School Can't Come Soon Enough

Six days till school starts. I cannot wait. I am feeling like an indentured servant to the giant wrecking ball that is Jacob. We both really need a break from each other and both welcome the structure that school provides.

The awesome special ordered lock that is on our front door, the one we labored over choosing waited and waited for? Its broken. So instead of the convienence that it was providing by keeping Jacob securely inside and safe has now switched to the inconvienence of having no way to get out the front door because it is permanently locked from the inside. We can still open it from the outside, but it has gotten a little uncomfortable to yell to visitors from the window, "just open it! I can't open it from in here!" It seems like the logical solution would be to remove the lock and replace it with a regular doornob, but that makes life equally hard since we have to patrol it 24/7 and we may as well keep this difficulty instead of trading it for and equally annoying new one.

So. For the time being we must exit through the garage. After two weeks of trying to squeeze through the boxes and clutter that mysteriously collects there I spent the day organizing the garage so that there is a stumble-free path to and from the door. That was ok until a couple days ago when Jacob finally figured out how to work the garage door for himself. Even if we lock it with the (patheticly inadequate) child-proof feature he can escape whenever he wants to. I can hear it opening from anywhere in the house (is there ANY insulation??) and run to catch him before he is too far down the street. However, he's so fast, and I'm so not fast, that he has been several houses away knocking on doors and harrassing pets before I catch up.

Whew. Just thinking about it causes me to stress out and loose my breath.

I have respite workers scheduled to come everyday this week. It gives me somewhat of a break to tidy the house and run errands, but it also means one more person I'm concerned about when Jacob goes on the rampage. The lovely young ladies who help me out weigh less than my heavyweight son. He can sit on them and they really can't get up. I've see it happen several times and its not pretty.

The time they spend playing with him and following him around doing damage control is worth it. At least it is to me- they may tell a different story. At least they are getting paid for the abuse whereas I have to take it all day and then snuggle him to sleep which can be emotionally chaotic, switching from being on the defensive to cuddling him to his peaceful slumber where he recharges for another day of being the little dictator.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- It isn't all bad. Life can be rather humorous at the Jones house. You never know what to expect from day to day, and it never gets boring. The way Jacob runs to hug me yelling, "Ma!! Ma!!" whenever I walk in the door, even if I was just outside grabbing the mail, well, that never gets old. And when he kisses me up and down the arm, on both cheeks, and my chin he charms me into overlooking the negative stuff for a while.

He's mine, and I take the good with the bad. But September 9th is going to be AWESOME.