Never too old for the Sandbox

Last night my daughter, Emmy, asked me to come outside and play with her.  My first thought was that I was overly tired, still had to clean up from dinner and had to pick up my son in a few hours.  I didn’t want to go outside.  I wanted a clean house.  But then I thought of the pledge I made myself last year.  We spent so much time with my mother before she passed away, that we really didn’t get to enjoy the leisure of summer.  There was no going to the pool, no chasing fireflies, no going for snow cones.  I vowed that this summer would be different.  So with that pledge, I went outside.  I found her in the sandbox.  I have no real creativity in the make believe department, so I was a little apprehensive about what would happen over the next couple of hours.  My daughter, who is eleven, has always loved playing in the sandbox.  I think it is therapy for her to manipulate the sand, make things, just dig around.  I am beginning to think I can learn a lot from her.  At first we tried to make sand castles.  The sand was not moist enough so our cups never really did set up well.  She did not see this as a problem.  The broken parts became walls around a moat, fallen mountain sides, or anything else she could think of.  What I saw as not working, she saw the beauty of the situation. 

 

Then we moved on to opening a restaurant.  We went in to the house and took all the old plastic containers, spoons, spatulas, more cups out to the sandbox.  Much laughing ensued when she started putting stuff in different containers.  “This one is eggs, it goes in the refrigerator”, “this one is sugar it goes on the shelf”.  By the time she had finished getting ready we had about twelve tubs full of sand.  Thankfully I was able to remember that the “eggs” were in the margarine container on the ledge and the “sugar” was in a glad container behind me.  She was a mean cook and made every meal perfectly.  Then as I “ate” it I would dump sand on her and she would laugh so hard she would get hiccups.  Charlie, our little dog, decided to get in to the action.  He hated the feel of sand on his feet so he hopped in to my lap and stayed.  Boomer, my German Shepherd mix, would poke his head in on occasion, but was more interested in chasing birds and lying under a tree.  After Charlie got settled, Emmy asked him what he would like.  We decided he would like dog chow with a side of bow wow.  He was a good sport and stayed until his “food” was ready.  That may have had something to do with the fact I was petting him, though. 

Too soon, the sun began to set and the mosquitos started coming out.  We had to go in.  Together we gathered up all our stuff, dumped out the sand and took it to the kitchen.  As I was putting stuff in the dishwasher she gave me a big hug and said in her best proper voice, “Thank you Mrs. Williams for coming to my restaurant and bringing your friend”. 

 

No, Em, thank you for reminding me of the precious gift of being able to spend Mom/girl time.  Not just another day in my sometimes exciting, sometimes dull, always interesting life.

My Life

Okay, so my New Year’s life change to write my blog weekly has completely gone by the wayside. There are more than several reasons for that. Mainly writer’s block. I THINK about writing a blog, but then something else comes up. Maybe I’m just way over busy. Anyway you look at it, this idea certainly needs improvement. Thanks to Sheri for hounding me as often as she does. Maybe I’m just the world’s best procrastinator. Hm.. I wonder if there is a competition for that. I’ll have to think about looking in to that someday. So what has caught my attention more than writing my blog in which I know my few readers are on the edge of their seat waiting for a new edition? Life. Plain and simple, it’s the scourge of America. The over scheduled, over worked, my family must do everything and if they don’t then their whole lives will collapse in to one big bowl of jello!! Ooh jello. Oh sorry, back to the subject.

So what has caught my attention? Hm.. Let’s see. First, I changed jobs at the University in January. I actually found out the day before we went on break in December, but with the holiday and the timing of things that are due at my old job, I didn’t move over here until the end of January. So now I am a professional grant writer. Sounds rather impressive if I don’t say so myself. Oh, I just said so. I now spend my days researching companies, writing up summaries on prospective funders, writing grants, tracking trends. It’s actually quite a lot of fun. But it is also something completely different than what I had been doing. That takes some getting used to. Instead of daily deadlines and things, I now have long term deadlines and goals. Makes for a complete mental mind shift. But I am enjoying seeing myself grow and learn. I am also the volunteer treasurer of a nonprofit here in town. Why, I ever said I would do that, is way beyond me. I guess I am just gullible enough to go, why yes, I would be happy to help you, and stress myself out and stay up late at night trying to get your books in order, and stress about getting your bills paid. Oh sorry off the subject. I think one of my new life changing goals should have been to learn to say the word “no”. But I am helping a great organization and that should be a reward in itself, right? Yes, this goes against my life goal of spending more time with my family. But with the support of another friend of mine who has vowed to start doing less and spending more time with family, I am hoping to learn that I can’t save the whole world.

Let’s see… what else. Oh yes. My children. If ever there was an attention grabber it would be them. Or their overscheduled lives. Our evenings for my son have been filled with basketball practice, games all weekend, piano lessons, band competitions, and so forth. Thankfully basketball is now over, but we have started spring football just in time to take its place. My daughter is taking tumbling (gymnastics) but that is in the afternoons, piano lessons and now soccer season has started. Mom’s taxi takes on a whole new meaning when you spend your evenings picking up one child from afterschool and dropping them off at piano lessons, going home to pick up the older child, picking up piano child and dropping off at soccer practice, then dropping of older child at basketball, picking up piano/soccer child and going to parent/teacher conference, picking up basketball child and depositing him at piano lesson, taking piano/soccer/conference child home to eat dinner so they can start on homework, driving back to pick up basketball/piano child and bringing them home so they can have a late dinner and hopefully finish homework in time to go to bed. I figure three hours in a car should get me close to Dallas for some relaxation instead of driving around the west side of Norman. Thankfully that doesn’t happen every day, but at least once a week is a good estimation. This goes along with the whole, my child will not grow up healthy and adjusted if they aren’t doing something every waking moment. But in our household schoolwork comes first, so I am proud to say that they are both making good grades, so it’s not that hard to keep them active. And, by the way, threatening to take away one of their activities turns out to be a great motivator to getting their homework finished.

Then there is your normal, husband working late, two dogs whose greatest worth is for fertilizer in the backyard and a house that usually looks like monkeys have run wild. But isn’t that what makes life worth living? People whose lives are ordered and their house is always clean miss those great moments in life that only chaos can bring. The conversations in the car between siblings that wouldn’t happen otherwise, the small child that comes in with Mom’s shirt on saying, “I don’t think this is mine”, and actually laughing at all the comings and goings. Just another part of my sometimes exciting, rarely dull, but always interesting life.