24 Apr 2026
My mind is stuck in March.
Actually, if I’m honest, I’m still in 2025: If someone mistakingly writes today’s date ending in ‘25, I don’t notice until someone else corrects it.
The end of March and the whole month of April have been pretty eventful, mostly with good things. My dad turned 70 and finally got to visit Hawaii for the first time (unfortunately for me but perhaps fortunately for my parents, I did not tag along.)
The Easter bunny paid us a visit and we had lunch over at my sister-in-law’s house. They live a few blocks away from us, but we almost never see each other save for special occasions or urgent situations. I can only hope that both Joe and his sister find some sort of comfort in being in such close proximity despite not spending much time together.
Sibling relationships are so interesting. I am very close to my brother, but I have no idea how that came to be or what, if anything, my parents did to foster our friendship. When my kids are terrorizing each other, I wonder what their relationship will be like in their adulthood. Will they be good friends or ignore each other completely? I have heard more than my fair share of stories from friends whose siblings are basically strangers. How do they go from being raised together to not knowing each other at all? In hearing these stories and observing my in-laws, I feel extremely fortunate to have a friend in my brother and try hard not to take him for granted.
April also brought on spring break for the kids. Almost every year, someone gets sick around this time, and this year it was my turn to get a cold right at the start of the week-long break. I knew it was only a matter of time until one of the kids got sick, and poor Josie had to be the one to go down with me. Thankfully, it was a mild case for her and she soldiered on for our two-day trip to Sacramento. The kids always love a good hotel stay, even though they have no idea how a real television works when it’s not on-demand programming. We enjoyed the hotel pool, we found our new favorite ice cream parlor and we saw a lot of trains, including the exhibits at the California State Railroad Museum and the visiting Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy,” currently the largest operating steam train.
One of my favorite parts of parenthood so far is appreciating everyday things through the eyes of my children. Eugene’s enthusiasm for trains is going four years strong, and everything I know about trains I learned from him. I never used to give train tracks or the sound of a train horn in the distance a second thought, but now I always hope I see or hear a train passing by so I can tell my son all about it.
I’ve been trying to spend more time outdoors now that the weather is generally nicer. We hiked Rock City on Mt. Diablo with Deborah and I visited the Lafayette Reservoir with my friend Travis. Whenever Eugene has baseball practice or a game, I always try to bike there with him and take the long way back home along the trail. With swim season starting, I hope to bike over to the pool often, especially for home swim meets since parking is so limited.
Maggie, Eugene and Josie are all due for bikes the next size up, which boggles my mind because as an adult, we don’t usually outgrow something as large as a bicycle. It’s an investment purchase that will last for many years. With rapidly growing kids though, a bicycle only lasts for a couple or a few years depending on the size of both the bike and the kid, so I realize we will be in the market for bikes pretty consistently for the next 10 years or so. They make college savings accounts, but I think we need savings for bicycles too.
I’ve tried to make less plans in advance. I enjoy knowing I will have free time, but I’ve found it also allows for more spontaneous plans, like running into a friend and realizing we both just happen to be free tonight in the midst of our kids’ crazy schedules. Some of my best times this past month have come out of casual conversations on the day of, “Why don’t you all just come over tonight to hang out?”, to which I almost always respond, “What can we bring?”
School is wrapping up in just about a month and I’m mentally preparing myself for the summer. I burn out much quicker when the kids are out of school (captain obvious here) but I find it takes a lot of emotional preparation to avoid feeling spent already at 9:00 a.m. on a summer morning. I already began to feel this way during their spring break, but of course I found I missed them once they went back to school. This also may be my last summer as a stay-at-home mom, so I think I better try and enjoy the ride as much as I possibly can.