Category Archives: friends

The (Cheerleading) Struggle Is Real

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Last night was a perfect storm of parental fandom. Kid D had a baseball game, Kid B had a soccer game, and Kid E went out for a bike ride… all at the same time. With Sheepdog out of town (attending said soccer game with both sets of grandparents), it fell on me to cheer for everyone simultaneously.

I sat in the bleachers at the local baseball park. We just came off a 13-day break in practices and games due to the long Columbus Day holiday weekend, so everybody was rusty, including the fans. The weather during our last game had crept into the 90’s, but we live in Atlanta where the weather is manic, so the forecast called for lows in the 50’s before the game would be over. The mom next to me was wearing shorts (“I refuse to put on pants when I still have a tan!”) but she was prepared with two blankets and her PTA Mafia friends sharing body heat around her.

Kid E joined me at the baseball game, but he doesn’t like to sit still for long. We brought his bike and helmet for entertainment and distraction, and after his nutritious dinner of a soft pretzel and Reese’s cups from the concession stand, he took off to ride like the lead in Breaking Away. But also with instructions to check back in with me after every couple of laps around the track. The park was packed and he is super cute and I will not have anybody stealing my baby.

About a half hour into the baseball game, the soccer game of the season for Kid B’s team began at Glenn Warner Stadium in Annapolis. I’m talking Army vs. Navy and at the service academies that match is no joke. Go Navy! Beat Army!

Like I said, Sheepdog was there in person, but I was home with the others and had to watch online. I tethered my laptop to my cell phone and proceeded to do the 10-second whiplash dance. That’s 10 seconds of watching Kid D’s baseball game, 10 seconds of scanning the park/ bike path for Kid E, and 10 seconds of screen time watching Navy Women’s Soccer.

I think I held down the fort pretty well. It can be tricky, and it was more luck than skill that I was able to see most of the great plays as they happened. Add in a request from Sheepdog to periodically brief him on the status of the baseball game, as well as receiving other notifications from an awesome team dad who lives near the Naval Academy and live texts game updates to a group of us who normally can’t be there in person, a phone call to check-in and let me know what her plans were for the evening from Kid C, as well as a mayday search for Kid E after a no-see for too long (found him, or rather he found me) and a relatively minor bike crash right in front of the concession stand… it was a pretty busy two hours. I had developed an eye twitch, but I got to see it all!

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Kid D has a stellar squat game

Fast-forward to 8-something p.m. Kid E was done riding and had joined me watching both games from the bleachers. The Blue Rocks, Kid D’s team, were up 5-3. Rules in the 13-15 year-old league are that you have to play at least one hour and forty-five minutes, so we started the 5th inning. The home team kind of fell apart (it was cold, it was getting late, and they also had the past two weeks off…) and the Blue Rocks ended up scoring 12 runs. The score was 17-3. The third out against us took FOREVER to happen, but it finally did. All we had to do was get three outs against them and we could all go home.

There exists a kind of surreal, slow-motion recollection of this next part for me. The Army/Navy game was getting wild. Navy tied it 1-1, after having trailed for the whole first half and a good part of the second. The crowd got rowdy after the tying goal was scored, and the play on the field was getting heated. Army got a yellow card. With just minutes left, Navy almost scored, but the goal stayed empty. The Blue Rocks got 2 outs against the other team. We needed JUST ONE MORE. Fans were standing in the bleachers at both games. We were all on edge. The excitement was palpable. I was still doing the 10-second drill back-and-forth, screen-to-field. I kept forgetting to breathe.

Then it happened… I gave the baseball game 10 seconds of my attention (that third and final out was still elusive) and then I switched to watching online as a beautiful, sweet kick went perfectly into Army’s goal. I’m not sure at first if it was live or a replay but I quickly realized that Navy had just scored on Army with 0:44 left in the game!

I jumped up from the baseball bleachers and screamed out, “GOAL!” as loud as humanly possible while the other fans and parents looked at me like, “Does she even know anything about sports?”

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Wake Up Call

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

She is okay now.  She is okay now.  She is okay now.

I have to keep reminding myself of this.  I catch myself taking a lot of deep, cleansing breaths.  My left eye has started to twitch every once in a while.  Nausea comes and goes in waves, and it feels like something is pushing on my chest, forcing all of the air out of my lungs.  My nerves are raw and exposed, but I am eerily calm.  I may or may not look it on the outside, but my head is a mess.

You see, yesterday, for almost one full hour, I believed that my oldest child was dead.

