Any couch in a storm

There has to be something cosmically wrong when the tone of my daydreaming fantasies shifts from "rrrrrr, give me some of that" to "mmmm, a nap..."

I look at my bed longingly, the magic chair with a fondness usually reserved for loved ones, and am prone to Goldilocks moments where I imagine falling asleep at various friends' houses: "This couch is too big. This couch is too soft. This couch is juuuuust riiiiight."

*yawn*

Lusting for sleep.

Finally, a good excuse for the drool mark on my shirt.

The Look

Ryan has a doctor appointment later this morning. He's fine, it's just a followup. I asked him if he brushed his teeth...

"Yeah, I brushed them."

I catch the look. The look that means I should press him again.

"Really?" I look at him square in the eye. "Because they're looking in your mouth later and we're not coming home beforehand." "Go brush them again. You need to brush them super-good, okay, bud?"

"Awwww, man...." he says, as he drops his backpack and makes his way back down the hall towards the bathroom.

"I brushed mine super-good, Mommy," Audrey announces, as she comes up to me. "Yeah?" "Smell my breath."

I hesitate but know I will need to do this. Semi-holding my breath, I lean forward and stick my nose into the lion's mouth.

"Maybe you should go have another shot at that too," I tell her.

Note to self: Next time, hold your breath. And add bubblegum to breakfast.

This is my now

Right now I am in the throes of the marching band season. I'm officially a Band Parent. Nolan is in marching band and it has taken over my whole life.

Yeah. Really.

It's not like I'm performing myself or anything like that, it's just between making sure he's on time for the zero hour to making sure he's still on top of his homework to volunteering myself for the myriad of things that need to be done to keep the band things going; coupled with working and taking care of the other three, I barely can stay up until 10.

I will pay for this in the morning, let me tell you.

It's great fun being a band parent though. I've learned all kinds of things:

*that the word "shako" means hat, and not some new dance move
*that the show is the icing on the cake after weeks and weeks and hours and hours and hours of rehearsal
*there's no wrong way to insert a plume, but it better be straight
*bibs aren't just for babies
*watching from the track can be dangerous (don't lock your knees) (watch out for the football players)
*how to handle food (got my food handlers' license to work the concession stand--nachos, anyone?)
*riding the schoolbus is not a bad thing--it's a giant, yellow, limo. I can text in traffic and it's legal. :)
*timing is everything

Oh, yes. Timing. I am coming to understand that what I was told by former band folk is true. Band geeks are always on time. Their adage, "if you're not fifteen minutes early, you're late" is now my daily mantra. Who would ever have believed that "I'm running late" would slowly move out of my regular repertoire? As always, the child is dictating when I get up and I'm forced to be ON TIME. This hasn't happened since before he was weaned, and it's a feat I am starting to be proud of. Punctuality! What a concept!

I've enjoyed working the concession stand, even if I feel like I can't look at a hot dog or a vat of nacho cheese ever again by the end of the night. I smell like jalapenos and popcorn with a hint of churro by the time I get home. The dogs love me.

When I imagined being followed by admirers, having the dogs sniff away, tails wagging, at my ass as I walk down the hall, peeling off my shirt as I make a beeline for the shower, is not exactly what I had in mind.

At this point, however, I'll take what admiring I can get.

If only the posts made it from my mind to the page

I know I haven't been here lately, but I do write alot. In my head.

Where to start..........?

I'll start at the beginning.

When I first received notice that we were going to have to move from AOL elsewhere, it got me to thinking why I'd ever started blogging in the first place.

I mean, I've always told other people stories about my kids, subjecting them to whatever happened that day that I found amusing. When you're home with four children, believe me, it's better to think about their antics as "amusing" and not "the reason why Anna drinks." Now that they are bigger, and I am able to talk to adults more, like at work, I find myself talking to them about.....my kids.

I remember one time at work, one of my colleagues mentioned to me that I should "start a blog...you know, write the stories so someone else can read them on the internet." At the time, I shrugged him off, and I stopped talking for a few days, thinking maybe he'd had enough of Ryan's last rash and how Ben told the saleslady in Home Depot that I was the reason we were there buying a toilet plunger and a mop.

And then one night, a few months later, I was waiting for my kids to finish a class, and another friend of mine told me that he'd just started a blog, and I should check it out. He also suggested I write down some of the things I would tell him as we waited for our children.

At the time, I was inclined to shrug him off. But something about the look on his face, the excitement he had on it, and the fact that he was gave me the address so that I, a friend, not even his teacher grading an assignment, could read it----I got curious. I'd not really ever pegged him as a writer, and that is my own bias--all the boys I know or ever knew up until that point were decidedly not given to writing.

I read. Once I got over my initial discomfort, that I was invading his privacy, I was dazzled. Impressed. A little intimidated.

I could never write like that, I thought.

Yet I found myself writing posts in my head at night as I fell asleep...in the morning as the kids and I made it through our morning motions....at the grocery store.....as I gave everyone their baths at night. Eventually I emailed my friend an account of what happened to me one morning, telling him that I thought I might post something like that. "Looks like you have the idea, " he encouraged. That evening, I bit the bullet and put it out there for the world to see. I made some new friends. Somewhere in the sharing of my life's little details, I was able to find a place of my own, a place I liked to visit and have others visit, too.

Which is what I hope to find here. I've felt a little off balance not writing anything at all. The posts in my head are staging a coup, they want OUT.

I still read everything my friend writes as soon as I know he's posted it. I am still dazzled, amused, impressed, and sometimes intimidated by the things that come out of his head.

So, to my good friend Remo, thanks for the nudge. I know I'll like this new place as much as I did my last.

Just settling in

Hmm.
The floors are clean, the cupboards bare....and everything still smells new.

It still remains to be seen whether or not moving is all it's cracked up to be.

But I'll give it a shot.