Dare I really say it?

I am getting into the groove of thinking about school starting and I'm really not minding it all that much.  Whew. That was a round about way of saying I'm looking forward to school starting.  Ok, well, I am and I am not.  It's going to be so tough to have both of my babies gone ALL. DAY. LONG. and it's going to be tough to deal with two sets of nightly homework, spelling test lists, science fair projects, read-a-thon times..... you get the idea.  But FG and I have both noticed that the days are getting a bit shorter and the nights are getting a bit cooler. But I am really in need of a break from these two!  I can barely think straight (ha, no comments please, I am fully aware I have Mommy Brain!).

This post was just interrupted by me telling my 9 1/2 year old son that he sounds like an idiot and kids will make fun of him for acting the way he was at that moment.  I told him I didn't mean to hurt his feelings but he will get made fun of by other kids and that probably will hurt his feelings a lot more if he keeps up acting like a complete fool.  He screeches like a girl and he makes these noises that sound like a strangled cat.  It grates on my every last nerve.

Where was I?.... oh yes, Mommy Brain.  My patience is running very thin from all the running we've been doing.  Our diet isn't great these days.  The fruit basket is E.M.P.T.Y., the carbs and overall crap foods are up.  Maybe that's the explanation for the idiotic behavior?  This week was supposed to be a bit slower but alas, no such luck.  Monday my mom was off work so I took the kids to swim. I normally do laundry and clean up the house on Mondays.  I've been piece-mealing the laundry all week and that is just not my style!  I do it all at once and get that shit folded and put away that very same day.  It's all in baskets in my bedroom right now - unfolded and wrinkling. I've been piece-mealing the housecleaning too.  Ok, that really doesn't work!  Then I get no respite!  I'm doing a "big" job every day and usually it's at some God-awful time like 10:30 at night.  It feels like once I get one bathroom cleaned and a floor mopped, it's time to do it all over again. 
Yesterday was only Tuesday but it was a work day for me both at the toystore and in the office.  So I rushed DS out to golf then rushed DD and I to the office to get some paperwork done for 2 hours then rushed out to get DS then rushed home to throw some food in all of us (at 3:30. Yep, that's when my kids finally ate some lunch which was a lovely balanced meal of chocolate milk and pizza rolls.  That was after DD had a cereal bar & a sucker around 12:30).  Then I rushed off to work at the toystore and no frickin wonder I didn't feel like doing anything when I got home.  I didn't have any patience when I tried to get the kids to bed either.  Yes! I'll start clearning room for my Mom of the Year Award.  So along with our wonderful diet, my psyche is not in a good spot.

4 weeks.  That's when school will start.  Things will really change around here and change with an SPD kid is always a big struggle.  That's another post rattling around in my head - the vast differences between a "normal" kid and mine.  I've got one of each and boy howdy does it keep me on my toes! 
Any advice out there to make the transition easier, please please pass it along.  We all suffer every school year getting the routine going.  Try as I may to start it early with earlier bedtimes and a more rigid schedule, I struggle with trying to make the most of the last precious lazy days of summer. 

I feel like I haven't read a blog all summer, like all I've done on mine is b&m about how busy we've been and how crazy it makes me.  I haven't baked or tried new recipes. Heck, I've barely cooked much!  I miss my bloggy friends and I know I'm here talking to myself because of it.  I'm headed to a new era and I'm scared.  On top of that, I think I'm going to work days at the store instead of nights.  I'm waiting to see what will happen but they are opening a new location in town (Liz, up by you!!!).  I talked to my boss and told her that I would ideally like to work a few days while the kids are in school. This works out for her too because the college girls go back to class soon too, making them unavailable during the day.  I may still work every other Saturday day because that is actually fun for me.  I see the kids and the parents from school and get to retain my "Rock Star" status among the elementary school age kids.  I wrap a heck of a lot of presents and don't do a lot of store cleaning.  So we'll see how this whole transition works out for this family of 4.  Until then, I'm trying to figure out how to get a break but still enjoy the last few weeks of summer with my idiotic wonderful little children!

