I was born a ramblin’ man or woman or whatever
When Caroline was about two years old she would do this thing where she’d throw a huge fit about something, because that’s what two year olds do, and then after it was over and she’d calmed down a little, would look at me with a completely innocent expression and ask, “Happen? Happen?”
It was the toddler version of “I realize I just lost my mind but I have no recollection of any of it or what caused such an outburst to transpire”.
And I would answer with, “What happened was you just threw a huge fit for reasons I’m still trying to understand but appears to have something to do with your aversion to eating peas for dinner.”
All that to say that this past weekend was so busy with so many different activities that it has left me sitting on the couch, staring into space asking, “Happen? Happen?” Fortunately I did not throw any sort of temper tantrum that I recall. In fact, I think I made it through the whole thing in one piece and even managed to be social and at times even masqueraded as an extrovert.
And, yet, I will spare you every detail of the weekend because, honestly, who wants to read all that? Not to mention that I should think about going to bed.
On Friday night we ate Mexican food with Bops. Mimi was MIA because she’s been out in California visiting her best friend, so we took it upon ourselves to let Bops take us to dinner before he went home to watch The Masters that he’d recorded earlier to avoid the commercial interruptions.
(Why am I telling you about my dad’s television viewing habits? I should be embarrassed at my lack of mental editing.)
Saturday morning, Caroline had a soccer game. The Magic soundly defeated their opponents 9-2 (not that anyone keeps score except obnoxious mothers in the stands) and Caroline scored three of the goals. Granted, the team they played was made up largely of first graders and you want to know what the difference is between first and second graders? About eight inches and some coordination.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Gulley’s boys before we all went to a birthday party later that evening and I’m not kidding when I tell you that we shut it down. Which sounds like an odd statement to make about a three-year-old’s birthday party, but it applies in this situation because the grown-ups probably had more fun than the kids. However, I totally underestimated how tired Caroline was by the end of the evening and that led to a level 10 meltdown over the unfairness of life when it was finally time to leave. Fortunately, we managed to get her home and in bed where she literally fell asleep before I could finish saying goodnight. And the next morning she woke up with no recollection of the events that transpired the night before. In other words, it was like my junior year of college.
P left us sleeping soundly while he went to church Sunday morning because he knew one of us desperately needed the sleep. After we woke up we went with Bops to my aunt and uncle’s house to eat Sunday lunch. My aunt makes the closest version that exists of my Me-Ma’s spaghetti sauce (Me-Ma didn’t believe in writing down recipes and passing them down. She believed in taking recipes to the grave with her to ensure that we would all spend the rest of our lives talking about how no one makes spaghetti like she did.) and just the smell of it caused me to travel back in time just a little bit. Except we are all old now and my cousins are real men with facial hair and wives instead of little boys running around in diapers and knocking over the swingset in my Me-Ma and Pa-Pa’s backyard.
Caroline and I got back home around mid-afternoon and I had big plans to sleep off my spaghetti-induced hangover, but ended up running out of time because I had to get us all ready for our next event. (I know. Are you exhausted? Happen? Happen?) It’s Fiesta time in San Antonio right now (No, I did not have to make a fiesta shoebox float this year. Although I might consider doing one if you paid me because my OCD is in need of a place to land.) and some dear friends invited us to this big Fiesta party, complete with a plethora of bounce houses, clowns, balloon animals, face paint, fireworks, and, most importantly, margaritas.
So I had to pull out my iron and ironing board like we were going to Cotillion. Truth be told, I’d just bought a few new shirts for P and I was hoping to sneak them into his closet and pretend like they’d already been washed and ironed because he refuses to wear new clothes before they’ve been washed and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. (Also, all of those shirts cost $15.00.) But he was on to my scheme and threw those shirts in the wash. And, sure, I could have refused to iron them but he couldn’t care less about walking around like one big giant wrinkle which meant the burden of spray starch and our family name fell solely on my shoulders.
He walked in around 5:00 and asked if I’d seen an updated weather forecast to see if the weathermen were still trying to make us think it might actually rain. I told him I’d been way too busy being Cinderella to watch the news and I don’t even think he caught the reference. Or the bitterness.
Eventually we made it to the party in plenty of time to run around from bounce house to bounce house and sweat through our nicely pressed garments. Oh my word, I hate to complain about the heat but it has been so hot. SO HOT. In spite of the heat, we had such a good time seeing so many friends and I was able to feel bad for the majority that still have toddlers while I was able to sit comfortably and tell Caroline, “RUN AND BE FREE, LITTLE ONE. I’LL BE RIGHT HERE IF YOU NEED ME.”
Then we made it back home, I collapsed on the couch and announced to P that I had nothing to write about on the blog tonight. Yet here I am 1072 words later. If you’ve made it this far you deserve a medal.
And probably an apology.
