One Sunday in November

Oh. My. God, has it been forever. The 4th of July was my last post? Really?

 

Shameful, but Summer break, birthdays, house hunting, house buying, school starting, moving, illness, and another birthday meant I was too busy to think about my little blog.

 

So, in lieu of catching up, here are some photos from our Sunday. I wanted to do "10 on 10," but couldn't quite make it.

Happy 4th of July

Wordless Wednesday

A Bad Morning

Do you remember those mornings in high school when it all went wrong? Like not real world, starving children wrong, but Molly Ringwald wrong? The kind where the boy you like holds hands with another girl, you get a bad grade on a test then your bestie abandons you to have lunch with somebody else. This morning was one of those mornings.

After signing The Boy in at school I found him with two other boys. My love was showing one of his teddy bears to the boys and one of the boys said, 'I don't like that bear. His paws are scary.'

The Boy responded sweetly, 'but he's a really nice bear. He's just waving.' But the other boys seemed unconvinced. My heart hurt a little. I wanted those boys to accept The Boy and his bear and hoped desperately that his feelings weren't hurt.

Not wanting to embarrass him by hovering, I turned and left. As I headed out I saw two moms, one of whom I've spoken two several times before, having a chat. They'd been chatting when The Boy and I arrived too. No big deal, right? But coming on the heals of the mean boys being mean to The Boy, I just felt. like I was an invisible teenager again.

And just like in high school I wanted to come home, cry into my pillow and tell my cat how much I was hurting. I didn't, but this still sucks. I hate that my already shaky confidence is made even shakier by the fact that I'm disabled. I hate that the normal growing up and getting out into the world stuff The Boy is going through has to be experienced, by both of us, with me being the weird mom that no one wants to talk to.

I feel blue.

Travel

THIS post, written  by Andrea forever ago, brought back back bad memories of our flight back from Heathrow almost two years ago. We had an 11 AM flight and checked in in a daze before racing to the terminal before breakfast assuming we'd grab something to eat near our departure gate. We arrived a half hour before boarding only to realize, it being Heathrow and all, there was nothing AT the gate. No restaurant, cafe or shop, just a few crappy vending machines. So, awesome parents that we are, we gave The Boy some chips(crisps) and chocolate hoping to tide him over until we were given lunch on the plane.

Fast forward an hour and we were sitting on the plane with a child screaming from hunger, smiling sheepishly and apologizing while the rest of the passengers shot us eye-daggers as they boarded.

It looked something like this

It sucked, and we learned our lesson.

Since then we've avoided plane-travel but have begun our annual trip to San Francisco and have added another baby to take with us, but we're trying to keep things as simple as we can - in life and travel. But this is a big year. The Little Boy is turning one and I'm turning forty, both occasions to be marked by travel and, when added to our regular trips turn '13 into a pricey year. And this is supposed to be a cheap year as we save for a trip to Europe next year. Blerg.

Still, it's all worth it. Our Little Boy birthday trip is booked and my turning old trip will be booked within the next two weeks. I'm excited to book our San Francisco trip and starting to daydream about our trip to Europe next year. The reason it's all worth it is because this is what I do. I travel, and think about travel, and plan travel. Even now, when I'm dealing with a tempermental three year old and a broken body, travel's as essential to me as breathing.

I can only hope at least one of boys inherits my wanderlust.

School's Out

 

It' hard to believe how fast this year rushed by. Nine months ago we took my little buddy to his first day of school and he clenched his jaw, held back tears, asked us to stay, let tears flow and broke our hearts.

 

It was tough on all of us.

 

 

Last week, the end of the school year, was a different story. I took pics of The Boy, wandering non-chalantly into school - in his jammies, because they were having a pyjama party, but it took THIS POST on Andrea's blog to inspiredme to make a similar post comparing Day 1 to Day... whatever the last day was.



So now, on to Summer School!

And so it begins

Coffee with Grandpa.

Nearly forty years of following my dad to cafes, three years, interupted by school, of The Boy and I meeting my dad for coffee, and now it's The Little Boy's turn to inherit our family's soft spot for cafe society.

Honestly, The Little Boy and I have been enjoying outings with Grandpa for a while, but The Boy's brief break from school last week afforded us the first ever opportunity to get all four of us out together, without Hubs or friends or Step Mom.

Hooray!