Wit and (a small bit of) wisdom

the Younger, as she goes through her nightly struggle of going to sleep:  "Every night I dream about cereal and...just cereal."

I just wanted to include that.  I'm on here grading away, and she is talking at us from her doorway.  Sometimes I have a chance to record her in real time.  It's all accuracy all the time, friends.

Essentially, it's been drudgery-doo and disappointment-ing around here.  The Younger keeps it real, though.  Like this morning, when we returned from our weekly library expedition ("Carry me!" begs the child..."My legs are tired of walking!" laments the child..."I'm carrying about 50 children's books and they ain't light as a feather" replies the pack mule) and the Younger went from throwing off shoes and coat to "Let's play Uno!" in about 1.8 seconds.  At times like these, I need a few minutes to transition.  I need a quiet moment or two.  I need to not have to be engaged in an active conversation every waking second.  I need a precious moment unloading my dishwasher! 

The Younger did not agree.

This led to stomping to her room and some loud wailing.

Cruel injustices are not lost on a three-year old.

The ensuing silence was not lost on this thirty-three year old.  The kid...she put herself down for a nap at 10:30 AM.  As in Morning.  And then she promptly took her day's nap. 

Sometimes, life hands you an unexpected nap and you boot up the old computer on the double cause these rough drafts aren't grading themselves.  And that's really where I'm heading with this.  I've been a grading fiend for the last couple of weeks, and it's rendered me at any given moment in a horrid mood, a sarcastic mood, a groaning-and-gnashing-of-teeth mood, or a are-you-kidding? mood.  I graded for 16 hours last week, Monday-Wednesday.  And I taught 2 classes (another 7 hours) during that stretch.  And this is all fit around my kids' schedules.  I had some pretty touchy moments, I'm not too proud to admit. 

And then because by the grace of schedulers go I, once I got one batch of drafts graded and returned, I had a quick breath and have been plugging away at the next round. 

Regardless of when I shut down for the night, I make it a point of reading before bed (which is where I'm headed after this, so I'm typing fast fast fast so I can get there soon soon soon), and last week's book was about all sorts of things pertaining to recognizing and then accepting your life's calling.  But two things that continue to percolate with me this week are
*I can't move forward if I continue to play the victim, and
*I have to let go of that which I cannot control.

Nothing cause for gasps of shock and awe here, but still.  "Lord, I want to give it to you.  If you want me to be here, show me.  If you want me to go, lead me" has been my off-and-on prayer.  I'm trying to be more intentional with this the moment my mind starts to turn Negative Nelly on me.

And I can't be the victim anymore.  I mean, DRATS.  It's such a deliciously yet horribly murky place to languish. 

Right now you might be scoffing at me, pointing fingers at my earlier woe-is-me-ness.  But, I did that on purpose.  In part, yes, this is absolutely why I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks.  Nuts to writing for myself after I spend hours advising others on writing.  Yet I want to state right here that I don't want to be my own victim anymore.  It's gotten old.  Call me on it if/when you see me flounder.

I need and absolutely want some good mojo instead, and there's no space for that when woe-is-me is so loud and obnoxious.

To bookend, here's a conversation that happened last week in a big patch of sun, while I was doing some easier bits of work and the Younger was coloring in her Frozen coloring book and chattering away beside me.

"This is Elsa with her big head.  She's gazing up at the sky."  (She had drawn a stick figure, which did, in fact, have a big head.)  Later, she was telling me a story by flipping through the pages of the coloring book.  "...Now they're hearing a racket.  Elsa was so annoyed...they couldn't play because they heard a racket.  And after a while, it was finished.  The end."

The end...indeed.