CABIN FEVER.....

Dawn Boyle

I am at the turning point of the summer. This is where I start wishing I had put the kids in camp. When I realize that I have not had a break from them - NOT ONE DAY- since June 26. We all feel it. Everyone is fighting, bickering, anytime they both are in the basement it seems like they are WWF wrestlers.

I have been stuck in the house all week with my tooth issue. Which also means the girls have as well. I am crawling the walls. I need to bust out. Thinking ladies night or maybe ladies weekend (ahhh...could you imagine). There is something to be said for "me" time.

I will never forget a friend who had a baby shortly after my first. She was going out three times a week at night with friends or her husband. Had a babysitter come in three times a week during the day as well for her "Mommy Time", she would say to me "a happy Mommy is a much better Mommy". I thought she was nuts. How could she leave her kid that often. Well, let me tell you how smart she was. That kid, now 11, is so well adjusted. Doesn't have any sleepover issues (both of mine do), the kid doesn't freak out when Mommy goes away for a night or two with the Daddy, so that relationship is also very good.

My house is run by the terrorists that live here. The ones I never wanted to be away from. The ones that got (still do) all of my attention every minute of the day. The ones who have the need to just walk in on me when I am in the bathroom without knocking and not even thinking twice about it.

It's not like I really want them back in school, yet. But would LOVE a little break. I wish that they woke up and said they wanted to have a sleepover at Grandmas. Absence makes the heart grow founder...in fact maybe Greg should go for that sleepover too! Can you imagine....the entire house to yourself overnight?

With my luck and they way I have been programmed, I would probably end up missing them too much and begging them to come home early. I am as dependent on them as they are on me in this crazy little nut house I call my own.

So with only a handful of weeks left til school starts, I will bite my tongue about needing a break (try to) and realize how wonderful this time really is. I look forward to the days when we can look back and laugh about how the two of them USED to beat the crap out of each other and when the end of the world was all because "she won't get out of my room". Until then...I ring the bell and tell them to get in their corners til the next round.