Tuesday Meld

I am all betwixt and between today. Our new au pair, the lovely Swiss, arrived on Thursday. She couldn't make a better first impression. The kids adore her, fight over her, won't leave her alone. Meanwhile, my terror that she will implode from bucolic boredeom is manifesting by giving me the most intense feelings I've yet had that this has all been a terrible, disastrous, ill-considered, cliff-jumping, um, mistake. "This" being the family rural relocation, of course.

Mind you, I don't really think we've done the wrong thing--it's great here. (Fall, anyone? It is truly divine.) We are finally making real friends. Dido loves his school so much we wonder what the heck was the matter with the old one. The Babe is, well, The Babe--demanding, opinionated, prone to screaming temper tantrums, preferably in restaurants, and so obscenely cute that we forgive her all of it. The H is happier than I think I have ever seen him--calm, less moody (really! LESS MOODY!), loving and focused on his work. And I--I feel like the same disorganized flake I was before. Aha. My old shrink warned me about this. She told me when I announced our plans that she thought I was just changing venue in the hope of escaping the bag of flabby demons I have slung over my shoulder at any given time. I feel like Anne LaMott trying to write her school report, before her dad gave her (and she internalized) the "bird by bird" advice.

Any advice out there for me?