And I’m about battled out about it.

Regardless of what time I actually bring them to their rooms, regardless of the following of routine, my children stay up chatting, giggling, reading, playing with stuffed animals — and, occasionally, arguing, wrestling, and crying. It turns out that melatonin doesn’t really work unless the kids chill after immediately taking it. Taking some, then playing for another 30 minutes — no effect.

I’ve tried getting them to bed around 8 p.m. (always challenging anyway). The usual time I shoot for is 8:30. I’ve even tried pushing it later to 9 p.m. because I know they aren’t going to sleep anyway.

I really flipped out on them Tuesday night because I was exhausted. I got home from soccer and wanted to clock out of being a mommy. However, there was homework to supervise and baths to give and everyone was hungry for a night time treat. At 9:30, the girls had a giant fight in their room, and I went storming up the stairs and screamed like the proverbial fishwife at them.

Super relaxing environment for going to sleep in.

Last night, I went up after the Penguins game, and they were organizing their nightstand drawers.

I mean, come on. I can’t get them to do that when I ask them to on a random Saturday afternoon. Why pick 10 p.m. at night on a Wednesday?

I don’t have any practical way of separating them at bedtime. We could take books and stuffed animals out of their room, but I’m not sure where we would put them in the meantime.

I am out of ideas, and ready to let them just put themselves to bed. As long as they will stay *quietly* in their room from 9 p.m. on, they can stay up as long as they like. (And as long as they don’t wake Michael or keep me up.) That’s not a real practical solution, but the nightly battle has worn me out. Pretty soon, school will be out, the nanny will be coming every day, and they can sleep the mornings away if they want.

Aside: Michael’s been giving me some grief at bedtime, but once he sees I mean business, he settles in for his book and lullaby, and he drops off like a stone. The activity in the evenings and the bath-book-bed routine works so well on toddlers!

What do you do when you don’t want to fight the battle anymore?

I’ve also got a lack of focus problem, and I wonder if that’s part and parcel of just not liking anything right now.

I am simply overwhelmed at work, so the project that I am on that seemed like a challenge at one time, now has my writing brain freeze-locked. It’s just something I’m trying to slog through. I want it to go away. I also want to care about how good it is, but due to the fact that it’s grown from a challenge to an overwhelming, Herculean task, it’s hard to care anymore.

And when I’m not at work — well, we all know the refrain: kids, dinner, homework, soccer, baths, violin, blah blah blah.

I am never signing the girls up for soccer during the same season again. It’s been a nightmare of logistics, and I think the majority of Saturday games, Flora and Kate have been scheduled to play at the exact same time at two different fields. Because of Dan’s schedule, I either plead with my FIL to drive one of the girls or hire the nanny.

Additionally, taking three children to one child’s practice is exhausting. Thank goodness for picnic tables and playgrounds, but I’m constantly running back and forth and up and down between fields and playgrounds.

I’m afraid this lack of pleasure is leading to weight loss. I don’t actually know because I don’t regularly weigh myself. When you don’t have much of an appetite anyway, and nothing tastes good, it is easy to not eat enough. I am eating regularly, just probably not enough.

And reading, while harmless in and of itself, is leading to other problems. Namely, reading has become an escape hatch for me. I’m doing it to turn off my brain, not even for enjoyment anymore! I have to start picking some better stuff, because lately it’s been more about sticking it out to see what actually happens.

Dan and I got into an argument about something recently, and he challenged me: “Are *you* happy?” he asked. And I had to stop and think about it. It’s not that I’m overwhelmingly unhappy. But truth is I don’t have anything enjoyable in my life. I’m getting by with the little things I do have — Black Keys concert, Kentucky trip, dinner with a friend, Flora’s First Holy Communion party, little things my kids do, sex with my husband — but I don’t know that I would classify myself as happy. Overwhelmed, yes. Definitely. I told someone recently that my life is perfectly mundane, just busy. (Very, Very Busy.)

And I’m not really depressed, either. Maybe I have some dysthymia going on? (Although, I have to say, low self esteem is not one of my problems.)

Then again, maybe this is how it goes. Life, I mean. I don’t really have anything to bitch about.

If nothing else, at least I have something else to bring up in therapy.

