Enjoying Today?

Believe me. I am really trying. I am trying to enjoy my cute little people but sometimes they make it so hard! :) Between the bickering about nothing in the back seat of the car to the "What do we get to do that is fun today?" (Okay, I realize that as an isolated question that doesn't sound so bad but it is the expectation that every day should be a party that annoys me!) Not to mention the fact that I am on my own from Wednesday to Monday. That is a story in and of itself!

Okay I have to tell that story. BJ was asked last week to travel with the Vice Chair of his department to Abu Dhabi to do an eye exam on someone in the royal family there. It ends up that he is doing exams on a few of the members of the family and was going to visit with them at the palace afterward. I cannot wait to hear stories about his trip. Even though this is truly an inconvenience for our family for him to travel across the world for a "house call", what a unique experience for him! Given the fact that he already had a meeting he has to leave for this coming Thursday in Barcelona for a week, my patience with the kids and being on my own is probably not what it should be in order to "enjoy today".

Okay. Back to our day here...Since Christian has a soccer tournament all weekend I told them that we were just going to stay in this evening and that we would order pizza and do a movie on demand so we could get to bed at a decent time. Yeah! They loved that idea! I was trying to make it a fun night with very little effort on my part. It has been a long week and is going to be a long weekend. We have to be on the soccer fields at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday!

The pizza arrived. We went upstairs to see what movies we had to choose from. We watched previews, and more previews. A good 20 minutes later (at least) they were still arguing about what movie to watch. Really? Why does it have to be so hard? Just pick one and let's move on. Finally I just walked away. They cried. They plead their case about how they have figured it out and they are sorry. Too late. They (mostly one) argued with ME about how I wasn't listening that they had figured it out! Again, I said too late. And stop interrupting me and being disrespectful! We talked. And talked. I still said no movie. I offered to them that if they got ready for bed and could pick out a game that they could all agree on we would play a game before bed. They went to get ready.

I reminded Christian that I needed his soccer clothes to make sure he had everything ready for tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. He went to get his soccer backpack out. Backpack? Mom. Where is my backpack? Mom. Did Dad pick me up from practice in YOUR car? No. Dad picked you up on his way home from work while I was at the Middle School open house. Mom. My backpack might be in Dad's car. Okay, we don't really need the backpack but we DO need half of his uniform that is in the backpack. We searched everywhere in the house that it could be. What now? We drive to the airport 20 minutes away and search the parking lot for Dad's car and look to see if the backpack is in the car. (It is almost 8:00 at this point and the kids are in their pj's.) Kids--in the car! We drive to the airport and of course on the way we see the most spectacular FULL MOON. Of course we do. That explains a lot. Fortunately I know which lot BJ usually parks in and I was able to find his car. Yes, the backpack is in the back seat. The uniform pieces we were missing were in the backpack. Sigh. Another problem solved.

We headed back home and the kids got to bed much later than I had planned when I originally had suggested pizza and a movie. Crisis management. Enjoyable? Not today. But I decided to write about it because some day when they are older and we are looking back on today, I'm sure we will be able to laugh.