Lest you think I’m a nutcase (or even nuttier than you already think I am), let me preface by saying that I *know* I will get used to this. Probably very soon.
But today? It was strange.
It was not your ordinary, average Wednesday. Okay, maybe for YOU, it was, but for me? It was a whole other animal.
It was the second day of school. Correction: It was the second day of kindergarten for my youngest child. Which makes it the first day of my ‘new normal’. Yesterday was a heady mix of anxiety, anticipation and excitement (followed by sheer exhaustion). A day of firsts, a day of Mexican martinis with friends at Chuy’s to celebrate, an evening of dinner out with the kids, followed by our ‘First Day of School’ cake, ending with baths and hugs and lots of forms to fill out for school. A good day, but it was the first day of school, so in my mind, it didn’t ‘count’.
Today counted.
And count I did… I counted the hours. Because today was my ‘new normal’. All three of my children are now school-age. They are all in elementary school. They are all gone from 7:30 until 2:45 everyday. And I am left feeling just a little bit lost.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a girl that can stay busy. Projects? I got ‘em. Friends? I call ‘em. Volunteer opportunities? I welcome ‘em (my husband, on the other hand? ;)
But after being home with at least one child for the last ten years, today was a little bittersweet. Phil asked me, “You *did* know that this was what would eventually happen, right?”
Well, duh.
Today found me showered, dressed, having walked the kids to school, and back home by… 7:45 a.m.?? “Okay,” I thought. “Time to get some things done around here…” Answer some emails, update my calendar, check CNN, start a load of laundry, clean the downstairs bathroom, Check CNN, make some calls, check CNN (you DO remember my CNN addiction, don’t you?), vacuum the family room, upload some pictures… I checked the clock to make sure I wasn’t going to be late to the lunch I scheduled with my girlfriends…
9:30 a.m.?? You CAN’T be serious.
I decided that I needed to get out of the house. So I got in the van and drove. To CVS because it was close to the restaurant where we were meeting, and I thought it improper to show up to lunch two hours early. And I went in, and wandered around. In CVS. People just don’t do that. People go to CVS for a specific purpose. For Q-tips or Benadryl...or a bottle of red wine (did you know they sell wine in CVS?!)
So, I wandered from aisle to aisle, and lingered in the ‘As Seen on TV’ aisle, debating the merits of a Shake Weight vs. a Slap Chop. (But what I really want is a ‘Perfect Brownie’ brownie cutter. My birthday is in December, BTW.)
I finally found myself in the aisle with the baby products. Bad move. I picked up a Johnson’s lavender-scented Baby Wash, and unscrewed the cap so that I could smell it. I’m embarrassed to admit that I even peeled the metallic paper wrapper off of the bottle to be able to *properly* sniff it. It smelled like I remembered my babies smelling, fresh out of a bath, and I had to quickly wipe my eyes before a young stock boy stumbled upon me, opening bottles and crying like some hormonally imbalanced crazy person in the aisle of the drugstore. Hey, now!
“Get a grip!” I thought, fiercely, replaced the bottle on the shelf, checked my watch, and made my way back out to my van, with only 30 minutes to kill before my lunch date. *sigh.
Right now, if you spent your entire day at work, you are ever so kindly telling me to shut the f**k up, and possibly to suck it up, and quite possibly, you’re thinking that I’m a whiny, ungrateful little brat who doesn’t appreciate being able to stay at home. That’s where you’d be wrong.
It’s just… different. Different in a good way, but most definitely different.
I know I will get used to having the house empty during the day, and having time to get a few chores and errands finished. Time to work on a project or two. I know I will come to love being able to schedule something (anything!) that requires more hours than the preschool day had… driving downtown, perhaps, to have lunch with my husband… or getting my hair colored (*that* is a long damn process, my friends.)
I’ll get there (probably next week), but right now, I’m in transition. I’m grieving my ‘old normal’ just a bit. The morning playdates, Elmo’s World, McDonald’s Happy Meals for lunch, the library in the middle of the day, and naptime.
My kids are growing up (faster than I’m ready for, most days)… and today was a marked reminder of that.
As if I needed reminding.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
we got her outfit all ready.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I baked cookies, made the 'First Day of School' cake, washed sheets, bought a few supplies we had forgotten, finished first day teacher gifts (I know, I know. It truly is an illness), and packed her backpack.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I tried to get in extra snuggles.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I gave her a shower, even though she squirmed and squealed, and reminded me in no uncertain terms that she had "a shower yesterday!!" (Hey, in the summertime, the chlorine in the pool keeps them plenty clean. ;)
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
We read a few extra stories, and I felt a little nostalgic that after ten years of being at home with at least one child, that phase of life in our household has passed.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I choked back tears more than once.
