Taking Turns
Ed and I have been taking turns. Having nervous breakdowns. The floor is in — it looks wonderful or it will once we finish installing the bastard son of a mutant chicken quarter round. When you have two small children whose “help” is more enthusiastic than effective, the only really useful time of day is after they go to bed. So we have been trying to saw, sand, prime, paint and install quarter round for two days now. This is in addition to having to attend a meeting at the children’s school about applying to first grade (note to self: eat own head rather than ever attend helpful workshop on applying to schools again), deal with Daniel’s sudden terror of the dark and work through the unbelievably profound exhaustion and stress of both functioning adults.
On the whole, if there is anyone in this house having a nervous breakdown, it’s probably Daniel. The house runner-up is me, then Helena (who is only three after all). Ed doesn’t usually get a look-in. Even B.C. (Before Children) it’s traditionally been part of my territory in this relationship. Every so often (twice daily) I throw up my hands and howl, “It’s all too much. I can’t take it! Why why why (insert current crisis here)?” and Ed will (mostly) remain quite calm and, because he is English, offer me tea.
This floor installation hoo-ha has been a mite stressful however, and Ed and I have been descending into the nether realms of emotional hell in turns. Luckily we have not both been down there at the same time or all hell really would have broken loose and overrun our pretty new floor in waves of fiery chaos. As it is, we plan to finish tonight and get all the books, toys and other detritus of living out of the kitchen so we can find the stove. We’ve been eating a lot of cold food.
Among the many good things about the new floor that will compensate for the nervous strain it has visited on us: accoustics! The piano sounds great, and when I plugged the ol’ electric guitar in and turned up the volume (just a little tiny bit, I promise), well…
When I am rich I will floor my music studio in bamboo.
I cannot honestly picture Ed getting stressed out. It must have been some floor.
Ya. The whole stress thing wasn’t pretty. Not pretty at all. But the floor is. Pretty pretty pretty.