IRL

I set my alarm to get up so I could wake, feed and ready my son for a day of skiing.  Never mind that he is capable of this himself at 15, and disregard that it's my only day to sleep in past dawn.  I feel good about being there to send him off with a hug and a $20.  But alas my alarm never sounded.  I woke just in time to tell him half dressed that his ride was waiting in the driveway.  I'm sure this is somehow my fault, but I'm also sure he'll forget all about it by the time he takes his first run of the day.

Tigger is no where to be found this morning.  He is still in the habit of hiding at the first sign of light lest he come in contact with any strange men wielding power tools.  The thing is there will be no more men. The kitchen is complete!  We had our final walk through scheduled for this morning, but we decided to skip it and release the final payment by fax.  That was a concerted effort to officially break up with the contractor without the drama of tears or accusations.  While we love our new kitchen, we are much less amorous about him and the experience.  A face to face meeting posed too much of a risk that we would say all the things on our minds, which at this point no longer matter. We're not ever getting back together.

Last night we sat around the table after take out dinner talking.  (I have a new kitchen, yet I've ordered takeout the last two nights.)  Jess and I were getting all sorts of unsolicited information from Lily and her friend.  They had lots of opinions to expound upon and stories to share.  I was a little like, "Where is this coming from?"  Day after day, she gets in the car and I ask the questions. How was your day?  What did you do?  Did anything happen?  I'm privy to only terse one word answers. Fine.  Nothing.  No.  I guess chicken parm on a Friday night opens the tween flood gates.

They had plans to go to activity night at school, but then they decided that they would rather stay home.  Instead of singing and dancing in the crowded cafeteria, they opted to make music videos at home.  I cannot blame them.  Crowds give me hives these days.  These are sort of no nonsense girls. There's an awful lot of nonsense that goes on at this stage of life.  The kind of shenanigans these two cook up involve hiding when it's time to go home, or getting on like a well rehearsed comedy routine.

E's mom came to get her at 9 o'clock and left close to 11 o'clock.  The girls didn't even have to play hide and seek. I really just love when it works out to have mom daughter friends.  It's like couple friends.  It's rare when that unforced, authentic friendship is present for all parties.  

It's also rare when friends are more like family.  Jess stayed with Lily while I went to get Ted.  He called a little exasperated because he had sent me a text to pick him up 20 minutes before.  It's not that I didn't see the text; I didn't get it.  In his teenage brain though, if there is a fail, it's human not technological. I pulled into the driveway and waited and waited until I had to get out and go to the door in my slippers in the snow because I forgot my phone and couldn't text. That was a human technology fail.

In real life, things are messy and beautiful at the same time.  There's a reason why beautiful mess is such an apropos combo.  IRL we laugh until we cry or we cry until we laugh.  I just watched The Middle and it happened to me.  I mean The Hecks actually pulled off a birthday party for Frankie. Of course, she missed it.  We're hard when we should be soft and soft when we should be hard.  IRL we do the best we can with what we have and then we get up and do it again the next day.