On Saturday morning, just after 3 a.m., Sheepdog and I got the phone call that no parent ever wants to get.  The voice on the other end said that Kid A had been found, unresponsive, in her dorm hallway and she had been taken by ambulance to the hospital.  She said we should get there as quickly as possible, but could offer no additional information.

We woke Kid B and asked her to sleep in our bed in case the boys got up in the middle of the night, and we assured her that we would call as soon as we had news.  We drove down silently to Grady Memorial in Atlanta.  Sheepdog and I held hands.  Phone calls to the hospital during the cold, long trip resulted in the confirmation that she was there, but they would tell us nothing else.

Nothing at all.

My imagination went to all of the very bad places.  I thought of all of the risky choices I had made in college.  All of the insane, dumb, moronic stuff I had done.  All of the times I sat around with my friends, recounting the bits and pieces from the night before, wondering how we managed to survive the night.  It was crazy.  We were so stupid.  We were so lucky.  How did we get so lucky?  How did we get out, relatively unscathed?

I felt I was getting my answer now.  In my mind I heard a nagging whisper, “Pay up.  Nobody rides for free.”  Was Kid A going to be my price?

Unresponsive.  Unresponsive.  Unresponsive.

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We found the emergency department, cleared security, and went straight to the front desk.  We were quickly directed to ambulance triage.  I rounded the corner and saw Kid A sitting up on a gurney.  I went from zero to sixty, or sixty to zero (I’m not quite sure which) in an instant.  Thankfully, my worst-case-scenario had only happened in my head.

Scan

I have never hugged someone so vehemently in my life.

The doctor reassured us that she would be fine, and later she was discharged.  We drove her back to school and tucked her in with instructions to sleep and hydrate, even though my first instinct was to bring her back home with us and smother her with love and over-parenting.  But I am learning that I can not protect my kids from all of the things.  Sometimes they need to feel a pinch.

“A hard lesson to learn!  I’m sure it will be something you will work out with her and a good lesson was learned without tragic results,” said my mother-in-law.

“Is the lesson ‘Don’t Have Kids?'” I replied.  “I seem to have learned that one a little too late. They’re likely going to be the death of me.”

“Hopefully the gravity of it will scare her,” is what one sister said.  Hopefully.

And, hopefully, this experience will encourage her make better choices.  I hope that she tells her friends about it, too, and that they realize that none of them are invincible.  I realize the hypocrisy of this advice coming from me, but my job as a parent is to advise and guide my kids to be better than me.  Do better.  Behave better.  Make the world a better place.

Pretty please with sugar on top, because Sheepdog and I don’t think we can take another wake up call like that one, and we still have four more kids to go after this one.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Christmas Come and Gone…

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

In the history of Christianity and the modern world (and without thinking about it too hard), I can not for the life of me come up with another single day for which there are so many preparations, so much forethought, such grand anticipation, and so much egg nog.  The planning, the lists, the shopping, wrapping, cooking, baking, stamping, mailing, decorating… all for ONE SINGLE DAY.  And it happens every single year!

I get it.  I really do…  I am trying to hold true to the real reason for the season, while still making special memories for my family.  Don’t overdo it, but don’t make your kids feel like freaks because all they got from Santa was an orange.  I mean, I read John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas.  I get it.

This year, I approached Christmas with calm.  I figured I’d aim for yin and things would all balance out in the end.  I had sprained my ankle in a freak (okay, slightly drunken) slippery, gravel road incident on Thanksgiving, so I had an actual reason not to do a lot of running around anyway.  I worked hard (fortunately, it didn’t take much) to keep the joy of Christmas in my heart every day and to spread that joy to all* I met.

(* Except for that one lady in the parking lot near Homegoods.  There was a bit of a car jam at the traffic light and she didn’t wish to wait.  In the meantime, my cell phone rang and I answered it manually before switching to Bluetooth.  The red light lasted for, oh, about a decade, so her impatience just kept mounting and mounting.  She directed it all at me and screamed through her windshield, “HANG UP YOUR PHONE!  I AM CALLING THE POLICE!”  I was like, “It is a red light.  I’m not even driving.”  So she all-caps yelled at me again.  I may have misplaced my yin a little when I yelled back at her (just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman), “Fine!  You’re calling the cops?  Great.  Tell them I said, ‘Hi’!”  Then I laughed out loud and mouthed to her, “You do see the irony in the fact that you are PICKING UP YOUR OWN PHONE to call the police and tell on me for being on the phone, RIGHT?”  And then the light turned green.  Merry Christmas, Lady.)

