Before I spend the rest of this post complaining, let me just say that my family is wonderful, and I am blessed to have them.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way…

I am an introvert trapped in a family of extroverts. Yesterday, I tried to explain that I could use a little downtime, which they interpreted to mean, “please leave the kitchen while I cook dinner for all of you.” Which wasn’t really what I meant at all. What I meant was, “please leave the house and find other extroverts to play with for oh, six hours or so, while I finish reading MaddAddam and file my nails and stare off into space, because those are my basic requirements in life.”

There was a time, when Monkey Boy was a baby and waking every 90 minutes (on good nights), when I would look ahead for the next period of uninterrupted sleep. As in: on Tuesday, Min has the afternoon off. It’s only five days away. Maybe I can sleep then.

It’s that time of the summer. I’ve started scanning, a bit desperately, for silence. The monkeys have a playdate one afternoon this week. Only a few days away. Plus there’s always September.

Except when there’s not…

I’m going to read this Carrie Snyder post over and over again, to remind myself there are other women in the world who share my relationship with summer. And I’m going to read it with one child attempting to make cookies for the first time by herself and the other child attempting to spider down the hall without touching the floor (really) and I’m going to imagine all of this happening in some other dimension which doesn’t involve me. Because what’s a writing life for, if one can’t use a little imagination?