Damned if you do...

It's amazing how adaptable we are as human beings. I'm already so used to Bumpus on the loose it seems like it was never any other way; I can scarcely remember him in his playpen now (folded up and put away for Ruckus), and that was only a couple of weeks ago! Ditto playground drama; I am so used to the war over common toys and big kids ploughing over my kid and bitchy three-year-old girls in torn polyester princess dresses it's now par for the course. Sure, he throws a fit when someone takes away what he perceives to be "his" toy, and almost always wanders into the path of kids on swings about to kick him in the head. But you know what? For every frazzled mother of a toddler like me, there's a soon-to-be mother of a just crawling baby on the playground, pulling leaves out of the baby's mouth and looking for a good spot for a diaper change. Sunrise, sunset. And so it goes.

Listening to some older kids' conversations today reminded me that, for the most part, kids are pretty horrible, and are pretty horrible to each other. And everyone survives. God knows I was a mean little snatch when I was seven, yet managed to grow up into (I think!) a kind and empathetic person who lets people merge on freeways and saves drowning bees. It pains me to think innocent little Bumpus will soon have to navigate those rough waters of childhood socialization - and deal with kids with bad home lives, emotional problems, anger issues, gangbanger parents, etc. I want to scoop him up and protect him from all of that. But I can't. He has to learn to cope and I can only be there to give advice or comfort. It's scary. 

His room is framed; drywall and finishing next week. I'm so glad I went for the option of the single wall rather than the whole building of a room within a room. When I think about having my room back I become positively giddy - being able to read, watch TV, or listen to podcasts at will, to put laundry away after B goes to sleep - huzzah! It's going to be great. For the next five months, anyway.

I am missing out on a lot of fun things this weekend due to lack of babysitting funds, and am quite bitter about it. Tomorrow I have zero plans, and there's a big dance all my friends are going to that I can't go to, and I just have to sit home and watch TV, and I hate it. It's times like these that make me wonder what my life would be like had I not had children; where would I be now, how would I feel? At this point I'm fairly certain I would have come to the decision to have a baby on my own anyway; my social circle is so baby-heavy I doubt the idea would have passed me by for long. But what if I hadn't? I think I can be honest and say my life would have continued on as before - traveling, working on my event, working on the house, constant and needless refurbishing of myself. But all with this undercurrent of sadness that only would have been largely ramped up by turning 40, and seeing even more of my last holdout friends get married and have one, and then two, babies, while I was still single and childless. It would suck. I think I would be very depressed and lost. So yeah, a little whining and tossing of pots on the floor and not getting to go to a dance? I'll take it!