Times My Soul Broke, September 14th, 2017

2:19pm In the car getting coffee on the way to pick up L at school

R “Mama, you know you are a mean mama.  I going to kill you.  This ring is The Eye…he going to kill you!”

M “Well, I should hope not.  If the Eye kills me then there will be no one to drive the car, and it may crash and you may get hurt, and that would be very bad.”

R “No.  I will drive the car.  And the Eye will still kill you!”

3:21pm In the car on the way to gymnastics practice

L “Mama…when the baby grows up and goes to preschool, do you think you could, you know…get a job?”

M “Well, why are you asking that?”

L “I was just wondering what after care would be like, you know, to have you pick me up after your work, like some of the other kids.”

M ‘Well, when this baby is old enough to go to preschool, I would like to do something where I can write or work from home or a few hours of the day.  But because of your Papa’s schedule I don’t think I would work all day every day, unless we needed me to or an opportunity came up that I really wanted to pursue.  It would be hard to spend time with him if I had that kind of a schedule.”

L “Yeah, I can see that.”

M “But that is an interesting question Lu.  I would like to do something when the baby is in school, something more than…”

L “More than sitting around all day?!”

5:37pm In the family room, the kitchen, the living room

M “Girls, can you please put the pillows back on the couch?  I really don’t want them on the floor since Fiona is coming tomorrow and I don’t want to get go hair all over them.”

L “Sure mama.”

R “No! I wanna lie on the floor on the pillow!”

M “Riley, please put that pillow back on the couch.  I don’t want to get dog hair all over the pillows and then have them get dog hair onto Kellyn and Fiona when they sit there.”

Cue battle royale in which R starts crying hysterically, vowing to never let go of the pillow, that she needs that pillow on the floor, no other pillow will do.  Clearly she is working through some other emotions here, using this situation as a proxy.  I try to let her work through them while keeping the pillow off of the floor, for the afore mentioned reasons.  I am thus an evil and mean mama.  She walked through several rooms of the house carrying the pillow, before abandoning it on the living room couch and telling me I could put it away now.  After about 30 minutes.