Random Thoughts from the Month of May

• Many of you know this already, but I’ll say it anyway: May is to a mom of school kids what April is to accountants and December is to retailers.
• And how many of you knew there’s a whole world out there that buys big bouquets of flowers for their preschoolers’ dance recitals? We didn’t get the memo, and I would have been too practical to accept the idea even if we had. The first thing Camryn said when I went to pick her up was, “I bet you didn’t get me a flower, did you?” (At the young age of 5, how well she knows her mother.) But when we made our way through the crowds and caught up with the men in our family, Braden handed her a pink, slightly worn carnation that had fallen from someone else’s bouquet. She lit up like a neon sign and carried it with her all day long.
• Is there any more awesome way to finish up a school year than to watch the Air Force Thunderbirds streak across the sky each year? Our school is across the street, basically, from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and we appreciate that they schedule their graduation the same day our classes end. Feels like the Thunderbirds are there just for us. As an added bonus, we got to see the presidential helicopter this year, too.
• There are few things more awkward to watch than sixth-grade suburban boys attempting the Electric Slide at their year-end party.
• Believe it or not, there are children who are heartbroken at the thought of school being over for three months. I was one, and I have one (Brooka).
• Satan has a field day with moms who have no real summer plans (unless surviving another summer in the Shome is considered a “plan”) yet are surrounded by those who have very exciting plans. Today I declare war on comparing myself to others and being whiny instead of grateful.
• You know you’re getting older—or at least your kids are—when you wake up to find a toilet full of hours-old vomit. Old enough to vomit independently but not quite old enough to clean it up. Still, I’ll take it!