Countdown To Freedom

I am sitting in my room listening to my niece singing gustily and loudly to Rory The Racing Car and I am reminded of her mother.

Heather was always singing and acting, whether there was a stage or not! Sarah was named for my mother, but she is my sister reincarnate. I happened across a picture of my sister and I last night, and Sarah looked so much like her.

It is funny that growing up, one of the reasons that Heather frustrated me so much was that she never took my advice or let me help her. She threw herself into her friendships, then was so heartbroken when they hurt her. Now, in so many ways, I am reliving this with her daughter. Sarah is strong-willed and dramatic and only pays attention to you when she wants. I find myself making the comparisons all too often.

A friend of mine invited me to a Halloween party about 3 weeks ago. I had already secured my 13 year old as a sitter tonight, and was ready to go. Then, she came to me begging to be allowed to go to her boyfriend’s playoff game. After much back and forth, I finally relented. Now, I am sitting at home on a Saturday night, working on a quick blog post, and listening to the news before heading to bed.

OK, so yesterday I said I was going to make fudge for the first time. The recipe I used was fairly simplistic since I hate to waste, and I hadn’t tried it before. I would like to say that I stuck right to the recipe, but no, I didn’t. I added some cocoa powder, a half tsp of vanilla, and about a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar.

So, our mornings begin about 7 am. I need to get up, get Jason out of bed, make sure he dresses, make his breakfast, wake Sarah & dress & feed her, then make sure my teenager is up. I leave to take Jason to school at 7:45, then get back home to make sure Ashley is ready to go so she can get to the bus stop in time.

Naturally, the cats & fish also need to be fed, and I have to clean up the kitchen from the morning rush. This morning, Ashley announced to me that the children clogged the toilet again, and she was NOT going to clean it up. Seeing as how a 4 year old cannot unclog a toilet, I told her that if she doesn’t, it falls to me, and if I do it, then she isn’t going out with her friends this weekend. I received the typical stare, rolled eyes, then the storming off into her room.

OK, so I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I had to vent about this car line thing! My children were always pretty fortunate to have bus service, or I was picking them up late from after school care, so until a couple of months ago, I had never experienced this phenomena called the car line.

In the beginning of July, I accepted custody of my 4 year old niece and 7 year old nephew. My children are a 17 year old son and a 13 year old daughter, so it had been quite a few years since I had young children at home. I was an advertising sales executive, very involved with the business community, and had returned to school for my Masters. All of that came to a screeching halt the minute Sarah and Jason came into my life.