A scary place

I used to say that if there's a hell on earth, it's Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon.  It takes me about 30 seconds to become completely overwhelmed in that place with about 25 simultaneous birthday parties for kids who average five or six years old.  It's enough to drive me batty.  I can't stay there for long.

That was until today.  My new nominee for hell on earth is the space under Lindsey's bed, at least until we got it cleaned out today.  I didn't realize until today that Lindsey is a hoarder, just like those crazy seventy-year-old women who keep hundreds of cats in a 500 square foot home.  We started on her room today.  She had things in pretty good shape, and then we looked under the bed.  Ouch.  The density of the junk she's crammed under there in the past seven months was almost high enough to create a black hole right there under her bed.  Literally.  (Snicker.)  The junk under her bed had a gravitational force that was starting to suck in items from other places in her room, including the furniture.  At the risk of life and limb, we started to clean it all out.  Whew!  I think we saved the planet.

Shifting gears, this blog will be mostly lighthearted, but I'm probably going to have to share some of the more poignant moments as we go along.  I'm thinking of two.

The first was Sunday night after we'd told the kids.  The conversation went well, but it was emotionally wrenching for Stace and me.  Lindsey took it harder than Tanner.  Later, Stace was upstairs resting, and I was sitting downstairs.  Lindsey came downstairs and was sad.  She crawled into my lap.  I held her, and we cried and talked for about a half hour.  I didn't want to let her go.  That was probably one of the tougher half hours of my life.  But after it was over, things were better, and she's been fine ever since.

The second one starts out poignant but then ends with a classic Lindsey twist.  It was today in the car as I was taking her to swimming lessons.  School starts again on Monday, and she reluctantly told me that she was worried about telling her teacher about the divorce.  I was glad she said something, because I was able to reassure her that it wasn't her job to tell the teacher.  In fact, I've already sent an email to the kids' teachers so they can watch for any signs of trouble.  Lindsey felt much better after that.  I wasn't sure how she got that notion about telling the teacher in the first place, but I got a hint later, and it's classic Lindsey.  I asked her why she felt like she had to tell her teacher.  She confessed that she hoped that the teacher would feel bad for her and wouldn't give her as much homework.  It's nice to see that Lindsey is still Lindsey and still plays the game as well as ever.  Some things never change.