But why?

Why? Why? Why? I used to hear this all the time from K. Why is that dog barking? Why can't I have candy? Why can't I have a sleep over? OK, I still hear it, many times a day. Today is Wednesday and we had our appointment with Dr. Phil, it was supposed to be a solo for me but given the recent theatrics of my MIL we decided it would be best to go in as a duo. This was also a good idea as we spent most of last night discussing the issue.

When Dr. Phil saw us he didn't seem shocked, we went and immediately went to town. After an abridged version of the whole story we sat and waited for some help. We are at an impasse on some of the main points in this current situation. After some back and forth Dr. Phil asked me what about this situation bothers me. Why am I so upset? Huh? Why the hell wouldn't I be upset? After years of what she put me through she was using her weakened condition to get out of acknowledging it then when she saw that D wasn't giving into her she made herself sick enough to put herself in the hospital just in time for Mother's Day. Mother's Day. Did he not see the irony here?

I understand that I have a very different way of thinking, I have a different way of doing everything and I don't expect those around me to do the same (at least I don't anymore). What I do not understand is this, a question I have been repeating to my poor friends forced to listen to it:

If I predicted that my MIL's illness (real or fake) would culminate in a hospital stay on Mother's Day how could I possibly consider this a coincidence? How could I not be bothered by this?

After careful thinking I kind of got what Dr. Phil was trying to get me to say. If I knew it was coming and I know her pathetic attempts to receive attention are simply a manifestation of a mental disorder that she refuses to deal with and acknowledge how can I be mad? I wasn't even surprised. My anger and my hurt isn't really directed at her it's at her son, my husband. After all that we've been through he still refused to believe this was a deliberate action. The why? The why is a my foot stomping temper tantrum version of "why can't he just see my side?" A feeling that takes me back to the second I realized this had become a competition. This feeling conjures up the same emotions started years ago when I realized that during a time of great need my husband didn't hear me, he put the demands and need to please his mother above the needs of his wife and the mother of his newborn child. These present events transport me back to the exact moment when the love of my life broke my heart. A moment that unfortunately is still so clear in my head, I can even give you the exact location.

It's not about carrying around anger or jealousy because it transcends that, in fact I wish it were only anger. That is an emotion I can deal with, jealousy is a wasted emotion and I thankfully do not allow that in my head (regardless of what others may think). It's hurt, a hurt that took place not only in the moment but went through my whole history way back to the little girl who had waited patiently for her night in shining armor. I'm not writing this to make D feel bad or apologize, I know how he feels now and I don't require an apology, he's already done that profusely. I am merely answering the question posed by Dr. Phil as to why this upsets me so much.

I'm not really sure where we are expected to go from here. We aren't exactly at an impasse anymore but we are both having a difficult time seeing each other's opinion on this specific action. I need to let go of that. Who cares what my MIL does. If she want's to damage her body that's really her problem. For me all I can do is hope: I can hope that she doesn't take these stunts too far and cause real damage. I can hope that D confronts her on this issue and doesn't get pulled into further dramatics. I can hope that my knight will clean off the years of varnish that has accumulated on his armor but what really hope is that I can let go of the hurt. I know I hold the key that unlocks the emotional handcuffs I've been wearing. I don't need the knight to do that, I can do this myself. I imagine I had the key all along, it must have been lost in the mess around my house I am finally cleaning.

I do need the knight to come in and hoist me up onto his horse. My arms will finally be free to wrap around him as we ride off into the sunset.

Or onto Sunset as this is a modern tale.

Dazed and Confused

I'm not sure if it's my current MIL situation, the windy weather or the recent Spring cleaning project I have started but lately my head has been planted firmly up my ass. My attention span rivals my six year old and my focus is for shit. My potty mouth however, rules hard. I started purging items in my closet yesterday and was stuck there for hours. I filled my car and dropped it all off at Goodwill, then I picked up K from school helped her with homework and then went back to purging. I unloaded a huge box of books, some more clothes and many toys and games to my neighbor who will happily dispense my castoffs accordingly. Even though it isn't really noticeable the extra cubic feet in my life give me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel a little less hoarder-like. I went back to this task today and ended up behind the television in my room, ewww, it was covered in about an inch of dust. My vacuum got quite the workout today and I threw out old cards and papers that go back at least ten years.

