Barbecue and baseball

Yesterday, Jennifer had a barbecue at her school AND a baseball game. The two events were scheduled right next to each other!

Actually, the game started at about 40 minutes after the barbecue.

I spent all day trying to figure out just HOW we were going to get to both events on time without looking rude for leaving one event early. I couldn't skip the barbecue; I had already told Jennifer's teacher we would be there. And, in fact, I learned about the game being on the same day only AFTER I made the commitment to show up at the barbecue. (Jen has THREE games this week! With no practice in between. I may not be a sports coach or an expert on physical fitness, but that just seems wrong.)

Finally, I decided we would just wing it and see what happened. I hated the idea of leaving early, though. That is just rude. But, hopefully, they would understand.

Before we could head out to the barbecue, however, I had to stop at a neighbor's house to offer an apology about something that happened the day before. Apparently, the neighbor's boys were up to no good while Jennifer was playing there, and Jennifer ended up being a partner in crime. Somehow, I was relieved to learn that this mother also had this particular kind of rule her children must obey, maybe because I didn't want to feel bad about how I don't allow Jennifer to do that kind of thing. Anyway, I apologized to her about that and explained that I had reminded Jennifer NOT to do that and that she also had been disciplined. I also apologized for Jennifer accidentally breaking something and offered to replace it. She was very understanding and thankfully there were no hard feelings. Thank goodness for that! The last thing I want to do is cause hard feelings among my neighbors.

We got to the barbecue okay and it was nice to see Jen's teacher there, along with her baby. We talked briefly. I apologized for having to leave early but she understood. Unfortunately, Jennifer didn't behave very well at the barbecue. She kept whining about how she wanted to run off and play with her friends, and when I took her by the arm, to try to get her attention, she tried to pull away from me. I held onto her arm, which probably made it look to everybody watching like I was shaking her, or something, because she kept pulling away. As we ate, I told her I was NOT happy with her behavior and she should not pull away from me like that when I am holding her arm. She couldn't hear me over the people in the cafeteria so I had to keep repeating things in a loud voice. Maybe some of that came out as yelling, I don't know, because one woman looked at me funny and moved away. (Sigh. I can't hear how loud my voice is! Yet so many people judge me for that and think that I am intentionally yelling at everybody. I can't even know how loud I am supposed to talk when there is too much noise, because I have no way of hearing how loud the freaking noise is!)

After we ate, we had to go. As it was, we got to the baseball game a half our late. I am just glad I had told the coach by email earlier in the day about our other engagement. He wasn't mad we got there late. So Jen played baseball. She hit the ball on the first pitch! I excitedly cheered about that. While we were at the game, I started to talk with one of the moms and somehow or another I let it out how I've been coping with my mother being so ill from cancer and that sometimes I just need to be alone to deal with it. It's very depressing and sometimes it's too hard for me to focus on the writing work or even feel up to getting out of the house or socializing with people. It's gotten to where I cry every day about it. I miss my mother terribly and I just pray to God I get to see her one last time before it's her time to go. She is not doing very well. I saw a recent photo of her and she looked almost like a skeleton. My cousin said she's very emaciated. I have no idea why I opened up to that woman about it. I barely know that woman! But I guess I just needed to talk to someone about it. I just can't talk to my husband about it; he doesn't understand why she's faring so poorly. But, anyway, that's what happened. I don't know. Maybe I needed to explain why I hadn't been at the last game or maybe why I tend to be standoffish or absent sometimes. It's just really hard to cope with this. I try to stay positive and enjoy my children, but the sadness lingers.

Jen's team didn't win yesterday but everybody had a great time. Jesse sure did have fun making me chase him all over the field. He wasn't happy when I had to put him back into the stroller after one particularly long run around said field. After the game, I got the kids ice cream then took them home, read them a story, and got them into bed.

This morning I read in Dear Abby about how this woman complained about her co-worker's daughter showing up at the office every day to join her for lunch. She said she was "tired of it." That really made me angry. I wish I could join my mother for lunch every day. Hell, I wish I could even SEE her every day. Once upon a time, I had been able to, even though my dad got tired of my daily visits. But Mom never did. She always looked forward to me coming over every day. I wish we could go back to doing that. I wish I could see her every day like I used to be able to before.