Last night, I gave the girls foot massages and painted their toenails while we listened to Welsh harp music with the lights low - although not too low, or I would have ended up painting their feet too. Then we read a short story for Sophie, and continued with Chapter 3 of A Wrinkle In Time for Rachael and me. It was all going very smoothly. They were almost tucked into bed. There was a knock on the door.
It was a friend picking up a book she'd loaned me two years ago. A great book, I'm sure - but in all this time, I'd only read about a paragraph of it, and I handed it back with the relief of someone finally paying a library fine in full.
I could have shown her out and still taken advantage of the peaceful momentum I had going with the whole bed-time thing. But instead, she and I got to talking -- who am I kidding? we always get to talking --- and an hour later, we had almost solved my problem with finding meaning and balance in my life, while meanwhile, the girls had become completely wound up by tickling one another and doing cartwheels and wall-climbing without the appropriate shoes or locking carabiners in the fully lit bedrooms. The only thing they were missing was a brass band.
None of us got to sleep before than 10:30pm. Of course, now my husband (who does, thank you dear, read my blog) knows how negligent I am. But since he (whom I adore) didn't get home until sometime after 2am, I doubt he'll be hunting around too hard looking for that first stone to throw.
Besides, I think the girls had a lot of fun, and I don't have too many footprints to clean off the walls.
I didn't write. I didn't walk on the treadmill. I didn't get a full night's sleep. I didn't figure out the itinerary for my overseas trip. But I almost solved that problem of finding meaning and balance in my life. Wait a minute...balance...children doing jumping jacks at 10pm...there's an irony here, somewhere.
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