How do you end a weekend with success? You attempt to do something that includes the whole family and that at least two out of three kids; and a potential adult or two, says Cool! And means it. We had that!
Eric has been fighting a migraine all weekend and I woke up yesterday feeling less than great. But we plowed on through because Madison was able to catch up with her best friend for a sleepover on Friday night and Sydney was able to finally connect with a good friend on Saturday night. Today the social butterflies that they are: Sydney needed a ride to the mall to hang with that friend and a third one, while Madison had a first date at the other mall this afternoon. Luckily, Madison can drive herself to the theater at the outlet mall, because I had to get Sydney to the other mall the other way. In between, I was busy cooking dinner last night, and then homemade waffles this morning because for some reason I usually feel the need to prove to my kids’ friends that I really can cook and that it’s edible when I do. So that was a bonus. And sometimes it takes hours to hear it, but it has been confirmed that the waffles were very good. Hurray! Win for mom.
The rest of the weekend was a whole lot of time spendt either helping Bradley push his cars along the train track I put together for him, or helping build, rebuild, and rebuild and rebuilding again a masterpiece of magna-tiles. I had taken his Go-go smart cars away for a few weeks because he was having trouble being nice with them. So Friday, I brought them out, built his train route and he sat down and started playing with them and me. We have been super busy on that track all weekend! And I couldn’t be happier. He has played with everyone!
Yesterday, he was so excited to have someone new at our house that he brought Sydney’s friend over to sit down and play with this train with him. Sydney was a bit impatient, so we had a brief conversation where I explained that after a few minutes of play time, she and I would change places and he would be just fine with the change. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened, and to ease it further; Madison took the place of Sydney’s friend and the three of us played for quite some time. It’s truly all mom needs to say “Cool!” Any time I can extend our play time into the areas of half to full hours, I get pretty excited. To make the day so much better, today he came and asked me to play, I didn’t take his hand and lead him to someone to play. We started our day with me asking him what he wants to play and him showing me, then he took my hand and took me to what he wanted to play later in the day. Definitely take whatever I can get at each opportunity for sure.
And then, with all the kids back in the house and dinner out of the way, we got our “Cools”. A few years ago, Sydney wanted to go to the other side of the Milky Way. Now I think she still wants to go, but now I think she wants to go and photograph it. Tonight, we all gathered outside and waited and watched as Vandenberg sent a Space X rocket into the night sky and then successfully landed the booster rocket for the first time on the west coast. Standing outside, looking up at the sky watching and waiting, trying to keep track of our wee lad who was busy walking around in the dark, tripping and falling randomly...we took a collective breath and sighed in awe...together. Excited to see the rocket launch and then moved by the incredible beauty and sheer enormity of witnessing the flight and the resulting night sky. So beautiful! The best part? Madison with her head on my shoulder watching with me, and Sydney trying to capture the whole event between three different cameras, having Bradley cruising between all of us, oblivious to all of it until one flash caught his attention and he looked up and gave the equivalent of an “ooohhh”, which is the closest he gets to the “So Cool!” that was spoken with reverence and joy by every other member of our family. I was back a fast four years ago when Sydney was star gazing and Bradley was so small and snuggled in a blanket while Madison was finding the space station for us to track across the night sky. And I was the cool mom who dragged us all outside in order to look up at the sky and be amazed by something so very cool.
These are the moments that I hope they remember and pass on to their kids. I know Bradley won’t remember the rocket, but I do hope that he’ll remember the love of these moments and build and build and build again on them to create as many more memories as possible with this family - with these girls. What more can a mom truly ask for after all? Great night!
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