Ice day

Today it's back to work, after a week-long vacation.

I'm exhausted and mentally fried. (Parents will understand this.)

I've been awake off and on since 4, lying on a bag of ice to stop the shooting pain up the back of my skull after jacking up my neck and shoulder a few days ago.

Yesterday was the day when you pay for being "off" for a week and not taking care of crap at home.

"Off", of course, is funny because you do just as much kid-related work, including cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. as you do when you're not on vacation. The difference is, you get to blow off the other things in your life, like scrubbing the bathtub, paying bills, and looking for the car's new auto insurance cards that you're legally required to have in your car.

(Don't get me wrong. It was a really great vacation. We had a lot of fun with the kids.)

It was a pretty summer day. And there we were, my husband and me, doing stuff at a maniac pace. He was trying to figure out why black specks are coming out of our kitchen sink faucet. And doing other stuff I wasn't paying attention to.

That's because I had to tackle that damn bathtub. I bleached out the mildew that was driving me crazy. Scrubbed the bathroom. Did six loads of laundry. Cleaned out the disgusting cat pan and vacuumed up the kitty litter he flings EVERYWHERE. Discovered he may have peed on our dirty bathtowels that had been awaiting a trip to the washing machine since before we left for vacation. Transferred 1,200-plus photos from my phone to our computer, since iCloud was stalking me with threatening notes that it could no longer back up my babies' photos and whatever else is on my phone.

And I yelled at my kids. Too much.

Sometimes I am a crap parent. They just want to play. And my attention.

I feel like a jerk. I have everything you could want -- a nice home, great family. You're not supposed to complain when you have all that. You're supposed to look like you're handling everything gracefully. Single friends can and will point out that you signed up for this, they wish they had it, and that you should just shut your trap. I can somewhat ignore what I imagine people are thinking about me, but I still feel like I should be able to juggle all of it better. And with more grace.

As I laid on the bag of ice, praying the back pain that was newly developing in my mid-back would not flare up its own inflammation party, I ticked off all of the stuff I'm neglecting. My oldest son is going through some challenges right now and I want to be more in tune with him and available to him. I haven't talked to my mom, who's still in a nursing home, in weeks. (I've tried to call, just haven't gotten through). I still haven't found those damn insurance cards. I need to figure out some financial stuff, like, today. I haven't yet looked for a training plan for that ultramarathon I want to do this fall. Hell, I haven't yet emailed the race director to see if the race I've eyeballed is even happening.

Ugh. This is not grace under pressure, not one bit.

Not even the sly cookie-stress-eating I'm quietly indulging in while the kids aren't looking. "Cookies before lunch, kids? You should never, ever do that... *whistle*"

So today is a day that I mentally think of as an "ice day", a metaphor for stopping the urge to fight the overwhelmed feeling and fret fret fret. Just lay on the bag of ice and try to focus on one thing at a time. There's no way I'll get everything done I think I should, and it's dumb to fret about it.

I've got about 20 minutes till the kids get up. Time to find that bag of ice again.