Wear & Tear (Excuses, Excuses from a Bad Blogger)

Meera’s favorite shoes are officially worn out. I won’t let her wear them anymore, and after several tantrums over it, she’s finally resigned herself to a new pair of pink summer sandals that she finds acceptable but doesn’t like nearly as much as those old shoes. One of the many, many things I’ve been doing lately is stocking up on summer clothes and shoes for the bambinos. They fit into almost nothing of what they wore last summer. (I am so envious; I so wish that I had some excuse for buying an entirely new wardrobe for myself every single season.) As much as I feel frantic, running around town and surfing the web like a maniac, looking for good deals on decent wardrobe essentials for my three, in between the million other things jam-packed into my calendar, I must admit that I really do like buying for them. And it is always at the surface of my mind that time moves too quickly, and that far too soon these days will be a distant memory, and, despite how crazed I often feel, I really do — at the heart of it — love being a mother of young children. These three bambinos are a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute reminder to me of that—

We’re moving through May at record speed. Too much happening too fast and as a result I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. I’m sorry for that because: a) blogging helps me to stay sane [thus I’m even less sane than usual lately], and b) I know there are people out there reading this blog who I’m letting down when I slack off [my apologies to our family, friends, and regular readers who make me feel like our life is something special enough to take time to read about].

Here is a sampling of some of my excuses:

• Uh, yeah, so, we’re selling our house. (If you don’t already know about that, you can read about it here). That is a huge time-consuming, emotion-consuming, Clorox-and-Pledge-consuming task. OMG. As everyone who has ever sold a house knows, every time we have a showing we are like crazy people getting the house spic-n-span and show-worthy. We are in a constant state of stress over this whole ball of wax.
• We’re not just selling our house, we’re preparing (mentally, physically, emotionally) for moving onto campus as a Faculty Family in Residence. So, yeah, we have a lot going on. The apartment that Lehigh is preparing for us is in movement. Demolition (gutting of the apartment) is done, and construction is beginning. They are going all out for us to make 800 square feet as livable as possible for our family of five. (Don’t worry, I’m documenting it all, and will be blogging about it eventually.) We’ll see how we feel a year from now. But right now we’re feeling excited, anxious, and curious about how this will all go down. Mainly, though, Braydon and I are the types who — once we’ve made a decision — just want to get the show on the road. So, we are chomping at the bit to get our house sold and get a move on.
• Braydon and the kids gave me a Kindle for Mother’s Day. It has changed my life. I am now in an unprecedented phase of obsessive reading-for-pleasure. I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I’m fully immersed in the world of Ana and Christian (the Shades of Grey books). It has been a long, long, long time since I’ve read anything non-work-related. It feels strange to be doing it. When I’m reading at 9pm when I should be blogging, and at 11pm when I should be unwinding, and at 1am when I should be sleeping, I’m cursing my husband for this dang Kindle. And he’s smiling ear-to-ear to see me doing something — for once! — for myself. Dang Mother’s Day gift!
• K & O’s birthday came and went, and we have about 1500 photos to prove it, and I’m painstakingly sorting through those photos to try to determine how on earth I’m going to make a blog post of their best birthday party ever. It was sunny and gorgeous with blue skies, and the whole party was outdoors, so the photos are ridiculously good, and I’m having trouble narrowing down which to choose to include in the blog. This is a long, long process folks. Only bloggers (who use lots of photos) could truly understand. Believe me when I say: TIME CONSUMING. (In the meantime, for a sneak peak you can check out our friends The Petsch’s blog by clicking here.)
• And yes… right on the heels of that huge extravaganza, we have Meera’s birthday brewing. So, I’ve been in Full-On-Maximum-Capacity-Birthday-Planning-Mode for this entire month. I will not complain. Because I LOVE IT. (Nothing much makes me happier than making birthday parties for my bambinos.) But it does definitely get in the way of blogging (a person can only do so much… unfortunately).
• Oh, and yes, I have a job too. A job that — much to the confusion of many, it seems — does not go on hiatus in the summer. One of my biggest, hugest, most blood-boiling pet-peeves is people saying to me at this time of year: “So, you must be happy to be done for the summer!” Oh dear Lord. “Done for the summer”….?…. Professors out there, are you with me on this? Does this just absolutely make you want to slap people (or run away screaming)??? Heaven help me.
• Anyhooooo….. we’ve been busy.

These days we are spending a ridiculous amount of time at baseball games. 2 games a week, 3 hours each from start to finish, plus getting-dressed-and-ready and driving to-and-from, and-packed-up-with-Gatorade-and-Big-League-Chew and stuff-to-keep-Meera-busy and food/drinks (games start at 5:45 so we are right in Prime Time Dinner Hour), not to mention LAUNDRY, means we’re talking about somewhere in the vicinity of 10 hours of week devoted to I-8 Little League. But this is one thing where it is easily plain to see that it is worth it. Our boys are lovin’ it. And they are so, so good at baseball. So, twice weekly we get to watch Kyle hit humungous hits and run like crazy around the bases, and we get to watch Owen pitch so well that it sometimes almost makes me cry watching him so cool under pressure at the center of the field.

And Meera just rolls with it. All of it. It is amazing. And her favorite thing to do, still, is to color. Which she does, religiously, every single day.

Our pool opened. Which is a major project. The start-of-season pool opening and pool cleaning is just huge.

But this too is a thing where it is easily plain to see that it is worth it. (When we do move to campus, our pool is going to be the #1 thing that we miss most.)

And there is the daily grind. The homework (OMG I hate homework! I hate it much more now than I ever did when I was the one doing it!)

The lunch-packing (by this time of year who doesn’t hate the whole lunch-making routine????).

We are counting the days until school is out for the summer. Today is Field Day, the telltale sign that summer vacation is not too far away now.

We’ve been doing more-than-the-usual amount of socializing too. This time of year seems to overflow with parties, gatherings, and get-togethers. We’ve had the pleasure of some great times with friends these past few weeks. Multiple birthday parties, a couple of dinner parties, and invitations to spend time with friends that have made us very, very happy.

And there has been some puddle jumping thrown in there too. And some just plain exhaustion.

I wish I could say that I’ll get better about blogging over the next few days. But I know that I won’t. Because we have a girl who is about to turn 4. And most of my energies over the next few days will be devoted mainly to that.

So, there you have it. Excuses, excuses.