Woke up this morning feeling unusually shiny and optimistic. As the fabulous moms of my momslist like to say, This Too Shall Pass.

The firstborn continues to be a pill. Some of it is lack of sleep from attending the Orthodox funfest this weekend. She's the canary in the coal mine: her system is just more sensitive; everything affects it more. She does verbalize her feelings well, whcih sometimes cracks me up. The last two days I've been subjected to the following gems: "Mom, I know I love you, but right now I also feel like I hate you." Couldn't even get mad. And "I'm in a really bad mood, but I'm not sure why." I always end up mumbling any of the following bits of poetry about her: "Age cannot wither, nor custom stale/Her infinite variety," and "Shine out little head, sunning over with curls/Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls," the latter of which is, I know, slightly misquoted. And "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burned the topless towers of Ilium?/.../And all is dross that is not Helena/.../O thou art fairer than the evening air/Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." Fortunately, her first name scans with Helena pretty well; it is a name I almost had.