Day: July 25, 2008

Back in the days when I was herding a toddler and a preschooler while toting a baby, I was frequently admonished that I should “enjoy it now because you’ll miss these days.” If I was feeling honest and if the person was someone I trusted, I would answer “I’m looking forward to missing these days.” It is now years later. I no longer have a baby or a toddler. In the fall I won’t even have a preschooler because Patch will have made the transition to kindergartener. Know what? I look back on those baby and toddler days, gleefully knowing that they are behind me. Do I miss them at all? There are things about them that I miss, but on the whole I’m glad to be here and not there. I am in a good place right now. I have three grade school kids and one blossoming teen. I think that these are the days I will miss when they are gone. Fortunately I’ve got a good 8-13 years left with kids at home. By the end of that, perhaps I will be all too happy to move into the next stage of my life. I’ve heard that being a grandma is a good gig when it comes to you. I’m not in a hurry to get there though. Here is really good.

My brain is full of thoughts. I intend to dump them here at random. Coherence is optional.

One week from tomorrow I’ll be handing kids off to my relatives. This would be stressing me more, except that I have so many things to do in the next week that I haven’t had time to let the thought sink in.

I’ve been so busy this past week that I’ve hardly had time to miss Howard, something I usually spend a lot of time doing when he is gone. Also it was four days after he left before I remembered that I’d intended to write little notes and stick them in his luggage for him to find while he was gone.

Kiki has girls camp starting next Tuesday. I’ve done nothing to prepare for this except glance at the packing list. I hope that I have everything on hand and last minute shopping won’t be necessary.

Today at the grocery store I finally spent $4 and bought the eco-friendly fabric grocery bags. So far I really like them. They are stronger and bigger than plastic bags. They’re easier to carry from the car to the house because the handles are much longer. They’re square, so food packs into them nicely. They were a little harder for the bagger because they have a tendency to flop over until they’re filled. I think I like them better than both paper and plastic bags. Now I have to see if I can actually remember to take them back with me to the store.

Patch came in from riding his bike with a flushed face. He sat next to me on the couch and said “mom?”
I looked at him and said “You need a drink of gatorade.”
Patch nodded.
I got up from the couch. As I was standing up I said “And you need a hug.”
Patch had been headed for the kitchen, but he spun in place and threw his arms wide. “Yeah!”
Someday he’ll be too little to hug me while I carry him to the kitchen, but today he was the perfect size for it.

Today I found a link to Cake Wrecks. It provided me more than an hour’s worth of delighted reading.

I got all the magnet orders into the mail and placed a re-order because we are now temporarily out of magnets. Howard has a pile with him at Comic Con, but any left over from there are slated to be carried to World con.

Howard is having a great time at Comic Con. This is a lovely contrast to last year when the event was nothing but stressful. I love having him call me and spill thoughts about who he talked to and how the booth is doing. It looks like we’re going to turn a profit on this venture. This is good. Howard is also having all kinds of potentially valuable conversations.

Kiki and Link just arrived home. When they walked in the door, I realized how much I’d missed them even though they were only gone for one night. Being away from the kids for Worldcon is going to be hard. It is also going to be fun. In fact my looming trip to World Con is so fraught with emotion that I found myself having trouble talking about it with neighbors the other night. In a small talk situation, it is hard to explain that I am nervous and excited and stressed all at the same time. It is going to be a wonderful vacation from my regular life. It is also going to be exhausting and emotionally wracking to be wearing my professional face all day for 5 days straight. I’m going to have a great time hanging out with Howard. I’m going to have moments where I just want to crawl in the van and go home so that I can see my kids. I will cry when on the phone with the kids. Gleek will call me in tears at least twice. Probably more like 5 or 10 times. Those phone calls will increase in frequency the longer we are separated. There will be times when I call the kids and none of them will be interested in talking to me because they’re too busy having fun. I will be sorry when World con is over. I will be glad to return to my normal life. There will be a hundred other thoughts and emotions, some of which I am expecting, others will ambush me.

Now that I have all the random thoughts pinned down by words, I may have space to plan dinner. After that I need to lead an assault on the mess that is our family room.