Time Flies When You're Loading the Dishwasher

Holy smokes.  It's been eight months since I updated this blog.  Life right now is....a bit of a blur.  I feel like we're living on fast forward.  Every morning is this well-rehearsed dance of teeth-brushing, snack-packing, shoe-hunting, and rush, rush, rush out the door to get one kid to one school and the other to the other.  From the moment I arrive at school, it's game on.  I want things to be high energy, there...so my mornings start with some spotify music blaring, kids coming in asking a jillion different questions (Got a bandaid?  Can I keep my guitar in your room all day?  Where's the rubric to that project?  Yep, the one that was due yesterday!  Can I get a writing conference during lunch? -- I can't come to the three other tutorial times you're offering this week.)  Hang on, kids.  I gotta check my email.  Oh, look.  I have 27 emails that arrived between 9 o'clock last night and 9 o'clock this morning.  Can you hold that thought while I email your mom and tell her that I will, indeed, meet with you during my lunch?  And then teach, teach, teach...meet during lunch, meet during off periods, stay for tutoring, then glance at the clock and realize that I've got to leave soon.  My kids and husband are at home by now, and I am not.  So then it's back home, hug the kids, check the backpacks, finish the homework, (thank GOD Frank usually takes care of dinner), then sometimes I do the dishes and sometimes I ignore them and have twice as much to do in the morning, and bath time and lunch-making and laying out clothes for the next day and then collapse on the couch and then think about grading but not really do it and then....sleep.

Sidenote:  As I write this, Jameson is saying, "Mom.  Mom.  I found this ball, mom.  Under the chair.  Mom.  Mom.  Mom."  And I am sort of acknowledging him, and sort of not.

I long for the summer months.  I wish we were in Colorado again, standing all four in a row, fishing.  And quiet.  I wish all my family members longed to do what I want to do this weekend:  pile into one bed and snuggle and SLEEP.  But we will be going to a pumpkin patch (as promised) and finishing costumes and cleaning the house and hanging more spiders in our yard and making hot chocolate (as promised) and going to listen to Frank play music in a field, and folding laundry...ALWAYS folding laundry.  And I have to grade a box full of journals, 143 quizzes, and a homework assignment.  That's probably not happening.  I'll look forward to more emails on Monday morning.

And now I am going to play with a little dog hair-covered ball with Jameson.  And life is really grand.  I know it will not be long before these kids are grown and gone and I can sleep every weekend and then I will miss them like crazy.  And if, when they're older, they ask why I didn't update the blog about them more often, I will point them to this entry.  Know that you are very loved, kids.  And you do amazing things and say hilarious things all the time.  And sometimes you draw on the carpet and yell at each other.  And sometimes our house is a disaster area.  And sometimes we don't do all the things I promised you that we'd do.  And sometimes I lose my cool.  But I'm trying, kiddos.  I'm trying.

It starts

I was watching our neighbor, Jaxon, tonight, and ended up taking him over to Kate and Jason's house for popcorn and pizza and video games and all that hoopla. In a "team of friends" that features 3 big girls and 3 little boys, an older boy was a huge hit. Maybe too huge. Here was our conversation on the way home:

Sophie: Laney really, really liked Jaxon! She said she was going to marry him!

Jaxon: I'm not going to marry anyone!

Sophie: She was trying to kiss him!

Me: Really? Did Laney kiss Jaxon?

Jaxon: NO!

Sophie: She just kissed his jacket.

Jaxon: I think that Lucy liked me, too.

Me: Why do you think that? Did Lucy try to kiss you, too?

Jaxon: No, but she was acting like she liked me.

Sophie: How was she acting?

Jaxon: She was giggling. Giggling at everything I said. Like, I could have said "pudding" and she would have giggled.

Jameson: I say pudding and then somebody POOTS and then my eyeballs pop out.

In closing, 3-year-old boys are awesome. Nine-year-old boys are trouble. And our girls are getting boy crazy. Lord help us.