And my little angel... my youngest... my sweet baby who is on the threshold of a whole new adventure in her young life?
Well, on the day before the first day of kindergarten...
She channeled her inner Anna-Nicole Smith.
I hope kindergarten can survive her.
we got her outfit all ready.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I baked cookies, made the 'First Day of School' cake, washed sheets, bought a few supplies we had forgotten, finished first day teacher gifts (I know, I know. It truly is an illness), and packed her backpack.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I tried to get in extra snuggles.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I gave her a shower, even though she squirmed and squealed, and reminded me in no uncertain terms that she had "a shower yesterday!!" (Hey, in the summertime, the chlorine in the pool keeps them plenty clean. ;)
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
We read a few extra stories, and I felt a little nostalgic that after ten years of being at home with at least one child, that phase of life in our household has passed.
On the day before the first day of kindergarten...
I choked back tears more than once.
And my little angel... my youngest... my sweet baby who is on the threshold of a whole new adventure in her young life?
Well, on the day before the first day of kindergarten...
She channeled her inner Anna-Nicole Smith.
I hope kindergarten can survive her.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Take note...
If you have this on your bathroom counter to lacquer your teased-up 80's bangs (I've got my 20 year high school reunion coming up, and I'm thinking of going retro.)
Then I really do NOT recommend having this on your countertop, as well.
Trust me, those purples are waaaaaay closer in color than they show in the picture.
Then I really do NOT recommend having this on your countertop, as well.
Trust me, those purples are waaaaaay closer in color than they show in the picture.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Her daddy is so proud...
Davis: "Libby, when you start kindergarten, you’ll learn lots of new stuff."
Libby: "I will?"
Davis: "Yep. You’ll learn to read… you’ll learn about plants… you’ll learn about the sun… oh, and the planets."
Libby: "I know the planets."
Davis: "No, you don’t!"
Libby: "Well, I know three…"
Davis (challenging): "Which ones?"
Libby (thinking hard): "Earth…
Pluto…
and Hoth."
Jeez. I can’t believe she didn’t even *mention* Alderaan. ;)
Libby: "I will?"
Davis: "Yep. You’ll learn to read… you’ll learn about plants… you’ll learn about the sun… oh, and the planets."
Libby: "I know the planets."
Davis: "No, you don’t!"
Libby: "Well, I know three…"
Davis (challenging): "Which ones?"
Libby (thinking hard): "Earth…
Pluto…
and Hoth."
Jeez. I can’t believe she didn’t even *mention* Alderaan. ;)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
One of *those* days.
Do you ever just have one of those days?
This morning I got up, determined to make pancakes for Davis, who had been nagging me for two solid days that he wanted pancakes for breakfast. And if not breakfast, then DEFINITELY lunch. Not frozen… and certainly NOT homemade chocolate chip pancakes (I made those a few days ago. What nerve I have!)… but ‘real’ pancakes.
I got everything ready to make said ‘real’ pancakes and realized that we were completely out of milk.
Disaster. Meltdown #1 of the day.
Later in the morning (after toast, fruit, and juice for breakfast), it was off to see a movie at the dollar cinema… ‘Karate Kid’. Which turned out to be a really good movie. And a really LOOONG movie. And about 20 minutes into the show, I remembered that I was scheduled to bring dinner to a friend who had recently had major surgery. And I had prepped nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
So as the movie dragged on (two hours and twenty minutes??), and I am cheering for someone to just finally win this Kung Fu tournament already… I got a text from my darling husband.
He was at the tire place, getting his tires replaced because he had screws in two of them, and they were slowly leaking air. So FOUR, count ‘em… FOUR new tires later, my head was splitting, and dollar signs were dancing through my vision. Backward and down the crapper. Cha-ching!
After the movie, I made a mad dash to H.E.B. to pick up the items to make dinner to deliver, and as I sped through the aisles, pulling stuff off of the shelves, all three kids jogging to keep up, I ran into a friend in the refrigerated section (not LITERALLY, for which I’m sure she is grateful). I stopped to chat for just a minute… and while we were talking, some guy walked by, pointed and said, “Excuse me, but those kids are going to kill each other.”
Um… what?? Which kids? What the heck was he talking about??
