Smotherhood

So last week was a big deal.

A big deal for me.

My son took his first trip without us, and according to my anxiety levels, this was a very big deal.

Just when I think I've got this parenting thing down, my parents inform me that for my son's 13th birthday , they would like to plan a trip with him.  On every level, this is a wonderful, generous and amazing idea.  So why does it feel like someone is ripping my heart out?

They decided on The Grand Canyon.  Once plans came together, the three of them would be landing in Las Vegas, driving to The Hoover Dam, and then off to The Grand Canyon.  They would then head back to Vegas, go to The Gold and Silver Pawn Shop ( from Pawn Stars on TV, my son loves that show) and see The Blue Man Group.  Amazing trip, I was jealous!

I took my son aside at the beginning of the week and told him that no matter how I was acting emotionally, I was  freaking the f*&% out thrilled for him. I knew he would be safe and have the trip of a lifetime.  I told him that even though I knew it would be fine, it was still the first time and it was a milestone I had to go through.  I assured him that there would be many other milestones I would be freaking out about, so by the time he gets married he'll be immune to it.

To make things a little more complicated, my husband was away for work.  I originally thought that I wouldn't have been as emotional if he had been home, but I think we all know that's not the case.  I actually think I was a little stronger, if he had been here, he would have been strong and I would have been completely free to fall apart. 

I also didn't want him to see me upset when he was leaving.  I was actually really proud of how I was handling myself when my dad came to pick him up, I didn't count on my sweet sentimental daughter sending me over the edge.

She had been so sweet to him all week.  She was so excited for him.  Then as he was about to get in the car with my dad, she says, "Goodbye J, I'll always remember how much I love you."

It was sincere and sweet, but had this "final" vibe around it that tapped into the deepest darkest fears I had been stuffing down all week.  I felt the lump in my throat, tears welling up...this was going to get ugly.

I think she knew.  I don't know how, at 7, you could know, but I think even she knew that it sounded sad and final.  She turned around, eyes big and filling with tears the second I picked her up she broke down.

We hastily waved goodbye to my dad and son and I took her in to comfort her.  She cried for such a long time.  I guess the good thing was, I knew exactly how she felt.  I didn't have to reassure her too much , I just had to let her cry it out until all the anxiety went away. 

It also put me in the position of being the strong one.  Imagine that. 

Now that he's home and I've heard how amazing the trip was, it seems like a lifetime ago that I was all worked up about this.  I knew I could do it,  but I still had to get through it.  Hmmm, that sounds a little Suess-y, but you get what I mean. 

Minivan Confessions

There are many reasons why I did not want a minivan.

Then I sat in one , drove one, and fell in love. The 3rd seat folds into the floor people!   I don't care if it looks uncool, I can pack ANYTHING in there.  I can give anyone rides to places.   Also, I'm 38, a mom of 2 and I really don't give a crap if my car is cool or not.

When we first got Ol' Blue, my daughter sat in the second row, which was nice enough to have built in car seats, and my son always headed for the third row.  When he was in the third row,  he was in his own world.  It's really hard to hear back there, and vice versa, its hard for me to hear him from the front.

I kind of missed him a little, but since he's turned 13 and is allowed to sit in the front seat, I've been spending a little more time with him.  When he gets home from school, I usually ask the normal questions, "How was your day?", " Did anything fun and exciting happen today?"  For some reason, I have not found the greatest time to ask these questions.  I have tried right after school , when everything is fresh in his mind, or later in the day when he's had some time to relax a little.  I get the standard, "good" or "nothing". Ah well.

However, since the front seat ban was lifted, I have noticed that he just offers up information all on his own.  It's great, I'm not pulling it out of him, he's just telling me the highlights or low lights of his day.  We've had some great conversations, sometimes it's about school issues, sometimes its about Star Wars.  I love them all.

My daughter has also been taking advantage of minivan confession time.  When it's just her and I and it's quiet, she'll let me know her concerns and fears.  It's really an amazing thing because my daughter seems so sure of herself and confident, I was really taken aback when I realized that she actually has a lot of anxiety.

