Mixed Day

This morning started on an upbeat note -- I decided to take a second sick day because my tummy still hurts (as it does now, while I'm writing this), with Rachel cracking me up. She put on a beautiful white and purple dress that I found in a bag up in the attic, a bag of summer clothes in just her size. "Oh, RACHEL!" I exclaimed when she put it on. She looked so pretty and grown-up. She loved the reaction and told it to all her teachers.

Randomly she said this: "And I have to tell you, Mommy. If you and Daddy get into a fight, you have to compromise. That's a word I learned from the Bearenstein Bears."

Also:

"Do you really need to get so big!" I asked her after first seeing her in the purple and white dress today.
"You got big once, so I need to get big, too," she replied. "Look! I'm up to your belly button!"

***

Rachel's latest obsession is the word "punim." Today on the way to school she suddenly started talking sternly and saying, "Wash your punim! It's very very important to wash your punim!" and then threatening me with dire consequences if I didn't so so. She sounded exactly like a Catskills comic, I started laughing.

***

Tonight I decided that the garden really needed work, plus I had to mop the kitchen floor (again) and clean the sink (again). Have decided I loathe gardening and housework, in that order. The gardening took 90 minutes; I hate our stupid push mower -- and Rachel did help with some of the weeding, but by the time we started dinner (at 8:15) I was completely exhausted. I took it out on poor Rachel by getting angry when she didn't eat her spaghetti properly. She could see that I was angry and upset and hot and frustrated, and she suddenly sobbed, "I hate seeing you unhappy."

That stopped me short. I apologized profusely, cleaned up the kitchen and read a chapter of "Charlotte's Web" before putting her to bed at 10:15. No kid should have to go to bed that late, but when I'm the only one around here doing all the work and holding our lives together, sh-- happens.

I do feel awful for my behavior, though. Rachel kept reassuring me that "you're an excellent Mommy," at one point stroking my arm reassuringly, and I kept wanting to tell her what a crappy job I'm doing, but I think, as I write this and I'm tearing up, I think I'll just accept her compliments and thank the universe that she's not old enough to understand that I'm doing a totally inadequate job of keeping it together. Please, readers, don't ever tell her that.