Maybe I inhaled too much dust, I walked around in such a fog, I hope I didn't trash anything meaningful. I decided to quit and leave to pick up K a little early. I could sit in front of the school and get some fresh air. I think I ended up just texting but I can't be sure. I rushed K out of her classroom and drove to Karate, going home would have made us late and I like to arrive early to get good parking and a good seat to watch her class. She changed in the car and off we went. When we walked into the dojo I got a strange look from the sensei, he commented on how early we were. Better to be early than late I replied. We sat around and waited and a few people slowly showed up, I told K to go in and practice. She was doing kicks and working with another kid and I was trying to make a call, no cell service in the dojo, probably a good thing. I sent a text to explain the lack of coverage and something caught my eye. The time. It wasn't 3:30PM like I thought, it was 2:30PM! We weren't a little bit early we were an hour and a half early. I'm a moron. I grabbed K out of the practice and apologized profusely to the sensei. No wonder he looked at me like that.

I was so embarrassed and completely flustered, it's not like me to make a stupid mistake like that, not that I am above stupid mistakes, just not ones of this nature. I took K across the street for a snack and we waited until class started. When we returned on time I apologized again and had a few laughs over it. I told them that we've been having some family issues lately and it's knocked me completely off my game. I hate that so much. Losing focus over this is not helpful, it give the situation more power than it deserves. Just as losing my temper over it does. Walking around with that kind of energy is toxic. I believe this is the reason for the purging I started yesterday. I have no sense of order in my emotional state so I better equalize that with actual order. There's no better way to accomplish that a huge home organization project. Doing that seemed to bring order to the chaos Once I left it however, the chaos reigned supreme. I was in a strange state after that, texting D and telling him about it was hard, he asked me if I was OK and for the first time in my life I said "no, I am not OK." It actually felt good to admit a loss of emotional control.

We came home and did homework which went remarkably well, no arguing at all, I let K watch Chef vs City, her current favorite show and made a healthy dinner. We ate in relatively silence, not discussing the issues in front of K. I don't believe in keeping anything from her but this one is hard, I don't want her to learn to emotionally blackmail someone by making herself sick but I don't want her to lose the compassion and empathy that she uses so wisely.

After K was in bed D and I argued for a bit, then like two boxers who have been simultaneously knocked out we called it a draw. Another first for me, I asked (in my own way of course) for a hug, unusual for me but I felt it was necessary. After this we retired to the couch and had a very lengthy conversation that would have made Dr. Phil proud. Using all the skills and tools we have learned we each opened up in a way we had never done before. I actually pinpointed the exact moment of my disconnect and acknowledged that I acted poorly as a result of it. We both went "all in" and saw that our hands were pretty much the same. No blame was taken or placed, we vowed to be better listeners as well as making an effort to be more verbal about our needs.

It was strange that in my current state I was completely off balance yet utterly focused. I didn't mind this feeling but it does leave you completely exhausted. I hope that it doesn't decide to linger, another wonderful side effect of this is a super annoying eye twitch that seems to only occur when discussing my MIL (or the actual eye twitch) fabulous.

More life lessons, learned the hard way. At least I have a cool study partner.

Been dazed and confused for so long, it's not true.
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you.
Take it easy baby, let them say what they will.
Will your tongue wag so much when I send you the bill?

Lovesick?

I don't even know where to start on this one. I briefly touched on it yesterday when I posted a beautiful poem by Walt Whitman rather than write about the drama that occurred. In addition to be pissed off yesterday I had to reset my drama-meter which had a nice drama-free run since March 28.