She has recently shared with me that she stresses out about each and every paper that she does in school.  She is so worried that she might get something wrong.  I was shocked.  We are so laid back about grades (she's in first grade!) and as far as I knew , we weren't putting any pressure on her to be the best or perfect.

I asked her if she felt pressure from us and she said "no."  I asked her why she felt so nervous about getting something wrong, told her that mistakes are how we learn, and reassured her that we are always proud of her as long as she's learning, it's not about the grade, it's about learning.

Her reply, "Mom, you should know by now, I like to do things and I like to be good at them."

Busted!  I do know this about her, but for some reason I had only applied it to physical things, like dance, riding a bike, softball, etc.  It hadn't occurred to me that she was like this about everything.  See?  She even wants to be good at parenting herself.

Though I think that this work ethic will serve her well in life, I hate that at 7 she's putting so much pressure on herself.   She appears so happy and carefree all the time, as a mom, it hurts to think she's struggling and anxious on the inside. 

I think our minivan chats help her.  I almost want to take a "Hey Baby, school is groovy, who cares about grades?" attitude with her. (When reading that quote, you should probably use Shaggy's voice from Scooby-Doo, it helps), but I know it's just going to take time until she's comfortable and confident.  I almost can't wait until she maybe gets a bad grade on something and learns it's not the end of the world, is that wrong?

I know someday, I will say goodbye to the minivan, but I will always cherish all the wonderful wonderful talks I have had with my kids in there and I will never regret becoming a suburban stereotype.

Apologies

So sorry I didn't write more this week.  It was an overwhelming week for me. 

I am happy to say I survived it and will definitely be writing about it next week after a much needed long weekend with my family. 

I hope you all have a wonderful kick off to summer weekend!!

Tears Of A Clown

I have a weakness for comedians.

I am attracted to funny, I always have been.  Making me laugh is the way to my heart.

Most of my celebrity crushes are on funny men. 

As most "True Hollywood" stories go, comedians tend to be a little messed up.  You know, they use the humor as a way to cope with their problems, which leads to success and trouble.

So, since I am a happily married woman, and I have no plans on becoming a celebrity stalker,  I tend to worry about these funny men.

I love Alec Baldwin, I hate some of the things he's done, like the infamous phone call he made to his daughter, but I have such a weakness for him.  There's a scene in "It's Complicated" where he makes the saddest face, it makes me cry every time.  I feel like in that moment he's not acting, he's definitely reflecting on something.  It's the dumbest thing really, but I'm a worrier, its what I do.

This past Saturday, "Saturday Night Live" aired its season finale.  At the end, they did a little musical goodbye number to say goodbye to Kristen Wiig.  I was so distracted by Jason Sudeikis throughout the entire thing.  He looked devastated.  I know there are rumors that he won't be returning next year. so I thought he may have been emotional at first.  As the number went on he faded further and further to the back and just looked miserable.

The thing is, it's two days later and I'm still worried about him.  Nothing short of him releasing a statement saying, "Got emotional the other night, everything's great though." will ease my mind.  We had just recently watched an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are" that featured him and his family history.  It was so sweet to watch him interact with his dad on the show.  I think that's why it keeps making me think of him.

I will admit to actually "Googling"  about this and I was pleased to see that I was not the only one who noticed (despite what my hubby thought lol.)  A lot of people saw the same thing and I was so glad I wasn't alone.  This person broke it all down and even had theories.  It's just comforting to know I wasn't the only one who noticed. 

Anyway, that's what's on my mind today.  I swear I'm not a crazy stalker.  Really, I'm not.

That's Not My Name

Some days I am not sure why I bothered to name my children.

In our family we use nicknames.  A lot.

We made a list last night and my daughter wins.  We realized that she has about 20 nicknames that we use for her, depending on the situation.

