a long-winded nutshell

It's been a busy week and I'm sorry to say that I've been behind in my blogging.  Writing, reading, posting...  It's all shockingly been put on the back burner.  Who knew I could prioritize?  And who knew I could actually get my priorities in the right order?!  Go me!

For starters, this was the last GD week of school for my kids.  It seems that the powers that be decided that us poor parents should be slowly tortured into the summer vacation by having each day this last week be a half day.  Except today.  Which was one hour.  So today I had to get up, feed, dress and get kids out the door on time for a bogus hour of classroom time.

But whatever, that really wasn't the biggest deal this week.  The half days weren't messing with my blogging time that much. It's just that there were a lot of events this week.

The first event was a little thing called Kindergarten graduation.  Because my Kindergartner passed with flying colors and is moving on to the grades!  She's so excited.  I didn't have much to do with the adorable ceremony, but I did have to bake for it.  Mini blueberry muffins that were scarfed up before I could even taste one bite, darn it!  Brooke's ceremony was just super cute though, and she was so proud.  The only bad thing was this:  Since when did parents start buying the kindergartners graduation gifts, balloons, flowers, etc?  Why??  Can someone tell me why is this necessary?  And can someone tell me why it is necessary to bring those gifts, balloons, flowers, etc to school?  So the kids who do not have those kinds of things get to look at them with envy?

They're going into first grade, not grad school.  I get that it is exciting and important and all, but seriously?  So, after the ceremony, I went up to kiss Brooke and tell her she did great up there on the stage and check out her "diploma," and she looks up at me expectantly and says, "So where's my present?"  And I was all like, "Huh?"  And she goes, "You know, my graduation present, what did you get me?"

And then Alex and I looked at each other like, shit.  So then I had to pretend that I had planned to take her to pick out a present and ice cream the whole time.  But only because I felt the pressure to keep up with the people who thought that it was appropriate to shower their five year olds with gifts for passing kindergarten.  Can I just say omg and leave it at that?  No, no I can't actually, because I just feel the need to say one more thing.  Really??  That's it.  That was my one last thing. OK no, it was almost my last thing.  My real last thing is that I am mad at myself that I caved to the pressure.  There.  That's it.

So anyway, that was just one of the busy things.  We had ceremonies all over the damn place.  Meg and Alex had awards ceremonies, and then Megan had her Moving Up ceremony.  Because she is moving up from elementary to middle
school.  Which is also very exciting.  Her ceremony was great and I had to bake something for that, which again, I did not even get to eat.  One of the songs that the kids sang maybe gave me a little tear in my eye that didn't fall.  Meg was really cute and happy and excited.  She did not ask me for a present.  No scratch that.  She did ask me for a present and I said "are you kidding me," and she said, "well can you at least get me an itunes gift card?"  And I said no.  Because I am a mean mom.

Then, yesterday was Megan's birthday.  She turned ten years old and I just can't even believe it.  I seriously feel like somehow these years flew by, and my raspy voiced little shy peanut is turning into such a nice, kind, smart, creative and funny little girl.  The birthday kid gets to pick the dinner in our family, and she chose... Applebees.  Usually I make the kids their dinner of choice, but she was into going out to dinner, so we did that and she was really happy.

Also this week, I have seen less of my husband than I usually do because he has been hard at work up at the Capitol.  Tonight marked the passing of the Marriage Equality Act for New York State, which is just such an exciting thing.  Pretty cool that he is in the thick of it and gets to be there watching big things happen.  I don't usually find government and laws and all of that crap too exciting, but tonight was pretty awesome and I admit that I had my TV tuned in to the legislative channel.

So that's it, in a long-winded nutshell.  That's why I am behind.  Maybe next week will be a little less busy, but really there are no guarantees.  Because, don't you know?  It's summer vacation!