shlump in the night

And poor Mr. Bix!
Every morning at six,
poor Mr. Bix has his Borfin to fix!

It doesn't seem fair. It just doesn't seem right,
but his Borfin just seems to go shlump every night.
It shlumps in a heap, sadly needing repair.
Bix figures it's due to the local night air.

It takes him all day to un-shlump it.
And then...
the night air comes back
and it shlumps once again!

from Dr. Seuss's "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?"

I relate far too easily with Mr. Bix. My Borfin, however, is not some mechanical invention of Dr. Seuss's, the purpose of which is elusive; my Borfin is my attitude. Sometimes I'll fix it and will be good for days. Other times, like the last several days, I have to spend every moment fixing it because it shlumps as I'm un-shlumping it. Regardless of how long it lasts before shlumping again, I'm constantly needing to work on it. It is annoying. I start wondering, why do I even bother un-shlumping when I know it's just going to shlump again? (I had the same mentality toward making my bed for most of my life.)

But when it shlumps, I really dislike myself. If I could get away from me, I would. When my attitude shlumps, so does everything else.

I know I have to work on my attitude a little more than others. For one thing, there's my ongoing battle against depression (just a plethora of skirmishes now); for another thing, I feel a bit controlled by things going on around me, with the deployment, the kids, and the pregnancy. Very little right now in my life is as I would have planned it, and even though I know that God is in charge and is working through everything for His good purposes, it rankles me. Don't I get some say in my life?

I'm not even going to comment on how ridiculous a question that is. I mean, He's God. I'm lucky He doesn't strike me down because of my disrespect.

Now back to un-shlumping.

blah

Today was a good day.  We slept in a bit, had some minor breakfast difficulty (curse you, terrible two's), and managed to get out the door only an hour later than I'd intended.  In the ten minutes we spent at the store Yonah wore out all three of his good behavior chances and encouraged Arabelle in trying to run wild in the parking lot; but even so, it didn't take an hour to do a task requiring only five minutes.  Then we got out to the farm, where we picked up Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mints and Tagalongs, yum) and some unwanted newspapers while hanging out with our relatives.  We stayed hours longer than I'd intended, but the kids' were well behaved and I was suddenly starved for some adult interaction.

Oh, and we got to go and see the farm animals - the pigeon keeping her two babies warm in their nest, the horses, a few bulls, and from a distance a cow and her darling little calf.  Needless to say, petting the horse who insisted on saying hello was my highlight.  Yonah's is probably tied between watching a bull slurp up water as if his life depended on it and feeding hay to the previously mentioned friendly horse.  Arabelle's favorite was the drinking bull, a sight I didn't believe I could pull her away from; or perhaps the cute and friendly dogs who came to see the horses with us.

Nap time was difficult due to its lateness, but manageable.  Some friends came over to try to convince the kids to come with them for a few hours so I could rest/nest in peace; Arabelle probably would have gone with them, but Yonah's refusal put an end to that idea.  We got to talk to Kim.  The kids had some difficulty behaving, but less than usual.  Only a handful of sibling quarrels the entire day.

There were certainly more highs than lows today, but for some reason I am ending this day in a bad mood.   Well, not so much a bad mood but a shlump.  A funky shlump.  I think I'm just tired.  So I guess I'll meander toward bed in the hopes that sleep will provide a cure.