Why I work Friday nights.

So.much.FaceTime. 

**I apparently started this post in September. But, it is still relevant, so I am going to finish it.**



I work a lot of Friday nights. I would say at least 1/2 of the year, my weekend does not officially begin until I roll into bed about midnight after a long day at work/on a field/in a gym/eating hotdogs & popcorn.

And, really it is not just Friday nights. With all of the soccer, basketball, track, baseball, softball, volleyball, etc. games that are played at a high school, I am a constant supporter of high school athletics. Throw in theatre productions, chorus/band/choir, art shows, parent conferences, dances, Open House, AP Night, grade level nights, community engagement nights, steering committee nights, School Board meetings, etc. and, well, my evening job is a bit never ending. I try very hard to not be gone more than 2 nights a week, but sometimes that cannot be helped.

A normal day. 

This "night shift" part of my job is a bit hard to explain to people who are not in education because they truly don't understand that working a 9 hour day job followed by a 5 hour night job is just part of the territory. I am questioned all of the time about my decision to be an Administrator and a mom of young kids at the same time. And, the part of my job that I am most judged on is the evening shift. "All of those nights where you can't put your kids to bed-I can't imagine how hard that is!" or "So many long hours; I can't imagine ever wanting to do that with young kids."

I know, how RUDE? The dances are not going to chaperone themselves, people!

But, I digress. I, actually, have reflected quite a bit on these particular chunks of my life that I will never get back and, so-Future Melissa, who might be having a bit of mom regret for working so much- these are my reasons for "Why I work Friday and Tuesday, Wed, Thurs, occasional sat /sun nights":

I guess the real reason is that it is a job requirement and, it turns out, paying the mortgage does matter. But, with that aside, here are the other thoughts:

1. I believe in karma.
Along with my 3 best friends (shout out to Jeannie & Nicole!) I played 3 sports in high school, was involved in most clubs offered, rocked out Spirit Week every year, was involved in church stuff and even did the drama thing (That was an effort to get out of the mandatory music class and Nicole & we did this terrible skit where we pretended to be immigrants and we made it to the state tournament. Hilarious. I mean, we were awful, but apparently the pickings were slim that year.) Anyway, many teachers, coaches & administrators were there so I could have an awesome experience and I am looking forward to the days when my own boys are supported at their schools. This is just my time and me doing my part.

2. Long hours are all that I know. 
I started thinking about it & realized I have NEVER had an 8-5 job. My first job was Sonic (AMAZING! wearing my Sonic Ice Cream shirt right now, Shannon!) and we (Nicole & I shared a car and a shift at work:) worked nights and weekends.

My second job was as a work study during my freshman year of college I worked random hours between classes and did very important things like break the copy machine and not know how to make coffee. I think I made $4/hour.

Next up, TGIFridays where I fell in love with my soulmate and ate a lot of breadsticks and burnt French Onion soup as I cleaned the kitchen many hours into the night. I also worked until about 3am on most Fri & Sat nights because that was how rent was paid. I vividly remember the smell of smoke absorbed in my hair and clothes as I left and always stopping to deposit my cash tips at Regions. In hindsight, this was probably not safe to do at 3am, but I guess I survived. I did this while I was interning/completing my Masters degree so once I got a job teaching and all I had to do was teach, it seemed odd and very low key.

 My first few years teaching, I had a 7am class, which meant I got to work by 6. A few times I beat the custodians because they got there at 5:45. I clearly did not have kids yet at that point in my life. Also, was I crazy? My first non 7am year I became the cheer coach and had at least 3 nights a week where I worked late for the next 6 years and now here I am living as a Powell Panther. Basically, I am destined to always overcommit myself and work long hours. I, after all, was raised by my parents and I am not entirely sure I ever saw either of them really sitting during my childhood. My family is just made up of hard workers; that is all there is to it. I know, without a doubt, we are modeling a strong work ethic for our boys, too.