2. Things making me pretty happy lately: Pittsburgh Penguins playoff hockey. My new pants.

3. One thing really making me unhappy lately: that I can’t seem to string together blog posts. It seems that my blogging is in a very unsustainable state at this point. Been here before, to be sure.

4. Mother’s Day for me was so-so. I managed to get a pedicure and do quite a bit of reading. (Current novel: NOS4ATU by Joe Hill.)

5. Joe Hill looks a lot like his father.

6. Need to get my hands on a non-fiction book next. Thinking of looking for Sugar, Salt, Fat at the library. Anyone read it yet?

7. The Ford Flex is a gas hog. This is not surprising.

8. I haven’t been crazy about much music in 2013 so far, but this is what I do like: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs new album Mosquito, and Vampire Weekend’s new single “Diane Young” (album due out today).

That’s all I got today. How about you?

As we were leaving, a woman behind me remarked how brave I must be to be shopping alone with three kids. I said, “Brave or crazy.” She laughed. “Well, have a happy Mother’s Day anyway.”

It made me feel kind of good.

I’m not getting the “Oh gawd I HATE Mother’s Day” sentiment that seems to be rampant on the Interwebz these days — even from some fellow moms. It just reads like the hipster thing of the day.

It’s similar to the angst I see (and have felt) surrounding St. Valentine’s Day. “It’s a Hallmark holiday!” (Almost literally true about Mother’s Day. Even the woman who got it made into a national holiday in the United States ended up hating how commercial it was by 1920.)

I can understand ambivalent feelings about Mother’s Day. I have my own complicated feelings about it due to my experience of being a baby loss mother. And I can even understand the scorn heaped on it by women who are not mothers (understand it, but not accept it — I mean if you hate it so much, just let it go. Is it worth it to get so very riled up about “push presents’ — which I agree are icky — or brunches?) I, myself, don’t like the huge gift expectations that the day has engendered in the past few years.

If your relationship with your own mom is complicated, well that’s a whole ‘nother story. I, fortunately, don’t have a complicated relationship with my mother. She is a good mom, and she’s a great Nonna, and although our relationship has never been an entirely smooth road, it’s been important to me and how I see myself as a woman and as a mother.

As always, I told Dan for Mother’s Day, I just don’t want to do anything. (I will end up doing something.) Church with my family, a brunch I don’t have to slave over and/or clean up; ditto dinner. Homemade cards from the kids. I did ask Dan for perfume (and told him what kind). I won’t be devastated if I don’t get it.

(I will be seeing my mom Saturday evening; if my MIL wants to join us for dinner on Sunday, I’m all for it. I’m just not doing the planning. Cards will be distributed. Possibly chocolate chip banana bread, too, but I’m not promising anything. Depends on soccer.)

No matter what kind of mom you are (and there are so many kinds of moms!), I hope someone, somewhere, wishes you a happy Mother’s Day. And I hope that you can accept it for what it is.

Do you hate Mother’s Day? Why? If not, what are the reasons you like it? I like it because I like my mom, my MIL, and my kids. I’m pretty blessed as a woman, and that’s what I try to remember every day, not just on Mother’s Day.

My husband and I looked very stylish.

I apologize if you are blinded by my lily-white legs. And even when those shoes started to hurt my feet, I was still happy to be where we were.

It’s fun to try new things.

For the record, we were not there on Derby Day. We went the day before, and saw The Kentucky Oaks, which is the filly-only race. And lots of other races.

We had great seats. That is the starting gate for the Oaks.

The next day, we got off to a late, lazy start. We only made it to one distillery. But it was a good one!

Left to right: Maker’s Mark original, Maker’s Mark 46, Maker’s Mark Mint Julep (only available in Kentucky).

And Dan got to hand dip his very own bottle.

Good friends, good drinks, good times. I may have to write a bucket list someday if only to put this past weekend’s activities on it to cross them out.

When’s the last time you did something for the first time?

And I mean The Blues, Delta *and* Chicago: Little Walter, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Sonhouse, Sonny Boy Williamson. More than I can name, that’s for sure. He texted me this at the Black Keys concert last night:

“Tomorrow (that is today, May 1) is Little Walter Jacobs‘ birthday. I’m standing at the Black Keys concert with 4-5 drinks in me wondering what Little Walter or Muddy would think of this music.”

