Unwritten

As I sit poised with only 5.5 days of this school year left, I feel compelled to talk about the end of the year and the summer ahead and yet it is a blog I simply cannot write because I am filled with emotion at the thought of my son entering his senior year of high school.  I feel as though I had no prep for this, one minute he was a newborn in an adorable knitted cap nestled in my arms and the next, this.  People tell me that I will get used to it and that I need to let go.  Well, I don't let go.  Honestly, as much as I know he needs to be independent and go off to college, I am simply too selfish to understand how so many of his new memories will be made without me. Yes, told to me, but done either alone or with others. I have seen every milestone to date and now I need to give that up on some level.  I know I must handle it and 'buy a coping skill' as my close friend has often told me, but this is a tough one.  It is a direct hit to my heart.

So, I cannot write the words swirling in my end as this particular year draws to a close.  I have already written enough to start yet another seemingly endless crying jag as I try to figure out where the heck to buy that coping skill and how to buck up and be a big girl about this.  Instead, I leave you with this to ponder.  Why in the world has 'Pregnant Kim Kardashian' not figured out that people will stop making fun of her swollen feet if she would just stopping posting pictures of them?  Media hound plus pregnancy brain is a lethal combination.

Free For Real?

It never fails that when I sit to write there is usually a battle between two ideas which boils down to the blog I want/need to write versus the one I know I am going to write.  There really is no formula to choosing beyond trying to stay as PC as possible and trying to opt for the theme that will not scare readers into thinking that I have finally gone over the deep end--certainly don't need the men in white suits coming to take me away although it could be argued that on some days, a nice long respite in a padded room might just be what I need.  Today, I really wanted to write about the weather and how we feel doubly (fill in the blank) as we just made it through 7.5 months of winter hell to be greeted by no spring but variant and all-around crappy weather.  Our poor varsity lax team has only played four games this season--which ends Friday, mind you--and even their re-scheduled games are now frantically being re-scheduled again.  It stinks.  I realized, however, that beyond those two sentences about the weather I could not write a blog that was fit to print as it would be filled with profanity and probably some creepy comments about the state in which we live. Instead,  I am taking the high road this morning and have decided to blog about a new genre of bloggers I recently discovered, fashion bloggers.

Much to my husband's dismay, I have become somewhat obsessed with fashion bloggers of late. Ii know that begs the question as to what would be so interesting about a person who takes pictures of herself and then tells you where to buy the items, but I am here to tell you that my interest goes far deeper than discovering that Zara is a really cool site for shoes (no, really).  My interest was piqued when I starting realizing that a large percentage of these women were quite young, more oft than not between the ages of 24 and 35, and while they discussed having full time jobs and some having spouses, there was no way that their income could have afforded them the opportunity to buy all the very expensive items they were showing on their blogs.  My husband said that they must be getting the items from their sponsors as a marketing promo but because a majority of these items are luxury brands, I did not believe him.  I hate to admit it--ask my husband and he will agree--but after some research I discovered my husband had been right (yikes!). Unbelievable.  What a sweet deal--the free stuff, not my husband being right. I know that this is a simplistic approach to looking at this because I am sure that these women travel a lot to promote their blogs and work hard for the benefit of receiving these cool items, but, wow, what fun!  Sometimes, they even post pictures of the boxes of stuff they receive and what will be showing up on their blogs soon.  Since I am not a fan of TV at all, following some of these blogs might be my own demented version of reality TV--a dirty, little secret (not anymore though).

To some it may seem vapid and self-serving but on some level, this would be a fun job for me right now.  I would love to get goodies in the mail from Celine and Tory Burch and then photograph them and talk them up on my blog.  Of course, I do shy away from pictures as a rule and I have passed the age range of most fashion bloggers a 'few' years ago so I think I may need to rethink this career choice.  I suppose I will just take some time each day and live vicariously through them knowing that youth is fleeting but that these bloggers seem to truly be making the most of it.

Going Slightly Mad

For most people, May brings flowers, Mother's Day and thoughts of summer soon to be arriving but for me all it seems to bring is indigestion. Allow me to explain.  At our old school, the curriculum was devised so that the bulk of the work including major projects and performances were all scheduled prior to May, so that we could enjoy those last precious weeks of school as the weather turned warmer and our children's thoughts turned to outside.  That is not to say that the children did not continue to learn and work hard, but the pace definitely slowed as we approach the end of the school year.  When we step into May at our current school, we are basically boarding a bullet train on a treacherous stretch of track careening toward that first week of June when we are thrust from the train, academically and emotionally spent, but thankful that we survived yet another year's end.  Personally, I cannot keep another 'must do' item in my brain as it has expanded as far as it could go within the confines of my skull.  I swear I think some of the the things I need to remember are dripping out of my ears during the day which is why they are either not getting done or I am redoubling my effort to get them done ASAP.  Between three sports schedules which ran amok due to the weather, projects, papers, tests, concerts, performances and the like, I swear I don't know how to keep it together throughout the day let alone make it through to the next month.  Mommy guilt consumes me but since I have yet to figure out how to clone myself, I simply cannot make it to two lacrosse games and a Mom/Daughter Tea all on the same Saturday afternoon.  I cringe when one of my children says guess when such and such an event is because I can almost guarantee that , if it is in May, I already have two other things scheduled for the same day and time or at least a time close enough so that getting to all of them will be next to impossible.

I really do think that the stress of this is getting to me as last week I tried to put the milk in the microwave thinking it was the refrigerator and I have not called my children by their rightful names since mid-April...truth be known, I have even called my daughter by my dog's name. Sad.  So when you see me on the last day of school, a crying mess because my oldest will be a rising senior and my other son will be a rising freshman (already!), just ignore me and know that at least I survived May once again. It might not have been pretty but it will have gotten done.