5 months

The Boyfriend and I hit five months together today. This is a laughably short amount of time for most people, but for me it's practically a record. We got past our difficulties of a few weeks ago with communication and compassion and now we're doing just great. He's paying off debts, just got health and dental insurance for the first time in years, and will get checkups. I love that he's getting his act together, and is doing it for us, yet unbidden by me. 

I am thrilled at the prospect of having a boyfriend for Christmas and New Years. I don't think I have ever had this before. Certainly not anyone I felt good about. 

Tomorrow is Bobby's preschool Christmas pageant. We have to get up crazy early to get B to school four hours earlier than usual, then only to be done by about noon, and then have to figure out what the F to do with the boys the whole rest of the day since Thursday is not a regular school day for B. 

I am so stoked that these long, empty weekdays with nothing to do with two little kids are coming to an end. My old mommy & me friend who moved to the east coast a couple of months ago used to help pass the hours, and the void left by her absence has not gone unnoticed. I made a cursory attempt at finding other groups to join, but it's crazy hard to find stay-at-home moms free on weekdays who have three and four year olds. Everyone has long since gone back to work at this point. I've accepted that I simply do not have the skills to entertain two small children all day, every day, for weeks and months on end. I just don't have the creativity or energy. Thank goodness there are preschools for this purpose. 

So we have a couple more weeks of weird school closures this month, then one week in Jan, and then B starts five day school. It is the last of my full time parenting. I do feel some guilt about having him in school five days a week when, technically, I don't need him to be there; there's no reason, other than the preservation of my sanity, to have these kids in any kind of school or daycare setting. But as my Christian friends say, I'm just going to give myself the grace to know what I need to survive. And Bobby is thriving in school, and loves it. Theo will, too, no doubt. 

Tonight I went out of my comfort zone and let B help me make cookies for school tomorrow. I think he was kind of underwhelmed by the experience - I was trying to actually make cookies, not have a learning experience where it was ok for flour to be thrown around the kitchen or frosting to be spilled on the counter. But I did it. I made cookies with a three-year-old and survived. I must get some mom points for that, right...?