I haven't written for a long time because I have been so freakishly busy. This whole mother of a senior thing is time consuming. Add to that teaching 6 college classes at 3 different colleges and I often catch myself coming and going. I was so addlepated yesterday I forgot it was Tuesday night--Glee night! I forgot to watch the BEST SHOW EVER! Seriously, what is the world coming to when I can forget to watch musical theatre??
In addition to the stress of the last two weeks of the semester and the apparently endless list of activities that goes with graduation, my daughter is now actively competing in not one, but two sports. During the week I attend track meets and on Sundays I travel to Ames to watch her play in the high school spring league. I guess ASA softball is Josie's first real high school sport, even though she is still an 8th grader. She and the other junior high players have been seeing quite a bit of playing time, which is fun. Each game day is a double header. Late in the second game versus the Ames JV team, Josie found herself on third base. She's already stolen home once, so she was pretty confident in her baserunning. Sure enough, there was a passed ball and she headed for home. About three steps off third, her cleats caught her sweats--and pulled them down. She ran the rest of the bathpath with her pants around her ankles! AND--she was safe!! You've heard of Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Chicago Black Sox, right? Well, meet Pantless Josie B of the Southeast Webster-Grand Eagles.
Even if she doesn't lose her pants again, it's going to be a fun summer watching her play ball. It's my favorite sport to follow, probably because its outside!
Track is also an outdoors sport, but the weather is never as nice as it is during softball. After a glorious March, this April has been somewhat miserable. At the Little Eagle Invite I not only wore a sweatshirt and a jacket, I bundled up in two blankets. Frosty--that's what it was. Braving the cold was worth it to watch Jo win three events and finish fourth in another. Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of my middle child?
The end of this hectic period is well within sight. DMACC starts finals week in 8 days; graduation is in less than a month; Cody has secured a summer job at the Y camp outside of Boone, so not only will be he reaping life skills, but he'll be out of the house most of the summer, meaning I can redecorate his room without his interference . . . I mean help. Patrick is very much looking forward to moving up into Cody's room when big brother goes to college in the fall. First, I plan on basically fumigating said room, repainting it, fixing the windows and the walls, etc., etc., etc. Cody's kind of hard on housing.
My plan is to persevere for the next month--and then kick back and enjoy the summer. I'll still be teaching my online and night classes, but the majority of my day will be spent sitting in a bag chair, watching ball games and reading my Kindle. I'm sure I'll miss Cody (I sat in my car and cried for twenty minutes after I put his open house invitations in the mail), but right now I'm just so excited for this next stage of his life the fact that he'll be gone doesn't seem so bad.
That's what I say now. But if you see me sitting in one of those bag chairs crying a little this summer, you'll know I'm missing my Code man as he starts on his huge adventure called life. *sigh* As much as I'm looking forward to summer, I'm kind of dreading it, too.