Oh, none other than… my children…who happened to be shutting each other inside the refrigerated section, and waving to one another from behind the glass doors like they were being defrosted while on display at a cryogenics lab.
Totally mortified, I quickly paid for my groceries, got everybody loaded up in the van, and went to back out of my parking space.
CRUUUNNNCH!
In my blind spot, sat a sedan who had zipped behind me to wait for a space on the opposite side of the lane to open up. And it couldn’t have been a beater… some crappy old car… Nope.
Had to be a Lexus.
Could this day GET any friggin’ better??
Practically in tears, I exchanged information with the other driver, called Phil, and assessed the damage. The highlight of it all? Trying to figure out how to take pictures with my cell phone in the blacktop parking lot of the grocery store when it’s 105 degrees outside.
And once at home, after getting dinner started, and realizing that I had forgotten to put an egg in the brownie mix (after the brownies had already been baking for 20 minutes, of course, so there was no salvaging them for my dinner delivery), I sat down at the table to call my insurance company. Never a fun activity, regardless of the circumstances.
Answering question after question, the lady on the phone got all the information she needed, and said, ‘I think that’s it, Mrs. Linson. I’m really glad everyone is okay.”
I mean, I KNOW she’s probably paid to say that… but I came undone just the teensiest bit. I began to cry, and I said, “Me too.”
And as I looked around at my wreck of a kitchen, my doomed eggless brownies, my cell phone loaded up with off-center pictures of damaged bumpers, and the bits of paper with scribbled insurance policy numbers… I realized that this, too, shall pass.
It was a minor fender bender, and I have insurance.
We now have four new tires on my husband’s car. We may be broke, but at least we’re safe.
I didn’t just have to have surgery.
I have kids that know how to... er... entertain themselves in the grocery store. ;)
And… I remembered the milk. So, tomorrow, I get to get up in the morning, make ‘real’ pancakes, and start over fresh.
Thank you, Lord, for days like today.
This morning I got up, determined to make pancakes for Davis, who had been nagging me for two solid days that he wanted pancakes for breakfast. And if not breakfast, then DEFINITELY lunch. Not frozen… and certainly NOT homemade chocolate chip pancakes (I made those a few days ago. What nerve I have!)… but ‘real’ pancakes.
I got everything ready to make said ‘real’ pancakes and realized that we were completely out of milk.
Disaster. Meltdown #1 of the day.
Later in the morning (after toast, fruit, and juice for breakfast), it was off to see a movie at the dollar cinema… ‘Karate Kid’. Which turned out to be a really good movie. And a really LOOONG movie. And about 20 minutes into the show, I remembered that I was scheduled to bring dinner to a friend who had recently had major surgery. And I had prepped nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
So as the movie dragged on (two hours and twenty minutes??), and I am cheering for someone to just finally win this Kung Fu tournament already… I got a text from my darling husband.
He was at the tire place, getting his tires replaced because he had screws in two of them, and they were slowly leaking air. So FOUR, count ‘em… FOUR new tires later, my head was splitting, and dollar signs were dancing through my vision. Backward and down the crapper. Cha-ching!
After the movie, I made a mad dash to H.E.B. to pick up the items to make dinner to deliver, and as I sped through the aisles, pulling stuff off of the shelves, all three kids jogging to keep up, I ran into a friend in the refrigerated section (not LITERALLY, for which I’m sure she is grateful). I stopped to chat for just a minute… and while we were talking, some guy walked by, pointed and said, “Excuse me, but those kids are going to kill each other.”
Um… what?? Which kids? What the heck was he talking about??
Oh, none other than… my children…who happened to be shutting each other inside the refrigerated section, and waving to one another from behind the glass doors like they were being defrosted while on display at a cryogenics lab.
Totally mortified, I quickly paid for my groceries, got everybody loaded up in the van, and went to back out of my parking space.
CRUUUNNNCH!
In my blind spot, sat a sedan who had zipped behind me to wait for a space on the opposite side of the lane to open up. And it couldn’t have been a beater… some crappy old car… Nope.
Had to be a Lexus.
Could this day GET any friggin’ better??
Practically in tears, I exchanged information with the other driver, called Phil, and assessed the damage. The highlight of it all? Trying to figure out how to take pictures with my cell phone in the blacktop parking lot of the grocery store when it’s 105 degrees outside.
And once at home, after getting dinner started, and realizing that I had forgotten to put an egg in the brownie mix (after the brownies had already been baking for 20 minutes, of course, so there was no salvaging them for my dinner delivery), I sat down at the table to call my insurance company. Never a fun activity, regardless of the circumstances.
