Hee-hee! It snowed again last night. This time I think I will well and truly go out of my mind. It's freaking April (well, not quite, but you get my drift).

Anyway, all things considered, it seems like I waited until just the perfect time to do my WordGoddess collab for this month: things that make me nuts.

1. Weather that's supposed to do one thing (according to the rules I've established as Supreme Ruler of the Galaxy), but does something else entirely. Enough said on that issue, I think.


2. Little boys who teethe slower than any other child in history. With the exception of a few white spots that have been lurking under the surface of his gums for, oh, months, Sam has eight teeth. Eight! Gah! I'm not at all surprised that he has difficulty with meat, raw veggies, and all the rest of the interesting things he might otherwise choose to eat; you need molars for that sort of activity, and he only has two. (Yes, he's also pushing through teeth in strange orders.)
   
   And let's not even get into the fact that the "discomfort" caused by neverending teething causes him to go through spurts of "testing" his teeth on my breasts. He rarely actually goes so far as to bite, but even rubbing those sharp little bumps against my skin gives me the creeping willies.


3. Fighting with my husband. I love my husband, more than I would ever have imagined I could love a man. He's giving, sensitive, and thoughtful. When we fight, therefore, I usually get as upset with myself as I am with him. No matter what he's done that's made me angry, a little voice in my head persists in berating me for things I say to him in that anger. I know he deserves better than I give him, and I feel awful when I lose my temper and scream. Of course, that feeling of guilt usually just makes me keep on arguing rather than stop and make up, for some reason.


4. Guilt, as a whole. I've heard many people say that they can't be completely honest in their journals, and that's true sometimes here, too. It's not so much that I don't feel like getting involved with flame wars or anything like that, though. When I'm regretfully silent, it's sometimes because I feel too ashamed of what I'm thinking to put it out into the open. Sometimes I don't like who I am or what I'm feeling, and having it here, in black and white, would be too painful for me to see. I can be judgmental, bitter, harsh, and mean. I hate that about myself, and it makes me want to run and hide. The guilt I feel when I contemplate that part of myself that I can't stand? It's the stuff of nightmares.


5. Entries that get too heavy and depress me before I'm even halfway through writing them.



6. Pie. I fancy myself a good, if not great, baker, and yet I've never been able to make a successful pie. Either the filling doesn't gel, or the crust burns, or the middle is soggy, or the whole thing turns into soup. Cookies, cakes, buns, puffs - I can handle them all. A cherry pie, however, makes me run screaming.


7. Sam's socks. I swear, I have never had such trouble keeping track of pairs of socks as I do with this child's footwear. It's not even as though he insists on removing them; at the end of the day, when we're getting ready to call it a night, he will sometimes sit down and remove his socks and hand them to me, but that's about it for his participation. Why do they keep disappearing somewhere between wearing, washing, and putting back in his drawer? I think he has more orphans than mates, at this point.


8. Lack of space. There's a printer next to me on my rocking chair. We want to keep it, but we have nowhere to put it. Likewise, even storing it is out of the question; our closets are packed to the brim, to the point of erupting whenever we open the doors. The beds all have things under them, too. Even Sam's bed, so new to the house, has little crates of cars stashed away beneath it. (Well, what else would be under that boy's bed?)
   
   Someday, I'll have a nice house with lots of closets, a basement, and maybe a garage to boot. Someday, I'll have an office to contain all the less-than-picturesque technological bits and pieces that clutter my living room. Someday, I might even have room for my coffee table once more. Till then, we live in fear of the ever-encroaching accumulation that two devoted packrats can create.



9. The timidness that doesn't let me open my mouth when I really do care about something, for fear of hurting somebody or looking like a rabid zealot.



10. People who take what they have for granted and who never stop to look around at the people who would absolutely kill to have what they so easily throw away.



11. Open-air aviaries. Yes, I take Sam into the one at the zoo, because I don't want him to have my phobia. Every moment I spend in there makes me want to gibber.



12. Being so far away from my family. And being in the Midwest, on top of that!



13. Telemarketers who call to try to sell me home security products or lawn services. I rent, people! And don't just rudely hang up on me when I tell you that, either; you're the one who invaded my quiet evening.



14. Never, ever getting a moment off the clock. Sam's a blessing, I know, and I wouldn't trade him for the world. Neither would I change one blip about the way I've parented him. Even so, a break would be nice once in a while. Perhaps I shouldn't say that I never get a break, since I do rarely get to enjoy moments without him (he loves the church nursery with a passion, for instance), but even when I'm not actively watching him, he remains in a very prominent corner of my mind: Is he warm? Is he hungry? When will he wake up from his nap? Has he had enough outdoor play today? Mommying never ends.

On the plus side, though, I do occasionally get moments to recharge from all of this. Tonight I'm going out with Alysia while the men take the boys together. When we went out on Valentine's Day, we were able to see that Sam and Zach are capable of getting along without us for long periods as long as they're together, so I'm going to go out and try not to worry about him for the whole evening.

I feel positively giddy. A whole evening for grownup fun! I might even (gasp) have a drink! Dance! I'm a wild woman, I tell you. I'll make sure to write all about it later.