They Call the Wind Mariah

July 12, 2004 : 10:07 a.m.
Les Bďż˝bďż˝s ne Gardent pas

**If you're wondering what that title is...it means "Babies don't keep" in french. Or at least...that's as close a translation as I can come up with.

Today's the day. Our French student comes in at 9p.m. tonight. I am nervous. Not really for us, but for her. I hope she has a good time, hope she doesn't get *too* homesick. I hope she doesn't detest my cooking. I bought her a book of Indiana...mostly neat pictures of interesting things with some backstory. I cleaned out the room she will be in so she has places to put her things and can be comfortable and feel as at home as possible...even if the room does look a bit "little girlish".

I also hope she likes camping, as I have no intention of cancelling our camping trip coming up this weekend. It will be interesting and historical (we are visiting Lincoln State Park which boasts Lincoln's (read: Abe) boyhood home and other interesting things). Plus we might get to feed buffalo - so that would be a cool experience.

I am also thinking about the fact that M's 7th birthday is just about a month away. It's impossible, how fast days go by. I feel like I'm trying to lasso time and I am digging in my heels trying to slow it down...but it doesn't help. It seems like I spend so much of my day trying to "get things done" that the day seems to slip by and turn into a week or a month, and I look at her and she is practically grown.

I should not complain...I spend more quality time with her than a lot of moms get with their children. I am so happy that I have gotten to spend her youth at home with her. I can't imagine how much worse this feeling would be if I only had a few hours of her a day. I just wish sometimes there weren't so many things to do in a day. I wish I could take a whole day just to play with her - nothing else. Just cuddle with her and read with her and play with her and not feel guilty about getting nothing else done. That's the way it should be. I'm going to try to stop feeling so guilty about not having a perfect house, because what I do is so much more meaningful.

A favorite saying of mine that hung in M's nursery:

Cleaning and dusting
Can wait 'till tomorrow
For babies grow up
We've learned to our sorrow
So go away cobwebs;
Dust go to sleep
I'm rocking my baby,
And babies don't keep.