Well the windshield wipers, slappin' out a tempo,

keeping perfect rhythm to the song on the radio-o-woh. Gotta keep rohhhhhhhhh-lin'.

Yep. Driving my life away. Not that it isn't the mantra of every parent in the world, but you tuned in to my blog, not theirs.

And to make the theme song of the day even more appropriate, it is raining. It's supposed to rain all week. About midway through the soccer season I pray for weather news like this. The prayer goes something like, "Father it's me Caren. I could ask for rain because we need it but You already know my heart so I may'z well come clean with You. I just don't want to spend every single evening and all weekend at the soccer field this week. There it is. Amen"

I don't think of it as a complaint or a whine, more like a request for a short soccer sabbatical. And to strengthen my argument, the trips to soccer will be replaced by trips to the mall for new jeans for my kids who each grew a foot and a half just last week, trips to get haircuts for my kids whose hair grew two inches just last week, and trips to the library to let my kids return the books they've had checked out for two months but didn't read. It's sounding less like a sabbatical, right?

It takes both of us - hunky hubby and myself - to keep it between the ditches. I say on at least a weekly basis I don't understand how single parents do it. I do think it's most helpful when you have grandparents and other family close-by that graciously offer to take your kids for you every once and awhile so you can, oh I don't know, have a few minutes to breathe. Go to the doctor maybe. Work. Have a no-kids evening. We did that all the time before we had kids. Seemed like there wasn't a weekend we didn't have nieces and nephews for at least one of the weekend days and usually overnight. We're not so lucky though to have the same advantage. I guess it's what we get for waiting so long to have kids. Hopefully we'll have plenty of time to spend with each other when the kids are gone, but I surely do miss it now.

At any rate, I applaud single parents. They make me feel guilty and lame for wanting it to rain all week just so I can skip soccer. You understand it doesn't make me stop wishing it. I just feel guilty and lame. But I'm ok with that.