OK here goes: A little background first, it's been so quiet on the MIL front, not much had changed since this post, D and K had their weekly Saturday phone calls and she was still spending her time planning her trips. D and I have been enjoying our time together, or at least the moments we had together while he finished up his movie. Things were going great, any normal person would be happy with that. Me? I could feel the barometer rising and the storm moving in. In fact last week during dinner with my friend L, I made a prediction, my MIL's "health issues" would come to a head on Mother's Day. I predicted the same thing to A telling her that D would get the call that day that she was in the hospital. So am I psychic like L thinks or just really in tune with human nature? I just call em like I see em, and I always seem to call this one correctly. Do I think this is a coincidence? How can it be? I called it. I predicted it would unfold exactly like it did.

This sudden illness brought her to the hospital on Saturday, D's birthday. I guess she didn't want to ruin his birthday, preferring to wait until Sunday, Mother's Day to let him know. Apparently he didn't return her call fast enough, she called a friend and had her do it. D and I do not see eye to eye on this. While he does believe that she has made herself sick to garner some sort of attention he does not believe it was planned to culminate on Mother's Day. I've been a witness to her theatrics for ten years, I'm not putting it past her. In fact she has a history of doing things like this around significant events in our lives. On the day before a trip down to San Diego, a trip to celebrate our second anniversary, a trip in which D surprised me with tickets to a Jets/San Diego football game, a trip that my MIL knew about, she called him and told him she was dying, she had cancer. He called me telling me that we could not go to San Diego, he was coming home and driving up to see her. I was shocked, this came out of nowhere. I called her to find out what was going on. We had a lengthy albeit confusing conversation that was cut short by an incoming phone call from doctor. When she called back she had interesting news. She didn't have cancer. Cancer was one of the possibilities in a long list of potential results from a test that she had taken. We were all relieved but it was only me who found the whole situation a bit strange.

Then right around Christmas, a holiday D typically spent with her but was not this year because we (read I) wanted to have K's first Christmas at home, she called him and cried on the phone explaining to him that she was having more tests done and she needed him to be with her. So a week before Christmas he goes up there for what was basically a glorified Pap test. I know this because a few months later I had questionable results from a Pap test, my doctor said it could be nothing or it could be precancer cells but I needed to have colposcopy, a more detailed view of the cells in my uh, lady bits. He did this in the office and had the cells biopsied. I even had K with me who played with the nurses while my doctor was looking under my skirt. I didn't even tell D about this until it was over. This is exactly the same thing his mom had, except she wasn't honest with him about it. Again.

So things like this brings us to last year when she actually had cancer. When he called to tell me I was more than skeptical and didn't react like a caring and thoughtful person (remember my favorite "you hate my mother" line?). She had her operation and it went well. D was up there to be with her through this. Before he left I warned him of her past and begged him to talk to the doctors to reiterate her instructions for at home recovery. I told him to watch her diet and I told him that within a week she'd be back in the hospital. You can see where this is going right? Days later I said goodbye to D as he made the trip up North once again.

That was a year ago, I've done research on recovery like hers, barring "user error" she should have recovered fully after a few months, tops. She did not. She constantly used her illness to get sympathy and attention, to make a visit down here but only stay for 2 days because she wasn't comfortable (I must mention that weeks after that visit she went on some church thing and was away for days, then after that spent days walking around San Francisco). She used this to get us to come for Christmas and you all know how that went and if you don't please read here. I bet she regrets that visit now.

So that's about it, after the "Incident" the relationship between D and his mom have been strained. He has finally seen her through my eyes. In addition to our reconnection we have recently been provided some valuable information about her and her past that puts it all into perspective. Everything now makes sense not just to me but to D. So when Mother's Day was approaching I knew that we were in for yet another incident. That's what we were dealing with yesterday, a weekend of lovely celebration came to a screeching halt. Taking us back to another time but not for long. The reactions are different now. While we still don't see eye to eye regarding the planning of her actions we do agree on the intentions.

We'll see what the next few days have in store, as of now it's been almost 3 days in the hospital with no real diagnosis.

It reminds me of when I was little and didn't want to go to school, I would fake a stomach ache.

It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.

Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish everyone a very Happy Mother's Day. I got the most beautiful gift from D and K, an amazing video shot by D and starring K who goes around to all of our haunts and tells me how much she loves me. Having a husband who is an editor has it's advantages. It was without a doubt the best Mother's Day gift a mom can get. I know that I will be watching this every day and crying every time. Thanks guys. It was a beautiful day in Los Angeles today and after a killer brunch at my favorite restaurant we spent a nice part of it running after K on the beach. I would love to say the whole day was perfect but I can't have a Mother's Day without a MIL and sad to say my drama counter had to be reset today. Instead of focusing on the negative I am sharing a beautiful poem instead of a complaining rant. Please enjoy this gift from me to you:

There Was a Child Went Forth

by Walt Whitman


There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,
Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,
And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen,
And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school,
And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.

His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had conceiv'd him in her womb and birth'd him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that,
They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.

The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table,
The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by,
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust,
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they?
The streets themselves and the facades of houses, and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves, the huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown two miles off,
The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slack-tow'd astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud,
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

Happy Birthday D!

First I just want to say Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband D, I hope that he enjoyed this day and the myriad of crap that he had to endure. We tried to make it special but it ended in typical DMK fashion. That's how we roll around here.

I'm not sure what time he came home last night but I wasn't waiting for him in our bed like I should have been. Instead I was asleep in K's bed most likely getting a kick in the head every few minutes. I fell asleep there last night. I awoke to D and K in the kitchen, I rolled out of K's little bed and stumbled into my bedroom. I cannot start my day unless my bed is made, as soon as I was finished D came in and was unhappy at the sight of the tidiness. We both climbed back into the bed and he fell asleep, I was kind of glad, we had a lot to do and sleeping in meant we didn't have to go to karate, a little less rushing around today. Nope, D wanted to see K in action. She just started karate this week and already loves it. She looks so cute in her gi and is really into it, the look on her face when she does her kicks is fierce, thank goodness her Sensei told her never to use karate anywhere but the dojo. One week and I have three new words to use. Cool. So anyway, D wanted us to go and off we went, his birthday, his rules. We were there 2 minutes before we saw someone we knew. This place is clearly the social epicenter of the neighborhood. Sensei G came over to say hello and meet D, he told me he had no idea his new karate kid was a supermodel, I guess it's impossible to keep anything a secret, especially since we friended each other on Facebook.

Class was great and D enjoyed watching his little girl perform her newest skills. After that we had an audition and rushed to get there, poor D had to sit and wait for us, parking is terrible at the beach on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I was hoping it would be quick because this was supposed to be a request only casting. It was not. We waited as long as we could but K's piano lesson was at 12:30 and we had to leave. So we drove over to that and came back to the audition when we were done. Luckily they were cool and saw K right away. Some of the mother's were shocked that we left but it's ridiculous to miss an important just to wait around for someone to take your kids picture and yell "next."

We finally returned home and D opened his gifts, impossible to shop for I always wing it and hope for the best. This year it was Tony Hawk Ride, the Wii game that looks so cool. All the slackers at Best Buy thought it was "rad." He also got a new wallet and a beautiful framed picture K made for him. I hope he liked it all, if you're reading this D I still have the receipts if you don't. The rest of the day was spent deciding what to do with the rest of the day. While we were debating the minutes clicked by and suddenly it was time to get ready for dinner. D decided that K would feel bad about missing out on his birthday dinner so it was the three of us. I think we both regretted that decision a little. Regardless, we went to a fabulous restaurant in Hollywood called Street please visit this place if you are ever close, the eclectic menu of "street food" is not to be missed. In fact I need to travel with Susan Feniger, chef and owner, because if this is the street food where she goes I am so there.

At home after dinner it was a contest of wills, K refused to go to sleep and we were too tired to argue with her, actually it was a bet that D had made with her. If she fell asleep in the car she would have to be compliant all through Mother's Day, if she stayed awake she could watch a movie. It's amazing what that that girl is capable of when she really wants something. Or really doesn't want to do something, as the case is here. Finally the movie was over and she was asleep. Then we got to enjoy some alone time and I gave him a few gifts I don't care to mention here. I am pretty sure he liked them.

Oh yeah we ate the cake too.