It has taken a full week for me to recover from my family’s awesome Christmas.  And it truly was awesome.  I am a very lucky girl.

Today is New Year’s Day.  It is the day that represents starting over and clean slates and all things NEW.  I am not a big New Year’s Eve partier anymore, so I usually wake up early on January 1st and I get to enjoy all of the newness by myself for a little while.  It is one of my favorite mornings of the whole year.

So, here for your enjoyment is the Swiger Family Christmas card for 2014.  I know I’m a whole week or so late, but it does say, “Happy 2015” on the back.  Technically, I guess I am scootching in on the tail end.

Swiger 2014

Swiger 2014 - back

But I’d like to think that I am actually sneaking in at the beginning of the NEW.  May 2015 bring you joy and hope and lots of opportunities to live the life that makes you happy.

Wish me luck for 2015…

 

How To Communicate With Your College Freshman During Finals Week

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

All across these United States, college students are fah-reak-ing out over finals.  The Stacks are full and their Starbuck’s accounts are almost empty.  Just hang on, kids.  It’s almost winter break.

I need to talk to Kid A about all kinds of things… money, schedules, where she plans to live next year, her grandiose plans for spring break vs. what’s really going to go down, etc.  But finals week is not the time to bring up such serious buzz kill topics.  This is the time to send love notes, supportive messages, and comfort food.

And fun text messages:

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Please wish Kid A luck on her finals…

Traditionally Speaking

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

The question has always stumped me.  I have never come up with a really good answer.  My whole life, I have always been flummoxed when someone puts me to the task of explaining my family traditions or heritage-related stuff.  I guess it is because I wasn’t really raised in any kind of specific, culturally rich atmosphere.

We only spoke one language in my house.  I didn’t have a crazy grandmother always yelling things in Greek or Italian or Chinese at me.  Don’t get me wrong.  I definitely had a crazy grandmother.  It’s just that she yelled, “Dammit!  Who hid my cigarettes again?” and “Don’t be a beer counter, you little jerk!” in English.  Nobody came to America on a boat or was smuggled in a truck (or even flew here on a plane for that matter) for at least a few generations back.  We definitely didn’t celebrate any holidays that weren’t pre-marked in red or depicted in the monthly picture on the linen hand towel calendar in the kitchen.

If Snoopy wasn't drinking a margarita, how were we supposed to know to celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

If Snoopy and Woodstock were slinging back sunflowers instead of margaritas, how were we supposed to know to celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

There was always talk that my father’s side of the family was German along with some other Western European sprinkles (French, English) and my mother’s side was similar, minus the German, and somehow plus some Native American.  I think that my ancestors have lived on American soil for a really long time, but honestly I’ve never actually entered my credit card information on ancestry.com to confirm or find out otherwise.  I don’t know what is true and what is made up.  I have always just considered myself kind of a cultural mutt.  And I am okay with that.

Until Thanksgiving, that is.

‘Tis the season for unveiling your cultural relevance and family traditions.  The friends with whom we will be celebrating Thanksgiving asked how we could incorporate ours with theirs.  This year my parents and two of my sisters and their families are going on a cruise in the Carribbean.  I was just going to watch football and make stuffing from the box, so… um, just run with yours.  Most of my kids are working on homework assignments and projects that involve where they came from and how we as a family celebrate that.  I think that the kids are as frustrated about the family void when it comes to this subject as I was, so they are finally employing some creative license to get the job done.

Kid B was given the assignment by her Spanish teacher to make and explain a traditional, cultural recipe as it applies to her family.  She asked if she could instead make an old, family dessert recipe* that would represent our heritage, even though it had nothing to do with us maybe being slightly German-English-French-1/16th Cherokee.  The teacher said go for it.

So Kid B went to the grocery store and got the ingredients for cookie dough, a box of Oreos, and a brownie kit.  She mixed them individually, layered the cookie dough on the bottom, covered it with the Oreos, and then spread the brownie mix on top.  And, voila… a batch of “slutty brownies” was made.  Yes, that’s really what they are called due to the wicked threesome of ingredients.

According to family lore, you can make them even sluttier by adding a layer of dulce de lece before the brownies.

According to ancient family lore, you can make them even sluttier by adding a layer of dulce de lece before the brownies.

