Is going to be alright.

Things are slowly calming down and making sense. Finally.

Okay, I may be exaggerating on the making sense bit. But things are definitely better.

Work is good. Busy but I’m not complaining. I barely have a moment at the office to breathe. That’s okay, though. Breathing is overrated. Coffee and Jeffrey Osborne are what it’s about.

Chris and I are good. Nothing a mojito or two couldn’t solve. It’s been a whole month without a date night. We finally had a moment or two without kids that didn’t involve the office. We had cocktails and dessert over a grown up dinner. Who can fuss over a good berry crisp?

I’ve been pleased with my runs. Nothing today. But moving forward, I’m optimistic that my pace will improve. As the heat subsides, I’ll have fewer excuses. With any luck, that will turn into extended mileage.

The kiddos are better. Katie’s cough is sticking around but we’re planning to take her to the doctor next week to get it looked at. Amy has her spots but little in the way of physical complaints – no blood in the urine that we’ve seen. I’ll take it. Charlie stayed home today, complaining of a tummy ache. I think he was mostly tired and wanted some daddy-time. He got a nap and lots of time with Chris. I think he’ll be okay.

So, all good. Well, mostly all good. My dad is having surgery. It’s scheduled for August 9. I have all kinds of mixed emotions about this but I’m focusing on the positive: he’ll get better. That’s the goal, anyhow.

I’ve started running again (you can keep up with my progress with the Daily Mile widget in the sidebar). This is a good thing. I need some good things right now.

For today’s top ten list, I’ve compiled a list of the ten songs on my iPod that I love to run to these days… Here you go, in no particular order:

1. Welcome to the Jungle – Guns N Roses
2. Always – Blink 182
3. Lose Yourself – Eminem
4. Mercy – Duffy
5. No Surrender – Bruce Springsteen
6. Come With Me – Diddy
7. Four Minutes – Madonna
8. Till I Collapse – Eminem
9. Go West – Pet Shop Boys
10. Keeps Getting Better – Christina Aguilera

My bonus track: the theme from Rocky. Because I’m that corny.

For today, I hate every single thing about my life. That’s a rarity for me to say out loud because, for all of my bitching, I am usually fairly content. I know that I’m a smart girl and I’ve made good, well thought out decisions. I’m usually able to laugh off the icky bits after a day or so. But that’s been awfully hard lately. I’m tired. I’m grumpy. I’m unhappy. And no amount of Nutella in the world can change that right now.

If you’re reading this blog because you’re in law school, take my advice and drop out now if you’re planning to have kids. Your kids will eventually become ill and you will pay ridiculous sums of money in co-pays. It’s cheaper just to go to med school. Just saying.

This week, I’ve made two trips to the doctor. Both, fortunately, ended well.

Amy had a trip to CHOP for her ears. She got the all clear.

A day or so later, Charlie was off to the pediatrician. He had developed a rash on his elbows and his knees. I feared that it might be molluscum (a virus) as our track record with skin rashes has not been good (his last was scarlet fever, his sister’s last was HSP). Again, the all clear. He has what our pediatrician referred to as “chicken skin” – or keratosis pilaris. It’s common, ugly and harmless. The new pediatrician, however, did not win me over with her clear amusement at my worry over what turned out to be merely a benign rash. When I explained that I’m a little overly sensitive after Amy’s bout with HSP, she laughed and said, “Well, HSP is temporary.” No kidding. But it’s been a sucky temporary six months. And when her daughter is crying out with pain, unable to walk across the room because her legs are so swollen, can’t make a fist because her hands are so swollen, is peeing blood and vomiting forcefully, we can compare notes. Temporary or not, it’s been horrible.

The use of the word temporary may also be a bit more liberal than need be. Yesterday, Amy had a big spot on her arm which we decided was a bug bite. She has been complaining, off and on, that her stomach hurts. She ate practically nothing on Tuesday, which I chalked up to it being a busy week what with her dad coming back and all. She has been sleeping more and more – again, I figured that the last few weeks had merely taken their toll on her.

I thought I saw a few extra spots earlier today but decided that it was just my imagination. After dinner, she turned to me and said, “Mom, my spots are back.” And they were. A number of them up and down her legs. I am just hopeful that the recurrence is relegated to her legs, though I know that’s also wishful thinking. It’s never just spots. I’m expecting the vomit – or something – to start up again any moment. She’s already been unable to go to sleep tonight, complaining of pain in her ears and her head.

So, a lot of good all of those hours in Con Law have done me now… I wish I had gone to med school instead (except for the whole having to become a doctor thing). *sigh*

It’s over, thank goodness, the dance. That’s how I characterize this “thing” that Chris and I do each time he travels.

