Has anyone seen my Christmas spirit?

Because I don't seem to have it. Or maybe it's just that everything feels flat today. I'm tired, my job stresses me out, and it feels neverending.

On the bright side, J is now sleeping in his own bed again, for the past two nights (he did wake up at 3:40 this morning wanting to sleep with me, though). The little stinker finally fessed up that he was just telling me there was a ghost so he could sleep in mama's bed. Now he'll tell me there's a ghost, and I'll ask him if he wants me to make the ghost go away. He says, no, it can stay, he's a happy ghost. Stinker!!! So hopefully we can both start getting a good night's sleep.

I missed our team Christmas party on Monday afternoon - I had to take J to the doctor. Surprise, surprise, he's got a sinus infection. He's all congested and coughing, so I'm sure that doesn't make it any easier to sleep. Hopefully the medicine will kick in soon and he'll get to feeling better. (Not that being sick slows him down any, I just know it's a fairly rotten feeling to be all stopped up and have a goopy cough.) Never mind that the whole team was out of the office at the party anyway - since I wasn't at the company-sanctioned event, I had to use 1/2 a sick day to miss the party. I wasn't surprised, just irritated. And maybe I'm wrong to be irritated, but I was anyway.

I've decided that the parent with primary custody gets child support as hazard pay. It's hard work getting J up and dressed every day while getting myself dressed (it's hard to get dressed without your child asking questions about body parts you may not quite be ready to answer when he insists on following you into the bathroom and tries to run off with the towel you've wrapped around yourself!); hard work telling him every morning that we don't have time to play, we have to get ready for work and school (and dealing with the attendant meltdowns - it breaks my heart that we really don't have the time to sit down and play of a morning, because I know he just wants attention from his mama); hard work prying him off my leg at daycare and trying to reassure him that I love him and will be back as I'm leaving him someplace he says he doesn't want to be (yes, I know he likes school once he's there, and I don't usually cry over drop-off anymore, but it's still hard to handle him watching me reproachfully as I leave); hard work wrangling him to bed 12 nights out of 14. It's just hard. I wish that one morning out of five I had the luxury of getting dressed without a small boy shadowing my every move and without having the added stress of daycare drop-off. But logistics don't really allow for J to stay with K on a weeknight - given where he lives and the way he goes to work, it would be a challenge for him to get J to daycare and still get himself to work on time.

And this may sound bad, because I know K is a good dad, and I know he loves J. But sometimes it seems like it's easier for him to sort of "turn off" being dad for a bit, secure in the knowledge that J is with me. I'm talking about in a social context. K is very good about his weekends with J - he takes the whole weekend unless there's some special circumstance, and he sees J a lot because he comes over in the evenings and also some on my weekends with J. But he has a lot more flexibility in terms of making plans than I do, and I guess I'm jealous. If he wants to go to lunch on a Sunday afternoon, or to dinner on a weeknight, he just calls and says he won't be over. And he goes out and does what he wants to do. It's not that he's skipping out on his appointed time with J - he isn't. But he has the freedom of knowing that he doesn't have to worry about finding child care for J because J is with me. I'm limited to every other weekend as far as making any plans (until I find someone I can trust to take care of J), since we've agreed that no one spends time with or meets J until we're fairly sure that person is around for the long term (not necessarily marriage, but certainly more than just a casual date or two or three). I don't like that, having so little time to do things. Of course, since the guy I've gone out with a couple of times lives about 90 miles away, we're pretty much limited to seeing each other on weekends anyway - it would be a challenge to go out on a weeknight! But who knows, I may end up going out with someone local at some point, and when I'm to the point where I'd be interested in a long-term relationship, that would be something hard to accomplish if I could only see the person I was interested in every other weekend. I'm going to have to find a babysitter at some point. All that whining and I'm not sure what point I was trying to make, or even if I had one. I just wish I had a little more leeway in terms of making plans, were the opportunity to make plans to present itself.

At least it's Wednesday. And the plumbers are coming first thing tomorrow!!!! WOO!!!!! Tonight is the LAST night I have to hear Niagara Falls in my bathroom. Good thing, because the dripping/splashing/sploshing and the sound of water running in the pipes has gotten me to where I'm just about ready to poke a stick in my ear so I won't have to hear it anymore. K said he'll be there to let them in, and I'm very thankful for that. (Now why is it I can ask him to do something like that, but would feel funny asking him to take care of J during my time with him if I wanted to go out?) I can't wait to have that fixed. I am going to scrub my shower and get it CLEAN. Hard to keep it clean when you can't ever get it dry. And now I can fix the caulking that's coming off in one corner.

I have to make cookies for J's Christmas party on Friday. Maybe I'll work on that tonight, if he goes to sleep at a decent hour. I've got to finish picking up as well, so the plumbers don't trip over toys as they try to get to the bathroom.