3. Everyone has fun. When I am at "work" during the evening shift, the boys are with a grandparent or Brandon and they are loving their lives. I fully admit that I could NEVER do this job without their amazing support. Daycare closes at 6pm because apparently most jobs end at that time? Is that real life?  Also, I signed up for high school and these events are a huge part of that. I actually really do like the teenage years (maybe just of other people's kids? will I feel this way about my own?), so I like being a part of watching their teams and events.

Also, if God giving me 2 boys OBSESSED with sports is not proof that I am in the right job, I just don't know what is. I can use a Friday night game to bribe Anderson to be good all week because he loves them so much.

And, because I literally never have 2 minutes to talk to anyone during the school day, games are when I can catch up with teachers and chat with parents and let students see that I am supportive of them, too. It's also fun to see people from other schools that I know and catch up with them. I was literally looking forward to Farragut coming to Powell since the schedule came out last year and when Chelsea came to the game, it was so awesome for my past and present to collide and just to hang out with her.

I just like events.

Hear me correctly-I am tired. I would like to occasionally be able to plan things on evening nights, have the anticipation of the weekend starting on Friday afternoon, and not fold laundry at midnight, but I also know that is just not my personality and one day I will sit down.

 Until then, I am just thankful that I have a ridiculous amount of energy (thank you, Keurig & mom's genes), a job that I love where I get to work with people who are fun (I am "talk on the phone on the way home from work" friends with many people I work with and that is the best kind of level), and family that is incredibly supportive. Also, snow days. I am mostly thankful for snow days.

Anderson: Basketball

I am incredibly grateful for the fact that we are firmly planted into Sports (with a capital S). Now that I realize how AMAZING sports are for Anderson, my goal is that we do not go a season without playing something. He is such a physical, intense, competitive, constantly moving, never sleeping, high energy kid and sports are the perfect outlet for all of that. 

I know he is only 5 and this is not the NBA, but the kid is pretty good. His first question was, "Where is the scoreboard?" and he was incredibly disappointed when we told him a league rule for the 4-5 year old teams is no stealing. Again, they are 4 & 5, so it is supposed to be an introduction to the sport. They told us that very kids actually score at the games, so I guess everyone was a little surprised when Anderson scored 8 points in a matter of minutes at his first game. 

 Again, this is just his intensity and FINALLY we have found a purpose for it. A few parents have been impressed with him and I wanted to tell them to come to my house at 10pm when he is jumping off the walls and they will see that intensity is not necessarily all good. 

A video of him at his first game.

This Mr. right here also has fun. Of course he does. We play Hide & Seek, run around everywhere, destroy everything, eat lots of snacks and watch diggers on my phone.

He is sort of terrible.  

But, also so cute. 

A video of his 2nd game (He scored 22 points at this game!)

Uncle Curtis came to watch the show!

Max is not easily entertained when he knows why he is supposed to be there. He thinks he is one of the players. Perhaps sports start even earlier for the 2nd kid?

As always, thankful that Noni is the #1 cheerleader/Max wrangler at all games. 

Team Pic!

I think he will probably stick with basketball for awhile because it is a very fast paced sport and, well, he likes fast paced things. 

Splashing into Anderson's 5th Birthday Party!

Cheesy title. 

After 4 years of locking the dogs in the garage and attempting to feed people at my house, we decided to do a real birthday party (ie: away from my house) and it was amazing because:

-it was so much fun to celebrate this guy in a sports setting 

-my mom works at the Y and got us a discount and watched the babies in the Childwatch

-it was not at my house

-Anderson had fun

-I like making goody bags and planning things

These pics are not in any order because it is late and I am tired.

Teaching the babies about fire at an early age. 

This Mr. Ferg was slightly terrorist as we were setting up, but after hanging out with Noni in the child watch area, he perked up quite a bit. 

True story: Brandon decorated this cake. When Anderson requested a "Power T" cake, I knew that Brandon would be able to make it happen if I supplied all of the materials. We are a pretty good team like that. 

This kid loves anything physical, so a swimming party was a given. 

SO thankful that Mom kept the babies in Childwatch during the swimming part because Max, in no way, would have sat & watched the water action and I did not have any interest in swimming while trying to execute a party. 