Answering question after question, the lady on the phone got all the information she needed, and said, ‘I think that’s it, Mrs. Linson. I’m really glad everyone is okay.”
I mean, I KNOW she’s probably paid to say that… but I came undone just the teensiest bit. I began to cry, and I said, “Me too.”
And as I looked around at my wreck of a kitchen, my doomed eggless brownies, my cell phone loaded up with off-center pictures of damaged bumpers, and the bits of paper with scribbled insurance policy numbers… I realized that this, too, shall pass.
It was a minor fender bender, and I have insurance.
We now have four new tires on my husband’s car. We may be broke, but at least we’re safe.
I didn’t just have to have surgery.
I have kids that know how to... er... entertain themselves in the grocery store. ;)
And… I remembered the milk. So, tomorrow, I get to get up in the morning, make ‘real’ pancakes, and start over fresh.
Thank you, Lord, for days like today.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Get. Back. In. The. Car.
Let me just say… I love a good car game. I do.
‘The License Plate game’ can be educational. A little boring if you live smack dab in the middle of Texas, though.
‘Name that Animal’… VERY educational. (By the way, did you know that yaks make pink milk? You DID?)
Scavenger hunts… er… enthusiastic.
‘Slug Bug’? Well, I think we know my thoughts on that by now.
My nephew, though, recently taught my children a new car game. A game called… “Spot, Copper, Kidnapper”. The way it’s played is pretty straightforward. Spot a yellow vehicle (any yellow vehicle for that matter… school bus, yellow car, a DHL delivery truck) and be the first to yell out, ‘SPOT!’
Preferably as loudly as you can when sitting directly behind the driver’s seat. (at least that's the way *my* children play.)
And when you spy a police car? Or a sheriff’s deputy? Or anything that looks remotely ‘official’. And by ‘official’, you know I mean anything that makes Mommy slam on her brakes and look back through the rearview mirror while cursing under her breath? Yeah, those cars are known as…
‘COPPERS!’
Shout it out with me, would you?
And the last part of the game? Well, according to my nephew, those vehicles are easy to spot. Those are the ‘workmen vans’… the ones that contractors use that have no windows or doors on the sides… the delivery trucks, etc…. ‘kidnap vans’.
Yeah, yeah… not exactly politically correct. But my kids were instantly hooked, and the back of my mini-van has been host to many a game of ‘Spot, Copper, Kidnapper’ since my 9 year old nephew enlightened us.
No biggie… The game keeps them occupied, allows me to listen to my man, Charlie on KLBJ, in peace, and if they have an especially good eye, it’s my ‘heads-up’ to slow down so I don't get a speeding ticket. (Thanks, kids!)
What I *do* worry about is how the game sometimes carries over. You know… like to the parking lot.
At Home Depot…
And my kids are looking at all those repairmen’s vans like they’ve hit the motherlode (and bonus?? Sometimes there are actual people still IN the vans) ...
There’s nothing like three kids jumping up and down in the parking lot, pointing and shouting out, “KIDNAPPER!! KIDNAPPER!!” to make you long for a good old game of Slug Bug.
‘The License Plate game’ can be educational. A little boring if you live smack dab in the middle of Texas, though.
‘Name that Animal’… VERY educational. (By the way, did you know that yaks make pink milk? You DID?)
Scavenger hunts… er… enthusiastic.
‘Slug Bug’? Well, I think we know my thoughts on that by now.
My nephew, though, recently taught my children a new car game. A game called… “Spot, Copper, Kidnapper”. The way it’s played is pretty straightforward. Spot a yellow vehicle (any yellow vehicle for that matter… school bus, yellow car, a DHL delivery truck) and be the first to yell out, ‘SPOT!’
Preferably as loudly as you can when sitting directly behind the driver’s seat. (at least that's the way *my* children play.)
And when you spy a police car? Or a sheriff’s deputy? Or anything that looks remotely ‘official’. And by ‘official’, you know I mean anything that makes Mommy slam on her brakes and look back through the rearview mirror while cursing under her breath? Yeah, those cars are known as…
‘COPPERS!’
Shout it out with me, would you?
And the last part of the game? Well, according to my nephew, those vehicles are easy to spot. Those are the ‘workmen vans’… the ones that contractors use that have no windows or doors on the sides… the delivery trucks, etc…. ‘kidnap vans’.
Yeah, yeah… not exactly politically correct. But my kids were instantly hooked, and the back of my mini-van has been host to many a game of ‘Spot, Copper, Kidnapper’ since my 9 year old nephew enlightened us.
