not that you care

nine things I did this weekend (thanks for the inspiration, kath):

1. used up entire roll of tape preparing color-iffic swap packages. unbelievably short trip to post office on friday and voila: green goodies en route to portugal, pink and red goodies to california. continued to oooh and aaah over loot received from said swap-o-rama. thought to self that receiving package from netherlands, a cool thing. felt especially global. realized I am officially obsessed with swaps. pics are here.

2. had meltdown upon discovery of gaping hole in favorite skirt. other contributing factors to meltdown: kids both crying, floors inexplicably sticky, day unraveling before my eyes. briefly considered writing lengthy post about how horrible I felt, how dirty the house was (why can't I ever seem to catch up?), how much I feel I have failed as a mother, how exhausted I am. cried. then cried some more. decided to get down on hands and knees and scrub floors instead. gorgeous day outside, loverboy and bebes at park. stuck inside scrubbing floors but strangely satisfied and calmed by this. floors still looked dirty but stickiness? gone.

3. received latest martha stewart kids magazine in mail, drooled over pages. in denial over rumors that said magazine is folding. tried to convince ava to have silly wacky party or teeny tiny party (featured beautifully on pages 84, 88) for her birthday in july but unsuccessful. stuck on mermaid theme (which we did two years ago). both agree ezra should have bouncy party (pages 90-91) centered around a zillion bouncing balls for birthday in june.

4. rented 'junebug', watched late saturday night. fell in love with it all over again. discovered that music is by yo la tengo and loved it even more. was reminded of growing up in southern illinois, experienced pangs of nostalgia. folded endless pile of clothes, went on and on about characters. am sure I ruined it for ward but blathered on anyway. thought to self that amy adams should have won the oscar for her performance. went on and on about how gorgeous and un-hollywood the film is. snuck many swigs from ward's sobe green tea.

5. returned about a thousand emails.

6. cut bangs even more. wondered how much I will 'trim' before a trip to annoyed hair stylist rudi will be necessary.

7. helped ava count pennies from piggy bank for a book purchase. tried very hard to overlook the fact that it was a 'my little pony' book she wanted with characters named zipzee and pinkie pie. focused instead on greatness of milestone. felt pride as ava handed cashier money from her purse. realized sticky floors and torn skirts aren't that big a deal.

8. played outside with kidlets. thought how much I like the word 'kidlets', which I actually stole from jek. helped ava put on swimsuit, watched her run through neighbor girl's sprinkler. held onto a screaming, wiggling, kicking ezra. finally gave up and let him run through sprinkler fully clothed. squeals of glee had me secretly cursing ward for taking camera with him for the day. thought my sprinkler shots would've been so good.

9. sat in parked car, in driveway. kids asleep in back while ward and I mourned the passing of another weekend. where did it go? sang into imaginary microphone (pilot ink pen), sang along to george michael's can't always get what you want. realized I don't really know the words. realized I don't care. looked at moon. listened to deep breathing of sleeping children. enjoyed remains of sunday night. realized the inevitablity of monday.