Ask me how to strap a giant whale to my minivan and drive 1600 miles home with it! I'll tell you how. Ask me to define the word sharing. It's different than what you might expect. Ask me how to get your child to learn there's more to life than pb&j. Wait, don't ask me that. Ask me what it's like to have an autistic child. I'll try to help you understand. Ask me to show you my Mom of the Year award! Oops, usually I'm out of the running for that about 10 minutes after getting out of bed.
Yet, it's all good. Sure, the paycheck is lost in the mail but I still wouldn't trade this life, quirks and all. In my posts, I'm hoping you'll find humor and honesty and that you'll be able to relate to my humble acceptance of motherhood's ups, downs and in betweens.
Welcome to my world!
HERE I AM!!!
The last day of school was Friday and as a treat, I promised Logan and Ryan I’d take them up to our gym pool, which is actually a really nice, family oriented pool that includes spray features and a water slide. I’d had a long afternoon that day running tedious errands and attending back to back doctor appointments so heck, if I wasn’t going to be able to sit on the porch with a glass of wine and relax, sitting poolside with the latest issue of People while my boys amused themselves for an hour didn’t seem like too bad an idea.
Since it was just me and the older two (Rob hanging back at the house with Adam), I had zero expectations of myself getting wet, and even though it was well after 5 PM, the sun was still out in full force so I found the perfect warm spot, spread my towel over the pool chair, stretched myself out,and fished the literary masterpiece out of my pool bag. The boys ran off to swim. Ahhh. Peace. Relaxation. At last.
“MOMMY! MOMMY! LOOK AT ME! WATCH!”
I glanced up to see Ryan waving frantically, smiled at him and gave a thumbs up to confirm that yes, I saw him put his head underwater.
He’s seven and a half now and has been swimming underwater for the better part of three years.
Back to People.
“WANNA SEE ME GO DOWN THE SLIDE?”
I watched as my almost nine year old rode down the yellow, tunneled water slide. Thumbs up again. Now back to the latest about a certain family with one heck of a bunch of kids…
“LOOK! MOMMY! I CAN TOUCH THE BOTTOM WITH MY FEET!”
Ryan was standing just out of the zero depth area in water that came up to his waist. A toddler with a life vest splashed next to him.
“I’M GOING DOWN THE SLIDE AGAIN! WATCH!” Logan commanded,and after I watched him repeat his talent of sliding into the water, another child around his age requested that I, too, watch HIM attempt this amazing feat. Ditto for the next five children in line.
“WHEN CAN WE GET ICEES?” Good Heavens, we’ve been here for 15 minutes! Already refreshments were calling. I also was beginning to see the light here and it was flashing a neon message of DON’T EVEN THINK POOLSIDE RELAXATION, BABY. I sighed, put the magazine away, and turned my attention back to the chorus of “watch mes” that by now seemed to be coming from all different areas of the pool. It’s as if they were suddenly hit with their own message signaling that Mommy might be thinking of something else besides them for a second.
What is it about my kids that alerts their radar to whenever they are nowhere on mine?
I would pay good money to not hear ‘Momma, WATCH ME’ or ‘Momma, LOOK!!!’ for an entire week.
Comment by Dani — June 15, 2009 @ 8:24 pm“MOMMA, LOOK, I move the pea from one side of my plate to the other” (and so forth)
*Grumble*
How do they all have the same ‘radar’?:-)))
The other day was more of the same! I wanna yell, “YES! I KNOW YOU CAN PUT YOUR HEAD UNDERWATER! I’VE PAID GOOD MONEY FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT!”
Comment by Hillary — June 18, 2009 @ 11:01 amBut that wouldn’t be very nice of me, now would it? And it is interesting…there was a time when I was BEGGING them to show me that they could do it. I should focus on that.