There is a lot happening in the House of Utter Chaos. Meaning: it's Spring Break for a certain girl. Activity always picks up around the house when Jill's home. You know, I was pretty sure when they were little that she and Thomas would never reach adulthood without one killing the other. And then, along came Michael. He is the Great Stabilizer. Seth loves him, Thomas loves him, and I love him. And Jill.......well, he carries her everywhere.
I asked her the other day why it is that they are always carrying each other. Truth be told, he's usually carrying her, but I did see her giving him a piggyback ride in Jim's kitchen. I just figured they are weird, but when I asked Michael why it is that he's always picking her up and lugging her around, he said "well, she told me when we met that it was nice to have a boyfriend, because when a girl has a boyfriend, she never has to walk. He carries her." So, Michael carries her.
The boy is in love.
So spring break started out "sucky", according to the girl, with her getting a rejection letter from one grad school on Friday, then another on Saturday, when she also got lost going downtown to a statewide convention for some science nerd group she belongs to. She woke me up out of a dead sleep, calling me sobbing because she was lost and had no idea how to follow the Mapquest instructions on her computer -- and she'd called Michael and he wasn't answering. Mind you, the boy's not from Indianapolis, so how he'd help her, I don't know, but she was near hysterical. I asked her where she was, and she said "I just left the driveway!"
Kinda had to work hard not to laugh at that one, but Jim and I managed to navigate her downtown and she got there -- late, but at least she got there. Her learning disability includes, in a big, big way, navigational issues. Yes, she had a GPS, but she swore that Richard, the voice of it, yelled at her when she missed a turn , saying "turn NOW, stupid," after which she started relying on Michael's navigational skills. Thank God he's better at it than Jill's father. Oye VAY. That man could NOT navigate to save his soul.
So Saturday started out stress-y, then we went out to Greenfield to see her horse. It was her last visit with him, because she sold him on Sunday. Cried a river, and it was heartbreaking, even if she knew she was doing the right thing. She is planning, after all, to leave the state and go to the beach for grad school. So yes, by Sunday night, spring break sucked. Then she got an ear infection on Monday. Geez Louise!
We decided to perk things up with some mom/girlie time, so I took her out shopping for wedding dresses. This girl went from not being able to describe one detail of what she wanted, to fairly shouting "SPARKLES! I want SPARKLES!" as she wandered through the store wearing a poufy ball gown. And so it is that five layers of sparkly tulle later, she found The Dress. And I got through it all without sobbing.
Miracles to happen.
And then today, she called me at work, screaming into the phone. By now, I have figured out the difference between good screaming and bad screaming. I need a couple of breaths to figure it out -- kind of my own version of "Name That Scream," but I knew that this was the good kind, not bad. And I could literally hear her jumping up and down. I thought at first that she had finally heard back from the last grad school, but no. She had gotten an email from one of the schools, offering her a full ride, PLUS a stipend.
Suddenly, spring break didn't suck anymore.
By the time I got home ten minutes later, she and Michael were researching apartments, talking about wedding dates, and he was, of course, carrying her around again. Those two...............
She's got a REAL sparkle now. And I am glowing, not only because of how amazing she is, but because suddenly, I have somewhere to go on a beachside vacation and have someone cook for me. If Michael will stop carrying her, that is.
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