heyMamas

Parent Teacher Conferences

It happens every time without fail, we head into the parent teacher conferences with Belle and Lily's teachers and when the teacher starts saying wonderful things about my girls, a giant lump begins to form in my throat. 

 

This lump and trying to keep it at bay, actually hurts.

 

What usually happens is, the lump sits in my throat and I try for the rest of the conference to not break down, and because I am concentrating so hard on not breaking down, I end up missing all of the wonderful comments and stories about their behavior in class.  

 

This time, I tried to stay in the moment, ignored the lump and absorbed everything the teacher said.

 

 

Belle, your teacher said you were a wonderful person and had no idea how beautiful you were inside and out.  She said you wrote a poem that day and the last line of the poem was... I am unstoppable.

 

You are so right.  You are unstoppable.  You need a TON of encouragement and prodding to get things started, but once you hit your stride, you are unstoppable.

 

 

Lily, your teacher said you exemplified excellence in just about everything you do. She told us stories of how everyone always wants to sit near you or be next to you and you always manage to accommodate everyone while hurting no one.

 

After both conferences, I met you guys out in the hallway and practically suffocated you with my hugs. I was so full of pride in that moment and vowed to myself the next time I got mad at you and thought you were rotten little eggs, I would remember all the beautiful things your teachers said about you both. 

 

I even promised manicures.

 

Joining the Club

Welcome to the Club!!

I must have heard that phrase five times yesterday, all said by completely different people.  The club that I joined was the Forty Plus Club.

Mentally, leaving my thirties behind has not been the easiest transition, but I had a great day filled with tons of loving birthday wishes from family and friends and it was such an awesome feeling.

I don't remember anyone saying welcome to the club when I turned thirty, and I totally get it now.  There's something about turning forty, coming to grips with the fact that time is passing and you simply can't escape it, no matter how much you want to, because in your mind and your heart you are still only twenty-eight.

That's my number, twenty-eight.  That's how old I feel.  I was twenty-eight when I got married and that was a great age, and that's how old I feel. 

The welcome to the club thing, was like a light bulb that just went off for me yesterday. How could this light bulb feeling have happened so quickly?  That I can't tell you, but now I just get it.

I get that IT, is a rite of passage for every single person that has passed this milestone.  Every single person that feels twenty-eight, but the years say forty, and that is THE ONLY real proof that you are forty.

I haven't been asked how old I am yet, so I haven't had the chance to say forty and truthfully I need a little more time with this one before I fully embrace it, but I will get there.

One thing I have learned in my first forty years, is that getting older is weird, even if you do it gracefully and don't mind it, it is weird.  Your body changes, your face changes, spots begin to appear where they were never spots before, things sag, recovering from events is harder, cookies stay on your hips longer....

It is weird. 

One of my goals for the next decade is to slow down, to enjoy my life and where I am in it so I don't feel like it all went too fast, but rather at just the right speed.

Social Juggling

I would not be exaggerating if I told you that I spent half of my day yesterday organizing my girls social calendars.

 

Every Friday I have five or six entries listed on my Outlook calendar that give me a sneak peak into what lies ahead for that weekend. Belle usually has a lacrosse game, a soccer game and an extra lacrosse practice with a different team.  Lily has a soccer game and a lacrosse practice and each event is usually on the complete opposite end of the island, at the same time.  

 

This week, Drew and I started planning out how we could manage the logistics on Monday morning.  How does this happen when I only have two kids.  How on earth do people manage it with three or four kids?

 

And then, factor in the added pressures of scheduling playdates. 

 

I offered up either April 30th or May 13th as potential dates that could work for a sleepover to one of Belle's friends.  When I sent the email to her Mother I felt so foolish because it was further out than dates I use to plan business meetings. 

 

We are talking about two ten year olds here, and mine is fully booked on Friday and Saturday evenings until May 13th. Granted  some of those activities are family-related, but half of those are playdates or sleepovers with friends. 

