Slow week

With Mother's Day coming, it seemed appropriate to talk about my "slow" week.

All Moms have "slow" weeks. Those are the weeks where you actually have time to eat lunch, albeit in your car. These can not be confused with what we call in my family, the Ain't-Got-Time weeks (obscure reference point, it comes from a Bugs Bunny cartoon with Little Red Riding Hood; the Wolf gets behind in his timetable and has to play catch up, he gets to Grandma's house and kicks her out instead of eating her. Whe she asks him, "Hey Wolf, aren't you going to eat me?", he answers her while packing her suitcase "Ain't got time, Grandma, ain't got time!" and then throws her out of her house with the suitcase behind her. I know, more information than you needed to know -- we're BIG Looney Tunes fans in this house! That reminds me of a Seinfeld episode...)

This week has been a slow week. No meetings of any kind, any where. One child extra-curricular event -- lacrosse -- and the one practice that went along with that on a different night. One school activity, reading with the 5th graders on Monday morning (I time them with specific readings at their level; they then answer questions to test retention and understanding, and that is followed by a retimed reading to see if they improve.) Now I had David all week because his dad is out of town, so there were more morning and afternoon school runs, but those were just drop offs and pick ups. Mackenzie caught a cold, which turned ugly Tuesday morning. So she had no school from Tuesday on, no swimming lessons, no gymnastics, and since she was feeling bad, especially the first two days, we didn't really go anywhere. It gave me a chance to start packing up some stuff for the impending kitchen major remodel, but sometimes I just hung with my baby and watched cartoons.

The phone didn't ring all that much. The emails have slowed down. The major HSA fundraisers are over, now it's just preparing things for the handoff. Oh, I have meetings next week and will continue to have them into June (the fiscal year is July 1-June 30, so I'm the President until June 30) and there are some chair positions for next year that still need to be filled, but life is some ways is starting to slow down.

My Mom hates it when I call her from the road, which I do quite often, and then have to end my conversations with 'Gotta go, I'm at school-the game-the dentist's office-here to pick Mackenzie up-the pharmacy-the orthodontist's office-the Scout meeting, I'll talk to you later'. This week, both of my long conversations were from home, and without interruptions. You know she called me out on that. "I'm glad to see you're not running around like crazy." I don't know how to do anything else, this works for me.

When I worked full time, I could schedule visits to the dentist, the optometrist, pick up prescriptions, plan birthday parties, get my nails done, have the laundry clean and folded (and put away 80% of the time), and it was just little David (he was 4/5) and me in my little townhouse, but he went to preschool, and had playdates, and made the family loop between me and his dad, and I was OK. The first six months here, I've written about how I was no longer working, David would be with his dad in California, and I couldn't get dinner on the table by five. It drove me crazy, but I couldn't figure out how I was more organized when I was busier. Now I know. The secret is simply this -- once the forward motion starts, it's easier to keep going than having to start from a dead stop. When I stop and sit, I'm done.

That's why I blog often at the end of my day. To sit here in the morning would mean I would get nothing accomplished.

Thank goodness the L.A. Marathon is in the early morning!