I got a free print of this photo at Walgreen’s for Mother’s Day. It seems like Dylan’s not really smiling, but the truth is much more comical–we had just come back from the dentist, and his mouth was still a little bit numb. It kind of gives him that Elvis look. I love it–it’s a moment in time, a split second of my angels’ lives.
For most moms, and not intentionally, but Mother’s Day is all about them–people doing things for them, people buying them things, people taking them to dinner. It’s about taking a break from mom-ly duties and enjoying being pampered..
For me, I wanted my Mother’s Day to be almost the complete opposite. For me, I was feeling so thankful and blessed to be able to spend time with my wonderful, beautiful children. There was nothing I wanted, nowhere I wanted to go just for me (well, I did have one little indulgence which I’ll mention later). Instead, I wanted to do what my kids wanted to do, wanted to go where they wanted to go, wanted enjoy my time with them.
Scott had Dylan overnight Friday, and I had Rain. She had an early morning test for the gifted students in our town, and I took her there and dropped her off–there were a lot of her friends there taking the test too, so she was happy. I had three hours, so I headed up to Penney’s in the mall and had my hair done. That was my one indulgence for the weekend–to feel a little girly, to look a little pretty. I also had a $10 off coupon for the store, so I spent five minutes in the jewelry department. It was early-morning-doorbuster time, and all jewelry was 50% off. So I found a $22 necklace, which was now $11, used my $10 coupon, and got it for one dollar and eight cents. That was my big Mother’s Day present to myself. Rock!
After leaving Penney’s, I drove back and picked up Rain. She came out wearing her fleece pullover, telling me it had been freezing in there, and that she was one of the only people with a jacket. My smart little girl, bringing a jacket to a test on an 80-degree day.
We headed home, and a little while later Dylan was delivered in his baseball uniform with all his stuff–Scott had just brought him to his game.
This next topic deserves a new paragraph all its own–DYLAN GOT A HIT at his game on Saturday! This might not sound like a big deal… but all last season, my little Dylan only got one hit… but his coach said he was the most wonderful kid to have on his team, that he was always smiling. I felt bad, though, since Dylan has a new team this year. They are one of the league’s best, and all the kids on the team always get hits. At the end of each game with this new team, the kids sit around on the ground in a circle and get stars passed out to them–little stars, one for each hit they made that day. Every kid got one the game I went to–but Dylan didn’t. So now, Dylan has one red star on the back of his helmet, and I am so, so proud of him. Hopefully it will be loaded with stars by the end of the season!
Saturday afternoon we had a late lunch at Cici’s before Rain’s softball game. Rain’s team isn’t the powerhouse that Dylan’s is… they lost. I’ll tell you though that my Rain made two AWESOME outs at first base. See, they had this other girl on first, and Rain on third… then halfway through the game they switched them… and to me, it was blatantly obvious that in this other configuration, with this kick-butt girl at third and Rain at first, that THIS was the winning combination. It worked out really well.
We had plans to head down to see Speed Racer later that afternoon, but on the way I made a pit stop at Toys R Us. I didn’t really tell the kids what it was for, but Dylan had an idea. I got a carriage (cart, buggy, whatever) and headed straight towards the back of the store. I walked around the bicycles for a while until I found what I was looking for–the Razor scooter section. A couple weekends ago, Dylan had gotten to ride one of these at a friends’ house, and he had LOVED it. I had looked up how much they were online, and saw them at about $250… but when we got to Toys R Us, it was on sale for $199. That was the deal maker for me–that was the amount I had originally put down to pay for the kids’ summer camp, which they aren’t going to now. So one Dirt Rocket and two helmet/pad sets later, we were loaded up with half the backseat down and finally on our way to the movie theater.
We headed down to Dallas to the IMAX theater to see Speed Racer! I had been talking about seeing it for weeks, and though the kids enjoyed it, I really felt like it was for me! LOL We were about an hour and a half early, and we were the first ones in line. They had tables with posters, tattoos, buttons, and all kinds of free stuff, and the kids came back to where I was sitting at the beginning of the line, with their hands full of goodies. We were right in front of the concession stand, so I sent Rain up there with my bank card to get us popcorn and soda. I think she felt like a big girl paying with my card
I didn’t let them drink more than a tiny sip, though–with an hour to wait in line, I wasn’t going to have to go potty ten minutes into the movie! A man sat behind us with his little girl, and I wondered if this was his weekend with her. It was obvious that he loved her very much, and halfway through the movie she ended up cuddled up in a ball in his lap. It was very cute. The movie itself–non-stop color and action and fun and goofiness and laughs and A-listers. I noticed the bad guy was also in “V for Vendetta.” Though it maybe hasn’t got the greatest reviews, I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the car on the way home, I checked my phone, and Dylan’s baseball coach had called and left a message, saying Sunday’s game was rescheduled. More fun time alloted for the kids–awesome.
