Relax already.

The weather seems to have officially transitioned from late winter crappiness to pre-summer dog days. All I can think is, if it's this uncomfortable now, what will August be like? My guess is that most of the Northeast will succumb to heat stroke and die. I just don't see any other way for this to play out. Our power has already threatened to cut out in response to the overload of demand as everyone in the area turns on their air conditioning in May. MAY! Ours is up and running, and the third floor unit is fixed so everyone is able to sleep this year. It's going to be nice. You know, until that heat apocalypse I mentioned earlier. Our pool opened this weekend and we spent our spare time there, burning our skin off and splashing happily. Well, most of us. In addition to swings and sprinklers, Monkey also doesn't remember the pool. Last summer he thoroughly enjoyed all three and we often had to chase him down and save his life as he ran alone, full throttle, toward one of the three. This year he is taking some time to warm up to each one. He spent two weeks of pure torture crying on the swings at the "froggy park" but refusing to come down from them because that's what the other kids were doing. He's such a follower. His re-initiation to the pool was mildly hilarious. T stayed home with tiny baby and Monkey napped while the rest of us headed out on Saturday afternoon. We were already burnt from playing at the park all morning. It was nearly 80 degrees by ten o'clock and I offered to take the three kids to play. E decided to come along, feeling guilty about not spending weekend time with the kids. He made them all bring sweaters and then, when they kicked off their shoes to go play on the sand-covered playground, he spent a good five minutes hemming and hawing about whether it was warm enough. He was worried they might get cold in the hot, summer weather. I hurried them off to play so there was nothing he could do about it, but he forbade the sprinklers, which looked so inviting I almost strangled him. We muscled through, seeking shelter in the shade when we were too hot. Monkey made a new girlfriend, sought her trust and then promptly ran off with all her sand toys. But she was a spunky older woman (three, going on four) so she didn't mind. I sat to chat with her and her grandmother (who looked young enough to be her mother) and fully approved Monkey's choice in future bride when she threw her hands up and yelled dramatically, "I can't take it! I can't take it!" because sand had stuck to her fingers. Her grandmother rolled her eyes and I doubled over laughing. She made me miss my Nyla more than I have in a long time. I'M COMING TO SEE YOU THIS SUMMER NYLA! DON'T FORGET ME! Anyway, after that we lunched and hit the pool. E spent the entire time telling the kids how cold it was and that they needed to get in the water and stay in the water lest they die. It was...different. Monday was the big Memorial Day grand opening of the neighborhood. Everyone and their mother goes to the pool that day and there's food and noise and general chaos. It's wonderful. I brought Monkey along this time and tried my best to get him amped up for the pool. He had no idea what I was talking about until we got there. He watched his brother and sister jump in and swim around and then grabbed onto me with arms and legs and screamed, "DONE! DONE!" as I waded into the shallow end. Wuss. I tried my best to get him to play around or climb along the wall like he had last year. He tried his best to escape my clutches and get out. Finally, he called for Daddy. In this instance, E was more ruthless than I. It was finally hot enough that he stopped hounding the kids for ten minutes about being cold, but he picked that up again later. But, he took Monkey and dunked him twice. I DIED. We all know Monkey can hold his breath pretty well because he did it last year and he does it in the bath and he even did it in the sprinkler when I was only trying to wash his hands. So E counted to three and put him under and then went Monkey came up and cleared his hair off his face he glared at everyone with the fiery hatred of a thousand suns. So naturally, E did it again. Then Monk asked for mommy. Muahahahaha. She wasn't there! He came back to me and watched E jumped off the diving board. I asked him if he wanted to jump and he yelled, "NO! Not jump in pool!" and when I laughed he continued to tell me how done he was with the whole pool thing. Days later, I can still ask him to jump in the pool and his whole face goes dark and he tries to put gypsy curses on me. I can feel it. I haven't done much cleaning since the baby was born and neither has T so we're lucky if the dishwasher gets run lately. The poor cleaning lady has had to take on all of our regular stuff in addition to the big stuff she usually does. Last night I caught up on laundry that I have been washing and drying and then hoarding in various places around the house. I even washed mine and when I opened the drier, guess what I found in the lint trap? Go ahead, guess. You never will. A wasp. A freaking wasp. And twice I have woken up in the morning and found pieces of dead roly-polies in my bed. Twice. And the other day I whipped a fly with a towel and it fell onto the floor and I left and when I came back to clean it up IT WAS GONE. On a happier note, I have discovered a large herd of cats and kittens within running distance from my house so I have taken to jogging out there in the evening and calling them and trying to pet them. They are literally swarming a house in a more laid back and normal part of town and it reminds me of my house growing up. We were the ones infested with cats and it awed and pleased and shocked and grossed people out all at once. Whatever, we had the cutest kittens ever. Last night, after all the laundry was done and T had helped clean up for the evening, she cracked open a bottle of wine and we spent the night moping because the neighbors were having an awesome party and we weren't invited. E kept checking to make sure we hadnt snuck off to crash it anyway and stuck him with the baby. Paranoid. The baby is growing more colicky lately, but I take a twisted kind of pleasure in knowing that he is calmer with me. E's default plan when the baby cries is to pass him to me and lately, T is catching on. He also likes her mother, so she invites her over a lot lately and one of us usually has the baby and no one makes dinner anymore. We have had several leftover nights this week and then, when we ran out of leftovers, we brought out the crappy processed chicken. E has made barbecue a lot lately because he gladly prefers to escape to the backyard with dinner on his agenda while the women-folk handle the four kids who seem to have taken over the house. But we don't mind. I say, if the kids want to take over for a while, let them. It leaved me more time to catch up on reading and old episodes of Desperate Housewives while I hold tiny baby so that I appear to be busy. In all honesty though, these kids are exhausting lately. By dinner time or bedtime, depending on how late I am working, I can't even think about doing anything but crashing in front of the TV or jumping straight into bed. No one here showers regularly anymore. Twice I got out my computer to write to you people and fell asleep on top of it. No one even expects T or me to get up at breakfast time anymore. E just heads right to the kitchen and starts eggs while the rest of us drag outselves out of bed. But there's an awesome give and take system in this house and I can't help but think how blessed I am to have been given this family. My job is demanding but humane and that is something I don't have a lot of experience with. We're nice ladies though and so in the evening when E first gets home, since we know we're going to check out soon enough, we try to do everything while E relaxes for a bit. I've been talking a lot about what a great team this couple is, and it has been striking me again and again lately. They communicate so well. I am amazed and I hope someday to have that kind of understanding with all thirty of my cats.