seeking sanity

I always thought my mother was crazy, realized I would be someday, but never imagined that day would be now.

Two weeks ago I was shaving my legs. Lathered up nicely, I reached for my razor and methodically moved it up and down my leg (envious of Mandi, who has now been lasered to hairlessness). I quickly realized nothing was happening and looked at my hand, puzzled. Instead of my lovely pink Venus razor, it held my newly-soaped-up yellow toothbrush. Even worse, I honestly sat and looked at it blankly for a full 30 seconds before I could begin to determine exactly what was wrong with this picture. Momentary madness? Maybe, but it's happening more & more often.

Realizing my firstborn was as brilliant as he was adorable, when Aidan was around 8 months old I taught him how to unscrew lids from water bottles, sodas, whatever. Soon we mastered doors and closets together. Jim stood by and shook his head silently. Using the basics of my tutelage, the ever-brilliant A quickly moved on to the bigger & badder. The cute quotient diminished as I cleaned up disaster after disaster. Beyond madness. What was I thinking?

Months ago we were fed up with our dusty backyard - time for sprinkler action. Jim was up early trenching, and I joined him in the heat for the next step. Our concrete bike path was in place, and the people who poured it had promised conduits for our future sprinkling needs. The conduits were there, but smaller than the PVC that needed to fit through them. So, Jim & I set about making holes under our sidewalk. With a little trial & error, Jim brilliantly realized water was our most powerful ally for this task. And it worked. It took time & made mud, but we managed to use the hose to blast holes under the path in three different spots. By the end of the day we were beat. Jim sat on the porch swing (sipping a Code Red to regain sanity, no doubt). One item was checked off of the to-do list, but my mind swam with what remained - cleaning the path, bathing the boys, putting everything away, finishing the installation of the sprinklers. Drowning in thought, I opted to plop down in the middle of a mud pile and paint my feet in sludge...then my arms...and face. A soon joined me, ecstatic. We laughed, threw mud and thoroughly bathed our bones. D joined Jim, appalled. Momentary madness.

Some mad moments are signs of decreasing brain function, others result from a lapse in judgment , but SOME are gateways to sanity. Bathing with my Aidy in mud was a bridge to sanity on an otherwise bad day. I'm hoping this blogging will be a similarly grounding madness. Kelly mentioned it a few months ago. I laughed. Two weeks ago. I laughed. Over the past few days I've read her entire blog - windows into a kindred brain after the inevitable distancing of time&space. Madness indeed. Beautiful madness. And so I'm here to join the madness...hoping to sort my way to sanity.