There's a crayon in my Kate Spade!

umbrella, gum, tampon, grocery receipts, and *the* crayon

What?

Yeah, you heard me...there is a CRAYON in my KATE SPADE! An orange one, to be specific. Crayon that is. The Kate Spade is pink. The crayon orange. Or sort of orange. It is streaked with various other colors from being tossed in the giant box of crayons. The wrapper, dingy and peeling, only half hanging on. And, when I spotted it there, I cried. It's been an emotional week with my daughter starting kindergarten in her cute lil' Catholic school girl jumper. My son, starting preK. Mr. Independent now. I'm so proud, but also so heart broken. They both have their "own" things now. Things I'm not a part of. Even though I'm a room mom for both classes, it is still theirs, not mine. I'm a moon orbiting their planet. A sidebar. Something there. Not the main event, just an accessory. It's what I wished for, but I also dreaded. It's a shift in the dynamic that I knew would happen, but wasn't prepared for.

Our school had a fire drill this week. The preK class practiced it the day before which resulted in a lot of tears, fears, and general chaos. I offered, the next morning, to come back for the drill and our teacher took me up on it. I figure it something I should do as a room mom and something that I'm blessed to have the ability to do because I don't work. I'm happy to help out in that way. So, I returned to the school. Rang the buzzer. Explained myself. Signed in. Talked to the principal whom was thrilled to see me (he'd assisted with the previous day's practice!) and I headed to my son's classroom. He took one look at me and told me to go home. He didn't need me there. I chewed on the inside of my cheek hoping the pain would keep me from crying and entertained myself with some other children in the class. A few I knew, a few I didn't. We lined up the kids for the drill before the alarm went off (to avoid the noise) and started the march across the street to the gym. I had two wonderful little boys assisting me in finding the gym since I didn't "know" where I was going. My son, well, he wanted nothing to do with me, despite his fear the previous day, of the drill. He was buddied up with another friend whose Mom had asked me to smooch on if necessary. I didn't have the heart to tell her later, neither one of them needed us.

After it was over, I helped usher the kids back across the street and my son stood at the top of the stairs and told me that I could go home now. It was over. And, so I did. Tail between my legs. Bruised Mommy ego weighing heavily upon me. In addition to his disregard for me, my daughter had spotted me during the fire drill as she marched by, hands clasped behind her back. She whispered to me, "I'm fine. I have my friends." I headed home in a funk. Feeling somewhat rejected, sad, and generally useless.

I loaded up the dishwasher. Threw a load in the laundry. Turned on the tv to some sort of garbage. Fired up the laptop to pay bills, catch up on email, do some school stuff. I grabbed my purse and fished around, blindly, for my wallet. My hand came across something small and round and unfamiliar to my fumblings in my purse. I pulled it out. That dingy, stubby, worn orange crayon. And I smiled.

I think, from now on, there will always be a crayon in my Kate Spade. That crayon, to be exact.

~dancin' like the Caddyshack gopher~

I played tennis sans knee brace today! And, I lived to tell about it. And, AND, so did my knee. Oh, I'm sore. But, I'm not hitting the leftover painkillers from the broken rib '08 debacle, nor am I having to ice or slather myself with Mineral Ice! I feel the need to keep checking over my shoulder for the Four Horsemen, but Hey! It's a step in the right direction. Just last week, I was having to even sleep with it immobilized. Woo hoo!

Yesterday, my son and I walked to the school to pick up my daughter. She early releases on Wednesday and we thought, okay I thought, we could beat the rain. Whelp, I was wrong. It didn't full out rain, but we did get misted on. Ever since the random, torrential downpour during the Cubs game, DS has been a wee bit terrified of the rain. Oh, he'll take a shower, but rain. Egads the rain!!! We made it through though, hauled butt, but made it. And because of a phone call right before our depart from home time, I had to haul ass to the school. So, I did about three miles, in flip flops, at a break neck pace (well, for nursing a bad knee and wearing flip flops!) pushing a stroller containing one 40 pound kid with the other 40 pounder intermittently riding the trailer board. Oh, and we stopped on got groceries!

So, in lieu of that, I think I may try some intervals tomorrow to see how it holds up. I'm not due back on court until Tuesday, so I'll have some recovery time. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Anyone wanna guess this dude is single and happy with his hand?

The Cubs sucked. Plain and simple. S-U-C-K-E-D. That I can deal with. They've done that before. However, we had the worst company ever in the crowd around us. Four young "men" the row below us. Two were Sux fans. And typical Sux fans at that. I had a better time at the White Sox v. Cubs when the real fans came to Wrigley. These were "that" fan. You know the one, the ones that simply go to a game to cheer for the other team. Add to that, they were ripped and dropping the f bomb like mad. With a boatload of kids in the stands. Nice. And then came the cigarettes. There were, at least, six people bitching at them at any given point in time. God forbid it a was a woman as she was called the ol' C U N*ext T*uesday kinda gal. Add to that, the guys behind us not just talking politics, but YELLING politics. And, their points? Well, whatever one they attempted to make in their drunken idiocy, they then countered with their next breath. What a day.