So now I guess, traditionally speaking, I can finally say we have a cultural identity.  And I am okay with that, although I do hope it translates to something a little nicer in Spanish.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

*Slutty brownies are not, in fact, any kind of old, family recipe.  I have never made them in my life.  As far as I know, they started going around the internet a few years ago.  They are both easy to make and sinfully delicious.  Kid B was just looking for an excuse to make them.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Dear New(ish) Neighbor Across the Street,

I planned to come by and say hello.  I intended to introduce myself.  I wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, and do all the welcome-y things that good neighbors are supposed to do, just like Mr. Rogers taught me (well, maybe not the singing and the acting out stuff with puppets and toy trolleys and such, but you know what I mean).  Sigh.  But I haven’t.  And now literal months have gone by.  And I feel really bad about it.

mr-rogers-hello-neighbor

I can make all of the excuses.  You moved in during Spring Break.  Spring Break!  During Spring Break this year I was busy in Florida hating the beach in the rain along with too many loud people inside of a too small house.  And then we got right back into school and activities and all of the things, so dropping by to say howdy to you fell to the bottom of my to do list.

Plus, you’re a dude.  And from what I can discern with my mad private investigator skilz, you do not have a wife but you do have a couple of every other weekend teen-aged kids.  What if you just went through an ugly divorce and now you hate all wife-type women?

And you rarely seem to be home.  I saw you walking your tiny dog in the mornings while I was waiting with the boys for the school bus.  But I never see you at other times of the day.  What am I supposed to do?  Sit on my front porch and wait for you to come home from work, and then go knock on your door?  What if you come home from work and immediately have to go to the bathroom?  I would be knocking and you would either have to poopus interruptus, or ignore me (because now I know you are home… I just watched you pull into the garage).  That would be so weird.  And not a little awkward for everybody involved.

I had a plan to bake you some brownies, which is what some very nice new neighbors of ours did when we moved into our house seven years ago.  But every time I bake a batch of brownies, somebody in this house eats at least one out of the tray and wrecks the possibility of gifting the whole batch.  OK, you got me.  I’m the one who eats them, but that’s neither here nor there.  And now I resent you a little bit for making it super convenient for me to eat brownies.

Then, I decided I would buy some Greenies treats or a toy for your dog.  I went to PetSmart down the street and I had a traumatic flashback to the time that I thought it would be a great idea to adopt two puppies at once, but I got so anxious that I had to return them after only 48 hours and my kids still hate me to this day because of it and I feel like a broken human being because I guess I don’t truly like dogs and the whole experience was just horrible.  Well, thanks for bringing that whole nightmare back up.

Maybe I will bring you a housewarming gift instead.  A six pack?  Maybe you don’t drink.  How about something crafty or homemade… soup mix or take out menus from local restaurants?  Something decorative or practical for the house… candles, a photo frame, a house plant?

A front door mat?

A front door mat?

OK, OK.  This is going in a weird direction.  I feel that I have made this way more complicated than it needs to be.  Let’s start over.

Welcome, neighbor.  Better late than never, right?  Here is my family’s contact information.  We’d love to get to know you.  Feel free to stop by anytime.

P.S.  I swear I’m totally normal.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

 

 

Come What May

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

It was a cold, gray, January day.  All of the other kids were in school as it was a Thursday, but Kid A had checked herself out early.  It was her 18th birthday, so she could do that now.  She climbed into her newly-leased electric car and turned on her iPod.  The passionate and emotional voices of Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman spilled from the sound system.  The words blasted her ears and bombarded her heart.  The song lasted the exact length of time it took her to drive from parking lot to parking lot.  She took it as a sign, like a cardinal at the window or unexplained feathers.

Sheepdog and I arrived together.  We held hands as we walked into the waiting room.  I noticed a giant eel slithering inside a 75-gallon fish tank before I even saw Kid A in the corner.  The building smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol and burning things.  We all hugged and walked over to meet with her guy.  She gave him a piece of paper that had been folded and unfolded and looked at so many times that it had the worn feel of soft leather.  They spoke to one another in the language of creative people.  Then he scanned her paper into the computer and pulled it up on the big screen.  A lone sob escaped from my throat before I could pull it back.

Seeing his familiar handwriting up there, larger than life, I was caught completely off guard.  But seeing it a few hours later, permanently inked onto the slight wrist of my oldest child, it actually felt good.  After all she had seen and experienced and lived through the past few years, it felt right.  Well, as right as a tattoo can possibly be.

"I will love you until my dying day."

“I will love you until my dying day.”

