On Track

Having one kid in jr high and one kid in high school can make for a busy life. Even when they are doing the same thing (running track, for example), it's like squeezing two seasons into one. Different practice schedules...different coaches... different meets in different towns on the same day. Fast food is eaten, laundry is undone, and nerves are frazzled. So in lieu of losing my sanity, my family graciously granted me a two week time-out. I went to work, I came home, I tried not to answer the phone. And everyone had clean underwear for a change. A couple of days in, while scarfing down my homemade butternut squash risotto, Hillary said, "This is AMAZING, mom. I haven't had a real cooked meal in DAYS." Thank you for pointing that out.
Anyway, Saturday marked the end of my hiatus...and what better way to re-enter the atmosphere than spending all day at Parker's track meet, waiting hours to watch him run for seconds and texting Hubby to keep him updated because he and Hillary were doing the same thing 60 miles to my right. But fate smiled upon me and it was actually a pretty good day. The clouds kept the rain to themselves, I got to catch up with another Mom-friend whose son was also competing, and Parker won his heat in hurdles.
Later that evening, I was just lounging in my bed, thinking about watching tv when the kids came in to see what I was doing. They both scrunched in beside me...arguing playfully about who got to "be by mom". This is something they do often (on the couch, on the porch swing) even though I have two sides. Each one always thinks the other is somehow getting more of me. This amazes me as I would assume that having put up with my crabbiness, they would have had quite enough of me already. But they made a Mom-sandwich of me, loving me from both sides. And I loved it. We laughed and told stories and made up words with our own definitions. We were so comfy we fell asleep like that.
They always know how to put me back on track.