Sunny, today. Birds outside the window here, chirping. I noticed the birds not chirping the past few months. Glad they're back. Looks like the ground is warming. Plants should be popping up soon.

The birds chirping. I try to keep that peaceful sound turned on, to keep me calm, to ward off any sudden FREAKOUT, which I am prone to, or think I am. It's impossible to write here, nowadays. The kids see me sitting at my desk and it is an invitation to them to come tug on me, ask me useless questions, or invite me to accomplish certain tasks. ("Daddy, will you put the shoes on my Caroline doll?") Lincoln, who is all of one years old, sidles up and wipes his nose on my leg, which is precisely why I didn't change out of my pajama bottoms, earlier. Then he reaches up and grabs the corner of the keyboard323323333l33k223233/3//3/3/3////////////////333. Then he moves around and empties everything off the shelf near my foot. (I have long since removed everything important from the shelf, and piled on it old scratched CDs and empty DVD cases.) And then another kid comes in and pushes my chair, which spins and is on wheels. (It was, at one time, a fine feature, but it is now the source of a niggling stress, and I could really use a cold hard, heavy dark mahogany chair, nailed to the floor.) And then the little guy wanders down the hall and into the other room, and I have to keep one ear open for the discordant sounds of mischief making, or even a dreaded prolonged SILENCE, which always works to get me up out of the chair and investigate. And so I can't concentrate, as I wait for the *kerplop* of something going into the toilet, or the rustle of kitty litter, (not from the cats) or the unrolling of an entire bat of toilet tissue. Objects randomly tossed over the gate and down the stairs just to watch them fall, I can handle. But it's the crying -THE CRYING- that stops everything, elevates my blood pressure, and just plain gets in the way of everything else I was pretending was important.

And it drowns out the birds chirping.

~