behind the scenes

You want to know where the magic happens? Not in front of the audience.. Behind the scenes. You want to know where a campaign happens? Same place. If you ever want to be completely depleted of all energy and time and resources... Run for an office.. any office. If you put anything into what a campaign requires, you will find yourself completely drained. But not only you.. Your entire family. Last week the kids didn't lay eyes on their dad until Thursday night. Dinner? What is dinner? We have meals in the car. We have meals in restaurants.. Kinda. We have cereal for dinner and frozen chicken nuggets 3x a week. Is that dinner? It has to be. We want our kids ro be well rounded so we sign them up for karate. But who has time to take them? If the person is really running for office all those responsibilities are deferred to the spouse. If the campaign manager quits then the event planning falls to the spouse. If the printers aren't getting your vibes for material like you want... It falls to your spouse to fix it. Then add in sick children with fevers. Homework. Projects. Speeches. Items that start with the freaking letter K. It All falls to the spouse. The spouse barely has time to grab lunch most days. She has to rely on hired help to keep the house going... The laundry clean... The dishes from piling up. But wait.... The campaign website needs pictures and maps and updates. And guess who is the only person who can properly do that... The spouse. You think running for a position that pays $16000  year is Sacrifice? YOU have no idea the sacrifice that goes into the entire process until you've lived it.

I'd stay and chat but someone just puked and mom has to clean it up. I'd love to elaborate but someone needs to dress like a man for a school presentation. Isn't it good that I got this. All of this. 

RIP Dakota

To the man who hit my dog tonight.. It wasn't your fault. You're a complete ass hole because you didn't take the time to stop to even check on us... But it wasn't your fault. To the person who patiently stopped with their headlights on us while I wept and Michael moved the dog out of the street... Thank you for a moment of humanity and grace. You were probably heading home from work. To the lady I heard yelling at the daycare across the street..i know I was loud... I know my 5 year old son was bellowing a blood curdling scream, but we were all struck with horror and in an instant we had no control over our reactions. I hope we didn't scare the children. And to my other son who Dakota ran past as he opened the door.... Its not your fault that our headstrong dog had a primal need to run away today. After 8 years of having him he was finally the dog we always wanted. He was calm and obedient (except for today) . He talked to me in his own little way. In the past few weeks he was becoming an office dog and eagerly looked forward to that car ride to the office a block away. What made you run? Why wouldn't you listen? I screamed for you to stop. I saw the hit and I saw you roll under the truck tire. I knew as I saw you writhing for the few final seconds of your life that there was no coming back from this. I'm sorry that I didn't train you better... I'm sorry I didn't run faster. I'm sorry you're gone. You were a really really great dog and my heart is broken. 

William FINALLY lost his first tooth!

The Grind

We have finished one of the toughest most stressful eras in our work life this week. We have moved offices. We have sold a building. I no longer feel as if we are scraping by. It feels great.  I sold a house in the midst of it all and Michael continues his second run for commissioner. No grass is growing under our feet although I have been having chest pains from the stress of it all. Life has to slow down. We are not meant to exist at this pace. 

My little casanova

This is the note I got from Will's teacher today. 

What can I say.. He's a little lover.

He's also a little comedian. He is learning to count by 10s. His homework was to write each number counting by tens. He did perfectly but seemingly every day some number gets written backwards. Today it was the seven. When he brought me his work to check I had to say.. "William.... Why is that seven looking the wrong way?"his answer was cute." He's talking to the zero mom."

These kids

Cousins