May Madness
Here we go! Headlong into my second busiest month of the year. Madness is what it always feels like. The good news is that I've accepted that May will be a whirlwind month so it can't take me by surprise. (For some reason, back in the day, I used to have hopes that I would actually get a break or two during the month of Mother's Day. I've given up on that!)
For whatever reason, Arizona has decided that May needs weather madness as well. I've lived places with real seasons, and I recognize that for many places May weather is unpredictable. (Is it spring? Late winter? Stormy? Beautiful?) But here in the desert May usually means hot. Not desert hot, mind you, but normal hot. (Most places consider 90's with an occasional 100+ degree day hot.) Now, we have had days in our 90's for sure-- and I think yesterday may have hit 105. But we also had a couple of freezing days, with snow in the mountains. (OK, not really freezing. But when you go from 95 to 60, you kind of get whiplash.) Add to that the teacher walkout, and no one was really sure what to think around here. Is it summer? Is it winter? Do we go to the pool today? Do I need a coat? (Tuesday night I had to bail before the end of the outdoor cub scout activity and hide in my van because I'd only brought a light jacket and the shivering was getting old.)
Well, I have hopes that the rest of May will settle down and be normal. All the kids are back in school, the temperature (according to my backyard thermometer) is 102 F, I have an extremely full calendar for the coming three weeks, three of my kids have major projects that will probably make me lose clumps of hair, Terence has an unpredictable work schedule, and my to-do list is longer than my soon-to-be-pulled-out hair.
I'm trying to enjoy the season. My life won't be so crazy forever. M only has two more years of high school, and after that we start booting kids out every other year. (Well, K & S will lag behind a bit.) At least, we hope to be booting them out! Or launching them, rather. Being an empty nester is a major life changer, I hear. Granted, I have a long way to go til I get to that point. But I remember rocking my infant M and thinking that 18 years was an eternity. At this point, I'm amazed at how fast the time has gone.
One day my kids won't need me as a taxi driver. One day they won't be pestering me last minute about a project they forgot about. One day I won't get sixteen emails a day from teachers or schools. One day I won't spent hours every Sunday morning combing my way through impossibly thick masses of tangled hair. And I'm going to miss it all. (Well, maybe not the hair combing. . . .)
For whatever reason, Arizona has decided that May needs weather madness as well. I've lived places with real seasons, and I recognize that for many places May weather is unpredictable. (Is it spring? Late winter? Stormy? Beautiful?) But here in the desert May usually means hot. Not desert hot, mind you, but normal hot. (Most places consider 90's with an occasional 100+ degree day hot.) Now, we have had days in our 90's for sure-- and I think yesterday may have hit 105. But we also had a couple of freezing days, with snow in the mountains. (OK, not really freezing. But when you go from 95 to 60, you kind of get whiplash.) Add to that the teacher walkout, and no one was really sure what to think around here. Is it summer? Is it winter? Do we go to the pool today? Do I need a coat? (Tuesday night I had to bail before the end of the outdoor cub scout activity and hide in my van because I'd only brought a light jacket and the shivering was getting old.)
Well, I have hopes that the rest of May will settle down and be normal. All the kids are back in school, the temperature (according to my backyard thermometer) is 102 F, I have an extremely full calendar for the coming three weeks, three of my kids have major projects that will probably make me lose clumps of hair, Terence has an unpredictable work schedule, and my to-do list is longer than my soon-to-be-pulled-out hair.
I'm trying to enjoy the season. My life won't be so crazy forever. M only has two more years of high school, and after that we start booting kids out every other year. (Well, K & S will lag behind a bit.) At least, we hope to be booting them out! Or launching them, rather. Being an empty nester is a major life changer, I hear. Granted, I have a long way to go til I get to that point. But I remember rocking my infant M and thinking that 18 years was an eternity. At this point, I'm amazed at how fast the time has gone.
One day my kids won't need me as a taxi driver. One day they won't be pestering me last minute about a project they forgot about. One day I won't get sixteen emails a day from teachers or schools. One day I won't spent hours every Sunday morning combing my way through impossibly thick masses of tangled hair. And I'm going to miss it all. (Well, maybe not the hair combing. . . .)
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