I’m so excited!

I just came home from giving a couple of talks at the Maple Ridge Teachers Conference and there is a message on the answering machine.  “Um..Hello Mom, it’s Emily.  I just wanted to remind you that my plane is getting in at…“  Remind me?  Remind me!  I’ve just been counting down the days for the last month and a half.  Remind me?  Good gracious!  (I’m smiling big right now) 

Yes, my daughter, Emily is arriving tonight and my boy Dave is coming as well.  He managed to finagle a day off work.  I don’t know how he managed to get Valentine’s Day off, but he did and I’m happy.  I wish I could keep Will home from school!  Then I’d have all my chickadees home at once.  How cozy would that be. 

I’m very excited about tomorrow.  All except those little tests I have to go in for.  Other than that, I’m jumping up and down. 

It’s not that I’m worried about the tests.  These things usually turn out to be nothing.  It’s just that I am expected to drink 32 fluid ounces of water an hour before.  I’ve done this drill once before and I think it’s one of the most humiliatingly, difficult things to do.  It flings me right back to when I first started school and I didn’t know that if I needed to go to the bathroom all I had to do was put my hand up and ask to be excused.  I remember trying and trying to hold it.  I remember when it became impossible.  I remember the feeling of warmth and wet and the sound of it splashing on the floor, the puddle spreading and spreading under my desk.  I remember crying.  And then they took me to the office and I thought I was going to get a beating, but instead they got me some clean clothes out of a box and I put them on.  The tights were a little bit scratchy, but the dress was real pretty. 

I wonder if they have a spare set of clothes for any of us women who try and try to hold it and then find that we weren’t quite as strong or as in control as we thought? 

The last time I did this test, they were running late.  And as much as I wished I could squeeze-waddle up to the desk and demand on being next, I could not, because everybody else was in the same boat, sitting with tightly clenched legs, and sweating faces. 

I’m going to be soooo happy when the test is done.  SOOO happy.  Then I will be able to relax and celebrate my birthday and try to get in as many “I love you’s” and hugs and devour my children with my eyes.  Trickily of course.  I have to try and be restrained.  I don’t want to make them feel claustrophobic or that I still think they are little kids or anything. 

That’s the hard part when your children grow up.  You want to just grab them and hug them and cover their faces with a million kisses, but they are grown up now.  Not little kids.  I can’t tuck them up on my knee and read them stories.  They don’t want me to brush their hair and tie ribbons in it.  It’s hard sometimes to be the mum of grown up children.  Hard, but wonderful too.

My children are coming home tonight!!  YAY!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 in Chewing the Fat