Drive-In Fun!

• Can you feel it in the air? Fall's almost here. The cool breezes at night tell me so. Summertime is almost over and schools are in session and the hectic-ness of life is slowly creeping in . My children started school last week and the time has been flying by.
• In honor of Summer almost being over I thought I would share something I get to do tonight. I'm going to a drive-in! Drive-ins are becoming obsolete. I hate that. There's something so special about a drive-in. It's not like filing into a movie theatre, it's so much more than that. It can be very special for a family to do together, but at the same time it can be very romantic if it's just you and the one you love. A big screen under the big sky, feeling the night air. It's sooo cool.
• So tonight it's me and someone special get to experience the drive-in. Picnic dinner in the back of the car, pillows and blankets and cuddling and popcorn and smooching and....oh yeah, the movie. Double feature. Fun.
• This is someone special that I love to experience everything with. Big things, little things. We enjoy life's simple gifts together. That's more important than how much you spend, but how you spend it...
• 
  As I get older I realize even more what's important. It's making memories with the ones you love. It's wearing silly hats in public just to make your someone special laugh. It's dancing in the kitchen to Frank Sinatra because that's what she loves to listen to. It's truth or dare when you're all grown up. It's camping out under the night sky. It's tickle fights and belly zurberts. It's a notebook full of things you want to experience with the one you are so glad you found and can't wait to spend more time with. Like dancing in the rain, picking flowers in a field and adventures planned in a place she grew up. It's checking off the drive-in movie theatre in the notebook and maybe adding another underneath. Like hopefully many more memories to come.

Say it isn't so...

• It's yuck... I mean, it's back to school time. Yuck. I hate this time of year. I actually begin dreading this time of year the last day of school. Why? Because I am a worried mother hen. I wish I wasn't, but I am.Tomorrow my kids go back. Back to spending more waking time with teachers than with me during the week. Back to schedules, which means alarm clocks, sack lunch, homework, and heartbreak. Well, heartbreak for me, not them. I don't want to send them back.
• I hear SOOO many parent's say, "I can't wait for school to start, these kids are driving me crazy!" They might as well run their fingernails down a chalkboard. I don't want to hear it. Kids grow up so fast. Summertime is the one time all year when you can be carefree with your kids and let them be....kids. I want to freeze this point in their lives and remember them just as they are now. It seems when school starts everything and everyone has to be so serious, so grown up like. It's tough. It also seems as though during the school year everything flies by so fast. Almost like fast forwarding their childhood. Summer almost feels as if a pause button has been pushed. If at least for a while...
• So it's early bedtime and first day jitters. It's positive pep talks to get them in gear and a lump in my throat as I tell them goodbye at school. It's extra Tylenol for my aching head as I worry how my child with special needs is handling a whole new school. It's a cool rag across my forehead as I realize the extra things my first year junior high student son is probably learning not during class time but during social time. It's anti-nausea medicine as I ponder their futures and if I can keep up.
• It's accepting the good, bad and the ugly when it comes to being a parent. It's loving every minute anyway. I would hope if I'm graded on how I do tomorrow I get an A. An A for Acceptance. Back to school. Yuck.
  
  

The Big Bang Theory

• I have many "theories" in life. A lot don't make since. Yes, I spelled "sense" as in"since" because I'm being facetious. Actually I should say feces-ish, because I'm full of "it"...
• But just listen to me. One of my theories is the can o' biscuits theory. I don't like things that make noise when you are unsure when they are going to make noise. Like a can of biscuits. You KNOW when you start to pull back the paper on said biscuit can it could pop open and if not (shriek) as you twist the can eventually the can is going to bust open (gasp) Well, most of the time. Except for the times you have to take a spoon to the seam (I especially loathe those times) I will scream when they blow up. I know it's ridiculous but that's the way I roll. Well, not roll, but biscuit. Can of biscuit theory.
• As you probably can guess I don't like surprises much. Think it's the can of biscuit theory also. Even surprises that I know are going to happen. Like a Jack-In-the-Box. Little box of horror. Shiver. Same thing pertains to my phone. I don't like to have the ringer on. I keep it on silent. I don't want to be surprised when it rings. I know it's stupid, but I'm not making excuses for myself. That's just how me, myself, and I operate.
• So my good buddy ol' pal ol chum of mine comes over the other night and proceeds to make a dry ice bomb. Yes. Dry. Ice. Bomb. He did ask permission, I might add. I said yes. It was, after all, for my son, who couldn't wait to hear the thing go off. So, he loads the empty 2 liter pop bottle up with dry ice and explains to me he is going to fill this sucker up more than he ever has a bottle before so it will go off quicker. I'm thinking that's a good idea because the idea of this thing exploding in my backyard scared me to death.
• He sets this experiment in terror up in my back yard, comes in, shuts the door and proceeds to tell me it should go off within thirty minutes. We pop in a movie and I relax the best I can. Sitting straight up on the couch with, you guessed it, a finger plugged in each ear.
• Let's make a long story short. THREE HOURS of keeping my fingers in my ears later the can of biscuits , bottle of terror, HAD NOT exploded. The bottle had gotten so cold it cracked in the base. All of the gas leaked out. No boom boom POW. Just an annoyed little kid and a mama with a racing heart and sore arms from covering her ears.
• Life isn't a bowl of cherries. It's a can of biscuits. Expect the unexpected. That's what I've learned to do. All while anxiously waiting with my fingers plugging my ears...