August 2010

August started with a bang.  We were off and running.  The girls were on their way to preschool for the very first time and Mike and I were off to our new jobs.  Just a few problems.

The preschool that Zoey and Abby were enrolled in had a ten hour limit.  Don't look at it like that. I don't want my kids in daycare for ten hours, I don't want them there for ten minuets, but I like to buy them things.  I had a thirty minute commute and Mike didn't finish with marching band until 5:30.  I didn't finish school until 4:30 three days a week.  I was in tears.   I was frustrated and I was trying to keep the girls in some type of a routine.  Thankfully Mom stepped in.  Mom came down two days a week and kept the girls, took Zoey to dance and entertained Abby.  It started making everything fall into place. 

So two of the days I had to stay after school, Mom was stepping in, the other day I was on my own and it was tough. 

Three weeks into school football season rolled around.  I arrived at home on the first Friday of football season, I rushed in, bathed the kids, dressed them packed the diaper bag and started for the car.  I  found Zoey in her room playing with her toys quietly, I found Abby trying to pull herself up.  I found myself putting the diaper bag down and making the first adult decision that was useful.  I decided to stay home.  The kids were not sick, I was not sick, it wasn't raining.  It was the right thing to do.

I have attended every football game that Mike has been a director at, well, at least since Zoey was born.  When Zoey was born I missed a few because of the rain.  I stared at the walls while the kids played, I put dinner in front of them around 6:00 and by 6:30 Abby was out like a light and Zoey was only a few minutes behind her. I crashed on the couch.  The rate at which  I was going  I couldn't keep up.  I felt like I had committed a crime by not attending that football game.  I felt like I was loosing part of myself for not attending that football game. That's what I did, I supported my husband. I went when it was so hot I could have heat stoke, so cold that my toes fell off, so depressing that my heart broke because the team could not catch a break.  That was me, the band director's wife, Mike's Wife, that lady over there.  The thing is, I wasn't that person anymore.  I was Zoey and Abby's Mommy, and I hadn't realized it yet.  Granted I felt like I was loosing myself and I was going to loose a part of my relationship with my husband, but no, no it wasn't like that.  It was like taking off a band aide that was on a wound that had healed.  It was a life I thought I was supposed to have, because that was what I had always done.  I was free and we were moving on.