Marching Along

A couple of blogs ago I wrote with great fervor that I didn’t like February. Well, I’m beginning to remember that I don’t like March, either. It’s incredibly cold and wet and long and cold. Plus, I’m starting to get cabin fever. Being a stay-at-home mom doesn’t help matters. I’m not the most social person, but I do have a heartbeat. Once in a while, I like to be reminded that other people, and ways of life, do exist.

I think that one of my favorite Homerian sayings sums up how I feel. By Homerian, I mean the Simpson guy, of course. Not that other dude. "I want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone. I want to visit strange, exotic malls…I want to live, Marge! Won’t you let me live?"

So what’s making my March a little frustrating, you ask? Oh, the usual. My husband has injured (and possibly broken) his thumb and one of his toes in separate incidences (wrestling with the kids and a cement block that got in the way of his foot). He actually put off telling me about his thumb. Is that a bad sign? What he’d think was going to happen if he told me? That I was going to send him to his room? Hmmm… Actually, I might have done that.

That’s the problem with being a mom, you treat everyone like they’re your kid. But what do you expect when you have to deal every day with things like your three-year-old spouting his new favorite word, "Never!" at you. I tell him to put his shoes on. "Never!" he cries, like I just asked him to denounce his country or something. Or when you have to cope with hearing your kids complaining loudly about every bump, bruise or tiny cut they get. Boys could never have babies. The other day, after each one of them came to me wailing about a boo-boo that I couldn’t even see, I ended up shouting at them, "I had my stomach sliced open and I didn’t cry about that!" Not a shining moment for me in the parenting department, but it worked. For some strange reason, my kids are pretty morbid and wanted to hear the story about my c-section, so they shut up about their own owies and eventually forgot about them because hearing about someone else’s pain on such a grand scale was more interesting.

March is also the time that you start worrying about having to do and pay taxes. This year I had to figure out the whole, "I published a book so I need to figure out what I earned (not much) and what my expenses were (more than I made)," thing. It hasn’t been pretty. I kept all my receipts…somewhere. Well, everywhere. I had to gather them up and figure out what went where on the forms. You know something? Taxes are a scary thing, and they cost you money. I don’t like them.

March is also the time for mother nature to start playing her tricks. The snow starts melting and you think to yourself, "Thank the Lord, spring is here!" Then it snows eighteen inches. We’ve had times, even into April, when nearly all the snow is gone and then a blizzard nails us. I think that’s just plain cruel. Of course, it is Mother Nature we’re talking about here. And you know what can happen to mothers at this time of year.

Basically, we get tired. Tired of tracked in salt and sand, funny smells in the house, colds and flus, trips to the doctor, bickering children, and the same view day after day. I think I really need to get out of this house. Imagine the Shining with Jack Nicholson where he types over and over, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." That’s me. Perhaps that’s my mind telling me something…get out of the house, Kristina, before your finger starts saying, "Redrum! Redrum!" over and over.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t you just move somewhere warmer? My only response to that is, "Then what would I have to complain about?"

Twenty-one days left…