7/28/2004 10:02:48 AM|||Amy|||Last night I arrived home at an hour that apparently pleased everyone because my two year old daughter did not spend the evening telling me how much she missed me. It's pretty damn endearing to have your two year old daughter greet you with, "I missed you." every time you walk in the door after another hellishly long day at work, but it doesn't tend to make you feel missed so much as bad. After a dinner of sandwiches and homemade ice cream, I bathed all three of my monickered tykes then packed them up in the car and took them for an evening drive. The sun was firmly down at this time, and I was repeatedly asked by my second child who has not yet grasped the whole rotating, spinning Earth thing as her older brother clearly has (because he sometimes lectures on this very topic) why the sun was not in the sky, and "Mommy, where the hell is the moon?" Amazing how at the ripe old age of almost 35 months, she knows how to use profane language in context.

So, we drove around a couple of very old neighborhoods, including the one where my parents bought their first home 30 or 40 years ago, and looked for houses for rent. I am reaching the heights of despair to move out of my parent's house into a home of our own. We saw several homes for rent, and I'm hoping that my assumption that rents in these neighborhoods couldn't be too high is correct. But, then, when I'm not fantasizing about all of this and being completely honest with myself about my financial situation - I wonder how much exactly I could afford to allocate towards the cost of a home of our own? $300 maybe, and what about daycare and the albatross that hangs on in spite of all my efforts to cut it away? Could I move out, and still take the kids to my parents house for daycare where the albatross will continue to look after them? Would anyone forgive me if I left the albatross with my parents?

Finally, when I found myself starting to nod off and figured I couldn't safely drive down another residential street without hitting a pickup truck at the very least, I took the kids home.

Then, this morning in spite of watching tv for half an hour and just not generally feeling very rushed to get out the door, I actually left for work a full 15 minutes earlier than usual and then sped like a demon down the highway. I zipped and zoomed in and out of traffic without once finding myself in a situation from which I couldn't extricate myself. This morning's drive took on a magical quality. I might as well have been on a magic carpet.

The point of all this is non-existent. Mostly I just want to say out loud and in all seriousness that I believe the very best thing for the kids is for me to move them into a place of their own. This would also be the best thing for me. I may have to leave the albatross in the sinking boat. I don't know how I would support the four of us, and I don't know what I would do for daycare. Maybe one day the albatross will come through.
|||109102846792042454|||The sun, and the moon, and the morning