Tears Of Sadness & Joy

So this is the big week! The week I am leaving my children for 4 days. The week I am running 13.1 miles at my first half marathon. I am excited and nervous... I feel like I have a million things to do.

I have already started crying over not being able to see them or put them to bed at night, not being able to hug and kiss them goodnight. Last night I was crying when I put Alyssa to bed. I'm gonna miss laying next to her warm little body while she acts silly and rolls around till she finally drifts off. And I'll miss talking to Will in the top bunk, telling him I love him, and him responding I love you more. It won't be the same without hanging with Jessica and Emily, playing games on their itouches and reading in bed with Emily. And what about our friday night perpetual commotion games???

I think I'll probably be a train wreck thursday night, and hopefully ok by friday.

But I know they will be fine. I know that Jon will take care of them, and that they'll have fun at my parent's house over the weekend. Will is looking forward to a birthday party he has on sunday, and the girls have their basketball games.... It's just that I do everything with them and I'm not used to not being with them.

Breathe, Rayli breathe.......

Speaking of basketball..... Emily had a crazy game yesterday! I wish you could have seen her. They were playing a really hard team and only had 4 players. So they had to play the whole time! They were down 7-0 and then down 20-8. It was horrible at first. I felt like the team was depending on Emily to win it (she scored 17 out of 22 points, last week).

She kept getting the ball. The coach wanted her to bring it downcourt every single time. At halftime it was 21-16. We were catching up. We kept getting closer, sometimes only 2 or 3 points away, but still trailing.

Emily was a rockstar! She was scoring most of the points, and running downcourt as fast as she could. Her teammates made a couple shots, one girl was great at intercepting the other team's passes, but that team was tough. Finally it was 29-28 with only one minute to go.... I was preparing to comfort Emily. To tell her that it's ok sometimes to lose. That it was a hard team, and she played amazingly....

Then Emily got the ball and the opposing team was after her. Seriously, I could barely see her through the swarm of the other girls attacking her, trying their hardest not to let her shoot. Suddenly I see the ball go up into the air and right through the hoop, winning the game for our team! I turned to Jon, and asked if that was Emily. I could not believe she made that shot!!!! It was crazy! Our team won 30-29... it was a great game!

Emily is a rockstar!!!! She is amazing. She just wants to win at all costs, and I totally admire her determination and will. She has this drive. She needs to do everything as best as she can.

I know she gets her competitive nature from me, but I hope that natural drive to succeed is from me too, and I hope to someday discover it.