It has been an extremely l-o-n-g night. Two short hours ago or right about the time when I started this post, everyone in my house was crying. Drew had not started crying yet but I can imagine it was only a matter of time before he shed tears due to his being overwhelmed with all of the vagina's that are constantly around him with their emotions blazing and their unstable behaviors.
And to think in the old days it used to be just my emotions that were all over the place. OH NO, Belle and Lily are thrown in the mix now and let me tell you, it is ON. There is a lot of stuff going on in our house now. Emotions and outbursts over Wii's and clothes and not sharing and touching and scarves or tank tops and leggings and not sharing. And it is only going to get worse. Oh yeah, worse and trust me bigger problems are in our future. Boys and love and sex (eeck!) and mean friends.
I better start explaining all these girl things to Drew now so that he can arm himself properly for the future.
Anyway the tears are due to vacation and Christmas being over which also signals my return to work after being home with them non-stop for two weeks. Belle actually started crying two nights ago and we talked through it and I knew since she got some of it out then that tonight wouldn't be so bad.
But Lily, she surprised me since she hasn't cried or been sad in a long time. She pulled a very intense silent open-mouthed cry for quite a long time after I had put her to bed. I know this silent open-mouthed cry as being the ultimate in sadness because I did this as a young child as well. I am sure you all know that cry, the ugly cry. It is the cry when you are beyond sad and you don't think anything anyone could do or say could make you feel better. But I tried.
I tried everything. I said I would bring her a donut tomorrow after work. Still more tears.
I broke down the actual hours that I am really away from them while I am at work to show them that even though I am at work, I am not away from them that much because they are in school most of the time anyway. Still more tears.
I told her I would leave work and catch an earlier train tomorrow night...and now both of my girls are really crying. Oh boy.
I told them that maybe every month we could wrap a small present and give it to each other. That helped a little. There was a small break in the tears with that one.
I told them school was one third over and camp would start in two thirds time.
I asked them to plan where our next vacation would be.
I told them that if we didn't have an end to Christmas and this vacation we wouldn't make it to the next vacation. Still some tears.
Finally I just gave up and laid with Lily and she held my hand and fell asleep at which point I then moved over and laid with Belle.
Belle has always been able to transition right back to our normal schedule EXCEPT something happened to her when we moved into my suburban bliss which I can't even imagine what or why. And that little situation we have been having would take far too long to explain right now, so I will save that for another time.
But Lily, Lily has been afflicted with the same melancholyness (I am fully aware that that is not a word but right now I don't care) that I felt as a child. She cries after every vacation or every special time that our family has together. She misses it when it is over, just as I did.
Even as an adult I often think back to what I was doing a week ago at that exact moment. I always do this until I have moved past the day when I can say "this time last week I was..."
I started this post when I first put the girls to bed over two and a half hours ago. Since I laid with both of them until they fell asleep and therefore took a forty-five minute nap of my own, I feel confident now that I should be ready for bed some time around 3am.
Sweet dreams and welcome back to the real world.