Zombieland

It's been a long week. I say this every Friday, it's beginning to get old, they are all long weeks in what has been a long year already. I feel foolish even talking about this. Albert Einstein had the same 24 hours in his day, I'm sure he didn't feel the need to bitch about being tired because he had too much to do. I know I have a lot on my plate but so does everyone else. Why do simple tasks take me so long to accomplish and then make me so tired? I feel like I'm a zombie sometimes.

Today went by rather quickly. The morning was a blur, D worked late last night and I was asleep when he came home, we literally passed each other like the proverbial ships this morning. A quick kiss and off he went to start his very long day,I probably won't be awake when he gets home. We will have the whole weekend together, so that's good. This morning I caught up with some friends and went out to run some errands. First thing on the agenda was a car wash, my car was so dirty, doing it myself wasn't an option. I sat there and caught up on my texting and got some rays at the same time. Then I had a few birthday related things to do for D, his birthday is tomorrow. I can't say what I got him, I'd hate for him to find out too early. K is so bad at secret keeping I have to either lie to her or tell her at the last minute.

After school we went for our Friday Treat which has become Friday frozen yogurt. I've found a way around getting one for me, I just try all the flavors I like, after about 4 I'm good to go, relatively guilt and carb free. K on the other hand has a giant cup of yogurt, candy and fruit topped off with caramel. She takes about an hour to finish this concoction turning it into a multicolored soup that apparently "rules!" Ewwww. When she was finished we went through our cupcake book looking for a birthday treat for D. We came up with a cute one, Nilla Wafer people floating on chocolate donut inner tubes resting on blue ocean iced cupcakes. Easy right? Nope. This called for yet another trip to the store where K showed anyone who would look the picture of our project.

When came home I almost forgot about dinner, the only thing I had that I knew she would eat were some beef short ribs and an artichoke. I knew I was about to be chained to my kitchen. Luckily I had the smarts to buy a lovely bottle of red while we were picking up our baking supplies. I cooked up the ribs and artichoke and about halfway through dinner I started on the cupcakes. Thank you cabernet for giving me the patience and strength to push through. After they were out and cooled I cleared the dinner mess and we started on the cupcake mess. The donuts were too big so we improvised, we took four cupcakes to make the base for the inner tubes and then decorated accordingly. I could see K was getting tired so we finished hers and she went to bed.

I had hoped to spend this night catching up, relaxing and writing and hopefully sleeping instead I spent it in the kitchen trying to turn the sugary mess on my counter into a cohesive birthday treat for my husband. When I was finished I realized that I had spent all night on this, there was no way to do much of anything. I sat on my couch and put the television on for background noise, I was afraid I would fall asleep. I did a bit of texting while I started writing and was immediately distracted. My OCD/ADD was in full swing as I methodically switched from writing to Facebook to the Huffington Post, repeating this process every few minutes. The clock seemed to have been broken, every time I checked it 30 minutes had gone by. I believe my zombie-like state had me in a trance, the wine probably wasn't helping. I thought for sure I had finished the whole bottle but when I checked it was still about 3/4 full.

I decided to throw in the towel since everything I was doing was half-assed. I even slacked on my nighttime regimen, the wrinkles were going to win over the antiwrinkle serum, I was too tired to deal. I went in to check on K who grabbed my arm to lay next to her. I don't think I moved from that spot until she woke me up in the morning. I guess the zombie was tired, even K's teeth grinding didn't wake me up.

I'm afraid to see the mes I made. Zombies are a very dirty breed!

Open House

Today was the Open House at K's school. It was a casual thing, in fact if K hadn't said anything I probably would never have known. I dropped her off at school this morning and asked her teacher about it, she was surprised that I hadn't heard about it. Apparently it was in the school newspaper which we receive online and often gets deleted. Oops. I usually read it for about a minute and then hit delete. Glad I inquired, it was fun. D had to work, they are almost done with the movie he's been working on lately, the producers are leaving for Cannes on Saturday. So it was just the girls at school tonight, K proudly showed me around the room stopping at her little desk. Laid out on top was a report on America she had done in class, it was so cute seeing all of her work. I was handed a folder of various writing and weekly tests, I was impressed, she's doing really well. The difference from September to May is astounding, not only in her school work but in everything about her.

