TGIMonday Baby!!

. . .bet you never thought you'd hear me say it, but yes, thank God it's Monday! This last week with Schuyler out of commission nearly did me in. We learned a very importand thing, Schuyler's physical activity is key to ALL our mental well being. So with that said, I sent my boy off to the fields of doom again today to crash into other boys to see if they can break each other.

A couple Moms told me this last week that they didn't know if the *could* send their son back out to play football after getting crunched like that . . .I held my tongue thinking it might have been rude to point out that *they* did not have to live with the grouch-o-monster that is my son when he is denied his mandatory 4-5 hours of sport daily.

I think Schuyler would have done well as a knight, you know the round table variety. Nothing to do all day but be chivalrous and do physical stuff out doors!

Anyway so you don't think me a totally neglectful Mama I will tell you, I did purchase for Schuyler the lastest and greatest in forearm padding - HEXPads - I tried to get him to let me wrap him in bubble wrap, I really did, he wasn't going for it, so this was our compromise!!

Riley on the other hand was all for the bubble wrap!

Injured reserve

I guess it's just part of being a mom, when your kids get injured it drains your reserves. There's nothing quite like that trip to ungent care to make a Mama feel like she was hit by a Mack truck. All is weel, but that's me today.

Yesterday afternoon, I was standing in line to drop of prescriptions at Longs when my cell phone jingled with the news "Mrs. Glines there was an accident at practice. We've imobilzed his arm, but I think he needs to be seen right away." Shit, shit, double shit and you are off. (Oh, NTS (note to self): try to get back to Longs to drop off those prescriptions).

As far as I know Mom's are the only people who can handle these situations, and it is amazing to me how the to do list automatically forms in your head:

1. Get to Schuyler
2. Don't forget backpack, helmet, pads & gear bag or to thank helpful staff
3. Screw the water bottle that's left out on the field (NTS: pick-up new water bottle when you drop off prescriptions)
4. Assess level of emergency i.e. can I still pick-up small sister or do we need to for-go that in favor of immediate trip to ER/urgent care
5. Do we need the ER or will Urgent Care suffice
6. Begin search for back-up (cause you know the pain that you all will feel if small sister has to spend an extended amount of time in ER and/or Urgent care waiting room)
7. Pick-up small sister
8. Head to medical facilitiy of choice-- All things being equal the best choice ends up being the one that is likly to have the shortest wait and be the closest to home.
9. Contact other parental unit and appraise them of the situation. They of course will be completly calm since they are totally uninvolved and offer you such sage words of wisdom as "I'm sure everything will be fine. " and my favorite"Let me know what the doctor says."
10. NTS: kill spouse at earliest opportunity
11. return to back-up search
12. Simultaneously fill-out papaerwork, entertain small fry & give directions to grandma to the Urgent care so she can pick-up Riley.
13. wait
14. wait
15. wait
16. go into room
17. wait
18. answer call from hubby re: "how's it going?" "umm we're waiting."
19. wait
20. Hand off Riley (who doesn't want to leave)
21. see doc, have X-rays
22. wait
23. Get good news, not broken
24. Get bad news, splint for a week
25. Done!

Isn't that wonderful . . .then you get to go home with a one armed bandit and a sassy small fry. I decided to take the night off from homework. I hope Mrs. Evans understands.

Resoration Hardware i.e. HGTV syndrome

Have you ever thought to yourself "hmm . . .I could do that." after watching a great home improvement show. Well I'm what you might call an HGTV junkie. over the last few months my dinning room table has been calling to me . . ."Come on Amy you can do it. Refinish me. Paint me." Sure I think. No sweat. I can do this. I've watched it a million times and My Mom used to refinish everything when I was a kid (see how clever I am to blame My Mom for my bad decisions even now!) I bet I've watched her do it a hundred times. It can't be that hard.

Off I go to the hardware store. I know just what to get, how cool am I? Pick-up some sandpaper, a carefully chosen shade of glossy antique white, oil based enamel, some dark brown (oil based) glaze with which I will work my antiquing magic, new paint brushed--special for oil based paint--borrow my Mom's electric hand sander and I'm off to the races.

Well after approximately 12 hours of sanding with above mentioned hand sander, I can no longer feel my hands. I have applied 1 coat of creamy white lacquer to the table . . it may never be fully dry, I really have no idea any longer what the hell I'm going to do with the stupid glaze and I'm seriously thinking of suing both my Mom and HGTV for inflating my confidence to the point where I undertook such a project.

Meanwhile my dining room resembles a mortuary for dead furniture, chair seats and stripped chairs with no seats seem to be strewn everywhere. The good news is Riley has taken to using the decapitated chair seats as hopscotch squares, so you know all is not lost.

Do I really have to finish the table? I mean maybe we'll just make it a new family thing to eat in front of the TV . . . oh wait maybe that's how I got into this mess in the first place.

The first . . .

of many? Well we'll see. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to blog, but the compusion is there so I am here. In my life there aren't a lot of outlets, so maybe that's what I'm looking for. Octtber holds so many markers in my life, perhaps that's what's driving my need to write. In the next 3 weeks Billy (The Hubby) and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, Schuyler (my sweet first born) will turn 11, my middle sister Caitlin will get married on Halloween and my oldest niece Haley will turn the big 1-6!

To say at this moment that I can see time flying in my life doesn't quite put a fine enough point on it, more like I can see my life as some sort of jet propulsion experiment.