Thoughts from a frazzled hausfrau

Sure, I work at various part-time and freelance jobs for hours each day, and no, I don't usually act much like a traditional housewife/homemaker/stay-at-home-mom or whatever politically-correct term is currently in vogue to describe someone for whom many many daylight hours are spent tending children and/or tending to home-and-family related details. But. But when your office is in your house and your family acts like your work is not, things can get sticky. And the thing to do then -- aside from renting an office or driving 40 miles west to sit on a bench in a quiet state park or unplug the phone and fax and click the laptop closed -- the thing to do then, is to look around, enjoy the moments and laugh.

► How cute are little seven-year-olds boys; that is, your own little boy, at bedtime, fresh from the bath, dancing around the room in underpants, with slicked down hair, using his GI Joe for a microphone and crooning, Rock and roll.

► How is it that my 12 year old son cannot remember that trash goes out on Monday and recycling on Thursday, but he can retain a season worth of stats on a dozen NASCAR drivers, as well as list the Heisman trophy winners for the last six years and know the order of picks in the NFL draft?

► My sister in law sent me an e-mail the other night that rattled me: Going on vacation this summer? What? Did I miss spring entirely? Is school out already? Last time I checked, I still had weeks to think about that. Then I remembered. She is recently retired, her only child is 28 and gainfully employed, her husband still works and her grey roots are always covered. See, the woman still has brain cells.

I , on the other hand, have two kids under 12, a husband who, while otherwise wonderful is still, alas, male; plus work deadlines, and, in my family room, I have 7,832 ragged scraps of
cardboard otherwise called Box Tops that will net my child's school $783.20, if, if, I can find a few hours before the deadline next week to trim them, inspect for past expiration dates, wipe cookie dough from the slimy plastic ones, count them out in groups of 50, zip them into plastic bags, fill out the submission form and get to the post office.

► Like all Moms, I save things because they might come in handy. Recently, I realized: They will not. At least, not until about a month after I have put it in the trash or sold it for a nickel in a garage sale.

► I got the call about my father's failing memory while in the car on the way to see Chicken Little with assorted children. The sky is falling all right.

► We were fired from our lawyer last week. Let me say that again. Last week, our attorney, who charged us $400 to change precisely two words in a document, gave us the sack. Pick up your file, was how his secretary put it if I recall exactly, and I do.

► Why do I like doing the laundry so much (other than that I am a complete moron)? Probably because it is the only mess in my life I can clean up inside of an hour.

And your day?