Most of the nicknames have nothing at all to do with her name.  We most commonly refer to her as Lulu.  From Lulu, there are many variations.  There is Lew, Lewis, Lewbert Q. Jones, Lou Bamboo and Lewis Bamboo-iss.

When she is particularly clumsy, she  is Mary-Katherine Gallagher.  When she gets out of the tub, she puts her hair in a towel wrap and calls herself Tiny Punjab.( I assure you , this is purely innocent and named after a character from Annie, a movie we love)  Her brother calls her Mavis-Bavis when she's being difficult and Little Mommy when she's being ..well, a little mommy.

 My son's nicknames are mostly name related.  for those of you who know him, we add "attack" and "a-roni and cheese" to his name.  I also call him Doodle, which I think he's starting to feel like he's outgrown.

When I was pregnant, we called my son Yolkie, we called my daughter Wormie.  We all have code names too.  Most of the names are from old movies.  My husband is Chappy Sinclair, I am Fanny Skeffington, my son is Boots Malone and my daughter is Sassafrass Jones.

It's so funny to me that we use these names all the time, it's just normal for us.  Sometimes when we're out and about, a nickname slips out and it's so funny to see people react.  I once I called my daughter Lewie at a soccer game and people assumed her name was Louise.  After telling them her real name, I got that look, its just to hard to explain.

There's an ice cream place in town called "Swirls and Scoops" and my husband and daughter always joke that it's called "Scoops and Poops" which has now somehow become the name of their detective team with my husband taking the name Scoops and leaving my daughter to be Poops.  They think it's hilarious. 

 I come from a family of nicknamers.  My dad hasn't called my mom by her real name in years, we used to call my sister "Bean" and even my dog had nicknames.  My husband used to make up nicknames for himself (which is where I think my daughter gets it, they are so alike!)  I've heard stories of him telling his family that they were to call him "Sonny" from now on after watching a Burt Reynolds movie and I believe he also gave himself the name Kid Celsius. 

I hope my kids will continue to love their nicknames and I am keeping the list we made so that someday I can look back and see what a bunch of goofballs we were.

Cool It Now

Ugh.

I completely lost my cool yesterday.

I hate when that happens.

My son made a mistake yesterday.  A big one.  He opened the door when he was home alone.  He knew who was on the other side, however, this is a huge no-no.

On the other side was "Eddie Haskell".  I really don't want to get into all the details on this kid, but lets just say, we have tried, VERY HARD, to cut all ties with him.

So, my son opened the door, while he was home alone , to someone we have avoided like the plague and basically made it so that I would have to get involved with this kid again. 

I freaked out.

I do not like to yell.  I yelled.

I do not like to threaten.  I threatened.  (Not physical harm, things like "no video games ever again" and "grounded for life")

When I was finally able to get over my anger, I was able to explain to my son that my anger came from fear.  Granted Eddie Haskell is not a threat to my son, but what if it wasn't him.

His reply was that he looked out the windows on the side of the door and knew who it was.  I came at him with, "What if it had been anyone else?  What was your plan?  You have totally given yourself away by peeking out the window, what would you have done if someone had been there asking if your mom was home!!"  This was all said in some sort of high pitched voice that was almost unrecognizable.

Regarding the Eddie Haskell situation, I made my son make an awkward and uncomfortable phone call, he actually thanked me for making him do it.  I think he learned something about sticking up for himself and handling an uneasy situation.  He told me that he was happy he did it and even though it was hard, it wasn't as bad as he thought.

I was so proud of him and yet still so disappointed about the whole "opening the door" incident.

After venting to my husband, we decided that making the phone call took care of the situation, but we could not let the door opening go.  He is not allowed to stay home alone anymore until he earns our trust again.  This means he'll have to tag along to his sister's dance classes, can't stay back when I need to pop over to the grocery store, and yes, he may even have to accompany me to the ...gasp! ...craft store.

I really think a week or so of this will drive the point home.  He really does feel bad. 