It’s silly, really. It’s all ego and exhaustion and ridiculousness. He’s grumpy because he’s tired after his travels. And I’m grumpy because I’m tired after running the office and being with the kids the whole time. He wants attention and sympathy. I want attention and sympathy. And instead, we butt heads. It’s as predictable as the day is long.

A few days go by and we’ve sorted out the whole thing.

Yes, we’re grown ups and we should act like it. But we don’t. It is perhaps our greatest challenge as a couple – this inane battle of ego. And we both know that nobody ever wins. Mercifully, it never lasts long.

What if everything we thought we knew was wrong?

Earlier this year, Amy flunked her hearing test. Not a little bit. A lot. Her pediatrician wanted an official follow-up with an ENT so I made an appointment at CHOP.

I’m not gonna lie. Amy’s health issues have been exhausting. I know that sounds terrible to say out loud. It sounds, I’m sure, especially selfish to those parents whose children have chronic, life-threatening diseases. I can’t imagine what that feels like. I can say, though, that I believe that pain and personal experience is relative. And relatively speaking, Amy’s illnesses have been personally difficult for me.

The HSP started in December 2009. It was the last – and most serious – of a string of health issues for Amy. She has suffered through night terrors, “grossly enlarged” adenoids, sleeping and breathing abnormalities and anxiety. When she entered kindergarten, I thought we had turned a corner. She was getting taller, gaining weight, sleeping through the night… It was looking good. And then the HSP hit. It was literally months of vomiting, stomach pain, severe rashes, blood in her urine, swollen hands and feet, painful joints. It was awful.

It went away and came back, went away and came back. I was beginning to wonder if she was going to be one of those odd cases that couldn’t shake it. But her good days began to outnumber her bad days. And eventually, there were no more bad days.

That’s why the failed hearing test took me by surprise. Why this? Why now?

I guess we’ll never know – and you won’t hear me complaining. Today, the ENT gave her the “all clear” noting that her hearing was perfect. Thank God.

Of course, Ames can never just have a good day. She was completely exhausted at the end. She didn’t want to go to summer camp so she hung out with me at the office. She refused to eat lunch, saying she wasn’t hungry. She turned down dinner, too, complaining of a tummy ache. She just lounged on the sofa, looking a bit like a limp rag.

I’m choosing to believe that she is simply over tired. And I’m going to focus on the positive: her hearing test was super! No worries, right?

I hate summer. But you knew that already. That said, in honor of my efforts to be more zen (please tell me you noticed), I’m trying to focus on the good in everything – even summer. So here are the top ten best things about summer, as always, in no particular order.

1. Baseball.

2. Summer storms.
3. Water ice.
4. Vacationing in Maine.
5. Cute shoes.
6. An excuse not to wear shoes at all (I know, my southern is showing).
7. Fresh vegetables in the garden.
8. Listening to the kids splash in the pool.
9. Fireflies.
10. Sweat on a beer bottle. No, not my sweat. The cold beads on the outside.

So tell me what I forgot…

When I grew up, we didn’t have a lot of *things*. As a result, *things* meant a lot to me. I thought that maybe if I had *things*, my life would be perfect. I realized, pretty quickly, that isn’t the case.

Over the years, I’ve watched what *things* do to people. I’ve watched them make people unbearable, tear apart marriages and destroy friendships.

Of course, I’ve seen the good that things can do, too. Money, on its own, isn’t so bad. But the love of money – just as it says in 2nd Timothy (hey, don’t look so surprised, I read the Bible) – it’s the root of all evil.

This whole notion of things and money has been particularly poignant for me as of late. Financially, we’ve taken a bit of a hit, and it’s been a hard ship to right. I mean, I know we’ll be okay in the long run and I know we’re still much better off than so many folks in this difficult economic climate, but it still sucks when it happens to you.

At the same time, I’ve watched as many of my peers and loved ones have continued to make more and more money – with mixed results. I guess it sometimes helps to watch from the wings. It allows you to have a great deal of perspective. And so while I am thankful for the *things* that I have (and yes, I wish I had the means to have new and better things sometimes), I am also grateful that they do not control me.

This whole notion of not allowing money to control you has spilled over into my life as a mom. We have, over time, made very deliberate choices about the kinds of parents we wanted to be and the messages that we wanted to send our children. I don’t wish for my children to want for things the same way that I did – let’s face it, being the poor kid sucked. But I also want my children to appreciate the things that they have and work for the things that they want. That is supremely important to me. I’ve seen the dangers, both in my work and in personal life, of taking things for granted.

As my girls get older, it’s particularly tough. They are both school-aged now and are exposed to a much wider spectrum of people than they were previously. As my daughter enters the third grade this fall, we have already done battle over cell phones (her friends have them), video games (we don’t have those either) and a computer (I’ll confess, we’re melting on this one). My younger daughter has already begged for brand named shoes as well as Jonas Brothers posters and iCarly bookbags (though, interestingly, she’s never seen an episode of the show). They’re not even teenagers yet and I’ve already been told over and over that I don’t let them have anything.