I did a terrible job with pics and this is the only one I got with Kennadee in it!

The goody bags. 

The "pool party" chalk? You guessed it, a .20 clearance find at the end of the summer! I will hoard early. 

I love Lily being silly and Reese lining to Noni in the background. I am so thankful that they drove all the way to come to the party. Lily makes a party official. 

When your grandfather is a balloon man, you pretty much win at life. 

I can't get enough of how perfect it is. 

Hogwarts reunited. 

I did not get many of the actual swimming part of the party, but it was pretty fun!

If you give a toddler a cookie.

If you give a toddler a cookie, he will become addicted to sugar and you will find him scaling furniture to get to the bowl of leftover Christmas candy.

When you take away the candy, he will throw all of the laundry across the closet because he is angry and that emotion leads to decisions like this. 

While he is throwing the laundry around, he will find a cheerio in a pocket, which will remind him of the time he threw up cheerios in the lego box and he will want to play legos. 

Because he doesn't know how to play with legos, he will throw them all over the floor. 

Throwing the legos will be such hard work that he will get sweaty. When he gets sweaty, he will take off his clothes and take them to the laundry basket. When he makes it there, he will get distracted and throw all of the clothes all over the floor again. 

While you are cleaning up the clothes, he will decide that he needs a snack & go to the pantry. When he reaches the pantry, he will decide he wants some cereal and about 56 plastic forks. 

He will throw all of this all over the floor. 

Because he can. 

Because there weren't any forks left after his destruction, he will eat the cereal with his hands and they will become sticky. After he wipes off his hands, he throws the wipe in the toilet. And, adds an entire roll of toilet paper and wipes for good measure. 

The waste of the toilet paper will remind him that he has not destroyed anything upstairs in a few minutes and he will dump everything out that he can as you are running up the stairs. 

These things are not connected; there is no logic. 

He will finally sleep. But, only after insisting on sleeping with the bathroom stool in his crib. 

*All of these pics were taken over the last 24 hours. 

Anderson: A whole hand.

A whole hand. 

I CAN believe it. I am not the mom who thinks it has gone by fast; in fact I often wonder how on earth have we crammed SO much in ONLY 5 years?? 

(The answer is, of course, that he is awake for so many hours every day, he is basically a 9 year old.)

Truly, I am in no happier place than when I am a mom to these boys and I do love hanging out with them and celebrating them. 

A hand. A whole hand. 

Because I do not have a Pinterest account or any interest in anything like that, we keep the celebrations simple. I had to work late the night before his birthday and was thinking that I should do something fun for breakfast on his birthday, but I was sort of tired and did not feel like planning a lot, so this is what we came up with based on what was already in our fridge-cut into shape by Brandon, of course. 

He was very specific in that he wanted cupcakes with neon icing and sports (football and basketball) rings on them to bring to school. I love that I cannot bring homemade stuff to his school because I really don't want to anyway and it is a nice way out. 

I also LOVE when I get pics from his school during the day. 

We did his 5th birthday gift scavenger hunt a few days before his actual birthday. I love doing this because I like making terrible rhymes and hiding things, but am also a little concerned with the precedent I have started. How am I going to buy 13 gifts one day?

I will always use the patch drawer as long as we have it. Will we not have a patch drawer one day?? Is that even a possibility??

On a related note, getting one day off from patching each week is the GREATEST gift ever. We didn't patch on his birthday! That was the true gift. 

I put up a few decorations the night before-this is as crazy as we get around here. God loves me and knows I needed boys. 

Dinner was hotly debated, as he could not decide between Taco Bell & Salsarita's. You might remember our venture out to Sam's Club last year for pizza, so I think the final decision of Salsarita's was definitely a rung up in the restaurant world. (I fully realize the picnic tables at Sam's Club are not actually a restaurant, but we round up around here. Food & a place to sit rounds up to a restaurant.)

We never eat out (except at Chickfila) and this meal was a reminder why because Max was HORRIBLE. Screaming like a banshee horrible. We possibly scarred many, many people who might never have children now.

