when it's all too much, and then you laugh

From time to time it happens that I wonder how I got myself into this mess called parenting.  How it is that I started spending my alone time combing the aisle of Walmart (damn you Target and my boycott!  I miss you!), unloading dishwashers, folding clothes and helping Maya change into her "big" dress 100 times a day because "it makes me happy!" ? When someone asks me if I've had a good day and I wonder if it is enough that I didn't burn the house down and no one ran into traffic.  Sometimes it feels like all the meaning and purpose is being chocked out of my life and I am wrestling to remember if life is more than having clean floors, serving a balanced super and not burning the checkbook (or is that supposed to be not burning supper and having a balanced checkbook?) Either way, you get the point.
When I get into this state I usually go to work or for a good run or Sandi comes home from a stretch of work and the world tips on its axis and I remember all that is good and joyful and lovely about being a mom.

But today, since those things hadn't happened and I was still existing in some unbalanced version of myself, I was going to have to settle for a good laugh.

The girls are on hiatus from "Annie" and on to "The Sound of Music."  I used to love that song "So Long, Farewell" about the absurd little bird popping out to say "cuckoo."  Now I want to rip the cd from the player and smash my coffee mug over it and chuck it out the window.  But alas, I could never do that...imagine the disappointment when I began to litter.

I need to start driving with my ipod again so I can catch a break from the grating sounds of Austrian boys and girls singing melodiously.

In the movie, when the Von Trapp children are introducing themselves, the second youngest says, "My name is Marta and I'm going to be seven on Tuesday."

Ella told me that Marta was older than Skyler. Once I figured out who Marta was (the Von Trapps don't take up as much cerebral space in my head as it does in hers), I asked her how she knew that.
"Because Skyler is six and Marta will be seven on Tuesday."

Today Skyler and Ella were talking in the backseat. 

Skyler:  "Ella, I was thinking about being in a play next year.  My friend Mikayla was in one and I thought, 'that would be fun to do when I am seven.'"

(In the front seat, I wonder if that will be Tuesday or when that will be.)

Ella: "What kind of play?  Do you have to stand on a stage?"
Skyler: (playing at heart strings) "They did Annie last year and this year I think they are doing the Sound of Music.  It's sort of a stage but the adults just stand around and eat snacks while they watch."
Ella: "Would there be kids I don't know?"
Skyler: (really trying) "Oh, mostly girls.  All girls in fact.  And probably only five. Yes, five girls."
Pause.
Skyler:  "And my mom will pay for you to do it."

I nearly guffaw in the front seat wondering if Skyler will become a politician or a diplomat when she grows up.