My Now-life

It is the first day back to school after a long ten days off for the Christmas holiday.  Today we knew would be a long day and as I sit here, at 6:48 pm I know that I still have to go out in the cold again to get my son from basketball practice.  Off we all went to school this morning, it wasn't that bad getting up and out because I made sure we were "all ready" last night.  Driving home at 3:05, Mike called to report his doctor's appointment had gone well and so I took a deep sigh of relief.  He also said that Jackson was 'off' when he picked him up.  No big surprise there however, being that routine must have hit him square between the eyes at about 7:30 am as he walked back into the Middle School.  From the moment I walked in the door at 3:30 it has been the "stuff", you know the "stuff" of my now-life!  My babysitter and kids, along with a former babysitter who stopped by to visit were all at my kitchen table.  Papers, books, notebooks everywhere, and the radio on loud!  Jackson playing angry birds on the kindle fire, Riley listening to her ipod, the same thing that was playing on the radio, and singing!  Now, these two babysitters don't know one another to my knowledge so here I walk into this scene!  I catch up briefly with the one who is leaving and then have a chat with the former one.  At first I was thinking, timing, really you are here, NOW?  Then I just relaxed to the idea and went with it.  Finding out about her most recent adventures and travels somehow kind of took me away from my world for a while.  It was like living my former life, prior to kids, out loud with someone else talking.  I had to know all the exact places she'd been in Europe so I could close my eyes and remember the ones I'd been to.  It was lovely to hear about the food and the fun she had.  Somehow the piles of homework and assignments on my table just faded from my view as she briefly took me away from my now-life.  Then, she left.  Flooding back came the chicken nugget dinner, was there enough ketchup?, the homework that needed to be checked, test signed, calendars checked, websites with assignments checked, lunchboxes emptied out, thesaurus consulted, kindle fire wrapped up, vegetables that needed to be served and oh, yeah, a grilled cheese for me.  Emails from teachers about Jackson's day, printing lunch calendars, and sending emails to return messages was next.  Dinner, out the door to practice and scooping up cat poop from the floor!  But when I dropped off Jackson at practice, when the doors to the gym opened up and I heard "Hey there he is" echo out from the kids and coaches, I could just about have cried.  All the now-life that gets me down, all the stuff that needs to be done, all the time I spend coordinating it all, it all seems to be worth it when I hear those kind words from kind people.  And all the stories about travel and adventure slip away and my now-life doesn't seem so bad.  It seems comfortable and warm and kind.