Finding My Way Back...

I've been trying to find my way back here for months. Yes, months.   But it's so hard (for me and my compulsive nature) to jump back in without relating every minute detail since last June when I fell off the blogosphere.  

Last June.  Last June when Oscar graduated from our amazing school, he in his giraffe tie, me in my giraffe print dress.  Scenes still replay in my mind -- Oscar standing proudly while his teacher honored him, her voice cracking ever so slightly.  Oscar walking through the receiving line of teachers - every teacher since kindergarten - each one enveloping him in warm congratulatory hugs.

And then last August. Oscar's transition to his new school, complete with girlfriend, long but fun van ride commutes, just right curriculum, and thoughtful and talented staff.   I'm still in the "pinch-me" phase. How did we get so lucky, again?  

And the time he played a joke on me, the kind I always play on him.  Oscar made up some fantastical story and tried to get me to believe it, and then burst into giggles when he realized he'd succeeded.

And the hard stuff too.  A couple of months of digestion related stomach pain, sometimes so severe that he couldn't sleep at night and spent hours curled up on the cushions at school.  The time we (and by "we" I mean Paul) piggybacked him down the mountain on skis because we'd way overestimated his mental and physical stamina.  And the time, just last week, right after I returned from a big trip, that he was so outraged that I'd caught him in a lie that he tantrummed for two hours -- screaming, pacing, stomping, ranting until he was so exhausted he climbed in to bed to rest and didn't emerge for yet another hour, still fuming.  It was terrible, but I can already tease him about how at one point he yanked open his bedroom door and screamed:

"See, THIS is why I don't miss you when you're gone!!" 

And I didn't even get to those other two rascally kids who live in this house.  There was so much to write about these past months and I poured most of it out in my Tuesday morning writing group and left it there, raw and ignored.

But those stories will come out. I just need to get started again, right?

Right.