A Weekend Conundrum

You know that movie, The Perfect Storm? Well, welcome to my life. Tonight, the Meeker version of the perfect storm hit full force. And I'm sad to say, there have been casualties.

First, I'm exhausted. It's Friday. For some reason, this week seemed especially busy. I made it a goal to cook every night (except Friday of course), make glittery hand made Valentimes with the girls, bake (yee gads), go to the bouncey place, visit Grandmothers x 4, clean, groom myself occasionally, meet friends at the park, get 44 Valentines ready for preschoolers, take 22 portions of snacks to preschool on Wednesday, grocery shop with girls in tow, track down shot records for the girls from previous base(nightmare) and stay up late to watch my favorite shows. My week normally does not look like this. I don't cook often and I am lucky to get a shower and find a clean spoon for cereal in the morning. Often, we are out of spoons and the girls get cereal in a ziploc baggie with a cup of milk. They know how to take a handful of cereal, a chug of milk and swirl it around to make cereal. They know this because we sometimes run out of spoons and bowls. My Mom is not happy I just shared that. We probably need more spoons.

Second, it's Valentimes weekend. (yes I know it's not actually ValentiMes, read the post below) There is a lot of pressure to get gussied up, go out to dinner, have a "real" date night, cards, gifts, brush teeth and be nice to each other. Our lives don't normally include all of these things simultaneously.

Third, we had volunteer babysitters tonight. Mike's parents are keeping the girls overnight. When you as parents of young children, find yourselves with a free evening, it's easy to over plan in your excitement and glee. What? A night off? We could see a movie, go to a fancy dinner, go to a rock concert, clean out the garage, stay up all night talking like we used to, get pancakes at Denny's at 4 am like we used to then sleep til noon the next day. You know? Like we used to!!! What will we do? What will we do?

Fourth, for those of you new to our little blog here, you might find this next fact inconsequential when compared with the three events above. Those of you that have been around awhile, will understand that this particular thing I am about to reference is really a very very big problem. Tonight...begins...the...Olympics. And I am married to the single biggest Olympic freak on the planet. This summer, Mike spent two weeks on our couch, watching every second of the Beijing Olympics. He would fall asleep from exhaustion and I would come out and cover him with a blanket. He makes us keep an American flag on our entertainment center. During opening ceremonies, we are required to stand when the U.S team enters the stadium. And during medal ceremonies in which we win the gold, the girls and he do an actual parade with American flags and stand for the national anthem. He is off three days next week and the whole week following. We always have to eat the food indigenous to the host country for opening ceremonies. If we cannot get that nationality of food we either make it or choose a food representative of our favorite athlete. We have very specific Olympic rules in the Meeker household. He even has a special sweatshirt that has the rings on it but does not denote a year or a location. He has worn it every day during every Olympics since Nagano. Then, the sweatshirt goes away until the next Olympics. We take our Olympics seriously. Well, not me, but Mike does. I mean, I like them, don't get me wrong. But for Mike, it's a whole different ball of wax.

So imagine my excitement/stress/nervousness and angst when I realized that these four things were going to hit me smack in the face tonight. All four. And frankly, I was just too tired to handle it all. How on earth were we going to get through this and satisfy all the complex parts of ourselves that exist?

Here's what we did:
Grandparents picked up girls at 5:00. I drank a very huge diet coke with caffeine, slapped on some perfume and makeup and hoped it was good enough. Mike arrived at 6:00. He set the TiVO to record beginning one hour prior and extending the recording one hour later than the opening ceremonies were supposed to last. We saw a 6:15 showing of Valentines Day at the movies in which we held hands the whole time. (So funny and cute) Mike then decided we would get Hawaiian/Japanese take out because our favorite athlete is Apollo Anton Ohno and even though he was raised in Washington, "Ohno" is Japanese and is also Hawaiian meaning "the best" or "very good". (I think we were really reaching here) While waiting for takeout we talked about how much more we loved each other than anybody in the movie or the movie theater or anywhere and reminisced about past Valentimes days and different phases of being in love and how glad we were to be in this phase, blah blah blah. We rushed our van home and immediately sat down to watch opening ceremonies. And this is where I sit now, watching Native American dancers and performers delight me with their tribal dances and songs. Mike has cried four times so far in the pre-opening ceremonies coverage. Four times people. I say to you again... FOUR TIMES.

It's going to be a long two weeks. Wish me luck.