My Rope? It's Nearing the End

The hubs invited me to go on a little work trip with him in a few weeks.  At first I was all, hellz ya, shopping and dining and sleeping in!  But then he threw a little wrench into my plan.  He was like, what size of shirt do you wear?  Whaaaa?  Sounds like an innocent question but after I scratched the surface, the magnitude of his deceit became apparent.  There will be no shopping, no sleeping in, and by dining he totally meant Weinerschnitzel.  It's a convention.  For work.  And he's running the booth.  The shirt question was just the "smoke and mirrors" way of telling me that I will be sporting the company logo while I aid him in his efforts.   So, yes.  I am in fact going on a "work trip" with him.  To work.

This actually isn't the point of my post though (and you thought I was through whining....silly you).  What I'm trying to say is that whenever we have a getaway (or workaway) approaching, I start feeling like we need to have loads of family time.  Ya know, to make up for the 3 whole days that we'll be away........working.  You're right.  I'm a dink.  But I've given up trying not to be so now we all must suffer.  Anyway, we spent the weekend trying to enjoy several family activities in light of the possibility that we may get mugged and killed on our (labor intensive) trip and never return.  But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Saturday's activity involved letting the whole family help make dinner while we watched the Jazz game.  Just to mix it up a little we invited my best friend and her family over (I like to call her Soul Mate Friend who's kids are as enthusiastic about flinging themselves off entire flights of stairs as mine, SMF for short) because the chaos level just hadn't hit overload yet.  And by the time SMF and I began mopping up the third cup of spilled milk I had this little flicker of a thought, why is it so bloody hard to have fun with the kids?  

Do you ever feel like that?  I'm not trying to complain here (actually I am, I just camouflage my grievances with words like flicker) but sometimes I wonder.  Am I trying too hard?  Do you create the warm fuzzy memories or do they just happen?  Am I doing it for them or for me?  And honestly I don't know the answers.  What I do know is that I'm ready for a recess.  Dorky shirt or no, my bags are packed.  And that is exactly it.  For me at least.  If I didn't get to the place that most people refer to as, the end of my rope, I most likely couldn't agree to get on a plane and leave my kids in the hands of a stand in.

So, thank you Stand in (you know who you are).  You make sanity possible.