So this is the one of the "dudes" in front of us running his mouth. NON STOP. Non stop. I wanted to punch him. His buddy yelled at a 7 year old for not eating cotton candy. Who does that? Oh yeah, Southside trash. That's who does that. What you can't see here is the impressive jailhouse ink (*snort*) all over his forearms or his stoned out of his mind eyes sporting swollen drunk lids. You can, however, see his stylish black calf socks. (callling Boiler's dad, circa '84 on the riding John Deere mower and the jumbo Radio Shack AM/FM headphones!) And, AND, the hat..."Skin Industries" complete with a lil' trucker mud flap stripper logo on the back. It just doesn't get much classier than that. And, here he is trying not to pass out, uh, I mean take a nap...

Back off ladies. I hate to disappoint but he was wearing a wedding ring. MrB thinks it was a stripper at the local pasty club and, well, I think he is probably right.

Where the hell has summer gone?

I can't believe it is over. Labor Day weekend. Yikes. It seems like it just started. Oh well.

I've been MIA pretty much due to end of summer flurry of activities. Did the Dells. Been to numerous ballgames, though have not see the Flock of Seagulls guy again. Bummer. *snort* We've been busy with back to school activites...ice cream social, meet and greet with the teachers, orientation, etc. It's crazy. And, on Tuesday, my daughter will don her Catholic School girl uniform and start kindergarten. Wednesday, my baby boy starts preK. Ay yi yi.

As for me, I'm back to tennis. My left knee is NOT cooperating and the plantar fascitis in my right foot has flared up again. This has made running completely impossible and tennis very painful. I hope to get back to the miles in the next week or so, assuming the knee goes back to normal.

eh, that's all I gots.

We've returned from the North...

I'll have pictures to post and such, but I've not been home very long. And, the great North offered very limited to no internet connection! Ay yi yi. We were in the Dells from Sunday to Friday. On Friday, we headed out and ended up in Milwaukee. Totally unplanned. It turned out to be a blast with the Irish Fest in town. Here's my little man getting down at the festival...

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7NbDYBEP0Z8

Finally! ROCK STAR HAIR!

I finally got him to cooperate and leave it spiky long enough to get a couple of pictures. He has, for some reason, gotten very self conscious about his rock star hair. Whaddya gonna do?

It's the little things...

Tuesday, I walked down to Wrigley to see if there were any decent seats for the first ever minor league ballgame to be played in Wrigley Field. I was able to get four decent seats for $10 a piece. A good price when planning on taking small children. Just in case someone gets cranky and you have to bail! This was about noon. My son then spent the next six hours asking me assorted questions such as, what's taking so long? when is daddy gonna be home? can we leave now? is it time yet? and so on and so forth...those that have ever been around kids know the drill!

Finally, Daddy got home and we headed out the ballgame. We arrived with some time to spare so we hit a bar across from Wrigley. Beers for the grown ups, Sprite and lemonade for the munchkins. Those questions above, yeah, well, repeat 'em again! Unfortunately, my husband was having to deal with some work related issues and, basically, disappeared on me. So, out comes Momma's camera!

This is my lil' dude enjoying his Sprite.

This is what happens when I hand the camera to his sister and she says "act crazy!"

And finally, it was time for a couple of pictures with mom...

I say it is the little things because both of my children have talked about the crazy photos and want copies for their picture books (photo albums they carry in their backpacks.) They've talked nonstop of the popcorn and ice cream and going to see the teams play where the Cubs play, but it wasn't the Cubs. And, the cab ride home. While I do not normally toss my children in the back of a cab, we did this time. We left the stands a bit early to try to let the kids run the bases post game. However, there were probably about 8,000 people in line! Egads. There were about 32,000 there which was a record for a single A team. So, no way, were we going to wait with two almost asleep children. Thus the "we'll get something at the stand outside the stadium!" bribe. So, we left. We made our usual stop to see the firetrucks and the kids got to "drive." I had my crappy point and shoot camera with me, so the pics sucked. We thanked the firefighters and DD promised them cookies and homemade banana bread for the chance to sit in the truck. I guess I need to get busy. And, then we headed to pick out our mementos of the game. And, all hell broke loose...a huge bolt of lightning, a massive clap of thunder and the heavens opened up! So, we tossed money at the vendors for overpriced stuff and threw ourselves into a cab. All in all, a great evening!

I tweaked my knee at tennis on Monday and had to beg off on Wednesday. It's no longer swollen, but it still feels squishy. I fear I'm actually going to have to go to a PT at some time. I'm holding out though. I'm also struggling with the fact that my daughter wants to do gymnastics and every single morning when it hurts me to get out of bed, I am reminded of what gymnastics did to my body. Eh, hell, who am I kidding, it isn't just the morning! I've got to figure out what to do about her desire to hurl her bod through the air though.

We had a great night tonight hanging at the pool with some of our friends from school. Pizza party and swimming. Does it get much better than that? Well, of course, the main pool had to be closed for a bit due to the ol' Baby Ruth (ala Caddyshack) but that didn't phase us. We had two other pools to play in. DD was hanging with the older boys (going into 1st grade) and DS was schmoozin' the ladies his age. God help me. We all had to clear out eventually due to lightning in the area. Not a good thing while hangin' at the pool! My kids and my DH are thoroughly wiped out and well, I'm running on fumes. The heat is supposed to hit ChiTown full fledged on Sunday and Monday. We have tickets to the Sunday Cubs game. It could be interesting. Now, only if I have someone's hair to mock...