Follow your dreams

I've heard it over and over again: You can do it! Follow your dreams! If you have a dream, you can achieve it!

So, what happens if you don't have a dream?

What if you don't have a vision for what you want your life to be like? What if, after all these years, you still don't know how to answer the question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?

You can't make this up.

So, I wasn’t feeling well this morning, and asked the kids to help themselves to yogurt for breakfast.

Well, the little one did and somehow got yogurt all over the kitchen. I didn’t notice this until most of the container was on my dress pants.

Changed my pants.

Then, I opened the fridge. Seems the kids had also helped themselves to the grapes, which proceeded to fall and bounce across the kitchen floor.

As I stood up from chasing grapes, I noticed one of the shelves in the fridge was white. Seems the milk I bought this weekend had a slow leak.

As I took the milk out of the fridge, I upset the eggs, which tumbled end over end and broke in a runny mess on the floor.

As I cleaned up the eggs and then the milk, I could hear the garage door going up and down – apparently the kids needed to find some way to amuse themselves.

I went outside to find the older two fighting and the littlest in only a pair of shorts (his siblings assured me they had dressed him.)

Got him dressed, got everyone dropped off, only to find the check for the daycare lady was in the pocket of the first pair of pants I put on in the morning….

So, how’s your day going?

Becoming an aunt again.

I remember the day I found out I was going to be an aunt. 

It wasn’t a good day. 

It was difficult, painful, and sent me to the type of fight or flight mama bear mode that not even birth had. 

But in the months that followed, I had a little time to reflect.

When I was a child, the coolest person in my world was Auntie Mary Jo. She’s my Godmom. I wanted to be like her more than almost any other person on the planet. She gave me Barbies, and wrapped my birthday presents in birthday paper (even though my birthday is on Christmas Eve.) 

She was single and awesome. And then, she was married and awesome. And then she gave birth to Andy. And Aaron, and Matthew, and Casey. I babysat all of them at one time or another. I remember tiny Andy in his tuxedo sleeper. I remember holding Aaron for what felt like hours as he slept in the hospital. Casey was born only a few hours after I got off a bus from Minnesota – just a few months before I got married. 

And then there was Matthew. I had fun with Matthew. I remember a day when he was sick. I happened to be home from college, so his mom called me to babysit. We hung out all day. Poop oozed out the back of his diaper and onto my shirt. (He got me REALLY good.) Then I sat him in the kitchen sink and he played happily while I made brownies – with powered sugar instead of flour. Oops! For one day, at least in my memory, he was a happy little guy.

Each one of those four little boys mean so much to me. 

Andy is getting married in the fall. Aaron is in college. And Matthew?. He just listed me as his “aunt” on Facebook. He has no idea how much that means to me. I have nieces, godchildren, and now, a nephew.

But, no kiddo, I’m not buying you beer.