She who laughs last...

When we moved back to Texas a few years ago, we re-established our football watching tradition with our college pals. Back in ‘the day’, we tailgated together before the Longhorn games. Now, most Saturdays in the fall will find us decked out in our burnt orange, hanging out at each other’s houses, eating BBQ or pizza (and of course, Cheryl’s famous bacon wrapped jalapenos!), ready to watch the game, drink beer, and swap off ‘kid duty'.

So, in the spirit of ‘all things football’, we got together for the Super Bowl last night (more to watch the commercials than the actual game.) Fun time, as always… but I felt the need to use my blog today to issue somewhat of an apology to our pals. ;)

To give you a little background, when we moved back to Texas, we were the only ones of our little group who had kids. When we moved back, we had a four year old, a two year old, and another on the way. We were tired. We were overwhelmed. We rarely made it through one of our get-togethers without a meltdown on the part of one of our children (usually a certain little boy whose name starts with a 'D').

We were always jumping up to make sure no one had killed anyone else. We were always the ones who were scrambling around to make sure that our kids didn’t destroy something. Sometimes our game watching parties were more stress than they were worth for me. And I always worried what our lovely friends must think of our completely chaotic life.

Now our friends have kids. And they all happen to have boys… (evil chuckle). Some of the cutest little guys you’ve ever laid eyes on. And our kids are now older, and a little more self-sufficient. Phil and I can now sit and enjoy the game because our kids are content to watch movies upstairs. So sometimes, when I watch our friends' boys, I get the strangest feeling of déjà-vu. Like I’ve seen this all before… because, guess what? I probably have!

So, to our friends: I apologize that all I could do was laugh when you were jumping up to yell out the window to your kids every three minutes. I’m sorry that all I could do was chuckle when they were rolling around on the floor, wrapped in blankets, and kicking over the bowl of popcorn onto the rug (and then when they ate it off the floor like little puppies? So cute.) I apologize for mine and Phil’s laughter when we watched you put them into ‘time-out’ for throwing dirt on each other. Because I’ve sooo been there, done that.

Of course, I won’t be laughing in a few years when we get to be the first of our group to have teenagers.