I had to take AE to a “party” at his new baseball coach’s house yesterday afternoon. The coach wanted all the parents and kids to get a chance to interact a little outside of practice, but it just turned out to be incredibly awkward. (Much as N had predicted, which is why he refused to go. That reminds me, I need to inform him that he “wasn’t feeling well” and couldn’t make it.) The boys all ran off to play together, leaving the parents – who have children ranging in age from 15 months to 19 years, giving you an idea of the significant parental age disparity going on – to stand around staring uncomfortably at each other. I was having flashbacks to my eighth grade school dance, where the boys all stood on one side of the cafeteria and the girls on the other, chattering nervously and only occasionally looking across the room to make eye contact.
Finally people started interacting a little bit, and the coach’s wife came over to chat with AE. I was surprised at how casually he held a conversation with her. I still think of him as a preschooler or something, I guess, and am always prepared to answer questions FOR him, like I do with Miss T (although she doesn’t need me to do it either). But the woman was asking him all sorts of things about his school, does this teacher still teach second grade, do Mrs. So-and-so and Ms. Doe still team-teach, is Mrs. Smith still there. And he knew all the answers, knowledgeably explaining that no, this teacher now does third grade, Ms. Doe is now team-teaching with a new teacher, and Mrs. Smith now exclusively does speech therapy. I was so impressed! When did my little boy become a functional member of society? He has this whole life outside of mine! He knows things that I have no idea about! Crazy!
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N and I have apparently decided to go on a travel spree of sorts.
It gets started Memorial Day weekend. We’re going to Baltimore for his college roommate’s wedding, something we’ve had planned for well over a month.
Then last week, we finally bit the bullet and booked a trip to Denver for mid-June. We haven’t been back out there since we moved away (almost 7 years ago, GAWD), and AE is old enough now to really appreciate and remember a visit. So we’ll take him on the grand nostalgic (for us) tour, this is where we used to live, there’s where you were born, etc., and of course we’ll also hit the zoo and Casa Bonita. (Because no trip to the Denver area is complete without experiencing the weirdness that is Casa Bonita. Have you seen that episode of South Park? Yeah. It’s totally like that.)
And Friday night, we completely lost our minds and booked YET ANOTHER trip, this time to San Francisco in late July. Why, you ask? Well, I’m starting grad school in August, and there’s no way we’ll have the time/energy/MONEY to travel very much over the next few years. So this will be our last hurrah of sorts. We’ve actually already been to SF (and oh, we adore it) but the draw this time is the marathon. As you know, N has already completed a couple of half-marathons, and has another planned for next month (oh yes, and we’re going to Dallas sans kids that weekend. My poor parents, who are stuck on Kid Duty for all of these wanderings.) But after April, marathons are pretty hard to come by around here because it’s just too damn hot. So San Francisco it is.
I’m very excited. And while N contemplates upping the ante and spending the next 4 months training for the full marathon (AH MAH GAH), I am actually considering going for the half myself. I’ve recently begun running, you see, and it’s true what they say. It is addictive. I think I’ll run the 5K when we go to Dallas, then see if I can’t find a few more of those around here (nice thing about a college town – there are plenty of student organizations to sponsor them). I do love a challenge, and if training for a half-marathon isn’t a challenge I don’t know what would be. I think they payoff will be worth the inevitable pain and suffering – I mean, come on. The half-marathoners get to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Twice!
No matter what happens – I think it’s pretty clear I’ve totally lost my marbles. For reals this time.
