Humble ∏

Need to be taken down a notch? Try being an English major taking her first math class since sometime in the mid ’90’s. I’m taking the course condensed over the summer to get it over with as quickly as possible, which means five weeks of math class four nights a week. Ugh. I’m not thrilled, but let’s face it people—I can use the refresher course.

Since my last entry, my computer crashed so this summer I’ll be spending my time retyping the few stories I have hard copies of and trying not to dwell on the stuff that’s lost. I’ll also be taking the GRE in preparation for grad school applications that I’ll send out at Christmas time. See there, I’m already finding use for my new and improved math skills.

Right now I’m retyping and revising my story Sick Day. It’s about a mother home with sick kids for the day, but she’s reflecting on a time a few years ago when she lost it with the kids and took off for the weekend. I’m surprised at how difficult it is to write about ugly mom moments. There are times most days when I’m embarrassed or ashamed by my behavior as a mom, when I said something too mean, too loud, or too short. It’s not easy to talk about them to other people, even other moms, even for made-up moms.

Despite my many flaws, I do manage a few brilliant mom ideas and pulling the small bike out of storage yesterday was one of them. I intended it to be a non-training wheel bike for Alex to practice on, but he seems fine with training wheel life and I couldn't keep Greta off the thing, so Jeremy put back together what I took apart and ta-da - summer fun in the making. It's going to be a busy summer, but I'm ready for camping and playing with the kids.