I was handed a giant folder to take with me, adding to the mounting stack of papers that have already found it's way to our home this year. As you can guess, I am that mom, the one that keeps everything, every spelling test, every drawing and every skill assessment test. I keep it all. At the end of the year I will go through it all, throw out what isn't worth keeping (to me, I know some moms that chuck it all) and sort out the rest. Some of the stuff I keep for me and K, and the rest we send off to family, if they want to throw it away cool, just don't tell me.

It was a nice moment having K share her day to day with me, she even remembered to offer me some water, something her teacher suggested in class. While we were looking at some artwork she stopped to show me the computer math program they use. I wasn't sure what she was doing when she opened the program. There were 10 spaces and she seemed to be filling them in randomly by clicking on various images and symbols. When she was done the program started and when I asked her what she was doing she told me she was putting in her password. Huh? Her password was a string of 10 characters how the hell did she remember that? "It's from last year" she said. What? Her teacher then went on to tell me that she remembered her long password from Kindergarten. Wow. I have a problem remembering my four number passwords. She breezed through the math with a speed usually reserved for online sample sales.

I can't believe this school year is almost over. I remember walking her into the classroom on the the first day of school, her first day as a "grader." She was so small, how could she be in first grade? She is also the youngest kid in the grade which gave me further cause for concern. A few weeks into the school year and I was back to normal, she was doing great. Her interest in reading and writing took off as well as her competency in both subjects. Looking at her early journal entries and the adorable way she tried to spell made me miss my little girl, although she hasn't packed up to leave for college, she has grown by leaps and bounds. Her current journal entries are perfectly spelled and written, and a far cry from the very first one that went along with a stick figure drawing of K with her dad in a pool:

"me an mi dad are swimig."

She now writes and draws with such detail I wouldn't be surprised to be reading her blog this summer. In fact I think that may be a great summer project for us, I'll keep you posted on that.

After we were finished with the Open House, I told K we could go out to eat, it was already dinnertime and I wasn't about to go home and cook. We ran into her friend E who had just arrived with her family, she told K that they were having dinner up the street at one of our favorite Mexican places. I knew where we were now going, I told her that we weren't going to stay all night, we were already leaving the school and they had just arrived. She understood this and we made our way out.

We were seated at a table in the middle of the restaurant which gave K a view of the whole place including the door which she watched fervently. We were almost finished when E and family walked through the door, the table next to us was still empty and our duo became a six pack. Normally this kind of impromptu happening would make me uncomfortable but I shoved over and enjoyed to chaos. E's dad stayed for a bit but then had to leave for a dinner meeting. We put the kids at one table so the moms could talk in peace. This is a neighborhood place and K is pretty comfortable there, she should she's been going since she was about 5 days old. It's the only place I will allow her to visit the restroom without me. She was thrilled to take a trip to the loo with her bestie. They ate a little but mostly table hopped as the place was filling up with friends and schoolmates. A far cry from the worried little girl I left in a brightly colored classroom back in September.

I talked with E's mom, another E for a while but we mostly watched our kids as they enjoyed each others company and strolled around the restaurant holding hands trying to ditch E's little brother who is actually the coolest 4 year old kid I have ever met. When it was time to go they were all exhausted but wanted to stay, they were thrilled to hear that I was driving everyone home and would have an extra five minutes in the car. I even let K sit in the back next to E without the booster seat, that made my stock instantly rise (not sure if that was a bad attempt at humor given the ridiculous volatility of the market today).

When we got home I peeled the clothes off K and she instantly curled up into a ball of cuteness and fell asleep. I so wanted to do the same but I had messes to clean, emails to return and texts to answer. I tried to concentrate but like K, I was wiped out. We had been on the go since Monday and it was starting to take it's toll. While I thoroughly enjoy the social activity on Facebook, I'm more of an anti-social networker in person. I am learning to to overcome this and my first grader is a good teacher. In fact most of my interaction has been with her this week, except for a grown up dinner with my friend L on Tuesday.

I only kicked and screamed a little on the way there.

Maybe I should have an Open House of my own soon.