No biggie… The game keeps them occupied, allows me to listen to my man, Charlie on KLBJ, in peace, and if they have an especially good eye, it’s my ‘heads-up’ to slow down so I don't get a speeding ticket. (Thanks, kids!)
What I *do* worry about is how the game sometimes carries over. You know… like to the parking lot.
At Home Depot…
And my kids are looking at all those repairmen’s vans like they’ve hit the motherlode (and bonus?? Sometimes there are actual people still IN the vans) ...
There’s nothing like three kids jumping up and down in the parking lot, pointing and shouting out, “KIDNAPPER!! KIDNAPPER!!” to make you long for a good old game of Slug Bug.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Lessons from an Ogre
If you have kids, you know you’ve done it.
Nooooo… not that. Geez.
You’ve reminisced about ‘life before kids’. Romanticized the ‘good ol days’ before you were woken up early every morning. Before the house was in a constant state of disarray. The days when you could stay up… or out… as late as you wanted without the mental ‘cha-ching’ of the cost of the babysitter scrolling through your mind.
The days when you could eat a piece of chocolate cake… without giving anyone ‘Just. One. More. Bite.’
I’ve done it. I’ve remembered fondly the days when I lived alone, in my little apartment that was MINE, MINE, MINE! That tiny little box with a futon and clothes all over the floor of my bedroom and a refrigerator that was a toxic waste dump, and a television that wasn’t blaring the Disney channel at record volume.
So, if you have kids, and if you’ve seen the movie, Shrek Forever After, you ‘get’ it.
**SPOILER ALERT** In this movie, (the 4th in the series), Shrek makes an almost disastrous wish to have just one more day of his old life. One day back before the responsibilities… the noise… the chaos that comes with being a parent… a spouse… a grown-up, I guess.
And, much like each of us, I suspect, he comes to the conclusion that he loves his life, messy ogre babies and all, and wouldn’t change it for the world.
A good reminder that even when life gets challenging, most of us would choose our OWN life... our own messy ogre babies... our own swamp... and our own issues, time and again.
I know I would.
After the movie (and YES, I teared up a little. It wouldn’t be an animated movie if I didn’t get choked up), I was explaining to the kids that even when life gets hard as a Mommy and Daddy, that we wouldn’t wish to have our old lives back.
Me: And sometimes we get upset or frustrated, but we have chosen the life we have for reason, and we wouldn’t trade our lives with you guys for ANYTHING!
Libby (dubiously): ‘You wouldn’t even trade us for a flat screen T.V.?’
Oh. Well, a FLAT screen… that’s another story. ;)
Nooooo… not that. Geez.
You’ve reminisced about ‘life before kids’. Romanticized the ‘good ol days’ before you were woken up early every morning. Before the house was in a constant state of disarray. The days when you could stay up… or out… as late as you wanted without the mental ‘cha-ching’ of the cost of the babysitter scrolling through your mind.
The days when you could eat a piece of chocolate cake… without giving anyone ‘Just. One. More. Bite.’
I’ve done it. I’ve remembered fondly the days when I lived alone, in my little apartment that was MINE, MINE, MINE! That tiny little box with a futon and clothes all over the floor of my bedroom and a refrigerator that was a toxic waste dump, and a television that wasn’t blaring the Disney channel at record volume.
So, if you have kids, and if you’ve seen the movie, Shrek Forever After, you ‘get’ it.
**SPOILER ALERT** In this movie, (the 4th in the series), Shrek makes an almost disastrous wish to have just one more day of his old life. One day back before the responsibilities… the noise… the chaos that comes with being a parent… a spouse… a grown-up, I guess.
And, much like each of us, I suspect, he comes to the conclusion that he loves his life, messy ogre babies and all, and wouldn’t change it for the world.
A good reminder that even when life gets challenging, most of us would choose our OWN life... our own messy ogre babies... our own swamp... and our own issues, time and again.
I know I would.
After the movie (and YES, I teared up a little. It wouldn’t be an animated movie if I didn’t get choked up), I was explaining to the kids that even when life gets hard as a Mommy and Daddy, that we wouldn’t wish to have our old lives back.
Me: And sometimes we get upset or frustrated, but we have chosen the life we have for reason, and we wouldn’t trade our lives with you guys for ANYTHING!
Libby (dubiously): ‘You wouldn’t even trade us for a flat screen T.V.?’
Oh. Well, a FLAT screen… that’s another story. ;)
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