Today's Sanity Project: Survive

It's Survivor: Crawfordsville. Or Survivor: Oprisko Island; still debating. Let me know your vote.

Here's what's on the plate:

1. Chem 105. Thinking in terms of numbers is dizzying for me, at least until I find a rhythm in it, or at least get used to that kind of logic. For now, it's taking entire halves of days just to metaphorically tip my head back so I can keep my mouth above water. I'm mostly sputtering. I have brilliant moments (like today when one of my lab partners asked me to walk her through a problem. I was like...whaa...?). But for the most part, I'm taking up the better part of two hours going through five sheets of scratch paper on one problem, scratching the wrong numbers, trying to find (OHMYGOSH) how many inches could be in a yard? Where's my conversion chart? Why isn't that conversion in my text? Professor? Professor, where are you? Yes. Can you tell me where I can find that information? Turns out the answer is pretty much any old person you can find in the hallway. Apparently people know that there are 3 feet in a yard. Guess I'm the only one who hasn't seen a yard stick since the third grade.

2. Nora starting kindergarten. Ice Cream Social yesterday, soccer sign up (are we doing that?), popcorn Friday coming up (Nora needs $.50 that day), some dance camp thing (are we doing that, too?), library events connected with her school. Nora is "Star Student" this week, which means she gets to bring in five things for show and tell on Friday that will tell her class all about her, and help them get to know her. Homework three times a week. Read to child every evening (class requirement). Go on occasional scavenger hunt and do all kinds of really, really cute things I have no time for. Meet bus twice a day, but not until I've waited at the corner bus stop for twenty minutes going...why did you tell me to meet you here, by ourselves, at 7:05 if you insist on not showing up before 7:25, and I live two doors down from here?!? Packing lunches every day because school lunches are supposed to be healthy but are made up mostly of things like sausage. Kids singled her out on playground, pelting her with pinecones. Not sure how pinecones produced the impressive bruise on her forehead, but one of 'em did. School handled it well, but never called me. A little anxious about poor baby bear (albeit a crazy brave baby bear) going to recess with mean first graders.

3. William going back to somewhat intensive potty training. It'll be no problem for you and your husband to work with him, 20 minutes on the toilet, 5 minutes off, right? You can have one parent working with him to find the other parent at the end of every 5-minute break, every 20 minutes, to teach him to initiate, right? That won't be an issue, right? I mean, we get it that you have to pick up your husband from work, and that probably won't work out time-wise, but you can do your best the rest of the afternoon and evening, right? Hm. Oh, and they're at our house every day this week. I appreciate that, because it's super-helpful. But I'm a little squeamish about that because of the following:

4. I haven't cleaned my house in three weeks, aside from spot-mopping the places William has had epic poop accidents. We are buried in papers, library books, and whatever makes its way home from kindergarten on a daily basis. The kitchen is overflowing with dirty dishes, to the point that in order to cook, I go shopping for the pots, pans, utensils, and dishes I'll need from the counter, wash it, and dirty it up again. Nobody has anything to wear because three weeks worth of laundry (plus a pile of formerly clean laundry that was the site of William's epic poop accident #469) is hanging out in the laundry room waiting for someone to please, please send it through the washer. And maybe out of the washer in the same week.

5. I've lost time for grocery shopping in the mornings, so now we have a lingering problem of having zero food in the fridge. This isn't a problem for most folks who can say, you know what? Stressful week. Let's order pizza. Let's go get some burritos. Or even, let's throw some chicken and cheese in the crock pot. Nope. We're....

6. Gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, corn-free, egg-free, nut-free, red meat-free, yeast-free. And possibly fish-free, now. Dinner's been happening somewhere around 7 pm. This is a problem for children who start getting ready for bed at 7 pm.

7. Homework generally lasts until 11pm or midnight. My alarm goes off at 5 am.

7. Hormone malfunction. This week. Nice.

8. Oh yeah. It's August. Anybody who's read my blog, like, EVER knows how I feel about August.

I think that's it.

I feel like my whole world is buzzing. I'm no stranger to feeling overwhelmed--at all. But I'm not sure I've ever felt so out of control that I have to shut out entire compartments in order to not panic. Like, we're going to skip homework tonight to make sure everyone eats. Not cool. I forget whole sections of conversations I'm supposedly having with people. It's like my brain has to shut it out for basic self-preservation. I had a talk with G tonight that was helpful (and that I can remember still). He always sees "the look" on my face, and he stops what he's doing and hovers until he can figure out what will really help me, and he gets it done. I stood over chopped, raw chicken at 6pm that had no hope of being edible for another hour, ready to cry, thinking the kids are sooooo hungry. I'm hungry. Nora has homework, lunches need packed for tomorrow,  I have no plan for a vegetable, I don't know when I'm going to study for my quiz on Thursday. And he's like, I've got the cooking from now on. I'll do the grocery shopping, I'll plan the menus. We scrounged dinner together (without using said raw chicken) for them, and let the chicken dish simmer on the stove while we got the kids ready for bed, and we ate around 8pm.

So, tonight: salvaged.

I know everyone's telling me not to do this, but I have to mention it. This is my life on ONE class. This is not my life on Organic Chemistry (Lord have mercy). This is not my life on an actual masters' program even part-time, let alone full-time.

I can't help but think, this might be a very, very, very bad idea.