Author: kanniduba

What is the MATTER with Me?!

kanniduba6 Comments

I’m so SAAAD!!!!!!!  My girls are off to their first day of school, and I’m SO SAD!!!  I have NEVER cried on the first day of school…not when they each went off to Kindergarten, not when I tough loved them to school through belly aches and other anxieties.  I am not one to cry on their birthdays and lament the fact that “my babies are growing up.”  I usually greet the first day of school with excitement for them, and a few little butterflies on their behalf, but I’ve never been SAD.  Well today I’m SAD!!!  I keep telling myself, “Come on Duba, pull yourself together!!!!”  But I’m having a hard time…they’ll never know it.

Maybe it’s because Big Girl is no longer in elementary?  She headed off to Middle School today.  And she was scared.  She was most nervous about the bus ride with the bigger kids.  I could’ve caved…I wanted to cave and drive her, but we raise our kids to be independent and to trust themselves to handle uncomfortable situations and come out stronger for it.  I didn’t cave, but sent her off on her three minute bus ride to school with a smile and a wave (no blowing kisses anymore for her, cause that would be embarrassing…)  But I feel her nerves and wish I could wave my magic wand and take them away. 

And of course, I second guess myself and torture myself with guilt.  “Maybe I should’ve driven her this first day.”  Shoulda coulda woulda’s…the bane of a mother’s existence.

Then Little Girl went off, swallowing down a tear, because she’s headed off to school for the first time without her big sister.  “Maybe I should’ve driven her this first day too.”  I feel her heartache, and wish again that I could wave my magic wand and take her sore misser away.

So maybe my tears are of regret more than anything.  Maybe it’s because the reality that my babies are growing up just smacked me dead in the face today.  Maybe my misser is a bit sore too.  😦

Now, I’ll pull myself together, run some errands, and bake some cookies so they have something yummy to come home to.  And I will not do this tomorrow.

Organization Time…Again.

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So, I’ve been busy.  I went to visit a friend last week, and left her organized, neat home filled with envy and renewed purpose.  Tired of tripping over toys…tired of plastic bins filled with this and that…tired of an overflowing toybox in which helpless toys sit in the bottom never seeing the light of day, I headed off to Target to find a solution.  Here’s what I found:

SOOOO much better!!  I reclaimed my living room! 

I also managed to do the scary paperwork sort last week, and today I emptied the bookshelves, reorganized, cleaned, and reloaded.  I’m on a roll!  (Sorry, I am not for hire…)

I want it all done so I can start my naptime exercise routine tomorrow when school starts, without feeling like there’s a hundred other things I SHOULD be doing.  We’ll see how it goes.  (I’ll probably last a week.)

For Our Southern Friends…

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(A prayer for hurricane season – written by the bishop of Lafayette after Hurricane Audrey in the 1950’s:)

Prayer for Safety in Hurricane Season
O God, Master of this passing world,
hear the humble voices of your children.
The Sea of Galilee obeyed Your order
and returned to its former quietude.
You are still the Master of land and sea.
We live in the shadow of a danger over which we have no control:
the Gulf, like a provoked and angry giant,
can awake from its seeming lethargy,
overstep its conventional boundaries,
invade our land,
and spread chaos and disaster.

During this hurricane season we turn to You, O loving Father.
Spare us from past tragedies whose memories are still so vivid
and whose wounds seem to refuse to heal with passing of time.

O Virgin, Star of the Sea, Our beloved Mother,
we ask you to plead with your Son in our behalf,
so that spared from the calamities common to this area
and animated with a true spirit of gratitude,
we will walk in the footsteps of your Divine Son
to reach the heavenly Jerusalem
where a stormless eternity awaits us.
Amen.

Sniffles

kanniduba2 Comments

Well, the first cold of the season has struck the family.  It is an inevitable fact of life that the beginning of school brings the first cold, however, usually the first cold comes after the first week of school, not before.  I’m hoping it isn’t an ominous sign of things to come.  Little Girl was first, followed over the next twelve hours by her sister, and then her brother.  Time to stock up on those antibacterial hand cleansers, Lysol, and Clorox.    I know I know…I’m helping to create those superbugs, aren’t I?  But from September through March, I become Germ Killer, waging war on influenza, croupe, pneumonia, and viruses of the gastrointestinal tract.  I have lived through way too many 105 fevers, 2:00am hospital visits, administration of breathing treatments, and nights of mopping up vomit to become lax in my War on Germs.  I can’t protect my kids from anything outside my doors, but I can at least attempt to minimize the explosive growth of the little buggers in my home.