For the past month, I've been having our groceries delivered to our house, which has been nothing but good from top to bottom. It's a pittance of a fee, and it's saved me from at least that much money in impulse spending at the store every time; it encourages ("forces" is a more term here) me to plan our meals ahead instead of just randomly grabbing foods I think we'll eat, and then winding up at dinner time staring at a mish-mash of odd ingredients where nothing looks appetizing; and it skips the awfulness of trying to grocery shop with kids who seem to want to work actively against the chore. There's no downside, and believe me, Eric has searched for one. The produce is even much better than what I usually manage to find on my own; imagine having bags of bruise-free, wonderfully fresh vegetables deposited weekly on your kitchen table by a smiling man (smiling for a tip, but who cares?). Beats banging on melon rinds, wondering what sort of echo means "not going to rot while you sleep tonight."

Gabe's reaction cracks me up, especially now that he's beginning to understand that the giant green logo on the big white van means that food is about to appear on the scene. He begins to dance from foot to foot, far too anxious to consider my suggestions of hanging out on the sofa and staying out of the way. He pokes his head out the front door, waiting excitedly, until the delivery man (not being sexist; we have yet to get a woman driver) steps through the door, at which point Gabe begins yelling, "Hi, guy! Look, Mama! Guy! Grapes! Graaaaaaaapes!"

(Aside: the red seedless grapes are always a good deal with this service, but we're going to have to start cutting back on buying them, because we can't seem to keep them for even a few days. The past two orders have included a pound of grapes, and both times Gabe waited until I wasn't looking before making his move, leaving me to find the empty bag in a corner of the living room and my son with a big belly and a guileless grin on his face. A pound, guys.)

It's really working out well for us, especially in conjunction with our new routine where I do all the cooking during the week instead of splitting the work with Eric. Taking into account his usual arrival time at home after work, which almost exactly corresponds with when the kids need to eat, and also his preference for making dishes on far end of the sophistication scale, it just makes more sense if I have simple, kid-friendly meals prepared at an earlier point in the evening. The boys eat better, and there are fewer headaches at dinner time.

Sam has been doing a great job of helping me make the meals, too; he's lost much of his squeamishness about handling wet or messy ingredients, so he'll happily bread chicken tenders or roll meatballs. Of course, he's still very picky about actually eating what he's made, but I can usually cajole him into taking a couple of bites. As a general rule, what one child likes, the other will hate, so it's a fair bet that at least somebody will be happy with what's on the table. We had a very surreal evening a few days ago when both boys flatly refused their pork chops (Even Gabe, my little meat-addict) and bickered over the broccoli: "Mom! He's taking my broccoli!" "Brok-weeees! Brok-weees, peez!" "No, I get the last one! Mo-oooom!"

I've got some French bread baking in the oven, and we're having a beef stew tonight. My prediction: Sam will eat the vegetables, hitting the carrots the hardest; Gabe will pick out the visible pieces of meat and refuse all the rest; and both kids will demand bread more than stew, but they'll eat good portions of that.

It's 5:00 now; dinner, as I said, is cooking, and with any luck we'll be eating in thirty to forty-five minutes. Eric is on his way home from Indiana; he claimed he'd be home by now, but we'll see, I suppose. There's no way to predict traffic sometimes. All I know is that he assured me that I wouldn't have to get a babysitter so I could attend tonight's board meeting for the family club, which is at seven o'clock. I hope that's the case, and that I won't have to skip. It's not that I have any burning drive to hear treasurer's reports, but I was really looking forward to getting out of the house and enjoying a cup of coffee without anybody needing anything from me besides my opinion.

It's funny how burnout can creep up on you, to the point where one minute, you're still claiming, "I'm fine, I'm fine" and almost believing it as your knuckles turn white and your lips shake, and in the next minute, you're shrieking nonsense at everybody in your vicinity and your husband is warily suggesting that you take some time off. Actually, what Eric said was, "What can I do? What do you need?" but the look in his eyes finished the sentence with "...to step you back from the padded cell and straitjacket?" The one day off per month that I mentioned requesting a few entries ago is coming this weekend, and I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with it, but just knowing that it's coming is making a world of difference in my outlook.

I find it slightly amusing to look back through my journal archives and see just how cyclic these feelings seem to be for me. March was when I got diagnosed with post-partum depression after Sam, and every year after that has seen a flurry of "I hate my life and everything in it" sort of writings. I complain about everything in March; it's a theme I've got going, years running now. Thank God it's almost over this time around.

Eric's home now, and dinner is almost over; everybody has stopped eating except Sam, who is being sort of a pill. As expected, both boys ate lots of bread, but Gabe refused to eat anything else, and Sam would like to have made the same choice, truthfully. The difference is that Gabe is fully capable of happily pretending that he's not a bit hungry if he doesn't like the meal, but Sam will gripe for the rest of the night if he doesn't eat a reasonable amount.

I am so relieved that I'm not going to be home for the rest of the evening. Eric is already looking stressed out (as Gabe runs and yells for the joy of yelling, and Sam sits at the table, pushing his stew with his spoon and repeatedly asking why I had to make stew, anyway), and I just don't feel up to dealing with any of it. I want to come home and find everybody in bed asleep, with nothing in the house for my ears to process but silence.

I really hope April comes soon.