First day

Rye started preschool last Monday.



We were nervous and excited for it, and the day went fine. The highlight, I think, was the little mouse game which has a song that goes like this: Little mouse, little mouse, are you in the (insert color here) house? You have to hear Rye sing it. It's very cute.

Here's another picture from the morning, right before we left to go.



The lowlight of the day was the face plant Rye took onto the sidewalk when being picked up from daycare that evening. The fall involved blood all over his face, I'm told, and an hour or so of worrying about whether he needed to go to the ER or some urgent care clinic for stitches.

Here's what he looked like that night before bed. Like he got beat up, right?



He didn't end up going for stitches, and almost a week later, he's doing fine. He still has a gash on the very top of his forehead but for the most part he's all better.

And he's a preschool veteran now, too, with three days under his belt.

A beautiful bouquet

Rye went to get the newspaper from the driveway for me one morning this weekend.

And he came back with these. Picked carefully and held in his little-boy hand just so, these dandelions - to me - were anything but weeds.



And then he went to color, spread out with ease that can only be truly found on a weekend morning.

My children's laughter

Being an adult has hit me hard this year.

I will be 30 years old in about two months. To show for it, I have, first and foremost, two beautiful, healthy, intelligent children that sometimes I can't believe I helped create.

I also have a job that I like, that fits me well, where I feel I am respected and valued.

I have a house and a car. I have a few close friends.

And I have a husband, who I've really messed things up with. I shouldn't write about things like this here, in a public forum like this, but all 10 readers of this blog probably know about our issues anyway. And it just seems, I don't know, less than honest to this blog (which I started nearly two years ago as a chronicle of my family's life) to continue ignoring it.

Neither of us knows what to do exactly - or maybe we do know but don't want that to be the answer.

This whole thing, it's so adult, so raw, so unbecoming. It's made me want to run away, get in the car and drive west and not stop until I get somewhere that feels far enough removed. It's made me want to scream. It's made me want to just throw in the towel on everything. It's made me psychoanalyze myself, my childhood, my parents, my relationships. I've lost friends. I've felt very, very alone.

And I don't know where or when it all ends. Or how we even get to that finish line, or if it's one I even want to cross at all. Isn't the status quo easier after all?

I've come to realize there are things I want in this life that I will most likely never ever have. They just aren't meant to be. They're not possible. And they are, if I let them be, heartbreaking and awful. I know there are things other people want that they will also never ever have. I hate this.

Through this all, my children are here. And I want better for them. But I can't make the world perfect for them. I can't make our problems just go away. I just can't. I am flawed. And I am sorry for that. But I love them just the same. Those kids. Those perfect little ones who have done nothing wrong ever. Who deserve better.

Paige laughed for the first time on Thursday. It was the happiest sound I've heard in a long, long time. She is 12 weeks old on Monday and this laugh Thursday was giggling, little girl giggling, not baby cooing. She was laughing at me and Rye. We were pretend fighting. I was pretending to kick him while holding her and he would pretend to jab me with a toy knife (which was actually a tool from his play toolset) and then roll around on the ground and I would pretend to step on him. And she laughed like it was the funniest thing in the whole wide world.

Rye's laughter - pure, honest little-boy laughter - has always been like magic. How can I not smile when he's so at ease, so full of life? And I felt the same way about that sound coming from Paige. She is so tiny, yet she is still capable of laughing.

And so maybe it is with my children's laughter that I will get through this very adult time in my life. Maybe it's those giggles that I will hold on to forever, despite - and in the midst of - everything else.