the weekend

things have been busy.  the last...three or four years...i've just totally lost my feet...the horse has been dragging me...i feel beat up...disoriented...hurt...even a little bruised, but i'm sure that's just from age and not my metaphor. 

we drove three hours friday night so my two middle boys could compete in our regional rock climbing qualifier.  this allowed them a chance to qualify for divisionals.  which will be a two hour trip (one way) in january, but i'm not complaining.  (well, not a lot...)  we stayed in a hotel friday night, took our three younger kids swimming (and that oldest younger kid is thirteen and in a swimsuit, his father and i really had a chance to appreciate how much he's grown...how big he's getting...i know his father noticed because we gave each other the same look at the same time and i just knew what he was thinking and he just knew i knew and i knew he knew i knew...after being together for almost twenty years, this is huge to have these moments in the midst of our chaotic life with five children).  anyway...digress much? 

i think the swimming was what did it.  i didn't even swim.  but my husband and kids had a blast.  i could tell he was all tanked up on those good feelings you get when the toddler who normally runs from you is jumping into your arms and yelling "daddy???  are you re-dee???"  and doing little butt shaking, wing flapping butterfly dances before she jumps to you.  i could tell he was drunk off of the puddle she'd melted his heart into.  but then there were also the swimming races with the thirteen year old.  anyone who has teenage boys knows (please tell me you know...humor me...make it up if you have to) there are those alpha male moments....where a simple race becomes the stuff that legends are made of...or movies...like remember the titans and, well, mommy dearest with guys.  where he's just playing with his son, but then somewhere between the start and the middle, it's like he's competing against someone trying to take his family...and he suddenly HAS to win...his family, his pride, his i don't even know what is on the line.  it's enough to make a middle aged dad pretty sore in the morning.  well, combined with all the dolphin rides for the pretty butterfly princess.

so it was tough getting everyone up in the morning.  if we were one of those families that did a million things and did them on time, then we might have been able to get into bed and get adequate sleep and be physically prepared for our next day.  but since we didn't get to the hotel until 9:30, and swimming took about an hour, well, the kids didn't get into bed until about 11.  or so.  and 8 o'clock came awfully early.  but we made it up and got our things packed with minimal arguing (hey, cut my husband and i some slack...we were tired) and made it down to breakfast at a reasonable time. 

now, i don't know if it's because we're a big family...maybe because my husband is the youngest in a big family....maybe because we've had some lean financial times (i always laugh when i say it that way...a family of six on school loans..."lean financial times" is kind of a joke...but i'm digressing again)...  anyway, my husband cannot turn down free food.  buffets are a terrible idea for him.  he always eats to the point of making himself kind of sick.  and breakfast was no different.  and it is hard to be sympathetic toward a man who is hurting because he over-ate.  again.  for the bla-bla-bla-th time in the twenty years you've been together.  add to that, him being sore from the fairy princess/testosterone driven episodes in the pool the night before, and you've got a dude in a pretty sad state of affairs married to someone who is just not feeling it for him. 

yes, we've gone from parents weathering and tolerating with love our children's tantrums to tantruming in front of our kids, getting overtired or underprepared and pissed about it, and hoping our kids will just stay quiet through it all so as not to turn any of our irrationality on them.  and they complied.  which i hope, in some way, is an indication of the good parents we used to be...but that's only to make me feel better about being so out of it lately. 

am i digressing again?  i'm not even sure what i was writing about anymore...

anyway...my guys competed.  it was awesome.  my fourteen year old is so tall, he was able to skip most of a route just by reaching up to the finishing hold and putting a finger from each hand on it.  he looked down at the judges like "is this legal?" and all the judges just started laughing and applauding.  he is really tall.  and he won first place in his category.  my thirteen year old won sixth place, which is a pretty decent showing for a guy just short of two years younger than his bigger brother and probably eighteen inches shorter and competing in the same category.  they had so much fun.  climbers are so fun to be around.  climbing families are just a wonderful family to be a part of.  they're a little well-to-do...but if you can look past that, they're pretty generous, kind folks.  and it was a good time.  the drive home was kind of brutal, with all the tired and cranky and sore parents, but the kids slept and we made it.  everyone promptly got into their pajamas (hey, it was 7 o'clock....that's not too early) and talked as little as possible.  well, the spouse and i talked a little.  i have to admit, as annoying as he was this weekend, he's kind of cute when he's all pathetic from overdoing it in the good-dad category...even if he does need to start taking better care of himself so he can handle this stuff better....  oh, wait.

ahem....  this morning has gone pretty well.  i'm grateful.

peace