Sadness

I think sadness has been the dominant emotion in my life the last few days. It doesn't help that Ryan is in NYC and I am lonely with very few adults to to talk to. I guess I never realized how much I needed the couple of hours in between Ryan getting home from work and the kids going to bed. It's my decompression time. We eat dinner together and discuss our days and then he gives the kids their baths while I clean up the dinner dishes. I've been doing it all alone with only a 30 minute conversation with Ryan each evening after the kids go to bed. I can't wait for him to come home tonight.

Another source of sadness is this little girl. Baby Grace has been the lead story every evening on the local news; I really should know better than to watch the news before I go to bed. I can't stand hearing about children getting hurt.

My last source of sadness is something Sydney said to me yesterday. She's gotten the hang of what it means to have her feelings hurt and how to hurt other people's feelings. When Ryan called on Tuesday, she refused to talk to him even when I told her it was hurting his feelings. And yesterday, after two timeouts (for arguing) and an open-ended moratorium on desserts since she has not been eating her lunch at school, she told me, "You're not invited to my birthday party. Only Daddy can come."

Oomph. I got hit with the four year old's equivalent to, "I hate you." I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg and it is making me totally dread her teenage years. I'm sensing that we've a got a rocky 14 years ahead of us. Yikes.

Anyway, Liam and I hosted playgroup today and I got in a good two hours of adult interaction (oh, and he got to interact with some other babies, too) so I'm feeling a bit better. Can you imagine how ecstatic I'm going to be when Ryan gets home late this evening?