GG sent super fun gifts like real bugs in plastic. Clearly, something that boys would love.

Aunt Manda sent new DS games because we gave him one of those. 

As always, I love that my parents can drop by for cupcakes and gifts. I especially love it when they bring awesome gifts like a new telescope! Anderson planned to use it that night, but it was 7 degrees so we crushed his dreams. 

Also, speaking of my parents, they are Anderson's New Year's Resolution. He said, "For my resolution, I am going to go to Noni's more often." I told him we can probably make that happen.

Last comment on this pic-I told myself I was only going to order 5 pics of him this last year to hang up on the sign, but I just could not resist ordering about 11. 

So many fun and wonderful memories during his 4th year of life-sports, bug catching, swimming, broken arm and Harry Potter. I mean, that is an amazing year. 

Uncle Curtis stopped by with goodies, too! 

This is not from his birthday, but I like looking at the Original 3. And the little belly of the third. 

 Anderson at 5:

-Totally intense, focused and 110% all of the time. 

-Competitive, intense, INTENSE, high energy, INTENSE.

-Never eats. Every meal is a battle. 

-Terrible sleeper. I cannot remember the last time he did not wake up at least once during the middle of the night. And by once, I mean at least 5 times each night. 

-He is frequently up until 10pm at night because the kid does not stop. And, he is also awake by 6am without a doubt. 

-Still says, "Lellow" for yellow and "Aja" for Asia. I love, love this about him. How can he request to bring a picture of Mt. Vesuvius for his M Show & Tell and and still say "lellow"? It is so perfect. 

-Can add/subtract many, many numbers in his head. 

-Asks so many questions, all of the time:

(Where did God come from? Was Jesus the first person ever? How many people did Mt. Vesuvius kill? Is there at least one birthday party somewhere every day? How many clouds are there? How fast are meteors? Have you ever seen a volcano erupt? Why can't fish breathe out of water; there is just as much oxygen in air as water?* Does every bug have a larva stage?*)

*I only survive most of this parenting thing because of siri. And wikipedia. 

This is the artwork that he brings home from school. He makes various SEC fields during his free time. 

-He LOVES SPORTS. I wish there was an option besides just capitalizing that I could use for emphasis here. His favorite is without a doubt, football. ("I love tackling, running, catching and getting dirty." Yep. ) He & Brandon watched every football game during the season and Anderson truly watches, understands and even analyzes the games. Also, there was lots of smack talking. This is where his love for math is originating/being emphasized because there are so many number options to figure out during the games. And, he knows the rules much better than I do already, so I am 3rd in the ranking of the family, just hoping to outrank Max for at least another year or so. 

-I had to text Brandon one day because I did not believe Anderson that the team that scored from a safety got to keep the ball. It doesn't make sense to me and Anderson kept explaining it to me and I did not believe him because he was 4 and I am an adult. Clearly, I lost. 

-He also likes basketball and soccer, both of which we are encouraging. He has decided against playing baseball again because he just didn't love it. 

-Overall, sports are our friend and will be in our lives for as long as we can make that happen. 

The summary sheet from his parent conference in the fall. He only missed one on all of the assessments. I mention this because my blog is his baby book/my scrapbook and if I had known 4 years ago that he would be above the average in anything involving his vision during preschool, I would have kept at the patching with a little less worry. I am beyond proud of this kid.)

-He is very logical and has better spatial awareness skills that I could ever hope to have, so he clearly did not inherit those skills from me. (That intensity thing I mentioned earlier? The high energy? Those are all me. Using logic? Putting together legos? Not me at all.)

-He is such a good big brother to Max about 80% of the time. He loves/worships Max and gets SO excited about him when they have not been together for awhile. But, Max is starting to like his toys a lot and Max got a few things for Christmas that Anderson liked, so it was a little touch and go for a bit. I see a lot of sibling fights in my future.

-To keep it totally real, that intensity thing is not only exhausting, but makes him cranky a lot. Perhaps he does actually need more than 8 total hours of sleep a day?

