The Week I’ve Had
What. A. Week. Melina and I are exhausted. We are both sooo glad it’s Friday.
I didn’t realize how much life picked up when you have a kid, and some of you have 2 or 3 or 4 of them. No idea how you do it. Between school drop-offs and pick-ups and soccer mom meetings and feeding her — and then there’s my own priorities like work — I’m on the run constantly.
And I LOVE it.
Oh, besides the work of it all, there’s been fun. Last Sunday morning, instead of cleaning the house like I normally would, Melina and I went to see all three matinee hours of “Oppenheimer.” That movie was WORK. Afterward, we hit up her first visit to Chipotle and then took a nap. Later that afternoon we made a treat: brownie/blondies while we watched Novak win the US Open. Having a teenager means I am now trying Tik Tok recipes.
Melina has been riding her bike to school in an effort, I’m sure, to alleviate my hellish stint in the car lines at school. (She’s thoughtful like that.) But when it rained yesterday morning, I refused to let her schlep two miles in the drizzle. So out we trotted to the car. I turned the crank and — nothing. My trusty steed, my gleaming chariot, my reliable wheels — dead. So I had to send my kid to school in the rain while I dialed AAA. I felt awful, but she took it like a champ.
I made a thing! My company has what they call “Fun Days” where you get out of the office with your co-workers and do something different and fun for team building. Yesterday all the admins in my group went to “Board & Brush” in Plano and dipped and daubed and swirled in stains and paint, and my mom will now have something new to hang in her house for Thanksgiving. I am quite proud of it.
Melina and I have been planning our Spring Break. Yes, it’s six months away, but if these next six months go as quickly as her first month here, it’s going to be here in a flash. Anyway…WE’RE GOING TO THE GRAND CANYON! Flights, hotels and rental car are all booked, as well as a sunset jeep ride in the desert. We are both giddy school girls at the thought. I am eager to show Melina the American Southwest. She’s been all over Europe, speaks three languages and has seen things I’ll never see, but they don’t have anything like the Grand Canyon in France. I’m proud to show her my country.
Speaking of my country, she asks hard questions. We had a conversation the other night at dinner about gun control and 2A. “You mean you can shoot somebody if they break into your house?” she asked, after I burbled on about the right to bear arms. We went down the rabbit hole even further. “So you can overthrow your government if you need to?”, she asked, looking at me like I’m Che Guevara.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it,” I said. “Let’s talk about the Grand Canyon!”
