Rainy Days & Mondays

The rest of our spring break was relatively uneventful. I sent each of the girls off on far-flung trips so that they could get very wet and cold.

In J’s case, a friend brought her along on a rafting trip. I wanted to go, but J has hit genuine adolescence now, and she asked, “Please don’t come?” with such quiet urgency in her voice that I could hear the force of her trying not to roll her eyes and cover her face in premature humiliation.  Okay, fine. Anyway, it was a little early in the season for rafting, so there was an intimidating list of gear to pack so that the girls didn’t turn into small icicles. In spite of the pre-trip packing anxiety, J survived and had fun, although she wouldn’t necessarily go again. The truth is that we’ve all been spoiled by the most fabulous rafting trip ever in Moab. After J got home I noticed that her wet, sandy sneakers were also literally falling apart. I don’t know about other parents, but it just never occurs to me to say to my children, “Hey, if you have holes in your sneakers, could you let me know?” I monitor all of the clothes via the laundry, but it feels like every time my kids come back from an expedition like this, it’s suddenly obvious that they needed new sneakers two months ago. This was especially irritating since we had just gone shopping for shoes. And I swear, I actually do say, “While we’re shopping, can you think of anything else that you think you need?” That’s because I hate shopping, so I don’t want to keep going back out over and over again. . . . And yet I do.

M, meanwhile, had her last two soccer games for her EDP league. One of them was in New Jersey, and we were fortunate enough to send her along with someone else. Apparently it was cold and raining steadily, so. . . score! Even better that we didn’t go. It was beautiful for her local Saturday game, and they won both of their games, which made them undefeated in that whole series. This is an excellent change of pace from last year, when they really struggled. Even though we were both glad not to go to New Jersey on Sunday, Cute W and I were comically attached to our phones, awaiting updates. When I’m at a game and he isn’t, I’m always texting him like mad: telling him that we’ve started and if M started and in what position, who’s not at the game, who’s dominating, who scored a goal and who assisted and if M is playing well or not. So it was funny on Sunday because Cute W was away at a business meeting, and I felt like I could read his mind as, 25 minutes into the game, he finally broke down and texted to ask a friend for the score. And then after another ten minutes, when she hadn’t answered, he texted someone else to ask for a score. Later, of course, M filled us in, although it wasn’t necessarily the sort of tactical, all-team reporting that Cute W lives for. Instead we heard that it was so cold that her hands were too stiff to re-tie her shoelaces when they came untied , and there was a girl who elbowed her in the boob repeatedly as part of her marking up tactic. I am thinking that there should be some sort of coming-of-age ritual celebration the first time a girl acknowledges unashamedly that she actually has boobs, and so part of me wanted to throw a small party at that remark. But I restrained myself.

Really, these children have no idea how much I restrain myself.