Well, that was quite the weekend. First, Sarah (co-host) had quite the scare — you can read the details on her blog. Very glad she is OK!
I was parenting solo this weekend as my husband went skiing with his brother. It was mostly fine, but there was a lot of running around in the car since I was driving for just about everything.
On Friday I drove to my daughter’s jazz band competition. They sound really good! We just got news that the trumpet section was rated the best of all the bands so yay trumpets. While I was waiting for them to go on I got a call from the 17-year-old who was having trouble accessing a college decision page — they’d told him there was a decision and then there were technical difficulties pulling it up. But the news was good — a yes with some unexpected money attached to it. I’m so happy that he has options for next year. He has worked really hard.
On Saturday morning I was up bright and early to drive the 15-year-old to a coding competition (the 5-year-old was still asleep so, upside of older kids, I was able to leave him home and not drag him along. This is a major parenting milestone.). He really enjoyed himself and wants to do this for the next three years of high school, but in the category of logistical problems — they weren’t allowed to have cell phones there, so I kept it, but then they ended an hour early. Fortunately he has my number memorized so he was able to use a friend’s phone because the friend had elected to impound his phone in the coach’s car, and thus could retrieve it.
While the coding competition was going on I drove the 10-year-old to swim practice. I ran 5.2 miles in the neighborhood while he was practicing. The weather was beautiful for a short window — sunny and 57 degrees. We went to Wawa afterwards, but when I got home, the others (who’d been watching the 5-year-old) wanted Starbucks. So I went to get that and then learned I needed to turn around and head back to the coding competition. So that was that morning.
But we did manage to get outside for a while in the afternoon. The 15-year-old got this cool drone for Christmas and so we were flying that (well, directing it around the wind gusts that started up and made the temperature drop a full 40 degrees by night) and managed to be outside doing that and bikes and playing on the swing set for about an hour. Then my parents came for dinner and we ordered from a local Asian place. I started work on a new puzzle.
On Sunday I got up and took the 17-year-old with me to choir practice from 9-9:30. Then I drove home, retrieved the 13-year-old and 5-year-old, and went back to church with them (I let the 15-year-old sleep given the previous early morning and there was no 4th grade Sunday school so the 10-year-old wound up staying home with him since I was in the choir loft. In retrospect, I probably could have found someone to sit with him during the service while I was actually singing and then come down and sat with him for the rest of the service or I could have parked him in a corner of the choir loft but…I hit the easy button). After, there was another Starbucks trip.
I had booked a sitter for a few hours for the 5-year-old, so after she showed up I drove downtown (more driving!) to go see the Philadelphia Flower Show. The flowers are always lovely and several of the exhibits had a very strong “time” theme, which I enjoyed. I copied down a quote on one of them: “Time is perhaps the most significant impact on a garden. What begins as a signature of the creator gradually becomes the signature of time.”
After, I made a quick stop at the grocery store, came home for an hour, then drove the 15-year-old to a lifesaving class he’s doing. This was the session where they wind up in the water in all their clothes so we wound up with wet clothes and shoes in the car on the way home. I worked in Starbucks for an hour (I seem to be a good customer…) during the lesson.
And that was the weekend. I thought I’d be back at my desk bright and early but…nanny is sick. So spent the morning reworking the day, but at least my husband is back and will be on driving duty tonight!