 

There are weeks at a time that  Drew and I declare as playdate-free, but then I hear about all the other kids and the playdates and sleepovers they are having with each other and I feel pressure to keep up so that my girls remain in the loop.

 

I am not a pushover and I can certainly put my foot down when needed, but I have to admit that I don't want my girls to miss out socially, and I question whether that will that happen if they don't have as many playdates as other kids.

 

Do you remember when you were a kid and your group of friends had an experience that you missed out on and then they continued to talk about it like....remember that time when...... and you would say, what are you talking about?  And they would say, oh inside joke, or you had to be there.

 

Remember those phrases and how awful they left you feeling, I do.

 

Balance is key.

 

Balance is key and I am a firm believer in giving plenty of downtime to my girls so they can explore and create and think freely.  But finding the right balance is so hard and knowing what to skip and what not to skip can leave you second guessing yourself constantly. 

One thing I do know for sure is that if I put one sixteenth the amount of effort into my own social life as I do into my girls, I would be pretty freaking rocking.

Alone Time

To say that Drew and I never get any time together without kids dominating every moment of every conversation, would be an understatement. In fact, sometimes an entire weekend will pass and I will realize Monday morning that we haven't even hugged each other.

There are days when I dream about being that couple that has a standing date every Saturday night.  Truth is, we couldn't be that couple even if we wanted too, because we usually have something to do with the girls in the late afternoon that leads into Saturday evenings.

And truthfully even if we don't have a prior commitment, we are usually so tired by Saturday night that going out is the last thing we want to do. And then there's that little issue of me and my girls, and my wanting to be with them.

Since I work outside the home and already feel like I miss so much, our weekends are spent together and I love and wouldn't change it for all the Saturday night dates in the world.

BUT, I'm not saying a Saturday night every now and then, as we were lucky enough to have this past Saturday while the girls were both at a sleepover party, is not a good thing.

We had a ridiculously amazing and much needed night filled with movies and good food.  We slept in Sunday morning and had a leisurely breakfast together filled with beautiful moments of silence.

Even though I started missing my girls the Wednesday before the Saturday sleepover, {pathetic, believe me I know}, strangely I didn't miss them that night. 

I knew they were safe and in those moments between Saturday night and Sunday morning I got to just be that girl with her guy...

Random Gratefulness

So far, this week has been a particularly stressful one for me.  The majority of that stress dissipated at 11:30am today when I finished with a three hour long test that I had to take for work. 

I felt like a college student again during finals week.  NOTHING feels better than that feeling you have when you finish something that has been hanging over your head, waiting to be completed.

I walked back to my office with the sun shining down on me and for a precious few moments, there was no where I had to be and I was stress-less.  I thought about all the things in my life at that very moment, that I am grateful for....

1)    The sun is FINALLY up when I get up in the morning and head to work.

2)    The sun is STILL out when I leave the office in the early evening.

3)    For the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD that only takes 30 minutes to do, but is actually lifting my ass up a little higher than it was before.

4)    For the Alpha Hydroxy Souffle that I have been using for the last six weeks and the repairing effects it has had on my sun ravaged skin that I was stupid and neglectful enough to allow to happen this past summer.

5)    For beach weather being that much closer.

6)    For the hat that I bought last weekend to wear at #5, so that #4 doesn't EVER happen again.

7)    For working right smack in the middle of the MOST dynamic city in the world and at the same time hating it just as much as I love it. 

8)    For craving a simple and content life, instead of a life filled with shallowness and materialism.

9)    For stealing a quick nap on the train at the beginning of my day and another one at the end.

10)    For my girls.

11)    For my girls.

12)    And for my girls.  And this one could go on forever.

13)    For my husband who happens to also be the only person in the world that I always want to be with, even when I want to kick him really hard.

14)    The love I get to experience and the fun I get to participate in every single day with #10, #11, #12 and #13. 

Tell me one quick thing that you are thankful for this week!

Xo
Sadie