i made it through

So I survived the visit with my Dad and he was very well behaved. That's awful of me I make him sound like a mutt. He didn't drink, although all we had in the house was three bottles of champagne (new year's leftovers gathering dust) so I'd think he'd have to really be desperate to toss back the bubbly. We played Scrabble. I won, I'm quite cunning at the two letter words on spaces where you can rack up major points. But can I just say that whenever any of our parents leaves our house after a visit I am exhausted. The kids tend to act up when any grandparent comes to visit, they're only worse when we go to my Mom's house or Toby's parents and when we went to visit my Dad in the fall we spent the day in our tiny hotel room, that was the absolute worst. At one point the guy at the front desk came in to use our microwave because the one up front was broken. We ordered pizza in and watched 3 or 4 movies back to back and Oona bounced around the room like she was never going to stop moving or for that matter sleep. Anyhow, my Dad left on Saturday morning and I took Owen sledding later in the day. We met up with a friend of his from school and his Mom. Owen's viking heritage might be kicking in because as soon as he hops in the sled he treats it like a luge and leans all the way back. My heart was in my throat watching him shoot down the hill so fast, a couple times he entered a woodsy area at the far side of the hill and at one point I was running down the hill shouting because his sled turned around and he had gained so much momentum he was going back up another hill and came close to hitting a tree head first. So I spent the afternoon chatting with the friend's mom all the while having this internal debate over whether I should buy Owen a helmet for sledding (if he's going to be sledding near trees I think definitely). I have a hard time gauging this stuff with myself because I'll constantly justify why I want to, say, get Owen a helmet for sledding but I feel embarrassed of my decision by more laid back moms, and they don't have to even say anything, I just feel freakish at times. I know I'm a nervous mom and I tend to overprotect and one of my huge issues is being okay with what I think or how I feel but it's so hard and I'm mystified by people who have no problem criticizing when I'll beat myself up trying to finding the least threatening way to say something. Two years ago I showed my mother-in-law how to put Oona in her car seat and when I was done she just looked at me nonplussed and said 'but that's too tight, she looks uncomfortable' and I knew she'd ignore what I showed her and I started to seethe thinking, better she's a bit uncomfortable than ejected from the car. Like I can still get angry about that but it's just spinning my wheels and all this worry and internal debates and the anger and all of it just hurts me and makes me very very tired. I didn't even mean to bring this post in that direction but with my worries about the kids I sometimes feel like I gave birth in order to kick my anxiety up to the stratosphere. I do this horrible dance of sadness, anger and frustration wondering if what I feel and do for them is the 'right' thing. Oh well, Owen and I also had a special date where we went to see The Spiderwick Chronicles together, it's nice to be able to spend time with just Owen occasionally. Although he was a little upset that I ate all his popcorn, can't blame him for that really. But I paid a heavy price, my jeans are ruined because the butter soaked right through the container onto them. I tried Shout on them but they're still stained. Good thing they were only $13 and not $150.