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Disclaimer: I hit the big 3-0 weeks in the pregnancy today. The associated hormones are very apparent in the following post. Read at your own risk.

This morning after Joy School I plopped the kids in front of Sesame Street so I could plan a menu and make a detailed and organized grocery list for the next two weeks. I contemplated trying to squeeze in a trip to the store before lunch and then thought better of it. Then Bryn fell down a full flight of stairs trying to carry a giant yellow beanbag chair from the 2^ndfloor to the first. No idea how she got it from the 3^rd to the 2^ndwithout incident. And I tried not to think of the giant basket of clean laundry and the two gross bathrooms calling for my attention upstairs. And then Bryn took them off my mind by throwing a 3-pound hard plastic singing Bingo dog and hitting Addison with it. I sent her to time out, saw about Addison, and turned to the computer for some contact with the outside world.

There to greet me was an email from one of my sisters. She and her family have finally made it! Law school will be done in a matter of months and they’ll head to Georgia to put down their roots for good. What happy news! I felt so excited for her, knowing exactly what she must feel to have the past couple semesters of uncertainty behind her and finally be going home.

And then I got Bryn out of time out, made her hug and kiss her brother and say she was sorry,  served  the kids some eggs and toast for lunch (like I said, I was making a grocery list), went into the other room, and cried. And cried and cried. Mourning the loss of what never was but I always assumed would be. Jealous that my sister’s kids will know their Grammie and Gramps for more than a week out of the year. Thinking of how nice it would be to drive down the street and show Mom the strange rash my kid woke up with instead of trying to describe it over the phone. Yearning for the early-blooming daffodils and the giant trees that nobody had to plant, but were just there to be shady and climbed and to drop a carpet in the fall.

I then muddled through preschool with each of the kids and read to them and got them in their beds for a nap and quiet time. And now I have a second to contemplate my life and eat sweets with no one watching. Yesterday I saw a sign in the floral section of the grocery store (I only bought milk and q-tips) and I’ve come to the conclusion that the wise saying on it is dead on. Do I have a terrible life? Heck no. I have beautiful children, a doting husband with an excellent job,  and a charming house with a lot of character and room in the back for a big garden. I have really good friends. And I have free long distance to call my family anytime I want. There is a giant plate of chocolate cookies in my kitchen. We’re buying chickens, for crying out loud! Life is good! This is home! I'd cry if we moved - even if it was to Georgia, which, by the way, does have plastic Bingo dogs and flights of stairs and gross bathrooms too. But I still miss my old home. And it’s still home too. So to quote the sign from the floral department, “Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.” Amen, brother. And though I’ll still probably cry intermittently for the rest of the day, I know it’s true.