June 1

The past three months have been absolutely crazy with so much big stuff happening. On top of all our 'normal' stuff, there have been a lot of bigger-than-normal goings-on's. For Kyle and Owen, as March was proceeding, it proved to be way too much to try to wrap their minds around it all and keep it all straight. Toward the end of March they were already coming mentally unglued trying to intellectually grasp it all. So, I photocopied pages from a calendar and wrote in just the biggest of big ticket items and taped it all to the fridge. Each night they took turns crossing off the day-- Kyle on even days, Owen on odd days. It has been one big thing after another, with every day that was crossed off another big thing to anticipate around the corner. Lots of excitement building, lots of crescendos, lots of getting ready for the next big thing. Really, it has all been a bit too much for their barely-5-year-old heads to handle (not to mention the heads of the 36 and 37 year olds in the house). I feel like we've just lived about 12 months jam packed into the past 3. And here we are, somehow, safely on the other side. It has taken a toll but we're still standing. I'm relieved that it is June 1. Not that we don't have an exciting 3 months on the horizon-- we do. But simply having the birthdays and the big vaca off the calendar will be a huge, huge help to the emotional wagon-load we're pulling around here day-by-day. We need a relatively low-key summer to get ourselves back in working order. Thank goodness it is June 1.