School has been out exactly one week. One. Whole. Week. I am already wondering how I am going to sanely make it through the next 2 1/2 months. Do I really want to be the mom that arrives the first day of school to drop off my kids an hour early banging on the door like a madman? Depending on what minute of the day you asked me these past 7 days, yes! Yes, I do.
As the school year ended and I had these amazing plans for my kids and me, LIFE showed me on the first serve that I would meet my match from the get go. Ok, so can the ball ever be in my court so I can knock the heck out of it back over to show I mean business? I'm still waiting....
Things Against Summer Vacation Super Mom Week 1- 1
Summer Vacation Super Mom (yeah, that's me) Week 1 - Big Fat 0
So as the summer began last Thursday, I would have my boys for a week. They go to their dad's for a week at a time so I would have the first week and then they would leave for a week, come back for a week, leave again for a week, and so on.
So Will, my 6 year old, leaves Thursday and ends up not coming back until Saturday. In the meantime, Blake, my 11 year old, is already screaming "I'm bored" within hours after school being out therefore leaving me no other option than to consider faking a headache and going to bed. I said consider. I didn't really do it! He had a baseball game later that night so at least we had somewhere to go. I took him to eat at this little place called The Depot in Helena to "ease his pain" of boredom. I then decide I take my 11 year old to the SEC tournament on Friday. I just know this is going to be a good day as he and I love baseball. Although I was missing my 6 year old, he would have been there lounging all over me and the bleachers asking to leave by the 4th inning.....over and over and over and over..... So Bama loses and we go home since I'm old and sitting in the sun for 3 hours wears me slap out and I feel as if I've done manual labor for 8 hours :) My energetic 11 year old wants to keep moving but I reminded him that he beat me on the treadmill earlier that morning so I was done for the day!
So finally Saturday will come and I'll get to do something with both of my boys since Will comes home! Wrong. Blake gets invited to go off with a friend and Will comes home 2 hours later. Ok, no big deal. We can all do something Sunday so I get in touch with one of my best friends, Allison, and we make plans for the boys and I to visit her and her family in Boaz for a day or so. I was thrilled as I always enjoy spending time with them. Wait. No, Blake has plans with another friend that day too. I'll shoot for Monday! In the meantime, all my 6 year old wants to do is play Minecraft, which by the way I had to be corrected by him because I thought it was Mind Craft. And yes this is the game where my son was yelling out while playing that he wanted his mommy and when I questioned him about it, he said, "In this game. Not in real life." ...Sigh... So what else do I do other than clean house, vacuum and dust AGAIN for it to only 2 hours later look like I haven't vacuumed or dusted in 2 weeks, wash clothes and yes...play Candy Crush. My 6 year old wants to sleep with me Saturday night since "It's just you and meeeeeee!" only to wind up with a not so pleasant sounding breathing habit and a cough that lingers ALL. THROUGH. THE. NIGHT. !! He and I wake up Sunday morning not feeling so hot so another day in the house. Just grand. So I cancel our plans to head to Boaz, call my boyfriend to tell him about it and yes - start crying. I'm crying because I can't go see my best friend! What 39 year old woman does that??!! Is that a foreshadowing of the day? Pretty much.
Sunday night finally comes and I go to pick up my self denied exhausted 11 year old who can barely hold open his eyes and is fighting fatigue like a screaming baby the first 15 minutes on the drive home only for me to turn around and he be zonked out in the back seat. I finally have both boys home, school has been out for 3 days, and I am already feeling the backlash. Oh yeah, did I mention in any of this that my daughter decided to stay in Tuscaloosa for the summer? So, I've yet to see her and will probably only catch glimpses of her throughout the summer if I'm honest with myself.
Yes! It is Memorial Day! The plans are for the boys and I to go to the waterfall in Helena. My boyfriend, Jeffrey, is off work so he can come too! I wake up with grand plans on making a picnic basket of sorts and to have a blissfully blissful time at the waterfall. I even get up and make breakfast which entails biscuits, gravy, bacon, hashbrowns, and eggs. If you know me, you know that pigs fly more often than that breakfast happens in my kitchen on my watch. I'm exhausted just typing this. So I sit down with the boys to eat breakfast and out of nowhere Blake asked when he can have a phone. I look at him like he is a 3 headed clown and ask, "Why does an 11 year old need a phone?" Will jumps in and says that his friend has a phone and he is only 6 - in typical Will tone. So I then look at him like he is a 3 headed clown and ask why a 6 year old needs a phone. His response was, "because his mom is nice" and yes - in typical Will tone with the signature Will look. "Excuse me?", I asked. "You know what I mean", he says. "Umm, actually I don't. What do you mean?" "I mean his mom is nice-ER."
