A little bit goes a long way, so I've been told

I'm just about ready to chuck my laptop out of the house and defy any more efforts of grading.  I'm so very, very over it.  And do you know what I least want to do after hours of grading?  Blogging.  I've been a drag anyway, so there hasn't been much to share.

But today, I'm celebrating something in my month, here on the last day of September: I've caught up with it all.  The sun did come out today (I'm part cat, you know...the sun is very important to me), I'm luxuriating in a second cup of chocolate velvet for no other reason than it's delicious, I figured out a good amount of a crossword puzzle, and I have a purring furball keeping me company.  I need these kinds of days to happen upon occasion.  I'm also foreshadowing what I'll be writing about when I'm old and stodgy, I'm sure.

So it turns out that turning 32 has also given me an idea of what middle age is all about for me.  This includes sore calves after bouncing my nephew to sleep and whacky hormones.  It turns out that I'm out of putting-a-baby-to-sleep shape.  Or else I need to give up chatting while bouncing cause I was downright winded for a few minutes.

Don't be suggesting any silly ideas like "Oh, you obviously need another one."  I will hand you a bar of soap to go wash that mouth out.

Maybe you just need to produce something for me to rock.  And then I'll hand it back to you.  That's what I call a symbiotic relationship, baby nurturing style.

I could be this woman.

I could not happily be this woman.

(Why yes, I did Google that.  And why don't we talk more about the proliferation of nouns-turned-verbs in our common parlance today?)

My two are quite enough.  And I have it on record that the Younger will never stop hugging and kissing me.  She's promised me.  Under duress.  But still...a promise is a promise.  (I haven't forced this admission out of the Elder yet, but I'm still working on her.)

So it turns out that life doesn't work out well for every kid.  Sometimes little munchkins are stuck in unfortunate or problematic situations.  And it also just so happens that I'm fully capable of helping some kid somewhere, somehow, some way.  So I'm going through the process of becoming a court appointed advocate for children who have been abused and/or neglected in order to be a voice on their behalf.  I know that I'm coming into this with some serious self-imposed blinders on.  But I've been struggling with the need for change in my life for quite a while now.  I feel as if I've been trying to do so, but I've not found my for this moment calling yet.  I'm thinking pretty hard that this is it.

I don't think that I'll have the chance to rock anyone to sleep (it's one of my best auntie skills), but I'm downright positive that there's many a way we can provide comfort and security for a child who needs it.  And need is so prevalent around us.  I have some time and the desire to help; I need to use that energy on someone other than myself.  So I figure, it's just like what the Younger told me this morning as we were crafting at story time: "A yittle bit goes a yong way."