Four minutes of sanity

It is exactly .89 miles from Sophia and Hudson's preschool to my office. I completely bask in the glory that is the two minutes (each way) of alone time that this trip allows me. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's these four minutes that allow me to cling to my sanity at times.

Each day I cannot wait to walk both of them to class, give them a hug and kiss, wish them a good day, threaten them that they better be good, and then wave goodbye as I leave. The threat is a guarantee; the hug and kiss may or may not happen depending upon their attitudes in the car going to school. But the threat? I fear for their teachers, if I were to forget the threat. Sophia gets dropped off first, and then Hudson. After my last "be good," I am practically skipping out the door and up the steps to the car.

People must think I'm just that excited to get to work. Hardly.

In reality, I know the next two minutes are all mine. The music I listen to is something I want to hear and it's typically some pop song that is no longer "cool" in Isabelle's eyes. Most days you will find me around 900 AM driving through Factoria singing at the top of my lungs, head bobbing and ear drums on the verge of shattering. The kids make fun of me when I sing (I suck), and complain when the music is too loud. They are incredibly lame and I can hardly believe they are mine most days. Other days I listen to sad bastard music that reminds me of older times and when played in the car with Isabelle causes her to start making gagging noises followed by her simulating death. (Missing You by John Waite...More Than Words by Extreme...Be With You by Mr. Big....man, it's 1993 all over again.) She doesn't appreciate my high school classics.

At 300 PM the cycle starts all over again. I leave work and know that my two minutes are counting down from the moment I hit the car. At this point, I usually don't care enough about the day anymore to attempt excitment over a song. I merely ride along in silence, gearing up for the night ahead...homework, soccer practice, constant requests in the car of how to spell something, breaking up fights like a WWE ref (foreign objects in the ring a given), after school activities, dinner...you get the idea.

But those four minutes? Man, they're good.

This update brought to you by Initiative 1183

As I sit here next to Isabelle while she writes out her thoughts on the King County election taking place this week, I find myself with some time since we just finished our hot debate on Initiative 1183. Therefore, I figured I'd knock out a quick update on the month of October in our house. (On a sidenote, I'm not sure my 9 year old should be writing her election thoughts on a topic in which she's arguing on the side to close state liquor stores so that Mom and Dad can buy liquor at Costco...but whatever. In her words, "why does the state get to add so much tax and make so much money and not everyone else." Amen, sister.)

ANYWAY...while she writes down her final thoughts, here are a few pics from this month. In quick summary, we did the following:

1) Watched/played a lot of soccer games (approximately 20 in October)
2) Remodeled the kitchen
3) Went to the pumpkin patch (3 times, in fact)
4) Grandad came to visit
5) Drove many many many miles between practices, extracurricular activities, dance, etc. to the point that I'm pretty sure the state will be building me my own lane on 405...or at least they should
6) Celebrated darling Sophia's 5th birthday
7) Wrapped up the month with our now annual tradition of the Halloween Death March. This year with an astounding 28 people in the group. We clean houses out of candy, people. No lie.

Hope everyone else had a magical October. We leave for Hawaii in a week and a half and I. CAN'T. WAIT. It's 40 degrees here right now...and 83 in Hawaii. Yeah, that'll do just fine.