The Beginning of Something Called a Worry Free Summer

My anxiety creeps in, like my children do in the middle of the night when the nightlight is off and they're scared of the shadows in the dark, and I wake up next to it- that gut feeling that there is something always wrong- and wonder why I was born this way. Because I feel like I was born this way, as if the genetic marker to worry was established along with my blue eye chromosome. And there was my dad, holding me for the first time, exclaiming, "Oh look dear, she has your propensity to worry. I can see it in her eyes."

Sydney's dying, she needs a walk, we need to spend more time with her and with the boys- practicing throwing a ball, and catching one too, and Claire must read more, pick up her room, everyone needs to pick up more, how do I ask them, all the time, without sounding like I'm carping, carp carp carping, we don't have anything for breakfast, oh my god that just means we hit Beaudry's before school and partially hydrogenated soy bean oil and POP TARTS for breakfast, really?, and the chickens are in my garden and what if we put them down by the alpacas, and what if they come up and what if they can't find their way back down, and I don't have any furniture inside or out, and the furnace is on again, and my in laws are coming and there is dust on my dust and and and..

And then there is this.




And this.



And this guy too.



And him too.



And this, which just signifies the beginning of something that makes me not so anxious.



When burnt marshmallows are the only thing anyone worries about.




I can't for the life of me stop the worrying. But there are nights like this one when I forget that I have anything to worry about.



I sometimes worry about the bugs. Because those no-see-ums are eating us alive.




But generally, I think I just need more evenings with my wombats. And maybe a few more s'mores.