Lessons Learned from an Overscheduled Weekend

Lesson No. 1: Don't ever do this to yourself again. Three birthday parties, a basketball game, a dinner meeting, a church meeting, and church is a lot to pack into one weekend. Too much. What on earth was I thinking? William the Extrovert loved it, but Mommy the (Much Older) Extrovert is getting too old for this kind of pace.

Lesson No. 2: Grandparents really do make the world go 'round. Without my parents and my in-laws, there is no way I could have gotten everyone to their appointed and respective events this weekend. Not unless I cloned myself or acquired a time machine (or ideally, both). Since David was down with the flu* this weekend, the grandparents were even more of a godsend. (*Apparently we needed another challenge.)

Lesson No. 3: Eggs are good. Everyone in my household ate eggs on Saturday, and we were all remarkably cheerful after that. I guess the protein gave us some much needed energy and fended off any hunger-related meltdowns. Note to self: if you forget Lesson No. 1, at least make sure to remember Lesson No. 3.

Lesson No. 4: Do as much as you can in advance. Make sure the car's gas tank is full. Buy birthday presents in advance, wrap them and have them ready to go in advance, pack changes-of-clothes and backpacks in advance. Store things in the car so you don't forget them. Don't plan on "picking anything up" along the way because there is just not going to be any time to do this. Okay, I actually already knew this lesson and had all the birthday gifts and cards ready to go, but sure enough, that proved to have been a Very Good Idea.

Lesson No. 5: It's okay if you have to yell. Sometimes you get frustrated. We're human, after all. This morning, I felt terrible after I screamed--literally screamed--at Andrew this morning when he shut the locked door in my face, leaving me in the garage and him in the kitchen. With the clock ticking and us becoming increasingly more likely to be late to church. I'm trying to yell less these days, and while that's a good and noble approach, sometimes someone does something that really necessitates a good honest-to-God yelling. I apologized for it afterward. For the screaming and yelling. Not for the being-frustrated part. I'm still trying to yell less, but the world didn't collapse when I did have a bad moment.

Lesson No. 6: It's good to have at least a few moments of downtime in between all the activities, if there's any possible way to swing it. I managed to take William to eat breakfast at Bread & Company after his crack-of-dawn basketball game on Saturday, and it was seriously the best part of my weekend. William and me and a plate of eggs. (See Lesson No. 3.) We really weren't there for that long but it was long enough for us to just relax and be together. We talked about the recent video made of the reclusive giant squid and all sorts of crazy stuff. Afterward, William asked if we could have another breakfast date again together soon. Heck yeah, I told him. It was awesome.

So we survived our hectic weekend, and we lived for me to tell the tale on my blog. Not too bad. David's on the mend, and no one had a meltdown all weekend long, save for my little garage yelling episode. But I'd say that we're all pretty glad that our busy busy busy weekend is behind us.

Now...off to bed with me!