Mama's Back, Jack

Matt's been out of town for a few days on a business trip. Earlier this week, I dropped the kids off at my mom's house so I could have a couple fun-filled days to myself.

I'm kidding, of course.

The leadership class I'm taking for my BSN degree requires clinical hours so my classmates and I helped out with my college's summer camp for middle schoolers. In theory, it was for kids interested in health careers. In reality, most of the kids were there because their moms made them sign up. And, as we all know, nothing is more fun than entertaining kids who don't want to be there. If being a youth group leader taught me anything, it was that.

At first I was so excited about the whole thing because I was going to have Monday night all by myself at the house. I could go dancing or buy antiques or do a 5k through some sort of interesting material (mud, food coloring, perfume, floam...). The sky was the limit.

I don't know why I get my hopes up about these things.

In the end, I cleaned a little and did homework. Woohoo, indeed. I had dinner at my in-laws, which was also novel, being there by myself. Matt's dad suggested some background noise of children screaming and discipline being meted out. You know, just to make it feel more normal.

The few days leading up to it I waffled about pigging out on some fantastic food. After all, being able to eat whatever you want is honestly one of the few great things about being an adult. Well, that and finally growing into your adult teeth. That's always a relief, not to be forever stuck with teeth too big for your head.

Monday's dessert was steamed edamame and red wine. As it turns out, I'm pretty boring by myself.

When I got home from college on Tuesday, my mom and the kids were there. The little ones were happy to see me. Pretty soon, though, the cold, hard, reality of mom being home set in for an unsuspecting Noah. At one point, I held him in my lap after a few screaming fits (him externally, me internally). He rubbed his eyes with his chubby little hand and told me "Mama, I want you to go to work. I want you to go to school."

The fact that my mom brought with her foods with an approximate sugar content of the country of Brazil had nothing to do with it, I'm sure.

Today was a little rough, considering the transition my kids made from a grandparent wonderland filled with movies and Fruit Loops back to a house of schoolwork and child labor. Jack told me he needed about 5 minutes to just rest and remember certain things that he had already forgotten in his 3 day absence, things like unloading the dishwasher and checking to see if the lid was on the carton of milk before carrying it sideways to the fridge (hint: it was not).

Later on in the afternoon, a delivery guy showed up with a package from Amazon (seeing those boxes makes my heart go pitter-pat). I saw him pull up and met him in the driveway, Talitha on my hip. The guy said immediately, "Wow, she is adorable."

Yup, I know.

Then after a minute of small talk and the handing off of the package, he said "Really, she is so cute. How can you stand it?"

Well, to be honest, I'm flipping out right now. I'm just really good at hiding it.

Then he said "Bye, sweetheart."

And I said goodbye back, pretty much at the same time I realized he was talking to Tali. This is going to be tough, as I am used to being the adorable one. Transitions.