Disconcerting

I'm amazed to see how few blog posts I have lately. Time is flying along. I guess I'm surprised at its speed because I haven't been this busy in a long, long time. Not since college, when I worked full-time while carrying a full-time course load. Back then, the stress of it gave me stomach pains, and I carried around a bottle of Pepto Bismol with me everywhere I went. Now, though, I just don't have that same stress.

Thumper keeps me busy while he's awake. On Tuesday, he rolled over back to front on his own for the first time; he grabbed my pants and pulled himself past the previously unconquerable barriers of his arms and shoulders. I said this was cheating, but his Grandma said it was creative problem solving. Yesterday and today, though, he's done it without cheating. Then he finds himself somewhat baffled, arm pinned under his body and butt in the air, so he rolls back over. I'm having a blast watching him figure things out and cheering him on. I thought that there would be a series of quantum leaps in his development, but it turns out it's a longer, slower series of incremental progress. It's a lot of fun to watch.

So we do stay busy playing, but he then he naps four to five hours a day. I was keeping busy during those times mostly with cooking and cleaning and blogging, and while I'm still trying to stay on top of the household routine, I've now been assigned some work-from-home database projects by my former employer. Woo-hoo! Work-from-home pay, the Holy Grail of at-home parenting! And in addition to my weekend ushering, I've also been babysitting my niece and nephew, and SWSIL, Big Brother and I just set up a summer schedule that's going to give me a solid 22 hours per week at precisely the moment that the ushering dries up from a lack of events at the arena, a drought which will last more or less until next basketball season. So while neither the database work or the babysitting are permanent arrangements, they'll certainly help carry us through for now.

What's disconcerting, though, is that I really enjoy all of my jobs now. Ushering is fun in a way that I never expected, because my fast food experience taught me to hate dealing with the general public. Babysitting is fulfilling because I not only get to develop my relationship with my niece and nephew, but I get to watch them develop their relationship with Thumper. And ever since I first started fooling around with Filemaker in 1999, I've loved the mental exercise of attacking a new problem and figuring out how to accomplish it. I love my jobs! I've never been able to say that.

I'm as happy as I've ever been. But I'm just not used to being this positive, so out of habit, I keep telling myself, "Don't count on it; it can't last. Something terrible is going to happen. And soon." It's ridiculous. Mrs. Rodius traveled to San Antonio for her job, and that little part of myself kept whispering, "She'll get into an accident." I was mildly nervous about it all day until she came home. It's kind of like the part of me that sabotages weight-loss success by overeating. Why should I be afraid of happiness and success? Weird, huh?