without my laptop

It may seem that I have been on a long hiatus from blogging, but in reality, my daily allowed minutes in front of a computer screen have been drastically forced to a halt.  My 3-year-old son spilled an entire bottle of bubble solution onto the keyboard of my laptop computer a week and a half ago.

I kept my laptop in my kitchen, next to my books and directly above my two "everything drawers."  It was my office, essentially. I would throw everything into that little corner of the kitchen, and later into those two drawers whenever company was coming.  It was my place of sanity and retreat, right in the middle of my life, my everything, the kitchen where I spend hours every day, the room where the kids play, next to their toys and the sliding glass door to the backyard where the kids entered and exited throughout the day.  I could easily type up some thoughts, edit them at my leisure.  I could pay bills, google, organize myself.  I didn't have to run upstairs to my bedroom to sit in front of our desktop computer, with four kids following me, wondering what I was doing, and then rapidly finding some mischief to get into.

The other day while I was looking up locations of strawberry farms, u-pick hours, recipes for strawberry freezer jam, details, etc. my kids started a game all together on my husband's lazy-boy chair in our bedroom.  There were blankets involved, lots of screaming.  And suddenly the game morphed into combining all of the blankets from everyone's beds to form a soft landing as they launched themselves off of my bed.  Then, my daughter's CD player appeared as they started an exercise routine on top of my bed, my 8-year-old son calling out the workout, as the soundtrack from the movie, High School Musical, blasted everyone's ears.  As my 1-year-old and 3-year-old sons caused the deterioration of their synchrony, my bed became a trampoline instead.  At my insistence that they utilize our actual trampoline, directly outside our back door, for a trampoline, they gathered the blankets to create a soft landing at the bottom of the stairs and grabbed my 1-year-old son's mattress off of his toddler bed to use as a sled on the staircase.  The last game lasted for hours, long after I dressed, did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and prepared to go strawberry picking together.

I was amazed by their ingenuity, but reminded of why I just don't blog any more.  I need to find a rhythm, a way to blog at night, on my desktop computer when my body and brain are exhausted and uncreative.  I have to do it - my sanity relies on my ability to do so.