I thought that I was on the same page as many of my friends when it came to this stuff. I am learning that I am not. I’ve been shocked lately to see the crazy amounts of *things* that many of my friends have allowed their children to have at such young ages. I mean, there are a couple of my friends that I totally expected it from because it’s their nature and they’ll happily admit it (you know who you are). But it has been eye-opening to see both my formerly granola-crunchy and solidly blue collar friends crumble into big piles of materialism at the behest of their kids in such a short time span. And I don’t mean the odd video game or two. I mean full on, new toys every.other.day craziness. How did this happen?

The most bizarre part of it is that I expected this from my upwardly mobile, shiny-new car driving type friends. I didn’t expect it from my fellow Subaru moms. The same moms that were comparing the prices on cans of beans – when frugal became the new black – not so long ago are now switching tips on Silly Bandz and Little Pet Shop Toys. And yes, the same moms that have traded in their Patagonia shorts and Banana Republic tops so that their kids can have the latest pair of Twinkle Toes.

I understand sacrificing for your kids. I do. And believe it or not, I do the same thing. But I try to keep it somewhat under control (I make no excuses for the grandparents and godparents). I want happy kids. But I also want grateful, appreciative kids. Not mean kids. Not selfish kids. Not spoiled kids. Tell me there’s hope.

If you’ve been reading, you know it’s been a long two weeks. A long, whiny two weeks. Now that there’s finally some light at the end of the tunnel – and Chris is winging his way back home – I have some clarity (though still not enough sleep) to piece together some thoughts about what I’ve learned:

I have great friends. In the middle of all of the craziness, I have friends that did wonderful things… like having already paid for pizza delivered to my door. And coming over to watch kids’ movies with me and the kiddos. And calling to check up on me. You know who you are and you rock. Really, truly rock.

I have not so great friends. At the same time, it became abundantly clear that I had other friends that have moved on. Nothing like a crisis or two to put things into perspective. I’m oddly not sad about this. Relationships can be tricky things to maneuver. And sometimes you need a sign. Or two.

I like coffee. A lot. Like you didn’t already know this one. If you follow me on twitter, you know that I can’t make a decent cup of coffee, especially using the French press. We don’t have a traditional coffee maker here at the house which means that I rely on Chris for my java in the morning (and sometimes my 4 yo, who, with Chris’ help can actually make a good cup of coffee – this, friends, is why you have children). Without him, I was planning on instant. Granted, it’s Starbucks Via, which is pretty good as instant goes, but still instant. So taking all of this into consideration, I thought I might take these two weeks to wean myself off of coffee altogether until I realized that was stupid. You see, I enjoy coffee. I don’t want to stop drinking it. And if that’s an addiction, I don’t want to be cured.

Summer doesn’t have to mean outdoors. I have this bizarre notion that I need to do things outdoors in summer. Try as I might to get the kids out and about, when it’s really hot, they don’t want to be out and about. Taking the dog for a walk in nearly 100 degree temps wore out even my most energetic kiddos. There was lots and lots of drama. I realized this yesterday, looking into Katie’s little red face. Forcing it is just silly. There is nothing wrong with piling into the car and embracing the good that is air conditioning. Yesterday, we went to a bookstore and a museum, with ice cream after. Everyone was happy (even me). Why would I discourage this?

Kids’ movies aren’t so bad. In fact, I actually enjoy a couple. I even have a girl crush on Anne Hathaway because of Ella Enchanted. I thought the Princess and the Frog was delightful. And I can watch the Princess Protection Program without twitching. Throw in some popcorn, dim the lights, add some snuggling with the kids and it’s downright bearable.

Every moment doesn’t have to be a learning moment. When I’m browsing on the web, I’m usually reading about tax. My bookshelves are filled with nonfiction books. I’ve been feeling like I need to be learning in my spare time. And I have limited spare time in my life. When Chris is gone, that time is even more limited. Ironically, that’s when it dawned on me: learning is overrated. Sometimes you just need froo-froo and silliness. I’ve missed that. I’m vowing to get it back.

I like a clean house. I thought that the house would fall to pieces when I was managing it, the office and the kids all by myself. Surprisingly, it didn’t (the mountain of laundry by the sofa, excepted). I feel better when the living room is clean. I just do. So I vacuumed every night whether I wanted to or not. I washed the windows. I cleaned the kitchen floor. And every time I walked into a clean room, I just felt better. I know what this means: I may be turning into my mother.

I will survive. As long as I know how to love, I know I will stay alive. I’ve got all my life to live, I’ve got all my love to give and I’ll survive. I will survive. Okay, so I stole that last bit from Gloria Gaynor. But you get the picture.