I think the bluesmen that Dan idealizes (and rightfully so) would be pleased with their legacy. Isn’t that a saying somewhere: “The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll”? Dan rides my ass a little bit about the “bluesy rock” I like these days — think 21st century acts like White Stripes and Raconteurs (so, Jack White), The Black Keys, and Americana bands like Lumineers and Mumford & Sons.

But he’s a good sport, and loves live music (and me!), so he was more than happy to take in the Black Keys’ show. I think the Keys’ Auerbach and Carney do their forebears proud.

(The Flaming Lips… Oh, Wayne Coyne, you are wonderfully weird, and I would’ve loved for you to play a little bit longer in your opening set. The eyeball/vagina video was a little freaky, even for someone like me who was expecting freakiness. My brother summed you up so well in this text: “If this guy worked at a gas station, dressed like that, and holding a baby doll, he’d be institutionalized. He’d be awesome, but institutionalized.” Thank God for art school, rock and roll, and America, baby.)

The Black Keys hit it hard from start to finish, even when the beginning of “Little Black Submarines” slowed the pace briefly. They charged right into “Howlin’ for You” and pretty much didn’t let up until the end of their two-song encore. I saw Patrick Carney lose his glasses at least twice.

As Scott Mervis observes in the Post-Gazette (and as I said to my husband last night): Carney is no Neil Peart. I like Carney’s style of drumming: passionate, flailing limbs, pounding the fuck out of his kit. He’s probably one of the least flashy drummers I’ve ever seen.

Dan Auerbach seems to be just as raw sometimes on guitar. After the first few songs, Dan turned to me and said, “That guy would hate this, but he’s a rock and roll star.” By the end of the encore, Dan revised himself: “Nope, I think he totally knows he’s a rock star, and loves it.” Even in jeans and a tee shirt, Auerbach adds a sly showmanship to his bludgeoning guitar licks and strutting.

Highlights of the show for me: When Auerbach shooed Gus Seyffert and John Wood off the stage to launch into a handful of two-man rockers, starting with the power of “Thickfreakness”. “Your Touch” was a pounding, relentless number that recalled the Keys’ roots as a club band. I liked that even in a sold-out arena, Auerbach and Carney were able to capture that early intimacy when it was just the two of them in a bar somewhere in Ohio.

They brought Seyffert and Wood back for “Little Black Submarines”, a tight rendition of the ballad-into-explosive rocker. And while “Ten Cent Pistol” isn’t one of my favorites, the live version blew it out of the water.

The Black Keys faithfully delivered on their big hits, too: “Gold on the Ceiling”, “Tighten Up”, and show closer (before the encore) “Lonely Boy.” While I would’ve loved a four-song encore, this is a minor quibble with a show that satisfied me — well, right down to my soles. Auerbach’s falsetto on “Everlasting Light” was *flawless*, and they poured everything they had into the grand finale “I Got Mine” — one of my personal favs.

Both bands could’ve played longer as far as I was concerned. As I said in my three-word Twitter review: MORE BLACK KEYS. And as I said to Dan as I reluctantly left the Consol Center: “We’ll be seeing them again.”

BUT, while I fully expect to hear nearly the entirety of Brothers and El Camino tomorrow night at the Black Keys concert, here are the five other tracks that I would love, love, love to hear them do live this show:

Set You Free
I Got Mine
Have Love Will Travel
Your Touch
I’ll Be Your Man

In that order.

1. M’s had diarrhea for more than a week now. God bless my in-laws who have had him yesterday and today.

No fever. Absolutely no loss of energy. Sleeping well, and taking nice naps. His appetite maybe isn’t up to snuff, but he’s kind of a picky eater anyway. He’ll pick at one or two meals, and then inhale All The Things. I have him on a very bland diet — bananas, rice, tofu, plain bread, yogurt.

I am really hoping things, er, solidify, so by tomorrow he can go back to daycare. Although, let’s face it, he probably picked this up there.

Sometimes, you can’t win.

2. Flora’s First Holy Communion is this weekend. What a lot of planning that has taken! Knock on wood, but we are all set except for ordering the cake.

