Busy Saturday

Ocrober 28, 2017

It’s the last Saturday in October and we spent half of it on the road.  In the last twenty four hours we got to see the family on my dad’s side that live here in the Southern California area.  It’s not common and we enjoyed it while we had it.  Then we got to spend a few hours with my bestie who is Auntie to my kiddos.  Hard not to be happy about that.  She can sign with my oldest and help my younger girl tune her French Horn and then in between she can play a game with Bradley to lift his fifty pounds into hugs as he transfers from one person to another while giving us full belly laughs.  What more can you ask for really?  Not much, if you are asking for anything more than a beg for extra time, then you truly aren’t living the best moments you can have in your life.

We’re home now, and while Eric and I are sort of watching the baseball game, mostly we’re sitting on the couch stretched out and just loving the chance ot stretch out.  Bradley is happily settled on his Dad’s lap, watching his movie and loving the comfort of being close to daddy.  There is not a lot of cuddle time when you are in a car seat; so this is the equivalent of stretching out on the couch for him.

After sitting in each other’s pockets, and breathing the same air as their parents, the girls have disappeared into their rooms to decompress from the drives and the constant lack of solo space and time.  I don’t particularly like traffic, but when they aren’t fighting tooth and nail, I don’t mind it so much because I get them in a confined space for the few minutes that we can laugh and talk when they aren’t asleep.  It’s making an Arnold Palmer out of straight up lemons.  I was good with lemonade, but the girls are newly converted to the half and half.

I know they give me the eyeroll when I point out things like the Matterhorn at Disney and the Hollywood sign, but I think that someday they will remember these eye rolling moments and they will do so fondly.  They’ll laugh as they pass the Matterhorn and and they’ll tell their kids about how their mom used to always point it out to them, or perhaps they won’t mention their part in the eyeroll event and simply smile in memory and just point out the sites.  I think they might mention that they mostly slept through the Hollywood sign sightings because those usually happened early, early mornings on the way to Volleyball tournaments or late afternoon or evening after them when they just were too sleepy to care too much about it.  But their sleepy brains will somehow trigger those memories and they’ll pass that stuff along, probably while laughing at their mom.

I do think that there will be other memories that they'll conjure that will be truly eyeroll type memories, I’m hoping they remember some of my most favorite puns, because I have had some epics.  And my lame jokes... must pass my favorites down the line.  Madison just shakes her head, but I think that deep down she is a goofball like her mom and that Sydney is just as much a lover of geeky puns nad lame jokes as her mom.   So you know, life is good!

And Bradley?  I want him to remember me, to remember the feel of being loved, I want him to remember our routines and how we live our day to day lives that means he is happy and safe.  I want him to see our pictures and name us all, knowing us for all time.  Those are the memories that I want him to carry with him at all times.

So as Bradley starts to get sleepy, I’ll close this out and get him ready for bed.  Yes, he basically took two naps today, but cooped up in a car or sleeping in a different bed, I know he’s exhausted and in need of the peace of sleeping in his own bed again.  Time to get him ready for that.  And the sooner he goes to his lovely bed the sooner I can reunite with my own bed, who I know has been missing me!

Have a great Saturday night all.  Keeping the family moving and on the run adds the definite challenge to the 31 For 21 Challenge for Down syndrome Awareness.