So do I.  I really wish when something like this happens, I was able to calm myself and have a rational discussion, but when something seems unsafe and scares me, I react.  I'm human, I guess it's ok. 

I called a good friend about the incident and she actually congratulated me (she knows my history of not yelling).  She told me that sometimes our kids need to know how serious something is. 

My son is totally fine with everything , we had a nice follow-up discussion about everything today.  He seems to be handling it all and hopefully I'll be able to do the same.

A Mother Of A Day

This Mother's day may have been my favorite.

After a hectic week, I think we all needed a fantastic day.

We got one.

I woke up, we had a nice morning, coffee, breakfast and a few gifts.

The kids got me some new fancy flip-flops and Just Dance 3 for the PS3.  I guess when they all went shopping together, the kids were certain that I would love the game.  My husband wasn't so sure and kept the receipt handy just in case.  I was thrilled.  Some of the songs are hilarious and so much fun to dance to.  We spent some time dancing to a few of our favorites and then I was told to go and get ready.

We all jumped in the car and we were off...to Maine!

I guess the kids didn't know where we were going either, so it was super exciting when they realized where we were.

We did a little shopping, then had a yummy lunch at Bob's Clam Hut.  I have been going there since I was a little girl, but I never got anything "seafood" there until I was an adult.  It's such a tradition for us to go there,  I love that we are sharing that with our kids.

Then, we drove up to the beach.  It's so nice to be up there on a nice day before the parking meters are running and everything is busy and crowded.  We set up near a small river area and my kids ran around like lunatics. 

My husband had brought a kite and a frisbee and we had lots of fun and laughs attempting to be good at both.  It was so breezy that if you didn't catch the frisbee, it would roll and roll in all sorts of crazy directions and circles.  It was so funny watching the kids chase after it.  ( Yes, the kids..the parents knew to conserve their energy)

After we had enough sun and sand we headed back towards the outlets.  I'm not much of a shopper, but I did manage to get a couple of things.  The kids were so good the whole time.  I didn't want to push my luck, so we decided that it was probably time to head home.

We were still content from our lunch, but knew we'd be getting hungry.  My husband suggested ice cream for dinner.  The kids and I may have actually applauded the idea.  We sat and had our ice cream, my husband went and grabbed a couple of coffees for he and I and we all commented that even though it had just been a handful of hours and a small distance from home, it felt like we had just taken a vacation

It was exactly what we all needed.  I will remember it always.

Perfection.

Thai Me Up

No, this isn't about 50 Shades of Grey, tsk tsk...such a dirty mind you have.

I am not always adventurous when it comes to food.  It's not because I'm afraid I won't like it, I'm okay with that.  I am more afraid of not knowing what to order.

The last time I went to a Thai restaurant, I was 18 years old, in San Francisco with my 2 cousins.  I was not an adventurous eater, I hated anything spicy, so I'm pretty sure I had steamed chicken wrapped in banana leaves.  It wasn't a great endorsement to ever go back.

Today my husband was back from his work trip and decided to take me out to lunch.  He didn't tell me where we were going.  We pulled in to the parking lot and in the tradition of "keeping it real" on here, I will admit to this embarrassing conversation.

Me- "Wait , what? No!  I don't know what to get here!  This is the worst idea ever!"
Him- "We'll figure it out..don't worry" ( I worry)
Me- "No, I meant someday, as in I need some time to Google this and ask around, I'm not ready!"
Him- "We will figure this out together, it will be fine"

Even as I'm panicking, I realize I'm acting like a lunatic.  I was the one who said a few weeks ago that I wanted to try Thai food.  He's the one doing exactly what I asked for. This is like Haley's comet! I should shut my mouth.  Now.

My fear is based from that feeling that people have been eating this for awhile now and living out in the burbs with kids , I am not always exposed to different cuisine.  I assume that all the cool people know what to get , so I think that when I get into the restaurant it will just be a bunch of words that mean nothing to me.