Balance

I can see why year-round or multi-track school could be appealing. 
I had a panic attack yesterday.  I couldn't breathe and I was alone and freaking out.  I don't know why exactly. Nothing specific triggered it.  Just maybe looking at my calendar of stuff to do, crap going on with the business, FG and I kicking around the idea of moving out of state (very very pre-mature but just the thought, the inkling of it makes me nervous) was enough to set me off.  I have to cut myself some slack but it's hard. I look at other people and wonder how the heck they get it all done in a day!  Then I realized that different people have different levels of abilities to balance things in their lives.  I'm sure the stressful things right now outweigh other things which can make even small things seem insurmountable.  

I want to write a post about my DD and how she's 6 now.  But I don't have the time to devote to it.  And since I have somewhere to be or someone to see at all times for the next several days, I don't want anyone to see my puffy eyes and runny make-up after I write it out.  But yeah, my little hell-fire is 6 now.  Sweet one minute and will give you the iciest stare the next. 

I will admit I am a lucky girl that today, at the age of 39, my grandma is going to teach me to make a family recipe.  It's one of my dad's favorites (he has so many!) and one that my  mother has attempted for years and years and never managed to get right.  So my grandma is visiting and she is coming to my house today & tomorrow to teach me how to make these rolls.  She has shown me how to make many things in my life that her mother taught her to make.   There are no real recipes for many of them, which is why a personal lesson is necessary.  Sure my great-grandma wrote things down but really, how do you truly interpret a "dash" a "dollop" "mix it until it looks right" if you aren't shown?  My grandma is proud of me that I make so many of her recipes and her mother's recipes.  I cook and bake a lot by feel. Which she does too.  I guess it's just in my genes.  I made dinner for everyone the other night.  My dad's sister and her husband were visiting too.  I got so many compliments.  When they asked me what I did to marinate the meat, I couldn't really answer.  When they asked how I made the potatoes, I sounded like I was repeating a page of my great-grandma's cookbook, "I just put in enough of this & that until it seemed right and I tasted it along the way."  My grandmother beamed.  She said softly, "You cook by feel don't you?"  Yep.  Sometimes it doesn't turn out, most of the time it does. 

Now I'm waiting for two kids to arrive that I promised a friend I would watch for her today.  I've got crafts ready to go.  I kept them the other day too.  It's nice to help friends and I am actually paying her back for taking mine recently for a couple of hours.  But eye yi yi.... why do I get myself into these things?!  As soon as these performances and rehearsals are DONE for the kids, I will be able to breathe a bit.  I looked at my schedule for August and was happy to see nothing but birthday reminders and days on the boat scheduled (besides some work here & there).  I am hoping to do some sleepovers and days at Tahoe with the kids.  I'm in denial that school starts back up at the end of August.

I really got off point here didn't I?  What I started out saying is right now I'm 24/7 kid stuff with zero time to myself.  I'm either with my kids or at work (yeah, hello!, toystore - OPK!).  I told FG that while I don't want the kids to go back to school, a few minutes to myself, a trip to the grocery store alone, a chance to browse books at the library alone would be wonderful.  But with school comes homework, volunteering, papers to sign (and I am considering getting my sub teacher license this year) and less fun time with the kid - no lazy mornings of blueberry pancakes and cartoons in jammies.  So I can totally see how breaking it up could be appealing.  Make the most of the few weeks off school but then send them back and have a good routine (with some free time!) established for a few weeks too.  Then again, I don't know if I would like having them home for 4 weeks in November when I can't send them outside for hours or go to the pool.  Aren't we always struggling to find balance no matter what our situation is?

What does life have in store for me?

I'm itchy and anxious.  I have that "I want to do SOMETHING" feeling.  Maybe it's Party-Let-Down?  I have all these grand ideas swirling in my head and can't seem to pull one coherent thing toghether.  I feel like I'm waiting on something.  Part of it is the season.  Give a girl a dose of nice weather after some very long dreary days and it will mess with her head.  We've had such nice weather it gives me spring fever. It's not the spring fever that makes me want to throw open the windows and deep clean though.  I think I got enough of that lately.  I am not a gardener at all. I like to look at things but I literally suck at growing things.  I have several houseplants that I've had since we got married over 15 years ago but they are the hearty variety that are damn near impossible to kill as long as you water them. 

No, I am all jazzed up about helping us build our business.  I want to figure something out. FG isn't on the same page.  Sure he wants to build up the business but yeah, he's had a really rough week on top of not feeling well (the man does not do sick at all).  Having me harp on him about doing more is probably the last thing on earth he's enjoying this week.  Since the ideas are just swirling and I don't even have any true idea what I want to do or how I want to do it I think I'll just have to let them stew for awhile.

