5 Things Friday

It’s Friday! But we have a rainy weekend ahead of us which is just the worst because the best weekends are those that can be spent outside. But hopefully we get some breaks from the rain so we can be outside. Here are 5 things going on in my life.

1. I challenge you to find a picture that better represents spring in Minnesota/the Midwest. This is Taco at his soccer class at daycare on Wednesday. He’s wearing a winter hat - but backwards - and has his hands pulled up into his sleeves because it was cold that morning (even if we had sent mittens, he likely would have refused to wear them, because toddlers, but also should we need to send mittens on April 24th???). And he has the most downtrodden look on his face. Welcome to spring in Minnesota, buddy. It’s the worst. 

 

2. Speaking of activities, I love that we can send him to a soccer class during his school day. I think it’s something like $75 for 2 months of weekly classes. But having it occur during his school day is THE BEST. He also has a tennis class once/week and music every other week which is included in his tuition. I use ‘tennis’ lightly because we haven’t seen any tennis balls in the pics the daycare posts nor do we see rackets but is there anything more terrifying than a toddler with poor impulse control with a racket in his hands? Paul still has swimming which goes until early June, on Saturday he starts a 4-week golf class and in mid-May he starts twice-weekly T-Ball. Phil will take him to the majority of the golf and T-Ball activities because, well, I am not the athletic parent. But I take him to all of his swimming lessons and always have and I will be the primary parent for all things music once he starts piano lessons/band. We are taking the ‘total control’ approach to activities as Phil signed him up for golf and T-Ball, and I signed Paul up for swimming lessons. Obviously we will help the other parent out as needed but it works well (for us) for one parent to take full ownership of an activity. 

3. I traveled this week but it was an odd Thursday-Friday trip. Most of my trips are Tues-Thur or Mon-Wed. So an off rhythm trip really threw me off. All my meetings were on Thursday but I had one zoom that I had to do before 2 in-person meetings followed by a client dinner event. Luckily there were several Starbucks close to my first in-person meeting but you never know how quiet a Starbucks might be… so in the back of my mind I was stressing about how bad the background noise might be…  I wanted my new hire to do this meeting but it’s a large opportunity so the sales team wanted me to do it. So they traded a more experienced person in a potentially loud environment for a less experienced person in a quiet environment…. It was ultimately fine but they were playing Taylor Swift and I am sure there was so much background noise but so it goes. 

4. Here’s one thing that has gotten some very unexpected laughs this week: telling people that I frequently get loud environment notifications on my Apple Watch because of my loud toddler. I did not expect the kind of laughs I got when I mentioned this at the client dinner event last night. I guess I have come to think this is normal but wow did that story land. I am not the funny person in my marriage by any stretch of the imagination so getting that kind of reaction is extra satisfying. 

5. All that said I am so relieved today is Friday because this week at work absolutely wore me out between busy days and off-cycle travel days. I am hoping for a good nap from Taco tomorrow because I could really use 1-2 hours to just lay in bed and read or nap. My body is tired and this stupid flare in my hand that I have been dealing with for weeks on end will not quit which is probably akin to the engine light coming on in your car, meaning my body is saying - slow the F down/something isn’t right. I have my 1-night Napa trip next week and then blessedly I get a week off from travel and a shouldless day that week. I am living for that day right now but really I need a shouldless week which is not going to happen. 

How was your week?