I had a nightmare Wednesday morning that it was the Saturday of Flora’s FHC. We had completely forgotten to get a cake, and we were running late already. I got Flora to the event, which was set at my old grade school. At some point, the dream morphed into a war in which me and about six other people were defending the kids and families at the communion from attack. Instead of St. George’s cafeteria, we were in an apocalyptic landscape running for our lives from these mercenaries.

What, me worry?

3. Dan, on Tuesday, right before we walked into a car dealership showroom: “We’re not going to buy a car today.”

Four hours later, we signed the paperwork on this:

God bless my husband. He trusts me.

That nut.

4. I have to pick a dress to wear for Saturday. And pick something to wear to the Black Keys concert Tuesday. And pack for Kentucky that weekend. And pack bags for the kids to stay with Dr. Bro and his sainted wife (and their four boys). And buy a hat for the Kentucky Oaks.

Life is an adventure, people. You can either embrace it or suck it up, and sometimes, which just depends on the situation.

What’s next for you?

According to the ABC poll, Americans believe guns make homes safer, 51 to 29 percent (gun owners, not surprisingly, believe it more, with a result of 75 percent).

The key word here is “believe”.

Here’s the thing: Science proves these people wrong: Gun owners are 4.5 times more likely to be shot, shows this 2009 study.

So along with creationist proponents and climate change deniers, we now have another group of people who don’t care what science says. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some overlap in these groups.

I don’t mind the reporting of the poll results. That’s all fine. However, if we are going to say “people believe” can we please also say “studies in fact show”? Is that so hard?

In lieu of a spluttering rant about the Senate defeat of gun control measures, which happened in the middle of last week, which was just horrible pretty much all the way around (The Onion pretty much nails it), I send you to Carpetbagger, who said it better (and more calmly) than I could.

I will keep saying this: The status quo on guns in this country cannot stand. If Congress won’t do its job to make us safer because of the NRA and gun lobby, then they need to be fired. I bet it’ll make the economy improve, too. Just a feeling.

1. I got up and worked out.

Full disclosure: I only got up because at 6-6:15 a.m., I wasn’t sleeping anyway. Kate had come into our bed about 20 minutes earlier and woke me up. On one hand, I didn’t want to leave my bed. On the other hand, Kate is not a cuddly or quiet sleeping companion. Finally, a few minutes after 6, I realized I would be getting up shortly anyway. May as well try to do something constructive with that time.

More disclosure: I would not rate it as one of my better attempts at working out. I’m still figuring out what is on my On Demand channels. I am looking for Pilates or upper body workouts that are under 30 minutes. I need to up my cardio, too, but for now I think I will try to walk/run more often, especially playing outside with the kids.

The real trick will be to see if I can make this a regular habit.

2. I went to my first therapy appointment.

Now, there’s a lot I can say about this, but I’m just going to highlight a few things.

First, I only cried twice. The first instance I teared up took me off guard. As I said at the time to the therapist (she’s a Licensed Counselor, not a Ph.D.), “And now I’m crying for some reason.” The second instance I had felt coming for a long time and I cried because I was able to finally, finally say something out loud in a safe space. It’s a terrifying admission (and, no, dear readers, I cannot as of yet confess it here), and I got to say it without repercussions. The tears were as much for the terror as for the relief.

Second, I asked about medication more out of curiosity than anything else. Medication would not be my first choice to deal with the things I am dealing with (an “overwhelming life” as one of my close friends put it later), but I wanted to know what the therapist thought. (I am going to have to come up with a name or initial to refer to My Therapist here… MT? LC?)

Paraphrasing: “I usually suggest medication when I don’t hear any hope. You don’t sound hopeless. You’ve described a very happy, full life. You recognize your blessings. You’re just having troubles with some very specific issues.”

I concur.

Third, she asked what I would change about my life, what would make it easier. I answered without hesitation, “Working part time.” So there you go.

We set up another time to meet, and we will probably meet every two weeks for a while. She also gave me homework (a writing assignment!), which I appreciate.

3. I got a haircut and style, for which I was overdue.

Every little bit helps.

++

With all that out of the way: What a week. My most sincere prayers go out to everyone affected by the tragedies in Boston and West, Texas.

What did you do that was good for you this week, readers?