I'm also high on the social aspect of life yet down on the fact that we have so many aquaintences.  I miss the high school days of BFF's.  We have lots of friends but we don't have those super-duper close friends that call us and we call them automatically.  Does anyone else feel this way or am I being adolescent?  Do I need to grow up and figure out that my family is what I've got and that's where it ends?  Or do you have those super-duper close friends and I'm the envious outcast in this picture?

While I read blogs in between researching what I can do to get to a better place with both of these issues, I'll continue to plod along with working at the toystore and feeling like my brain is shrinking daily.  What happened to me?  Was I fooling myself thinking I was intelligent when all along I was just mediocre?    I feel like maybe if I took a class of some sort, got more education I would feel like I am doing something.  Actually, I think I just need to do something.

"One step must start each journey."

Obsessed

I'm trying NOT to be, really, I am but I cannot get it out of my head! 

We are hoping for a trip back to WDW this fall.  This time, my parents want to come and my MIL and possibly  her SO (because it feels weird calling him a "boyfriend" when they are in their 60's).  The BEST family trip we have ever taken was our first trip in 2006. 

It was for DS's 5th birthday and DD was 18 mo. old.  I was turning 35 too.  To use the cliche, it was magical!  The last trip we took was last year around this time.  Maybe that's why I'm obsessing over it now - last year I was getting ready to go and busy planning and mapping things out.  We had crappy weather that put a damper on our trip.  I tried to make the best of it because I kept telling myself there's no way to be unhappy in The Happiest Place On Earth.  We did have a good time, it just didn't measure up to the first experience. 

If we go again and the grandparents go with us it will be a very different trip.  First, none of them have ever gone.  Second, my dad is disabled and will have his scooter to get around. There is NO way he could walk even a small portion of the park. Third, we will just have more people to worry about with different needs/wants and schedules.  Fourth, I have to get my dad to understand that it's ok if we don't all stay in the same place.  We'll stay on property because that's how it the least stressful for me.  If I'm going to go and experience it again when my kids are so young, then I'm going to enjoy every last bit of it!

The hotel part is a problem just getting them all to understand how it works.  My dad, being disabled, can stay at the military resort on property.  It's one of his benefits from the government and putting in his time in Vietnam.  That is the reason he's disabled now so he may as well take advantage of all he's given up to get those benefits - like breathing and walking.  However, he cannot seem to understand that FG and I are NOT comfortable staying at a military resort when we didn't earn those benefits.  He says he earned them for us but he doesn't get FG's utter uncomfortableness taking a room in a hotel like that when he gets to come home to his family every night.  He isn't being shot at, fear being blown up or only gets to see his children via email pictures.  He's young enough that we are the same age as many of the soldiers and families staying at those resorts.  We do not deserve it, THEY do.  My dad surely does as well but we'll suffer having to pay a bit more money because we didn't earn that benefit ourselves.  Sooo, over the next 10 months or so, I need to get my dad to finally understand how Disney works and that it's really OK if we aren't all bunking next door to each other. That's the beauty of DW that is hard to explain if you haven't experienced it.

We have other hurdles to get past to even think about this trip as well.  We still aren't fluid in money.  While we are working hard to change that, it isn't quite there yet.  So it's tough to dream and wish when there's bills to pay and DW ain't cheap. 
There's another small problem that I believe we can get past the easiest.  The fact that we produce a weekly, timely product and it's just FG and I doing it now is a problem.  We have to figure out how to do two programs in one week.  So it will end up being a ton of work before going on any vacation and a ton of work after we get home.  This will hold true no matter what time we ever take off.  DW isn't a real relaxing vacation either.  We literally drag ourselves out of bed every morning and fall into bed late at night.  Eh, I can sleep when I'm dead.  Now I'm going to soak up every moment of magic with my family as I can.  My poor kids were pushed to limits on both trips. So much so that the first trip when DD was 18 mo, she was throwing up on the way home I think from pure exhaustion.  She's fine now and we had a great time so it didn't do any damage :) 

This is my favorite picture from our trip last year.  It just screams pure joy to me and I cannot get it out of my head to recapture it. (It doesn't help that both kids ask all the time when we get to go back. Like any parent I want to make them happy and it's like a stab in the heart knowing that it's something we all want so very badly!)