Extra Coffee Please

I am feeling exhausted this morning. Exhausted in the way that I could very well put my head down on my desk and slip into a deep sleep. I'm on my second cup of coffee and hoping that I will jolt awake sometime soon. I'm not sure why. We had a good weekend, busy in a productive "wow we got a lot of shit done this weekend" way but not over booked with parties and gala's that had us out until all hours of the night or anything. I hope I'm not coming down with anything weird. One of my glands seems a little swollen but I'm pretty sure that it might just be a bug bite. Maybe I stayed up too late watching "Maneater" on Lifetime last night.

In all our weekend was actually very productive. The kids both went over to a friends house for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon for a double playdate. I didn't even know those existed but man do I love them. Dennis and I scampered off to Walmart, feeling like a young childless couple as we bought a new mower, assorted yard items and various car accessories. We even stopped at the flower stand to get a few plants and flowers. All alone. I know, we were wild. It was so weird. I even mowed the lawn later in the day. Up until this point I had never used a lawnmower. (Is that odd?) The push one we had was so old and decrepit that it took superhuman strength to pull start it, and then fine tuning to keep it going. It finally died and we were forced to go and buy an inexpensive light mower. Dennis started it and began to mow, and then turned it off to see if I could start it. Of course I could because I am woman hear me roar, right? After about 1 minute though I realized that I was a fool and should have pretended I couldn't start it, because this means that now I will have to mow. Then I discovered that I liked mowing. It reminded me of vacuuming which I actually do enjoy. Back and forth, back and forth, I like that you can see the progress you are making as you go. What was once an untidy patch of yard that looked like it belonged next to an abandoned lot is now nice and clean. Voila'! When I thought more about how light the new lawnmower was another brilliant idea slipped into my mind. "Jack" I yelled. "Come and see if you can push this lawnmower." He came and yes indeedy, he could push it. Turns out he likes to mow too. I am wondering if this is OK. Can a 7 year old mow the lawn? There aren't any child-labor laws against this kind of chore for a child of this age, are there? Abbey cleverly took this opportunity to chase whoever was mowing around shooting them with the water gun. Just "giving you some cooled off water mommy." Anyway, Jack mowed and I mowed and now that I think of it Dennis barely mowed. Actually, looking back I now see him leaning against the shed with a wicked sneer having himself a little chuckle. "Ha ha ha, my plan is working perfectly. The new light lawnmower will be the answer to all of my evil schemes. Ha ha ha." (insert evil laugh here) In his defense he did do all the planting (my thumb is far from green), put down new grass patches, changed the oil/fluids, etc. in the cars, put new wipers on the van and fixed my broken blinker. He even hung new plant hangers and on Sunday took the kids for a hike while I stayed home ALONE for over 2 hours. If we are keeping track (which I'm not because what kind of mother does that, right) I am up to almost 5 hours of child-free time this weekend.

So I guess what I am saying is that I shouldn't be so tired. But I am. Maybe it was Jack's damn bird homework. He (meaning us) had to watch for birds, check off the ones he saw and then write a small little 5 sentence report on 1 bird. He had over a week to do this and we did look for birds everywhere we went but hardly saw any. Even on his hike with his father he only saw 1. Our yard, neighborhood and town seems a bit lacking in the bird department, I think it has something to do with all the predatory animals we have milling about. But finally we managed to spot 7 different types of birds and after baseball last night I nudged, helped, cajoled and begged him to finish up the report part. I have heard a rumor that his teacher might (please be true, please be true) be done giving out homework for the year, leaving the last month to be homework free. I really hope this is true, because I am so sick of homework. But damn, if I can't handle first grade homework, we are screwed.