I am extremely proud of myself for navigating around Washington DC last Sunday while Carl was at his rowing race. The girls and I wanted to go swimming. The hotel didn’t have a pool, but they did have a conveniently timed checkout hour, so we borrowed hotel towels and drove to a public pool. The pool was gigantic but shallow so that was perfect for Sarah swimming laps and for Amy doing back handsprings in the water. I was mostly in awe of the large locker room since our local pool has a minuscule locker room that almost always has a puddle of water taking up most of the floor – and that is after a major renovation! Anyway, I truly did feel proud of that swimming venture, including the fact that we got back with ten minutes for Sarah to nap before we needed to check out. After that we drove to Old Town Alexandria for a scrumptious lunch at a French Bistro. Sarah picked an outside table for us so she could enjoy watching traffic. There was a wrought iron railing that she played on as we waited for our food, hoisting herself up so her legs were in the air. Another patron needed her to stop for a moment so she could walk past. I said that it could be her turn next – and that is what happened! The other customer and Sarah and Amy all lined up playing on the railing! With full bellies we walked to a cat cafe called Mount Purrnon. Amy loved her thirty minutes petting cats while Sarah and I waited downstairs since Sarah doesn’t do well with a lot of cat hair. Amy could have stayed all day, but our next stop was a thrift store so Sarah could find a Sarah-ish shirt. Luckily she found a striped tee-shirt in her size, because otherwise she was feeling jealous of Amy getting a cat cafe shirt. Sarah had wanted the same cat cafe shirt but I strongly suggested we go to the thrift store instead because Amy prefers to have different shirts from Sarah in most cases.
Sarah has now officially crossed into adulthood in a way beyond an 18th birthday or even registering to vote. . . She has waited for 90 minutes at the DMV to get an ID with a terrible picture of her! That was our mission on Tuesday after she finished her 11th grade school year, and we succeeded, making it home just in time to get into suits for Sarah’s weekly swim lesson. Although she is excited to be a rising senior, she has needed some big crying sessions about how much she misses her bus driver. I continue to marvel that two years ago we happened to get assigned a bus driver that would become Sarah’s best bud on day one. You just never know when you are going to meet someone who will improve your life.
Amy is a school day and a half away from being a rising 9th grader. To finish out the year, her school held a Western-themed dance on Friday. Amy wore a rainbow cowgirl hat and gave herself fancy rainbow eyelids. Her art continues to amaze me, whether on paper or her face. She submitted a possible back cover for her school yearbook and her piece was selected! She drew a detailed hawk to honor the school mascot, but included a small cat in the drawing too because of course!
Yesterday we were lucky that amid a week with swelteringly hot temperatures interspersed with days of intense rain, it was a comfortably cool and dry day for the Walk for Children’s Hospital. This was our first year walking, but I expect we will participate in future years because it is a good cause and a fun day. Amy walked with some of her Higgy buddies, while Carl, Sarah, and I walked at a slower pace. Sarah’s favorite parts were the dry ice bubbles that poofed into smoke when you touched them and walking down the double yellow line in the middle of the road. My favorite part was a Zumba class led by teachers on a stage to help get people warmed up for the walk. It is the sort of thing that my much younger self would never have done, feeling incapable and uncoordinated. But my current self, who went to Zumba class for years before the pandemic and my hip replacement, knows I can follow the steps well enough and that it is about having fun so it doesn’t matter if I get it right. I nudged past my final piece of hesitation of being in such a public space by thinking about the Son-Rise Program attitude of enthusiasm. It was so much fun!
I had two podcast interviews this week, which will post later in the year, and for one of them I think we achieved a podcast first of me getting all teary so I could barely talk. The host asked what I would tell my younger self about my desire to be a parent. I realized I would assure my younger self that I would be a good mom. While some of you may think this is obvious, it is not a thought I spend much time with aside from seeing the places where I wish I was a better mom or human being. I have noticed quite a shame cycle lately of getting stressed about a situation, speaking or griping about it, then regretting voicing it because I feel like I shouldn’t get stressed about such things and feeling like I must not be much fun to be around, and that my nearest and dearest might steel themselves against my predictable upsets around family outings. May I please hide under a blanket now? It is hard to have the thought that I wish I was a different person, so it was heart-helping to acknowledge that I’m doing a good job. As my mom often reminds me, maybe I need to go for being a mediocre mom so I can feel like I’ve met my goal, rather than raising the bar so high I will never make it.
I will leave you with the image of Amy finding something so uproariously funny she collapsed to the floor with laughter. The thing she found funny? A bumbershoot. Grandma said she needed her bumbershoot when it was raining, and Amy had never heard such a term before, but thought it was the silliest thing she had ever heard. On Friday when Amy went to school she did have her bumbershoot because she always keeps one in her backpack. Carl, Sarah, and I walked several blocks to a bakery for a breakfast treat, but we did not bring bumbershoots! And it started pouring! Carl ran home in the rain to get the car so Sarah and I wouldn’t get drenched. So, may you all have a bumbershoot if you need one – whether the umbrella or the laughter from such a ridiculous name.
Leave a Reply