It looks like another relatively unexciting weekend lined up. Gymnastics pictures tomorrow afternoon, child's birthday party Sunday. And that's about it. If it were not for the very strategically placed late afternoon and early afternoon obligations, I can imagine one of our infamous spontaneous trips to Charlottesville or the beach or somewhere else far enough from home so that we could escape the upstairs bathroom that is begging for attention so that we can start using it again. I almost, but not quite, said that I would go to this craft show down the street with some neighbors early tomorrow morning, although anyone who knows me knows just how high the chances are that I'm going to be up in time to really do anything this unexciting on a Saturday.

It is barely 5:00, and dinner is already over. We are still not sure what to do with this time change. Who thought up this kind of thing? There are now too many dark hours in the day to fill, and too much time between when everyone goes inside and bedtime. I suspect we'll return to our evening swims to deal with the space that used to be filled with bike rides to the pavilion or going out across the street to play. Tonight the kids played in the dark until we could no longer tell who was who in the distance, and we had drinks with some neighbors, but even this was only possible because today is Friday and the weather is unseasonably warm. Perhaps wrestling season will come along and make this all a moot point.

Which leads to the next little issue, which is that over dinner Kerry expressed some concerns about my current web addiction. Can you believe that he thinks that I am leaving him with too many childcare responsibilities so that I can feed my habit?! :) Personally, I don't think that's his only, well, problem with it. But I was uselessly trying to explain that I need to post my blog before 10:30 so that I can get a sufficient amount of sleep most nights. Sometimes I wonder what I have to complain about; he's involved (maybe too much so?), he makes dinner, he cleans (when he feels like it...). Maybe I have it better than I think. I have been thinking lately about what one of my Roanoke friends once said in a conversation. She was pointing out that this other person we both knew should be aware that pretty much whatever someone tells her, they are telling to her dh as well, because that is the kind of relationship they have. I want to think that I don't have this...permeable?...a situation with Kerry. And to be honest, knowing her dh, being aware of her avowed 'transparency factor," if you want to call it that, made me kind of cringe to say anything. As a result of that conversation, though, I've had to wonder whether her sentiment is near-universal. Maybe most people have that particular tell-it-to-me, you-might-as-well-have-told-him-yourself thing going. And so I've sometimes found myself prefacing things I say with lines like, "You can't even tell Mark!" In some ways, Kerry and I know each other too well, even as I insist that I can't stand him or he accuses me of who knows what, and that makes me think that if we have a 'problem,' maybe it's the hyper-familiarity. I try to walk that line between familiar enough, and familiar too much; I probably blow it far too often. I should strive to be more mysterious, or at least more distantly self-sufficient.

Speaking of mysteries, why on earth wasn't he kissing someone's ass or whatever he needed to do today to remain employed, instead of skipping out and going to the park?! The news is official; he is going to be on his own at work now. And though he will likely be irreplaceable until at least March, it is still unnerving to think of the many possibilities that could happen. My advice: drop your current headhunter and find someone with better connections. He has had some strong possibilities lately that he has let go by either because the company didn't seem stable enough, base salary wasn't sufficient, position was too limited/too pigeonholed coding. As for me, though sure, some things could be improved, I'm probably too comfortable with the current situation--the flexibility, the ability to telecommute as needed, the acceptable number of hours, the convenient availability of overtime. And I am part of the chorus of people urging him to at least ask about The Resignee's position; what's the worst that could happen? They'd laugh at him and say no. But at least he would have asked.

You know how when you have your first child you are such a good parent, the kind who will never let her children ever play with toy weapons? Whose children will not even know what a gun is? Right now I'm watching my 20 month old staggering around in nothing but a pee-soaked diaper, staring at his own reflection in the french door glass, aiming a wooden rifle several inches taller than himself right at his own person and making "pow" noises. Poor, poor fourth baby. And speaking of good parents, I was thinking today, I have never left behind any other people's children (yet!) or even others of my own except Frances. Every story that I have about a child being forgotten always involves...Frances. Frances who stopped walking at Disney World. Frances, who went back in the house to change her bathing suit yet again after we were all in the car. Frances, who thinks it will make quite a point if she hides and sobs and does not participate with what the rest of us are doing. I don't think I've forgotten Walter or Ollie once (how could I? The absence of sheer noise would give away my mistake!). And though I've zoned out on the fact that Rutledge was sleeping before, I've never actually abandoned him somewhere. Where would I be if I was not worrying about one child or another. Oh wait, I take that back. I once forgot that he was the only child with me and that he was asleep in his carseat in the van and I went in Ellwood Thompson's without him. But that was small compared to my Frances moments. So Frances's turn has come up again for the one I'm going to obsess about. I'm going to do my best not to drag anyone else along with me in my obsession (thank you, Rebecca, for validating my worries; way to make me not freak out more than I already am!). The truth is, I'm somewhere between thinking I should be doing something to investigate my concerns further and believing that there's nothing more that I could be doing that I'm not doing now, so why put ourselves through anything traumatic. Right now she is asking me to make a sign for her shop that says, "Don't buy this," for her picture of herself. Anyone who has a shop can't be too unstable, right? Don't answer this....

Can I just take a minute to say that if I have to deal with another day of this computer, I'm going to chuck it across the room?! I still may have a few more days while the notebook is in the shop, and ridiculous as it sounds, I am missing it more than I should. This keyboard is nearly impossible to use. My frustration level trying to do basic typing here has been pretty much through the roof. I may have the problem solved for the moment, but I'm missing my own machine with my own files.