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I don't know if it's the Disney hangover, or the February doldrums (more snow!?!), or what, but I've been dragging myself around here this past week like no other time this winter. My best guess is that it's some combination of both, with a little extra dash of children who never, ever stop making noise neverever.

Connie and I spent a very productive Tuesday night drinking wine in front of her fireplace and discussing all the various ways our children are intentionally driving us crazy, so I won't go into it here, but I will say this. For three days this week, in spite of the mountains of laundry and the mountains of snow, I was surprisingly able to revel in the ordinaryness of our life, and specifically, my life here at home with the girls. It felt good to be back at home, back in a routine, and I was very good at noticing the joy and satisfaction in the regular moments: Annie reading me the nightly book she brings home from her book box at school; Jemma asking me to sing the "Look at This Stuff" song from Little Mermaid (which, luckily, I know verbatim); building an honest-to-goodness snowman in the front yard, complete with an actual carrot nose and one of Annie's baby knit hats for a hat; going to the pool and snuggling them in the sauna afterwards; kneading dough for pizza and letting Jemma roll it out; having a dance party to The Beatles after dinner.

And then today, I stopped being good at it. It was like my body came to a standstill, and all I could notice was the way Jemma follows me around while I try to get showered and dressed, needing something literally every two seconds; the way Annie inserts the most unhelpful phrase into the situation when I'm trying to reason with Jemma; the way I'm sometimes sweating after getting them both into their snow gear and buckling them into the car; the way I have to RUN from Jemma's dance class to Annie's school, wearing my Uggs, which I hate, every Thursday; the way my voice sounds when I am saying for the 45th time that day, "You worry about YOURSELF; I'll worry about Jemma;" the way the minute I try to make a cup of coffee or return an e-mail, someone needs me to wipe their butt; the way Jemma smelled my (freshly showered this morning!) head while I was buckling her boot and said, "You stink, Mommy;" the way Annie's instant response to any refusal of any request is "You're MEAN!"

So. I'm going to join Jason in Chicago tomorrow. I am going to lie in a bed in a room all by myself while he learns things in seminars. I am going to meet a friend for a meal. I am going to wander around the Art Institute by myself and then into a few stores. I am going to drink beer here, and work out and sleep in and read and think and refuel my tank for next week, and the next.

While I'm gone, if you haven't seen them already, here's a link to a fraction of our Disney photos. Strangely, I sort of miss it already.