[Sticky] Bullets

My li'l Punkinhead received a handy little Nerf dart gun for turning 7, two weeks ago :gasp!: and I've YET to write him a birthday post - the HORROR!!! -  and he has been thoroughly entertained with aiming his darts, with velcro on them so they stick to clothing, at people, particularly on their bums.

Needless to say they stick quite well to my mesh running shorts du jour, thus I've been dodging sticky bullets all day.

But I miss writing, and have a TON of things to say but no time - what happened to all of the time?  It is mid-summer and I feel like it just started, like if I blink or sneeze it is going to be October and PTA.  So bullets will have to suffice for now.

• Middle summer is a parenting plateau that pretty much sucks.  Regardless of any form of routine a mother would try to entertain, the fact that it is daylight until 9 makes it unreasonably difficult to keep peace, as it is an insurmountable feat to get Kelsey and Colton into bed before 10, due to said elongation of days.  The resulting crank factor - because a certain girl child just doesn't sleep in, even if her body desperately needs it - and accompanying triggers for a sensory meltdown, which lead to sibling blowouts and me playing referee rather than cook, maid, etc., pretty much make it impossible to accomplish the mundane and familiar, let alone the grandiose plans for us to capitalize on all the cultural/educational activities we can.
• I'm returning to my MPA studies next month...I'm somewhat leery of it as I still often feel as if my mind is somewhere floating in the clouds.  But, I need to finish it - and when I do I'll [hopefully] have some more earning potential.
• I've suddenly been seeing people and things in a comparative, albeit decidedly distorted, manner - and am not quite sure how to refrain from this trap.  E.g. all of a sudden, every woman at the supermarket is prettier, better dressed, thinner, better coifed, etc. than I may be at that given moment.  Or other people's homes are so much neater, well-decorated, bigger, etc. than my own.  Other kids are so much more respectful to their parents than ours have been with us of late, and so on down the road.  I know that this lens is quite simply, the wrong prescription through which to view life, but I feel stuck with it right now and am working on feeling content and competent with my life again.  Or should that say still?
• Kelsey's going away to church camp on Sunday and we're all a bit apprehensive about that, given the above reference to an increase in meltdowns of late.
• This funk I'm in has a bit to do with seeing the work I had the opportunity to be intimately involved with, but had to decline due to Li'l C's arrival time and the project start date being fairly simultaneous, take off.  It's a torturous game of coulda, woulda, shoulda and I need to quit playing, but I'm stuck.  And wonder of wonders, it happens to be occurring when Li'l C is at the age the others were when I started to work more out of the home - what does that say about me as a mother?  That I love babies but am ready to hand them off as toddlers for someone else to deal with?  Oh, it's more complicated than that for sure, and so there's a funk.

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