His life story will always be a part of hers.  He left his mark on her heart.  Now his handwriting is marked on her forever as well.

*******************************************

Today is the first anniversary of Braden’s death.  One whole year has gone by.  An entire year of holidays, and birthdays, and Mondays.  One whole year passed of experiences, and change, and growth.  One whole year of the regular and mundane too.  One whole year of memories made without Braden.  I feel like that is one of the worst parts.

I have thought of him so much over the past year.  Sometimes I think of him intentionally, like when I plant flowers in his memory.  I talk to him as I’m doing the work, updating him with new funny stories as well as the regular day-to-day stuff that’s been going on.  And when these plants inevitably die, I think of him again because I know he is playing a twisted joke on me.  All of my other plants thrive.  It’s just the ones that I tell him are “his” that end up brown and crispy.  I like to think that Braden enjoys our conversations so much that he is just making sure that I’ll keep checking in with him.  So I guess I’ll keep buying him new plants.  And I’m good with that.

Other times he pops into my consciousness accidentally, like when I recently came across the milk shake recipe for cancer patients that I used to make for him when his stomach could tolerate them.  It was made with protein powder and coffee and chocolate sauce and Haagen-Dazs ice cream.  It always made me so happy when he would finish one, because he was losing so much weight and what else packs on the pounds but the best ice cream on the planet?  I also find him popping into my head when I’m listening to music in the car, wondering if he got to hear that really great song before he died.  Or was he around for that game?  Or did he get to see that movie?  Or look at that blood moon?  As more and more time passes, the answer is almost always ‘no.’  Not while he was here with us on earth.

So, to officially and reverently mark the passage of one whole year without Braden, Sheepdog and the kids and I went on a short hike up the Indian Seats Trail at Sawnee Mountain this past Sunday.  When we reached the top, we found some rocks off the beaten path and we sat together as a family.  We overlooked the valley below and Sheepdog said some nice words and reminded us that Braden is happy and healthy now and we shouldn’t ask for anything more than that.  He also reminded us to be thankful for our own health and happiness and to make each day mean something.  Some of us spoke about happy memories and fun times with Braden.  Some of us weren’t able to speak at all.

There was a placard up by the Indian Seats that said mountaintops are considered sacred by Native Americans because they bring us closer to Father Sky.  I don’t know about that, but I certainly felt closer to my God and to Braden that day.  It was sacred and it was good.  Well, as good as it can be when somebody is taken away before we are ready for it.

Wish me luck for tomorrow… come what may.

Mama’s Got This

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Sheepdog and I had just finished playing a fantastic game of hide and seek late last night, when a text came in from Kid A.  A friend had alerted her that somebody just “hit” our driveway with shaving cream.

I like to refer to myself as "highly procreative" rather than "a slut," but to each his own.

I like to refer to myself as “highly procreative” rather than “a slut,” but to each his own.  D-minus for creativity, Class of 2015.

Ah, Junior/ Senior Wars.  A time when high school kids can play lighthearted pranks upon members of the opposing class.  A little toilet paper here, some shaving cream there.  Some call it a rite of passage.  Some call it fun and funny.

I call it stupid and a ginormous pain in my ass, especially when I am hosing off my driveway in my pajamas at 1 a.m.

The police department calls it vandalism, especially if it escalates.  Shit just got real, yo.  On your permanent record.

There are always going to be fartknockers who wreck it for everybody else.

Sheepdog and I do not condone Junior/ Senior War activity and we do not allow our kids to participate.  But I was alerted via Facebook that some juniors’ houses in the neighborhood got TP’d the night before, so I took precautionary protective measures in anticipation of my senior getting a little something-something, just because.  Cutting down the two river birch trees from the front yard a few years ago wasn’t going to be enough.  I tapped into my Jersey Girl/ Boardwalk Empire roots and asked myself, What would 3-Pops do?  But, since the answer to that question likely involved a baseball bat and some knee caps (not really my style), I decided to go a more technologically advanced route.

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If you mess with her cubs, you had better be prepared to hear from the Mama Tiger (Swiger, like tiger).

I love a good penis on the garage door as much as the next girl, but I am a little concerned that all of your penises (and there were many) look like cacti. If you were drawing from memory, you might want to get that checked by a doctor, Picasso.

I love a good penis on the garage door as much as the next girl, but I am a little concerned that all of your penises (and there were many) look like cacti.  If you were drawing from memory, you might want to get that checked by a doctor, Picasso.

