kindergarten

That’s how long its been since I posted to my blog.

Holy shit. Time flies.

Part of me feels like I need to apologize for such a long absence, but the other part of me realizes that my life demands that I be present and in the moment. My family and my other responsibilities don’t always accommodate the time I need to put together a decent blog post. We’re all busy and we all prioritize differently. So instead of apologies, I’ll just say, HELLO WORLD! I’ve missed you!

The past month has been a whirlwind of activity. I’ve resumed my volunteer work as the garden docent for my son’s Kindergarten class. I was also suckered into being the room mom for his class as well, so now between the school garden and working in the classroom to help his teacher, it’s like I have an almost full time job. The upside is that now I’m openly revered by twenty one small people who look at me with undeserved wonder and admiration, thrilled that I know all their names and tell them how great they are at drawing stick people and gluing pasta to construction paper. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

A few weeks ago, Dan and I snuck off to Chicago one more time for one last wedding among my college friends. It was beautiful and amazing. The weather was perfect for fall and the trees were just starting to change colors. The bride was stunning and we were all a bit better behaved than at the last wedding. I’d like to write a full post about it but I fear that I’d really just be repeating myself from the previous wedding post. We drink a lot, we’re super badass, we love each other, we’re friends for life. You know the drill.

And of course, there was Halloween! Halloween is a big deal at our house. We love it! This year was especially awesome because the day fell on a Saturday, so instead of the usual week night rush to get dinner done, kids jammed into their costumes and start handing out candy to the toddlers who start trick or treating before dark, we had the time to really set up and participate in the evening. My husband decorated the driveway with strobe lights, a smoke machine, black lights, and glow in the dark cobwebs all over the garage door. What was super badass was my costume. I was

Yup, I looked just like her. LOL!

Maleficent. When the kids rounded the corner of my driveway the first thing they saw was Maleficent standing in front of a strobe light surrounded by billowing smoke and eerie glowing cobwebs. It was so fun! The kids loved it and so did the adults. Some of them asked to take their picture with Maleficent, which was a little weird for me but still fun. We also driveway party with our neighbors on Halloween, so when the kids are done trolling the neighborhood, we all hang out in the driveway and drink wine. At around 10pm a neighbor we hadn’t met came over to introduce herself. She said she just had to come check us out because our driveway was the talk of the neighborhood the whole night. Seriously! I told my husband, “Did you hear that? We’ve got a rep. We’re the cool kids now.” LOL!

Anyway, it’s been a busy and fun month. With Thanksgiving coming I know things won’t be slowing down any time soon. I look forward to catching up on all my favorite blogs and hopefully I’ll throw together some fun stories myself to share with all of you. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of material. Teaching gardening to a bunch of five year olds? There’s a mountain of hilarity in there somewhere. 😉

Hello world!

Things have slowed down enough here where I can finally catch my breath! Last week both of my kids went back to school. Bryn started 6th grade at the local middle school and Bryce started Kindergarten! It was a pretty big deal for both of them, and the week before that we were busy with orientations, registration and back-to-school shopping. The days were so busy trying to prepare both of them for these major transitions into new schools that I never stopped to consider how I really felt about any of it. As the parent, you just do what has to be done and reassure them everything will be amazing, challenging and brilliant. Yay for school! And Yay! for having three hours to myself, every weekday, for the first time in I can’t remember how many years!

So, when I lost my shit on the first day of school I was a tad bit surprised. I really was. I had managed to get both kids ready for school pretty well with only a few raised voices and barked commands to brush teeth, comb hair and put on shoes. As we pulled up to the middle school, Bryn and I both got out of the vehicle to give her one last hug good-bye and a reassuring, “It’s going to be a great day!” She was excited and not nervous at all. As she turned her back and began walking into the school, I burst into tears. I looked at my husband as I was sobbing in the car and said, “I had no idea I was even upset about this!”

I managed to get through the Kindergarten drop off just fine. Bryce was cool about it and even helped another little boy who was crying by holding his hand and walking him into the class. I was really proud of my self for not becoming overly emotional on his first day ( I had pulled myself together at that point), and I was proud of him for being such a big boy. The next evening was the night before Bryce’s fifth birthday. I was tucking him into bed and as we were snuggling I started to get choked up. He asked why I was crying and I said, “Tomorrow morning you will wake up and be five. You will never be four again, and four was a really good year. Mommy is going to miss four.” He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “But I’ll always be your baby.” Well hell, just bring on the waterworks! I cried most of the next day, which was his actual birthday. It was the third day of school and it all just hit me like a Mac truck! He was five and in Kindergarten! My baby isn’t a baby anymore.

I asked Dan if he thought it was too late for us to have another one, and then we realized that I would be 47 by the time that child started Kindergarten and Dan would be 51. So yeah, we’re totally done having kids, which then made me cry more, so then I just drank a bunch of wine until I felt better.

Wine fixes everything. 🙂