Weekend Wrap-Up: President’s Day Weekend

I’m a little late in posting my weekend wrap-up, as it was President’s Day Weekend, which meant lots of activities and just half the school week. I am SPENT after that weekend! Now that he’s 10 and a bit more independent (and cool, of course), my son decided he wanted to move into the larger bedroom that used to be my office. It has a bigger closet, more space for his gaming desk and chair, and, I have to assume, he likes the fact that it’s that much further away from his parents’ bedroom than his old room. 😉

I thought I’d feel bittersweet about the whole thing – moving him out of the room where I rocked him to sleep each night, read countless board books, woke up him up from sweaty summer naps in his crib and watched his endless joy as I entered his room as he was learning to say “Hi Mama!”. It’s been a decade, and moving him to a new “big kid” room felt like saying goodbye to that seriously precious time in our lives, which will now visit me in memories and dreams. However, that child has SO MUCH STUFF that in dealing with the mass of stuffed animals, old clothes and toys galore, I didn’t have much time to feel nostalgic.

I am embarrassed to say I’m not sure I’ve fully cleaned out his closet since his toddler years. I spent all day Monday and Tuesday going through the never-ending piles of who-knows-what crammed into every nook and cranny of his room. Moving a child’s room is WAY more of an undertaking than I ever imagined. My word – the books alone took me hours to sort through. Granted, I’m a huge reader and probably collected about 3000% more books than the average, normal mother would have on-hand but I ended up donating about 50 books to our local library and throwing out another 20 that were too badly damaged to pass on. I held on to quite a few as well… the ones that were near and dear to our hearts that we read countless times: The Napping House, Corduroy, Little Blue Truck, Llama Llama Red Pajama, Giraffe’s Can’t Dance – I could fill this entire page with some of our favorites, but I digress. I think what I’m trying to say is that I was so distracted by the endless gaggle of clothes, books, broken toys, and random pieces of paper that it softened the sentimental blow.

All in all, it was a wildly productive weekend! Friday, I was in charge of taking a chocolate fountain to my son’s last classroom Valentine’s party. Let me tell you something… if you want to be the most popular mom in the room, bring the chocolate fountain! I also hosted our 5th-grade Battle of the Books team meeting. Pro tip: If you have a group of squirrelly boys who have trouble focusing while studying for the battle, take them to a local coffee shop or restaurant. They magically act much less rowdy and seem to have a greater attention span when you ply them with lemonade and chips and salsa in a public setting.

Saturday, Valentine’s Day, we dropped off our Valentine’s to our family that lives in our same town (we are super lucky to have a lot of family close by!), checked piano lessons off the list, ran a few errands, and had a late afternoon at our local ski hill. We went to a local “Flannels and Fireworks” celebration at one of our county parks, which had everything from a beer tent to sledding (on what I think might have been the world’s fastest sledding hill). We capped off the evening with a heart-shaped pizza to wrap up the Valentine’s Day celebrations, and thus began the start of a three-night sleepover with one of my nephews.

I have to apologize… I do not live much of my life publicly on social media; therefore, I feel like I’ve not trained myself to get photos of everything I do. I wish I had taken pictures of delivering Valentine’s, the Flannels & Fireworks festival, and our heart-shaped pizza, but it just isn’t something that comes second nature to me… YET. I promise I will get better about documenting all of it!

Sunday was a balmy 42 degrees so we got out on the ice to do some skating during the heat wave. After skating for two hours, the crazy boys decided they wanted to ski – so back to the ski hill it was!

Monday and Tuesday? I think I covered that. Hours and hours of bagging up trash and donations, and using my less-than-stellar muscles to push and pull heavy furniture from room to room. In between that, we had an EPIC monopoly game that lasted two days and may or may not have included a bit of good-hearted cheating. To calm my nerves, I worked on a new watercolor from the best watercolor guidebook I found in a small boutique when we were up north the other weekend.

It was a chaotic, tiring weekend but full of love and laughs, culminating in a new chapter for my favorite ten-year-old. His excitement at starting out in a new bedroom as he enters his middle, junior, and high school years was more enjoyable than the sad sweetness I expected of saying goodbye to his baby, toddler, and elementary school bedroom. Sigh. One bedroom door closes, and another one opens, and I’m just so grateful to be present and engaged for all of it.

A few links and snippets I’m happy to share with you:

Disclosure: The Betty Edit participates in affiliate programs, including FlexOffers, ShopMy and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through links on this site, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely like, personally use, or that come recommended by trusted friends. Thank you for supporting The Betty Edit.

I’m a former digital marketer turned stay-at-home mom, and affiliate links help support this site and fund things like coffee runs, book stacks, and the content you see here.