Happy Tuesday

"LOST: Black chicken. Looks rather like a wet mop. $10 Reward. Call 380-9427."

That was the sign that Ian dictated to me this morning ("your handwriting is neater, Mom") for him to post on the telephone pole at the end of our street. We had some minor excitement of the negative strain when we couldn't locate our favorite backyard hen, Fluffer. We searched the bushes, behind the rain barrels, all over the place, finally determining that either a hawk had finally gotten her or she had (improbably) run off. But of course, when we arrived home from the day's outing, there she was, strutting around the pen like nobody's business. What's up with that?!?!

We actually had a good day today, and I hate to sound so surprised about that, but my moods tend to be so scenic that having a day on a relatively even keel is always an appreciated pleasure. First of all, I am trying very hard to learn to let go of my compulsive need to feel like I have accomplished something. There is absolutely no way to satisfy that tyrant, since I end up either feeling guilty that I haven't spent enough quality time (with! visible! results!) with the kids, or feeling guilty that I've not done much real "work" for the day. Even as I type this I realize how ridiculous a conundrum the whole thing is, but I've struggled with it for, oh, about seven and a half years, and I hate the way it saps the joy out of parenting. Anyway.

So the other thing was that I have been making use of my new planner (love it! loved getting it for 50% off at Borders!) to really keep track of my to-do's (aside from the household to-do's, for which I use and like the Motivated Moms planner). If I try to keep it all going in my head it's like an amateur juggler dropping tennis balls all over the place. But when it's on paper, it's out of my notoriously unreliable short-term memory and onto my list, where it can be gleefully crossed out. Result: two objects of months-long procrastination are, as of today, no longer with us. For one, I made a dentist appointment for this Thursday. It's beyond ridiculous how long I've been putting that one off, for the silliest of reasons (well, there is the child care issue, but that's not insurmountable really). I can't even admit here how long it's been since I've been to the dentist. It's just not fit to put in print. :-)

Second, the kids and I finally packed up the books we sorted out months ago and took a trip over to the new Children's Medical Center to donate them to the library they keep for their young patients. The kids were iffy about going (yeah! a trip to the hospital! high five, Mom!) but when we arrived at this magnificent place and they saw the huge Rube Goldberg machine in the front lobby, all was more than well. They probably watched those balls run here and there for almost an hour, pausing only for few minutes to give their stack of books to the library lady. For me, it was all about instilling altruism. For them, it was all about those zipping, zooming balls.

The only downside of the experience was that when we finally emerged from the hospital, I could NOT FIND MY VAN. It was completely pathetic! We wandered around the parking lot with me in a mild panic because when I was, like, nine, I saw this movie about Alzheimer's Disease and the first symptom the main character had was not being able to find his car in the parking lot. Apparently that scarred me for my life because every single time I can't find my car, and let me tell you, people, it's happened more than once, I think of that movie and consider going for a brain scan.

Fortunately, my four year old found the car for us. What a relief ...?