Of course, this menu had descriptions on it. I worried for nothing.  I think I was safe in my choices, but I loved everything that I had.  I even tasted some of my husband's soup which sounded disgusting, but was very tasty.  I am looking forward to exploring the menu ( I took like 3 menus home, so I can study them, I'm not completely cured) and I really am thankful to my husband for a great idea.

I am willing to hear suggestions on foods to try....anyone?  anyone??

Did That Just Happen?

10pm- Have trouble falling asleep because traveling husbands give me insomnia.  Well my traveling husband anyway, I actually sleep pretty well when other husbands are traveling.

11pm- fall asleep...ahhhhh

4am- "What the heck is that noise?  Oh my daughter coughing, still coughing....cough cough coughing"

4:30am- Listen to daughter ask lots of questions, reply with vague mumbling and non-committal answers like "sure, maybe the moon would be a good vacation"

5:00am- Turn on Phinneas and Ferb and thank the TV people for inventing cable and 24 hour cartoons.

5:30am- Realize that we've both fallen asleep, turn TV off.

6:35am- Hit "dismiss" on my cell phone alarm instead of "snooze".  I just needed 10 more minutes.

7:01am- Wake up in a panic.  MCAS is today!  My son needs a good breakfast!  I am a terrible mother!  Oh wait, he's up.  He's showered, he's...eating.  Aww man, and after I almost killed him last night.  Redemption.

7:15am- Daughter comes downstairs, lays on the loveseat, covers up and tells me she is laying downstairs because she doesn't trust I will wake her up for school.  (Rightfully so, I would have let her sleep in, still, she shouldn't know that at 7 years old!)

7:45- Daughter seems great, get ready for school.

8:30- Send off my little ray of sunshine, prepare for my Dad's visit, run some errands and mentally ready myself for what I think will be a 4:30pm meltdown from my daughter. 

1:00pm- After a lovely lunch with my dad, I check voice mail, making sure I didn't miss a call from the school nurse.  So far, so good.

1:30pm- Receive a call from the school nurse, my child is exhausted.  My dad and I are on our way.

2:00pm- She falls asleep.

3:00pm- She wakes up, ummm...no no no...not enough sleep.  Me no like.

4:00pm- LOTS of crying, whining, and a tummy ache of epic proportions.  I start thinking appendicitis, hernia...but my gut is saying, "this kid needs to GO".  I ask in a million different ways, but she refuses to admit that THAT is the problem.

4:30pm- MELTDOWN!! Wohooo!! I win!  I'm right! 

4:45pm- Dad, son and son's friend leave for a baseball game.  So thankful dad is there to help out.  Love my village.  Prepare myself for missing dance class and softball practice with daughter, oh I mean Princess Grumpypants.

4:46pm-5:20pm- I will spare you the details and she'll kill me for this one day, but let's just say after seeing my daughter unable to actually sit down, we headed up to the bathroom.  We read, we joked, there was some hard work ahead of her, but when all was said and done (and man oh man was there screaming and crying), success.  Again, mom knew best, but I guess she was embarrassed to say anything in front of my dad.  Sweet, but oh man, poor girl.  Amazingly enough, she was herself again! 

5:21pm- "Mom, I really want to try and go to dance class, the recital is coming up..and then can we go to the game?(her brother's)"

5:22pm- Run around like a mad woman because as you remember I was staying in.

Rush off to dance, drive a few towns over, arrive at son's game....just in time to miss him playing in it.  Freeze a little while daughter runs off to the playground and has the time of her life.

HOW WAS YOUR DAY? :)

Teenage Dream

I have finally released my kung-fu death grip on my son and his academic career.

I have replaced it with a similar death grip on everything else in his life.

He's 13, there are things that are important, they're just not important to him.

I don't want to completely dump on him, but it was me and my sister growing up, I didn't live with a 13 year old boy, this is all very new to me.

So , to back up a little.  I decided this year that my son would be mostly responsible for his academics.  I really felt that we were insane last year trying to adjust to life in the middle school.  There were days it was downright ugly.

