notes for the traveling husband…

When Ryan is out of town for work, we sometimes get time to talk on the phone at some point during the day, but mostly we don’t get that time. He’s super busy with teaching some sort of software thingys to people and I’m busy…yeah, busy.

Three kids + one of them being a very demanding and quite feisty little lovely creature + the start of school + working + All THE THINGS = a very tired and forgetful mommy. I was talking to Ellie yesterday and she knows how much I love Elsie Jane, how grateful I am for her. So I can vent and say that sometimes, when Elsie is especially…spirited…I feel like I might explode or like my insides are just going to turn to mush and then I’ll fold over and be stuck like that for a few days. Which doesn’t sound so bad, actually. As long as I lost my hearing during the implosion, that would be fine. Because my EJ? She is LOUD. All kinds of mad loud-ing, all day, every day. She is giving me the WHAT FOR in ElsieSpeak in a pretty much constant way. That takes a toll on a human.

Anyway, all that to say that I want to remember to tell Ryan things and then when we’re both finally done at the end of the day, we just text to say goodnight and I love you because that’s all the energy we have left. Then when he gets home, I try hard to remember to tell him what he’s missed and I only remember a few things.

So I’m writing a couple of them here, so I can’t forget them. He can even read them tonight, at his leisure. GO ME.

Daddy,

Asher is sitting right up next to me exactly the way he does with you when you’re trying to read the paper. He got up and snuggled in and I put my arm around him and we talked. Then I wanted to get my arm back so I could reach for my coffee and I felt bad, like I was pulling away. So I told him he could stay close but I was moving a little. Yes, I even people please with my own children. His breath stinks so bad.

Miles just went downstairs all by himself. Seriously. No protector disguised as a five year old brother. Just Miles and Miles alone, UNscared, getting gloves and a hat from the winter bin. He came upstairs all proud, wearing winter gloves and the blue Mario hat and went straight outside to be with the chickens. He’s been acting so grown up. After school yesterday, it was just the two of us for two hours. Miles and Mommy time. It was so good. He’s becoming such a little man, in many ways, while he’s still All Boy. Only his cheeks makes him look like a little kid. They’re changing fast, and pretty soon he’ll look like such a big boy and that will match how wise and witty he is.

He is already telling me he doesn’t want to go to school. It’s too long, he says. But we knew this was coming. Today he cried because it’s not the weekend. Oh my heart.

Elsie really is understanding everything. I just keep talking to her to try to keep her from yelling and doing that high-pitched screaming thing. I know that once she starts talking, she’ll never stop, but I look forward to it because it’s so hard to never know why she’s yelling and screaming. You know how it is. Pin pricks on ear drums, from such a beautiful little source. She’s answering more clearly now with shaking her head or nodding. And when she wants something a lot and nods, she adds a big GRUNT.

She has a diaper rash.

That post I wrote for A Deeper Family about listening and politics and how we’re all the same means a lot to me. And guess what? BlogHer syndicated it. That’s an honor, husband.

Asher is super excited to start preschool today. Of course he is. Even though he misses you and says so all.the.time. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to juggle all the dropping off and picking up today, but it’ll work out somehow. Maybe when you get home, you can somehow convince Ash Man to stop talking like a baby. Seriously. He’s doing this new thing in which he baby talks constantly. He must have picked it up at daycare because it was so bad last night I told him I’m not responding until he talks like Asher.

Then he baby talked in response to me saying that. Then he said, “UGH, WHY DO I KEEP TALKING LIKE THAT?!!”

He fell off his bike again and his hand hurts.

We’re still reading James and the Giant Peach and both boys almost fell asleep while I was reading it last night. They didn’t even beg for more chapters and they fell right to sleep.

Elsie’s chicken, the one with white feathers mixed in on her tail? She laid the biggest egg I’ve ever seen. I turned to her and said, THAT must have hurt.

It’s as big as my entire palm!

We miss you!