An apology would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

Things We Share and Things We Keep to Ourselves

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

As it so happens, more often than not these days, it was just me and the boys at home on Friday night.  Kid C was sleeping at a friend’s house, Kid B was at the high school to watch baseball and soccer games, and Kid A was at a meet and greet for her currently number one college choice (Go Jackets!).  Sheepdog was working late.

I wanted to make a nice dinner since I hadn’t cooked very much since we got back from our vacation.  I bought some steaks and planned to grill them for Sheepdog and myself after I put the boys to bed.  The boys, however, were getting peanut butter sandwiches and calling it a night.  I wasn’t wasting good, grass-fed beef on those ingrates (“It takes too many bites for me to chew it all up!“).  No problem.  More yummy cow for me and your father.

But first, I needed to take a shower.  If you’re going to woo your husband, you need to start with the basics (although ‘dirty’ is rarely a deterrent when it comes to my husband and lovin’).

So I spread the peanut butter, poured the milk, and turned on the SpongeBob.  I set the boys up for success and asked them to please give me ten minutes.  Don’t answer the phone.  Don’t answer the door.  No one goes in or out.  No couch jumping, stair diving, or playing baseball in the living room.  Please try not to hit your head on anything (it happens more often that you can imagine).  Come get me immediately if someone is choking.

I went upstairs.  And miracle of all miracles, I actually got to take an uninterrupted, hot shower.  I even shaved my legs.

I came back downstairs and praised both boys for their excellent behavior and ability to follow directions.  Their faces beamed and their chests swelled from the accolades.  Then I noticed a notepad sitting out on the counter.  I asked Kid D if he was starting a new grocery list.

“Oh, no, Mom, ” said Kid D, matter-of-factly. “Someone knocked on the door while you were in the shower.”

“…aaaaand?…” I prompted him to link it back to the notepad by waving it about in the air.  “Who was at the door and what exactly did you do?”

“A man was at the door.  I didn’t know who he was.”

Awesome.

“So I told him to hold on a minute and I came in here and wrote a note.”

Oh, crap.

“And then I took it to the door and held it up for him to see.  And I never opened the door, Mom.  Because I know that I am not supposed to ever open the door without you right here.  I just showed him the note.  The man smiled and said he would come back later.”

"Gary was just taking a shit." Bathroom meeting, Weird Science (1985)

“Gary was just taking a shit.” Bathroom meeting scene, Weird Science (1985)

It says, “My mom is in the bathroom.”  Apparently, I need to teach some more stranger danger lessons around here.  And maybe a lesson or two about “things we share and things we keep to ourselves.”

Wish me luck for tomorrow…

************************************************************

About an hour later, I received a message on Facebook from a friend in the neighborhood.

Mystery man identified.

Two Girls, One Boy

Posted on by Stacy Swiger

Once upon a time, there were two young girls.  They were friends with one another.  They laughed together, they imagined together, they danced together.  They enjoyed their time together very much.  They became better people for having known one another.

One day, the friends discovered a boy.  He was smart and funny and kind.  One of the girls decided that she liked this boy.  Coincidentally, so did the other girl.  But when friends like the same boy, it can often lead to trouble.

The girls were aware of this, so they decided to settle their dilemma with a contest.  They would both try to learn information about the boy.  Each unique fact would be worth a point.  At the end, the girl with the most points would be the winner.

So the girls set off separately, each trying to gather as many particulars relevant to the boy as possible.  Eye color = 1 point.  First job = 1 point.  Most cherished book = 1 point.  Preferred style of music = 1 point.  Strongest subject in school = 1 point.  Most frequently quoted movie = 1 point.  On and on the girls went, gathering their data.

After a fair amount of time has passed, the girls totaled their points.  They were tied, dead even.  How ever would they determine the victor?

They decided that the girl who could be the first to learn the boy’s favorite color would be the winner.  Conveniently, the girls were both performing in a dance recital, which the boy planned to attend.

The girls were very excited about dancing on stage… the costumes, the makeup, the lights, and the applause all brought them so much joy.  Most of all, the girls loved to dance.  Dancing is freedom and precision and feelings, all rolled into one.  For these two girls, there was little else better than dancing, except dancing with a true friend.

As the girls prepared to take the stage, they remembered this.  At that moment, they decided that no boy was worth the destruction of their beautiful friendship.  They hugged right before they took their positions.

After the show, the girls saw the boy and posed for a photograph with him.  The girls stood on either side, but a boy would never come between them again.

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…and then there was MY kid, photobombing their beautiful moment.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…