-Speaking of grumpy, he is the worst in the mornings because he really, truly hates his eyepatch. Hear me correctly, two hours a day is not even really patching and we are in the magical stage. But, he hates it. And, because he doesn't wear it that often, he is much more aware of it. Sometimes we go through a few in those 2 hours and his ability to reason makes it so much worse because he has pretty good points as to why he should not have to wear it. As smart as he is, he just cannot understand the concept of "Developing your Optic Nerve so that you can see later in your life, even if it makes Sponge Bob blurry now."

(A few. In TWO hours. Am I even talking? I mean, what on earth. This is not a problem.)

In short, he is the kid who he has always been-intense, physical, big hearted, questioning and perfect. After 5 years, I have finally realized that everything has a trade off and he is truly the perfect kid for us. I feel so, so lucky to be his mom and am so thankful for the last 5 years with him.

From his birthday book. 

Christmas Break

I will always be grateful that I get so much time off to spend with my boys at holidays. 

I could really just share this picture and you would have insight into our break. 

ANOTHER double ear infection for this guy. So pitiful.*

*Also, nothing compared to a pediatric cataract. Perspective, every time. But, still sad and a little stressful.

Working on the new microscope from Noni with Brandon. I love that my mom bought him a microscope. 

We went to Dollywood the day after Christmas and despite the fact that Anderson had some weird stomach plague it was really fun. 

Bop's new hat (people actually believed that was real hair!) and Bug in his new jacket from GG. I love it because he is easy to find in the neon orange!

First time on a real roller coaster!! We waited for almost an hour and literally as were getting in the ride he got sick, but I made him suck it up and climb in anyway. This is my contribution to teaching him to be a man. 

He loved it, once it was over. I think he was a little scared during the actual ride, but it was really fun! I love roller coasters!

A video from Uncle Zack of Anderson on the roller coaster

After the Woods of Dolly, we hit up Golden Corral, which made Noah super happy. I thought I took a pic of Noah in the line, but cannot find it. I did get this one of Aunt Manda stalking the cotton candy line and winning!

Here we are in a giant chair. Where is Brandon, you ask? At home with a TERRIBLE Ferg with 2 ear infections and a terrible outlook on life. (It was such a rough few days; I really cannot stress this enough. Max just cried.And cried. ) I love my husband for letting me hang out with my family and taking a HUGE one for the team. 

A lot of sports were played over the break. Anderson is in his happy place when he is playing sports, so we encourage this as much as possible. 

In addition to the ear infections, this also sums up our break: 4 of us in a closet playing legos. There are so, so many hours in every day. 

Tess visited us and brought new UT shirts and a homemade candle! I just love those Waibels. 

Warning: out of place-Some videos from 2014:

Anderson learning to count through football

Anderson & I jumping in leaves

Anderson jumping in leaves

A very easy way to entertain Max

Another video of Max being silly

Nicole & I were desperate for a break from our sick kids/selves being trapped in our houses so Mom & I drove to Bristol for the day where we hit up Chickfila, 

& Chuck E Cheese (with free tokens left over from a party.)

She knows that it takes your pic so she just smiled the entire time. It was hilarious. 

Anderson loved the basketball game. 

These 2. 

We also went bowling at their Bass Pro Shop! It has a bowling alley/pizza place! You know that we love a theme and this place really had great attention to detail with the fish/bowling theme. 

The best pic I got of Reese in her cute dress from Aunt Manda. 

I love the moments of the 3 of them. 

We lived it up on New Year's Eve until about 9 pm. 

Mom even stopped by to send out 2014. 

My BOYS need to be outside at least 23 hours a day and winter tries to stop us, but we ALWAYS win and go outside in freezing temps/rain/snow/etc. Everyone is happier this way. 

Watching construction. Such focus/adoration. 

Uncle Curtis also enjoyed the view of the bulldozer. 

New chair from GG! The best part? washable cover!!

It is safe to say that Anderson's favorite thing in the entire world is football. He will create goalposts out of anything. 

It was a fun time, but I do not hate a routine, so returning to ours was an ok thing for me, too!