How do we get back to normal?

I haven't posted anything in a week because the last one was a doozy. The girls were both on spring break, all four of us came down with a killer head cold, and bombs went off at the Boston Marathon prompting a day-long manhunt which shut down our city.

I have dreaded returning here, feeling that I couldn't go on writing about our day-to-day without even a single nod to current events, but I just don't want to process it at that level. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about it all, but too much has already been said about it in the media and I despise the way people wallow in the drama and tumult of these kinds of events. I'll just never be the type of person who wants to get weepy and attend candle-light vigils for people I never even knew. I am human, so of course it touched me, but thankfully, truthfully, in reality, it didn't actually touch me or my family at all. I mostly just want to feel gratitude for that.

So now we are struggling to get back into the swing of our school drop-off-and-pick-up, show-and-tell-on-Tuesday and homework-due-on-Thursday schedule. Although we feel better during the day, we all do a lot of coughing in the night, and both the girls are extra tired and cranky having to get up on time in the morning and be busy all day. But it feels good to have a routine again, and they are happy to be back with all their friends on the playground.

We're doing math worksheets and laundry. We're making tacos and painting the closet doors. We're writing checks for the last month of preschool tuition and closing costs on the mortgage refi. We're playing My Little Pony. We're running errands and getting groceries. We're going to our dentist appointments. We're drinking coffee and reading books. The same old-same old never looked so good.