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1. I missed yesterday’s daily posting. Rats.

2. My article on De-cluttering the home is up over at the Catholic Digest website. Wanna Clear Out Clutter? Go read!

3. My beloved, my RHL, got me some amazing sunglasses for Mother’s Day. I love them! The only problem is they are slightly too big. Ever so slightly. I took them to the eyeglass place in the mall and they adjusted the ear pieces but I still want them to feel a tad more snug. Any suggestions? I might try warming up the nose piece with my hairdryer? Maybe that will do the trick.

4. But still, Loving them! Isa loves hers as well.

5. This week has included but not limited to the following: Fifth Grade play (super cute and fun!); getting ready for Spring Dance tomorrow night (including pants shopping, twice); all the details that go along with planning the pre-dance dinner, etc (kinda tiring); swim lessons (hooray, Henry! Ready for swim team!); driver’s license (hooray!); Augie’s “crossing over” ceremony from being a Webelo to being a bona fide Boy Scout (oh my, the emotions!); etc. etc. etc.

6. Someone mentioned in a previous post that blogging might be a young mom’s game. It’s possible, and I think about it a great deal after posts that include No. 5 above. Once you get to this stage of the game, your thoughts on the day tend to focus on the million places you’ve gone and done and all there is left to do. Oh it’s such a wonderful season! Just so different from life ten years ago.

7. Parting thought shot: Paul and I went to a wedding Saturday night that was so much fun. Both the wedding and the reception were downtown and in between the two, we decided to grab a drink. It was one of those perfect 45 minutes — we were all gussied up and we popped in to our favorite watering hole. The music was perfect, the Stella was divine. I never get dressed up like that just for date night (I’m usually so thrilled just to have extricated myself that I don’t worry too much about heels and dress). But this was fun and I was on a happy cloud for days after. It’s the little things, isn’t it?

Thanks Jen! 

Thought A: My brother just texted to say: he and his wife (my beautiful, amazing sister-in-law) just had a baby girl! That pretty much trumps every other thought swirling in my brain. I’m so excited! Oh, nieces and nephews are the best. God is so good!

Thought B: I texted that bit of news to…my son. Who took two of his brothers to get half-price shakes at Sonic. There’s a limit to how many kin are allowed in the vehicle, which is fine because Elliott wouldn’t go. I can’t tell if he was too nervous or if he wants Ethan to prove himself first or if he was still so AMPED about dunking on our driveway basketball hoop. Um, yes, dunking. Seriously. Too many milestones in one day.

Thought C: Now I’m waiting for my phone to download the pic of my new NIECE. Technology is so awesome, y’all.

Thought D: Last night I was chatting with a few friends and my friend Suse told me about a perfect conversation she had with our friend Co.

“Isn’t the point of all this,” asked my dear, frazzled Suse, “to get these children into heaven?”

To which Co responded, “In May, all we focus on is getting through May.”

Granted, both these girls have daughters about to graduate from high school — next week. May, the last month of school, is notorious for being a butt kicker. I’m sad to report that I’m not allowed too much complaining this year because several of my BFF’s have children graduating, which makes regular end-of-school living look like a cake walk. Seriously.

Thought E: I won’t lie. I’m glad I don’t have a Senior.

Thought F: For Final thought…I’ve managed to only text Ethan four times while he was out. Victory.

Do you remember the day you got your driver’s license? I do. It’s still so clear to me. I got my license in a borrowed car. At the time, my dad was the headmaster of the school we all attended (and that my kids now attend) and our family car was one of the school’s 15-passenger vans. I didn’t want to take the exam in that (parallel parking would be a drag), so I borrowed a car from a neighbor — the parents of a boy in the grade above me. That boy, John Forde (all my life-long friends will know him!), came with me to the exam!! (yes, I just used double exclamation points, totally valid use I might add). And he stood outside the gate with my dad watching me as I took the test. Ahh, memories.

I got home from getting my license and promptly borrowed the car of another neighbor, the one next door. Obviously, I had the best, most generous neighbors. My friend Suse (see above) rode with me and we went to get our paychecks from Eckerds, where she worked in the pharmacy and I was a Front-end Associate. I almost killed us when the clutch died as we were waiting to turn left at a light and oh how we screamed. It was all so hilarious in my memory, until today, when I now have a son out driving in our van with two of his brothers.

Thought Really This is The Last Thought: the patron saint of Iron Clad Vehicles and Mad Driving Skillz would be…

My brother Gabe defended his dissertation last Friday and is now officially a PhD! Hooray!

I was asking him this weekend how he felt, getting to this point he’s been working toward for lo these many years. He said it wasn’t nearly the cathartic release he was expecting. Four years, at least, of moving in this direction — writing, studying, researching, commuting, being away from family, more research, working his job as a college professor — all of these things, all of this work, coming together in one grand moment of defense in front of your committee and you feel….hmmmm.

I totally get it.

I haven’t defended a dissertation mind you (so I try really hard not to say “I KNOW what you mean!!!!”). But I kind of do. When he was explaining his feelings of hmmmm.… I stood there nodding my head. I get it. I do.

There are times in life when you are moving toward something, when hours and hours of your time and energy and emotional everything are focused on a point in time somewhere in the future. And then you arrive at that moment and, well, your system can’t quite handle it. Your brain doesn’t believe your heart — you’ve done it! You really have! — and there is a bit more of a slow release than the INSTA-BOOM!!! you were expecting.

When I wrote the last few pages of my book, I shed a few tears, only because I was feeling dramatic. Deep down, it felt like a check to mark off the list. On to the next thing (granted I had recently found out I was pregnant, in the book writing process, so new baby kind of trumped book). I felt the same way after I defended my thesis (way lower on the scale than dissertation but a similar processes). I walked out of the room after my defense and didn’t do the happy dance I was expecting. It was actually about 45 minutes into the ride home (I commuted to grad school when I was working on my thesis) that it slowly hit me, just a little.

Life is funny that way.

Today I took Ethan to take his drivers test and it wasn’t until he was walking back from the car with the instructor that I was like “ohmygosh my son has a license.” The thing that’s keeping me from full-on freak-out mode is that he doesn’t technically have the license in his hot little hand; we have to go tomorrow to get the actual card.

But here it is, this huge event, this Rite of Passage and there you go. Marked off the list.

First steps. Check.

Potty trained. Check.

Tying shoes. Check.

Drivers license. Check.

It just goes too fast, y’all. It doesn’t feel that way; it sort of sneaks up on you.

You watch and wait and think, on those days when you open the front door and a wall of bricks stares back at you — you begin to think that you will always be trapped in this home with these small children. Trapped in a good way? I guess…

And just like that, this point on the horizon — big kids! Independent children! — you watch and wait and think you will never be one of those women out with children who don’t require a leash and a constant threat.

And just like that, there you go. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has arrived. And there you are, just watching the adventure unfold before you.

God bless Isabel. She gets toted so many places that (I’m guessing) your average three-year-old doesn’t go. Well baby check-up for your 16-year-old brother. Swim lessons for your five-year-old brother. Your mama subs in the kindergarten for an hour and you get to go! You family heads out for a Mother’s Day hike and there you are as well.

So when Monday rolls around, Isa is usually ready for a nice long nap. Isn’t it wonderful?

Yes it is.