Glimpses of Normalcy

Last night we took our first family outing with the twins in tow. We felt somewhat normal getting out of the house and attempting to do something all together, never mind that it was FREEZING. The u-14 soccer team that Riley coached had their end of the year team dinner at a local pizza place. It was loud and fun and great to chat with the parents and the girls. Riley really lucked out with snagging such a great talented group of girls and super nice and supportive parents. They all had lots of great things to tell me about Riley and what a great job he did coaching this year. Their team was the only 3 Rivers Soccer Team to land a league championship and we are all pretty proud. Riley had a nice little speech to say about each of the girls, along with their stats and individual accomplishments. I was really touched with the nice things he had to say about each of them and how well he could remember the details of their games and the entire season. He absolutely was cut out to be a coach and one of his best qualities is that he is FAIR. He does not do preferential treatment, but whether you are the best or the worst on the team he will give it his all to make you a better player.


So while Riley was doing his little shpeal, where was I? Oh yes, at the very back table with two car seat strapped infants, one who started crying and needed to eat. Kendle luckily was having fun sitting with the older girls, Morgan however was sitting across the table from me chowing down on a piece of pizza another parent kindly served up for him since I was basically limbless. He had an almost full glass of water sitting right in front of him, and I mentally started counting down how long it would take before he knocked it over. It took about three minutes. After that he was standing at the wall flicking the light switch on and off while Riley was speaking. Yep, got to love the feeling of watching your 2 and a half year old be naughty in public and be totally helpless to do anything about it.

After the dinner was over we packed everyone up to go home. As we got in the car and were pulling out of the parking lot, Kendle and Morgan started fighting about something and they were clear in the back where we couldn't really talk to them or break it up. Then the twins both started howling and crying. We are driving down the road and Riley glances at me and I know we are both thinking the same thing. This is our life now. For better and for worse. I think all the forces of the universe have conspired to gang up on us and make us more patient parents and individuals. We get it. We just have to laugh about it. This is our new "normal".