coming up for air...and grapes

I am so woefully behind in my reading. Okay, so I was behind from the first second of this semester, or so I feel, yet this is not a consoling thought. I keep having to remind myself that three-and-a-half months from now, this constriction in every part of my body might let up a wee smidge.

I have been frantically reading for several hours now. Well, reading and being a mamma and a wife and an everything else. After I gave Pic her bath, brushed her teeth, helped her on with her pajamas and put her to bed, she called me in to read her a story. I, being the frantic, frazzled freak that I am, went in and told her, 'Okay, but this is the last time I'm coming in here tonight, unless there's an emergency, like you're bleeding or your legs falls off.' (Yeah, I know, thanks for the nightmare-fodder, mamma.) So, I read her The Berenstain Bears Tell the Truth and then I left her to wind down so I could retreat to my cave and fall back into Renaissance Self-Fashioning. But then, she didn't ask me to come back in once, just as I'd asked of her. This would be nice -- hey, thanks for following my crabby directives, kid -- but she didn't call me in to sing "ABCs" and "Twinkle, Twinkle." This is our nightly ritual and has been for years (holy crap-on-a-stick, I can use the term 'years' in talking about rituals I perform with my daughter). But, tonight, she just went to sleep, cuddled in her covers, her light on and a book open under it. It's not like we've never missed our ritual before (there were those four non-consecutive nights when I've been out of town without her), but I'm still sad. There have been other times when Cardo's sung to her, but she didn't call for him tonight either. There have been other nights when she's fallen asleep and not asked me to sing to her, but tonight just feels different, worse (this is probably how I feel on all of those occasions and I've just forgotten this).

I don't want her to feel alone and I don't want her to feel like she's a distant second to my school work. However, tonight, I was more focused on my school stuff. In the grand scheme, my family is first and, honestly, it's probably really Pic first and then Cardo. However, in the everyday workings of things, there are things that I feel I have to get accomplished and Pic has to entertain herself. I don't think this would bother me as much if I were at a job outside of my home and she was being taken care of by someone else (Cardo, her teachers, whoever), but being at home with her and pretty much ignoring her makes me feel like Craptastic Mamma. I don't know where I picked up this heavy, heavy guilt, but I'd like to offload a good portion of it, please. I think that, in general, Pic is happy. I think that I take pretty good care of her. I think that this semester won't last forever (but, really, maybe it will, because there will always, always be another one in my grand life-plan).

Ah, well, I don't even have cry here any longer because As You Like It awaits my scholarly gaze.