It was after nine when we got home, and both kids were half-unconscious in the car. I nudged them both into the house, and Rainlin passed out in her bed almost instantly. I put Dylan to bed, and I thought he would also pass right out–but a few minutes later, I heard him in his room crying. I went up there and sat on his bed, asking him what was wrong. “We didn’t get to pray,” he said. So I sat and prayed with him; and then I explained that once in a while we could miss church, and it was all right; and once in a while we could miss praying, and it was all right… God understands. I think he got it, but it was nice to see how important bedtime prayer is to him. I went into the garage, pulled most of the packing off the Dirt Rocket (which was blissfully 95% assembled already) and plugged in the battery, because I knew first thing in the morning the kids would want to ride it. Five minutes and two-dogs-in-kennels later, I was in bed.
The next thing I remember was waking up at 5:50am to my front door opening. I had thought about removing the clunk-clunking decoration from the front door, but now I’m glad I didn’t, because between that and the alarm beep, I knew it was the front door, and I bolted up out of bed. It was Dylan… not some intruder. “What are you doing??” I asked. I just wanted to get my video game out of the car, he said. I breathed a big *whew* and laid down on the couch for a little while, watching him play the Wii.
It wasn’t long before I was in the garage, pulling the rest of the packing off the Dirt Rocket and getting it assembled. It came with its own tool kit! That was cool. It’s now in a ziploc bag in my tool box, labeled “dirt bike tools” (I know, I’m so female). I hooked up the air compressor to my car, aired up the tires to about 60 PSI, then finally couldn’t wait any longer myself–here you go, I told Dylan. I’m going to wake up Rain. I did, and literally thirty seconds later she was downstairs, dressed and ready to go. After a few runs back and forth down the sidewalk in front of the house to be sure the bike wasn’t going to explode into a thousand parts, we headed for the park.
The kids had an incredible blast. They named all the little pathways that they took, and it turned into a checkered-flag Speed Racer race. Rain would do one lap on “the main route”, and then Dylan would take his turn on the “basketball bonus route” (called BBR for short). They went over and over again, never getting bored, and the bike never lost its pep either. I was impressed, they were happy, and though it was a tiny bit chilly, all was right with the world.
Back at home, we had various sandwiches for lunch–grilled cheese, PB&J, and tuna melt–and Dylan’s little friend joined us for a sandwich and chips. Once our tumblies were full of food, we headed out to Adventure Landing to burn up the cup full of tokens I had left over from last time, and to turn in a free-go-cart-ride coupon I had. We were there for an hour or two before heading back out again.
The next stop was back at Penney’s, where Rain got her hair cut. She hadn’t had it done since before the lice incident, so I let her get her hair washed, cut, blow-dryed, and styled. I wanted her to enjoy an hour of attention, just for her. While she got it done, Dylan and I giggled in the waiting chairs, watching YouTube videos on my iPhone. When she was done, this beautiful little angel girl with a little flip in her hair walked up to me. I love my Rain.
So every mother gets to go out to dinner for Mother’s Day, right? Hmm… the kids had never been to Joe’s Crab Shack (and I had only been once), so we went there. We didn’t get an appetizer, and we didn’t get dessert, but we all enjoyed the food we got–in fact, Dylan got so much popcorn shrimp that we ended up getting a to-go box to stink up the car. I ordered an appetizer as my meal–mozarella sticks, great balls of fire (crab, shrimp, jalepeno), and tortilla chips with this great fish-dip-stuff. I loved it. Everyone was happy. The kids enjoyed the wait staff doing their little dances every ten minutes.
We left Joe’s about twenty minutes before the night church service started. I got the kids dropped off at kids’ church and was surprised to see a bunch of my friends from the afternoon service there! We all sat together, and one of my girlfriends even won a mother’s day gift! It was very excellent. A friend of mine from the media center even made me some CDs of kids’ praise songs for the kids. They LOVED them!
It was about 7:30 when we were almost home; and I wanted the kids to be able to play outside for just a few minutes before we went to bed, so we did a military-style grocery store run. We all had our orders–Rain got Pop Tarts, Dylan got bread, and I got some breakfast drinks. We were zip-zoom out the door, back in the car, and home in ten minutes.
Of course you know why I wanted to get home before dark. The kids putted around the park a few more times on the scooter before about 8:15. It was beautiful outside, and the setting sun turned the sky beautiful shades of pink above the fields. I finally ushered them back home, and Dylan tried in vain to get to sleep in my bed (I’m trying to enforce the “not on school nights” rule). We prayed together in Dylan’s room, then they both laid down to sleep. Lately, I’ve been crashing right after I put them down. From the zillion tons of fun we had on this Mother’s Day weekend, I’m sure you can understand why. I love my kids so, so much.