Monthly Archives: November 2019

Nov28

A Grateful Heart

Posted on by
Standard

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays – a lowkey chance to reconnect with family and friends before the hustle and bustle of December comes crashing in. There are no gifts, no running around- just a good meal, lots of laughs and time to reflect.

So today, and every day, I thankful to all of you.

Thank you to the Hubs and my kids. Hubs- you have walked by my side for almost 22 years now and built a life with me that I’m so proud of. Does it look like we thought it would? Nope- it’s a 1000x better, Can you believe we made these two fantastic people and get to have all these adventures with them?! Kiddos- you makes me laugh, every day. You make me want to be better, every day. You fill my heart and our home with laughter and hugs and so much joy, it’s hard to contain.

Thank you to my family – the one I was born to, the one I married into and the one we’ve made together. You made me into who I am today, lift me up when I’m down and fill my life with love and loyalty.

Thank you to my friends. The old friends that I’ve known since I was a child whom I still hold dear and adore spending time with – the ones who know all my bad hair styles, crappy boyfriends and crazy escapades. I adore you all and I’m still halfway convinced we’ll always be 17 at heart.

A white heart ornament is on a wooden surface. On the heart, it has a small pink heart and the words "I am grateful".

Thank you my new friends- the ones who have helped me raise my babies into the amazing kids they are, talked me through the ups and down of my marriage and have become my chosen family. You are my sanity, my coaches and my favorite people – we are so lucky to be surrounded by your infection spirit, generous hearts and disgusting, immature sense of humor.

Thank you to my friends who, as the Hubs says, live in my computer. 20 years ago, I made my first set of online friends (the Hubs thought you were all 50 year old murders, btw) and my online crew has only grown since then. Thank you for your friendship and your knowledge – for pushing me and expanding my world that much more.

I wish you all joy, friendship and love this Thanksgiving.  Thank you for reading, laughing and loving- I can’t imagine my life without you.

 

 

Nov7

SHOTGUN!

Posted on by
Standard
So, it’s been a minute! After I shared my fantastic parenting skills, we got sucked back into the routine of school and sports and general insanity. The re-entry back into the school year was a pretty tame one- neither kid made any major transitions so that made back to school pretty damn easy.  Scorch is in 8th grade and the Bean is in 6th and I’m officially old AF.  The biggest drama going back to school was if Scorch should wear black socks or white socks with his navy blue kicks – the boy takes his sock game very seriously.

Scorch, wearing navy blue sneakers, and Bean, wearing white sneakers, on the first day of 8th and 6th grade.

In early October, Scorch broke his wrist playing in a football game about 2 hours from home. Thankfully the Hubs and/or I always go to every away game (my kids getting seriously hurt when we’re not there is one of my biggest nightmares) and were both there that day. We had to drive by the Big City on our way home, so we stopped by the same orthopedic place that did the Hub’s ACL surgery in the Spring and had Scorched x-ray’d and casted within an hour. He’s been a super good sport, but with less than a week to go until the cast is taken off he’s D.O.N.E. with it.

An x-ray of Scorch's left wrist.

The biggest news is that the day I’ve been DREADING finally is upon us. When I took the kids in for their flu shots, the Bean’s height was recorded and she’s finally tall enough to ride in the front seat.

*sigh*

That’s right, I have two kids vying for shotgun for every.single.car ride. Once the kids put the pieces together, they both started coming up with an elaborate way to decide who got to be the shotgun winner. The rules included when you could call shotgun, how even calling shotgun doesn’t mean you actually get to ride in that spot if your sibling can wrestle you out of it and something about headlocks and Scorch using his cast as a club.

Needless to say, that didn’t fly with me, so I quickly instituted an odd/even system – on odd days, it’s Scorch’s turn, on even days, it’s the Beans. They were ticked- I was stripping away ALLLLLLLL the fun out of shotgun- but frankly, I didn’t care. The last thing I needed was those two beating the holy hell out of each other for the privilege of sitting next to me and controlling the radio.

This worked relatively well…except for during school drop offs. I drive both kids to school, dropping Scorch off first, and alllllll Scorch wants to look during drop off is cool. There is a single drop off line – it loops around the parking lot and you can drop your kids off anywhere along the sidewalk. But evidently there is a art to where the perfect drop off location is. Like, he gets concerned if I drop him off too far away (“they’re all waiting for us in line, mom”) or too close (“I don’t want to look like I’m lazy”), the music has to be off just case we’re listening to something that is cringy and the drop off has to be QUICK- there can be no fumbling when you get out.

Which was all doable when he was the always riding shotgun, but now that he’s in the backseat of our van every other day – quick isn’t a thing. First, I have to put the van in park to open the automatic sliding doors -and those doors are slow. Then there is the fumbling for his stuff because he can’t actually wait until the door is all the way  open before jumping out. Don’t even mention the fact his sister is choosing the tunes and Lizzo blasting out of the speakers of our minivan brings down his street cred by like a 1000 points.

Which is why earlier this week, my sweet dumb kid decided that the best course of action was to CLIMB into the front seat – WHILE his sister was sitting in – and going out that way.
Bean, with only her legs showing, is sitting in the passenger seat of the car. Scorch is perched on the leg rest of her chair, trying to climb over her.

Bean’s sitting in the chair, Scorch is trying to climb over her. I’m being the responsible adult and taking pics.

She was super psyched about that idea – he’s lucky she didn’t kick him in the butt and send him sprawling.

So, how’s your fall going?!