We have a pretty busy schedule around here at the best of times - and particularly this time of year (I blame the netball, mostly) but it just peaked with a fairly crazy weekend that I'm basically just thankful to have negotiated and survived.

Cait was in the high school musical, and, in the lead up to the performances at the end of last week, CrazyMum's Transportation Service (& Centre for Logistical Planning) was put to the test, doing extra pick ups and drop offs as with rehearsals in between school and rep netball training commitments (which had to take priority.) Add in the other two kids and their stuff, and throw in also the car pooling factor- you couldn't do it all without sharing the load, but that requires organisational and communication skills as various parents try to figure out where they can or will be, whose turn it is, and what trips they can and can't do for which activity - and, well, you just about need a high powered computer to work it all out.

(Or my precious whiteboard on the fridge... where I triumphantly wipe off each particular event or car shuttle duty as it is 'remembered' and negotiated...)

My parents decided to come up from Sydney to see their granddaughter, seeing as she was turning 15 on Monday, and so timed it to see her dancing in the musical. The schedule was so manic there was no chance to even go out for a birthday dinner! I'm not quite sure what they made of it all, but, hey, that's what it all is around here, and they just had to go with the flow - and I had to incorporate them into the flow! (Which I think I managed ok...)

They arrived Friday night, made do with watching all three girls play netball on Saturday, then went to the musical on the Saturday night. They only stayed for two nights, and then had to let themselves out on Sunday morning, because we left at 6.20am to drive Cait to Taree to a rep netball carnival - 3 hours away!

(Are you still with me? But wait, there's more! Alison left for the same carnival the afternoon before, with her team - just one hour after finishing her netball game, and being raced home to have a quick shower. But being the wonderful parents we are, we elected to drive Cait (instead of her having to be up at 4am, after three nights of musical performances, to travel with her team) and get her there in time for the second game of the day. (They have to rotate off anyway... so we figured she could take first turn off. Nothing like organising the coach, huh.)

So have you done the maths? Six hours driving in one day for us to give her an extra hour and three-quarter's sleep?!!! Some might call that SPOILT. (Some might call it her birthday present!) Fortunately she seemed to appreciate it. (We also reminded her that she particularly owed her youngest sister who was heattbreakingly woken from a very peaceful slumber at 5.30 so as to be dragged along with the rest of the family...)

On Saturday Marc and I also did our early morning bike ride (70km) because we are nothing if not crazy- (so I'm doing this whole weekend madness on barely 6 hours sleep on Friday night?! OK, call me stupid, as well as crazy....) - and he went canoeing in between a netball-in-town drop off and pick up for Cait and teammate, because he is truly, truly crazy, and in training for this soon to be happening adventure racing weekend.

On Sunday night, on our way back from the netball carnival, we stopped off for dinner at a tavern bistro not far from home (and told Cait this was her birthday dinner out!). I was just a little miffed that at 7.45pm, when the girls ordered icecreams, I couldn't have a cappuccino because they had already shut the machine down!

On Monday morning, Marc looked a bit taken aback at the size of the washing pile that had accumulated! Oh my goodness, I hadn't washed in two days! What had I been doing?!! (And where on earth would it have come from - between five of us and all the stuff we'd been doing..?)

Now he is away Monday to Friday for work, missing Cait's actual birthday evening yesterday, and OUR wedding anniversary today. (19 years, thank you very much! -but it's ok, as you know, we don't go overboard on the celebratory stuff, and he's been further away (like overseas, and for longer) over these dates before, so I am not slitting my wrists over it... just milking it a bit!!)

And so our girl is FIFTEEN! Which is worth a blog post of its own, but one I shall tackle later in the week, because, despite this being the week after The Week Before, my whiteboard is beginning to fill up again with a whole new MUST DO list (that includes sewing stuff) because things are hotting up again shortly for another BIG week either side of, and over, the long weekend in June.

(And there is a mess in the kitchen left over from trying to make Ms 15's birthday just a little bit special. I suppose I should deal with it sometime today.)

I can't help thinking that if I was trying to work on top of all this, I think my head just may have exploded by now. How do all these other working mums do it?

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