In the midst of the already constant bickering that goes back and forth on a regular basis between the boys and some attitude and disrespectfulness that's been brewing inside of them against me for the past few weeks for whatever reason, that was all I could take. I got up, went to my room, and held back tears. Seriously? All that I do for them on a daily basis in the thankless job of being a mom with nothing ever being good enough for them and I'm now not nice because I won't give my 6 and 11 year old a phone???!! As soon as I go to my room, I hear the phone ring. Blake picks it up and is talking to a friend and I hear him say something about maybe not getting to go somewhere because "my brother just put my mom in a bad mood". That's it! We are not going to the waterfall I tell myself. I call Jeffrey to let him know and to not even bother coming over and what do I do? Start crying AGAIN. How can boys who really are sweet and good boys be so selfish and disrepectful? Ugh! And now they have ruined my Memorial Day plans! A few minutes pass and I get a knock on my door. It was Will coming to apologize. He comes in crying and telling me he is sorry for what he said. Praise God that a 6 year old has enough conviction and can swallow his pride to apologize to his momma! More than I ever did at 6 years old...or 36 years old for that matter. I used that opportunity to nip this crapola in the bud and set their little tails straight. I was done with the spoiled entitlement attitudes, back talk, ugly remarks to me, and the ungratefulness they had that filled the rooms in our home. Aaaaaand of course I cried which made them cry. Ok, only Will cried. Blake left the room looking a bit dazed as Will left the room giving me the I love you sign and waving (lol). Fifteen minutes later I was told, "You look beautiful today, Mom". Ha! So we head to the waterfall and end the night with dinner at Joe's Crab Shack and frozen yogurt from Top It Off.
Thank you, Lord, for the turning point. Right????...........
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Blake was asked to go to the beach on Sunday night and is supposed to leave on Tuesday? Grrrrreat. I still have no time with my boys together on the week I'm supposed to have them. I get one day together with them both out of a week. What's wrong with this picture? I let him go as it is one of the many thankless sacrifices a mom makes for her kids. So Blake leaves Tuesday and Will seems to have gotten worse with his cough and his eczema. We stay inside all day and I end up giving him breathing treatments Tuesday night. He makes it through most of the night without coughing but it gets the better of him and me at 4am. We sleep in and he is better Wednesday but still taking breathing treatments, cough medicine, and staying lathered in Vaseline. Therefore I have to cancel my plans to meet my friends and their kids at the waterfall for a fun filled day. Not gonna lie....I was so bummed about not going but at least I didn't cry this time. Yay me! Get a call and Will ends up staying with his dad that night per his dad's request. Sooo another night without one or both of my boys. Ugh! Ok, so I'll make the best of it and call Jeffrey. We can hang out and that will be fun. Maybe even a nice romantic evening? I laugh on that comment and I'm sure he would too! LOL! What do we do? Go sweat like pigs on the treadmill at the gym and get back home to my 85 degree house since oh yeah, my air has been broken for basically 2 days. While waiting on the guy to come fix the air, I do what any woman who loves her man would do of course. Fix him crock pot BBQ chicken (with minimal seasoning I might add so don't get too excited), plain green peas, and plain carrots. Ok, that's sort of a lie. I added a little butter to the carrots but this healthy eating is GETTING OLD! I had to do it. Needless to say, I was craving doughnuts and frozen yogurt the rest of the night. But hey, at least the air got fixed around 10 pm.
Will came back home today! I know he was only gone for 16 hours (8 of which I spent sleeping) but I was excited. I was going beyond stir crazy in this house so he and I had lunch at The Depot and yes made another trip to Top It Off for frozen yogurt.
So not exactly the super mom plans I had for the first week of summer vacation but just like I told the boys in my meltdown that it's not all about them, it's not all about me either. Moms make sacrifices. Moms aren't perfect. My kids aren't perfect. My plans aren't perfect. This summer vacation will not be perfect. I have been reminded that I focused on what I could do and how I could make the best plans for my children. I left God out of the plan. Another reminder that I am lost without Him and His direction. What made me write this blog today? Me being the one this time screaming, "I AM SO BORED!" to which I would most predictably respond back to my boys, "Hi, Bored." Really gets under their skin but I enjoy it :) I have missed my boys this week and haven't enjoyed having them separately for the most part - only to make it worse by not having them at all for almost a week starting tomorrow night but I did get to spend one on one time with each of them - something I rarely get to do. That should be one of the positives I focus on for this past week. I also have the opportunity to get to spend summer days with my boys - something I haven't always had the pleasure and gift of getting to do. Did I get my tail kicked this week? Yep. But it is always nice to get a free dance concert in the convenience of your own home to help matters :) Summer vacation week one down. Eleven to go!
