Today was Mom's last day here. She spent most of the day packing and puttering around, figuring out what to leave and what to take. She is quite disciplined with her shopping when she's here because she knows she has to take everything back home again, and she's almost totally averse to shipping.
Since it was her last day, I have been asking her all week if she wanted anything, how could I spoil her? Could I make her some muffins or something? No, no, she always demurred. On the other hand, we do have to eat something, so, since she's not keen on eating out, I made a nice dinner of things Mom never makes herself: sesame steak, fresh bread, cucumber salad. We had frozen peas, too, but I'm pretty sure she has those from time to time. The bread was my stroke of genius; she really, really likes it and never makes it for herself. So I did. It was quite a nice dinner, and I'm glad I figured out a way to pamper her a little that she would actually permit. (She's stubborn that way.)
DS2 is more fragile than ever today, because Gramma is leaving in the early morning. He is not very good at transitions, so we'll have to see how this one goes. He cried and cried when I wanted to take a picture with all 3 kids together with Gramma. Mom thinks it's because I interrupted his television program, but I'm not so sure. He's definitely going through something, since we've been having to feed him to get him to eat lately, and he keeps asking to be carried around! He's regressing! It's a phase. (I keep repeating that, hoping that it's true, and the phase will be short.)
I've been completely spoiled these last 2 months, and have not had to get up in the mornings at all to see the older 2 off to school. That's one of Mom's bailiwicks while she's here, part of our division of labor. It is a huge help to me, because even when I get to bed at a decent hour, I am still having tremendous trouble getting out of bed. I'm awake, I just can't get myself to move. This is a relatively new thing (post-RAI) for me and I hope it goes away with some tinkering of my medications.
Things will be different without Mom here. We had a tiny taste this afternoon. While Mom was still packing, I took DD and DS2 out for new sneakers for the girl. Her old sneakers still fit her, but the insole developed this weird lump near the toe, and it's not the kind of thing that's fixable. Not to mention I get as many of their shoes as possible at Payless, so whenever they need new shoes, we just buy them. We're lucky in that we can usually score sneakers for about $12 to $15, shoes for the same or even less. They're cute, they last long enough to be outgrown, what more could I ask for? DS2 came with us and had no problems entertaining himself while we shopped. Starting tomorrow, he'll no longer have the choice about whether to stay home!
Things will take a bit longer, I'll have to load them up when it's time to go pick up DS1 after school. But it's nice, too, to spend more time with them, all together and separately. I like being in the car with my kids. Slightly more hassle, but a little more closeness. It's a good tradeoff.
A strange day today -- not a bad day, in fact it was pretty good as some things got done that needed doing. And I got paid today! That was a nice surprise. It's just hard, knowing things are going to be different, and that's just how it is. How life is. Even when we're looking forward to the change, it still takes some getting used to.
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