This year he would have to show us what he could do, and for the most part he's done great.  I cannot believe how different this year feels.  We are, as always, there when he needs help and there to encourage him.  If I notice his grade is slipping, we talk about it and he has always gotten back on track.  This was necessary for us.  I so badly want him to do better than I did with school, but I can't do it for him.

Now, in regards to everything else.  He is in such a teenage fog lately.  I'm calling it that because I've never seen it before.  He's the kid who gets up every morning and takes a shower before school.  He empties the dishwasher every afternoon when he gets home without being asked.  I don't know if it's because he's programmed himself to do these things that he's so good at them, I think it's great either way.

That's about it though.  In recent times, he has managed to have me wash lots of clothes he hasn't even worn (as in, I took this shirt off my shelf and 3 others fell, so when mom told me to clean my room, I just threw them all in the laundry).  I couldn't tell you what my kids wore every day last week, but I did start to realize that there were way more clothes in there than humanly possible.  Sadly, once something goes in the boy's laundry basket, you must wash it, trust me.

If I ask him to put something away, I never know where it will end up, resulting in me finding my mail up in my bathroom, hand towels in my coat closet and brand new shirts (still in the Target bag) on their way to the trash.  He recently wore his dress belt to baseball practice because he couldn't find his baseball belt, I mean, I could go on and on.

None of this is horrible and I know he'll snap out of it someday.  He doesn't really get to play video games during the week and the same goes for TV, so I often wonder what is so distracting?  What goes on in that head of his?   Most likely he's daydreaming about video games and TV.

I saw this quote and thought it was perfect.

 "The average teenager still has all the faults his parents outgrew. " ~Author Unknown

Hit Me Baby One More Time

I got the fever, baby fever, and the only prescription is more babies!

I wasn't sure how I was going to write about this because it is a subject I could not be more wishy-washy about.  Please bear with me as you navigate my crazy thoughts.

Since I was a young girl I have said I was going to have 3 kids. 

I made my husband promise me we would have 2 1/2 kids by the time we were 30.

I was also going to live in a mansion and drive a Jeep and run my own musical college because there had to be people like me who can only memorize things when they are set to music.

So real life comes along.  I had my son when I was 24 and his arrival terrified me into putting off trying for our second.  Then when we felt ready, who could have known it would take us over 2 years.  As the story goes, when we stopped trying, I got pregnant.

My kids are 6 years apart.  I felt like if we were going to have another, it should be sooner rather than later.  My husband was done. 

As strong and rational as he is , he is a complete worrywart when it comes to me and babies.  I can't say I blame him.  He saw what our son went through in the NICU, he saw what I went through after our daughter was born and I ended up with an infection from my c-section. 

I tried to say that I went through these things and I was still willing to try again, but he was really firm in being done.

For a few years, I maybe might have wished for a "happy accident", but then I realized we had to make a decision.  I didn't want to resent him for not fulfilling a dream of mine, and I also wanted him to really hear why I wanted another.

The conversations were insane.  I went from demanding one more kid to thinking how lucky, how truly lucky we were to have 2 healthy kids and that I was being selfish to want another.  We weighed how much we love babies against how it was kind of nice that our kids were in the "put on your coats and go" stage.  No strollers, diaper bags, pack and plays to worry about.

I have been home with the kids for a few years now, and I know some of my panic is that I will have to get back out to the real world someday.  I just think the one thing I'm good at and have a passion for is being a mom, and even though the job never ends, it doesn't require me being home 24/7.

So, we made the decision that we were done and most days I am fine with it.  In my heart of hearts I am okay with it. 

When I hold a baby though, all bets are off.  Even when we stayed with my sister after each of her boys were born, in the throws of newborn madness, I missed it.  My husband looked at me like"aren't you glad we're done with that?" and I'm not, I really loved it.  I did not love being pregnant, but newborn babies...ahhh, that's the stuff.

