate the day’s stresses away. I can’t do that.

Now that we have kids, he still needs to do this. However, right when he comes home from work is the WORST time of the day for it. It’s when the girls are possessed by demons and become screaming hellions, and I want to chop them into small pieces and bury them in a shoebox. Or set them on fire and throw them in the ditch. Or not. But I do wish for a traveling band of gypsies on a daily basis, specifically around the dinner hour.

So Jerry, poor thing, comes home to a stressed out wife, screaming children, and the weight of his day on him. He needs more than anything to have his usual half hour in the rocking chair so that he can face the (second half of the) witching hour. I want to let him have that. But I also want to say, “CAN’T IT WAIT?! Can’t you see I’m FREAKING OUT?!” at the same time. This, of course, is not fair. WHERE ARE THE DAMN GYPSIES?

I am a very, very lucky woman. Jerry’s job makes it possible for me to stay home with the girls, which, for the most part, is a wonderful thing for me to be able to do. I always wanted to stay home, like my mother stayed home, so that when the kids needed their mommy, their mommy would be here. And Jerry agreed. So I’m home with them. And I love it.

I just don’t love it at 5:30, when I need to clone myself so one can cook dinner, another one of me can cut up and shove food at Alice (being careful to withdraw hands quickly enough so that she doesn’t gnaw those off, too), another one can strap Helen to the kitchen chair and make her STAY there, another one can forcefeed Helen healthy foods instead of the carbohydrate diet she is wont to adhere to, and I can drink glass after glass of wine to dull the chaos.

The rest of my day is pretty predictable and I don’t mind it. The girls are pretty easygoing at lunchtime and at naptimes, and they play without screaming and whining and generally acting like banshees. But oh, my God, my God, something HAPPENS at the dinner hour. And I’m low on blood sugar at this point, which makes my ability to cope with it so much less. Tonight I had a bit of a tantrum in Jerry’s direction, and I feel bad about it.

They’re good kids, really. They’re just typical. And I know all kids have a witching hour. And I know that most kids know exactly where their parents’ buttons are and how to push them, even at a very young age. I just wish they wouldn’t doubleteam.

And this, ladies and gents, is precisely why I think I’ve hit my parental quota with two. If dinnertime with two little girls can make me insane, I don’t even want to think about my mental health with more than that. Hats off to those of you that have or want more than two. You’re my heros.

Jerry has his rocking chair; I have my sewing machine. I guess that’s fair.

Fear

I’m entering two quilts in the quilt show. Neither of them is finished yet. The quilt show is in 6 weeks. Guess what I’m going to be doing?

“Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but I LOVE ORANGE” is the first one… It needs a binding, label, and hanging sleeve. So not much more on that, really.

But THIS one, which I’ve titled “Rhapsody in Blue,” is a LOOOOOOONG way from being finished. I’ve been somewhat afraid to work on it again, because last time I worked on it, it consumed me. I didn’t really sleep for about a week, because I became so obsessed with the process. Then came the trip to Texas and I was away from the sewing machine for a while, so I lost momentum. But in a lot of ways, I’m a little nervous about getting back to it… I know it will completely absorb me, and I’ll daydream all the time that I’m NOT able to sit at the sewing machine and ponder the next thing I’m going to do to it.

I know some of you out there are going to think I’m a freak. But I can’t explain it. The euphoria that comes from working on something like this is at the same time exhilarating and daunting. This quilt is such a challenge for me because it’s unlike anything I have ever done before. I named it “Rhapsody in Blue” because that piece of music, which happens to be my all-time favorite piece of music, was also groundbreaking. This is not to say that my quilt will change the direction of quilting the way that Gershwin changed American music in 1924, but it sure is rockin’ my little world.

So. I need a pep talk. Mostly because I’m, once again, standing at the Jumping Off Place, afraid to jump off. But this quilt has to be finished essentially by my birthday, which is September 3. I am nowhere even CLOSE.