Priorities

I'm not the most social person in the world, so it took me a while to make some mom friends after the birth of my first son. We had just moved back from Puerto Rico and all of my high school & college friends had moved away, so I pretty much had no social life whatsoever.
Luckily, I lived in an apartment complex with many parents and one reached out and before I knew it I had a little solid group of mom friends. We'd call or text each other when we were going to the playground or pool,  or hang out at each other's homes, etc. But little by little some of the moms moved away ... and then I moved (we bought a house YAY!), so it became a little harder to keep seeing the couple mom friends I had left. I felt a hole in my life and I needed it filled, but being a person with shitty social skills I didn't reach out to my new neighbors.
Due to an unfortunate circumstance with my son's preschool I decided the best course of action was to remove him from that school. Because it was so close to the end of the school year I decided to keep him home with me, and since I wasn't sure if he'd get into the charter school I applied him to for Kindergarten (he has seen been accepted!) I started looking for homeschooling resources and came across Meetup.com.
During my search I discovered several Mommy groups, which I also joined. So far I have met some great people, the kids have made some great friends, we've been to places we've never been to before, and it's been an all around great experience and I look forward to consolidating these friendships I've made. And because these play dates (and much needed Moms-Night-Out) have been so great I've reached out to my old mom friends and new neighbors and am making the time to see them more often. I think it's so easy to get caught up in your routine, and make excuses like "I have to clean the house" that unless you carve out the time, you'll never have a social life. Mind you, I work from home so I have to manage my time more carefully to make sure I'm not falling behind on my work. Some days I find that between play dates and work I sometimes fall behind on cleaning the house, but it is so worth it. I'm not the most social person, so putting myself out there, making the effort to have conversations with people and form friendships is good for my well-being, and that is more important than having clean dishes. I can always clean up later (like when the kids are asleep), but if I don't make the time and effort to have a social life, days, months, years will fly by, the kids will grow up, move out, and I'll look back and wonder what I did with my time (other than raise some great young men). Do I want to look back and realize I spent all my time working and cleaning? Hell no! I want to look back and remember all the great outings I had with my kids and great people I've met.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

My husband and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary last night. Our anniversary just so happens to line up nicely with Mother's Day, so our planned night out without the kids was a pleasant Mother's Day gift as well. We booked a hotel room and made a reservation at a nice fresh seafood restaurant. I had plans to check in early, use the gym, go swimming in the pool, and just relax with the hubster before getting ready for our fancy dinner. However, I had some last minute work to do and we ended up getting to the hotel about half an hour before our reservation.

When we arrived at the check-in counter the lady said she was moving us up free of charge. "Oooooo," I thought. She said she'd put us in a room with a view of the river. "Ahhhhhh," I thought. "Thank you SO much," I said. When we opened the door to our room I was sorely disappointed. The room smelled old and musty. It looked outdated, not modern at all like I was lead to believe from the photos on their website (the reason I chose that hotel over others). However, we had a bed to ourselves...and no kids. 

So we quickly got ready for our fancy dinner, which luckily was right across the street so we managed to make just in the nick of time. We sat at our table and the server brought us our customized anniversary menus, "How are you doing this evening?" "Fine, thank you" we replied somewhat out of breath. "Fine? That's it? Aren't you excited to be celebrating your anniversary?"  HAHAHAHA "Yes, yes of course; we've just been running around all day." Once we managed to catch our breaths and the server brought me my champagne and Ramon his beer, we were able to unwind, forget about the kids and enjoy our night out like when we used to date, having normal non-kid-related conversation. I had a truly amazing time...And not having the kids around made the sex better too.

This morning we had plans to walk around, maybe catch a movie, but on the way to a local marketplace I decided I'd rather make it to my son Sebas' karate class, which had e-mailed me earlier this week about being there for the last 15 minutes of class for a Mother's Day surprise. Unfortunately, I didn't make it in time, but when I did get there Sebas came running to me with a smile from ear to ear to give me a plastic rose and teddy bear, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy." And Lucas also came running to me to give me a kiss and a hug. So, while our mini-vacation was much needed, it made me appreciate my real Mother's Day presents: my two boys who missed me like crazy on my night off and couldn't wait for me to get home.

                                                      Getting ready for dinner

The Invisible Horse Genie

Today when I picked Sebas up from karate class he was outside riding an invisible horse (Monty Python style) proclaiming "Look! I'm riding an invisible horse!" When he was done he took out an invisible bottle, made a woosh sound and motioned with his other hand to show that the horse was going into the bottle. "That's where I keep my invisible horse".
His imagination always amazes me, sometimes it scares me (like when he talks about shadow people...because in my mind I'm thinking 'holy shit he sees ghosts'), but this one in particular really blew my mind. I just thought it was so funny and imaginative.
What kind of things do your kids pretend?