I got to spend the day with my 3 month old nephew yesterday and it was great.  I am starting to realize that I will have babies in my life and I will love them and care for them and delight in all the new things they do.  I did think it was funny that my nephew took a 2 hour nap and I pretty much watched him sleep the whole time.  I would have never done that with mine.  That would have been my chance to sleep, clean, get stuff done.  I am starting to see the benefits of spending time with babies instead of having my own.

However, should an adorable baby find its way to my doorstep like in the movies, it's mine!! 

Random Thoughts

• Did you hear about the mom that was accused of taking her daughter tanning?  I am not saying she did it, but she has to see how people may jump to the conclusion that it could be true.  Also...can tanning salons agree to carry some sort of color wheel where they stop allowing you to tan?  I think "Catcher's Mitt Brown" should be the cut-off.

•  I really love watching the Jeopardy Teen Tournament.  I can actually answer almost half of the questions.  And yes, when the category is German Cities, I will yell out "What is Berlin?" for every answer. 
  
  
  
  -I watched Terms of Endearment today.  While I folded laundry.  In the rain.  That movie rocks me to my core every time I watch it.  In fact, I get so upset while watching it that I KNOW I shouldn't watch it.  I am a glutton for punishment.  I learned with a little IMDB research that the little boy who plays Teddy (The younger son who cries when Debra Winger has to talk to them, the bowl cut) is named Huckleberry Fox in real life.  How is he not still famous?

-  I have been obsessed with trying to find a way to keep my thick humidity hating hair under control.  I have finally gotten around to trying Moroccan argan oil.  So far so good.  I'm hoping it's the kind of thing that the more I use it the better my hair is, but it already looks so much better, I'm happy.  I'm hoping to avoid having my hair in a ponytail for the entire summer. 

- Who out there is reading 50 Shades of Grey?  Holy freaking moly.

- I think I have dinner amnesia.  There are some weeks I have something new and wonderful every night of the week and then weeks like this where I cannot even think of what to do with a chicken breast.  Thank god for the internet.

- My friend M had a spare hour today and came over for coffee.  It was lovely.  It's amazing how much we can fit into a short amount of time.  It was a nice break in my day.  I love that we were still talking as she walked out to her car because she had an appointment to get to.  I've known her for 8 years and I don't think we'll ever run out of things to say.

- 

My Village

My husband has started traveling for work.  At first I was so excited for him, he's a bit of a homebody, and it's very good for him to get out and travel.  My plan is to accompany him sometime. Hahahahaha.  I'm laughing because we have to kids at home that are in sports and other activities and he travels during the week and yeah, it's probably never going to happen.

He started traveling last year, but it was just a few trips here and there.  It has really picked up lately.  Of course.  It couldn't have picked up in the winter when we didn't have as many activities going on.  It has to be now.  Our kids are playing baseball and softball, plus my daughter takes dance and my son takes guitar lessons.

None of this is a big deal except that the schedule gods have decided that all activities should be on the same night, at the same time.  This is great however, I have come to realize that I cannot actually be in two places at once.

So, I am rallying my village.  I am always grateful when my son is on a team with a kid whose parents I know and trust.  Some of us are in the same boat with schedules, so it's really great when we can help each other out.  We also all have 13 year old boys who aren't so great with details so it's nice that we have each other to work that stuff out.

My parents live about 45 minutes away, but are more than happy to come down for the day and help me out.  My in-laws live in town, they are happy to help, but my father in law also travels a lot and my mother in law doesn't like to drive at night.  Still, when they can help, the always do.

When I realize there's a scheduling conflict, I can literally feel my anxiety start to rise.  I thought it was the stress of figuring out how to get everyone where they need to be, but I really think it stems from sincerely wanting to be there to watch each of my kids.  Also, the control freak inside of me thinks nothing bad can happen if I'm there.

I have learned to take a deep breath, think of a couple possible solutions, and cross my fingers.  These things usually have a way of working out. 

I couldn't do it without the help of friends and family and I am very thankful for them all.