Oh. My. Gosh.

If I can make it through Thursday I will NEVER again complain about being bored. (not that I did before....but.....). This past June I somehow found myself the Co-Vice-President of the elementary school PTO. I tried valiantly to decline (and I have witnesses that will attest to that fact) but the teacher that snagged me as her co-Veep was just not taking no for an answer. After teaching for 38 years she kind of knows how to get what she wants I suppose. So over the summer I get used to the fact of the new position, even though I'm still finding my way around the area/town/schools. Then comes September, when I find out that the main responsibility of the Veep is to run the fall and spring socials - the fall one bringing a crowd of between 400-500 people. Yikes. I get the planning book from last year on September 13th and find out that last year they began the planning for this in July. JULY!!!!!!! Every bit of organizing/business meeting/planning/PTO knowledge exploded in me and I've been working like a madwoman towards the end - the Pirate Social, happening this Thursday night. The positives: I've met a group of wonderful women - all who have first borns in Kindergarten. Their motivation is high, their energy seems boundless, and they have reminded me of what I used to be before I became such a jaded mother of a high schooler and a middle schooler. I've been reinvigorated as a parent from spending time with these women, and that's not a bad thing. Other positives - I am reminded that I know how to do this stuff. The past three years I have spent packing/unpacking/packing/unpacking and going through countless new experiences. The year before that was consumed by my father's illness and subsequent death and figuring out my youngest daughter's gastro issues. This, THIS is what I knew in what I still view so often as my 'real life' in PA. That woman that co-chaired the huge fall fundraiser for the junior league. That woman that arranged field trips and assemblies for a five grade school for two years. The woman that could DO, not the woman that was always tired. So that's good.

The bad? I feel every one of my 42 years around these women. I have to pick up other kids, I have to get them home to do large amounts of homework, I have to feed them large amounts of real food. I have to run here and there. And, although these women would never in a million years believe me (as I never believed the women that told me when my oldest was a little guy) - "Life" - capitalized "Life" is exceedingly more complicated as the kids get older. Exponentially. I'm tired. That's the bad thing. I'm just bone-tired.

So. Tomorrow I meet the other room mom (I was asked to be co-room-mom as well by a mom that doesn't want to do it herself - do I have a sign on my forehead that says "ask her - she'll say yes"???) at Panera and plan the class Halloween party. I go buy pretzels and light bulbs for the Social. I pack up and arrange and shrink wrap 19 big baskets of donated 'themed' items from the various classrooms for the basket raffle. I make the ticket boxes for the 19 baskets and write advertising for the raffle. Tomorrow night I go to the final committee meeting and hope (really really hope. really really really really hope) that everyone has done what they should have and that it will be smooth as we walk through the map and the night. Wednesday I take the night off as it's my 20th anniversary, and then (drumroll please) it's Thursday. Arrrrgh. Ahoy Matey day.

Friday I may be found collapsed in a heap on my sofa - watching Grey's Anatomy's that I'm behind on and drinking coffee all morning in pajamas and glasses.

Aside - Water for Elephants - LOVE this book. I find myself reading it at stop lights, and I've been staying up waaaay too late again reading. Makes me think in a different way about the people in my life that are older now and how they are thinking and how I'm treating them. Love her writing.

Peace out, ya scurvy dogs - arrrrrrrrrg.

~C