An incredibly "interesting" long weekend spent in Boston recently, chaperoning my son and his friend to a hockey tournament. Things didn't quite work out as planned, especially when my husband canceled on me.
[Originally written by the author in 2011, "refreshed" slightly in 2018]
I was a forty-something hockey mom and when I wrote this down, I had just returned from an extremely interesting long weekend in Boston. I had taken my younger son up there for a tournament, along with one of his just-turned eighteen team-mates...
Being employed full-time AND with a teenage son who's a reasonably talented hockey player can be a bit of a drag at times. This time of year is one of the worst, as work is busy, the local hockey schedule is busy and there is often a weekend tournament to consider as well - and not all of them are close to home.
This past weekend we had a tournament in Boston (I live near Philly) and we (my husband and I) had offered to take one of the other boys who also played on the same local team as Greg (my son) up to Boston with us, as Grant's father had two other kids at home to look after and in order to be up there in Boston in time for the 7am game on Thursday morning, we would need to drive up on the Wednesday evening.
So after Tuesday practice (you following all this?), I brought Grant home with Greg to spend the night at our house, so it would be easier to just leave whenever I wanted on the Wednesday and head up straight to Boston, where Jim (my husband) would meet us on the Friday evening after he completed his work-week wherever he was that week (he travels a lot). I was taking the Thursday and Friday as vacation days.
It had been a while since we'd had Grant over our house, but I made up the bed in the guest room and he pretty much crashed as soon as he stumbled into it. It had been a long day for all of us, especially for the poor kids who had a double practice that evening.
Wednesday morning, I was up around my usual time and went about my daily routine when I work from home. On those days, I don't even shower until some point in the afternoon, unless I have to go out earlier for some reason. So I spent much of the day sitting in shorts and t-shirt in front of the computers in my home office. The boys woke up mid-morning and I fixed them some food, returning to my desk to try to complete my work for the week before we had to leave.
Around 2pm or so, I decided I may as well take my shower, dress and pack for the weekend. Our shower is in the master bathroom, which is only accessible via the master bedroom. Just as I turned off the water, I swear I heard the bedroom door click. "Weird", I thought to myself. "Maybe it's just the dog?"
I toweled myself dry and noticed one of the dogs on my bed - that must have been it, I decided. Then I went to pick up the shorts, t-shirt, sports bra and panties I'd been wearing, to put them in the laundry hamper (I know, I'm a slob - I really should have put them right in when I took them off, instead of leaving them on the bedroom floor) and stopped dead in puzzlement - my pale yellow panties were NOT on top of the pile, yet I knew I'd taken them off last.
I called the dog over and he sniffed the pile of discarded clothing "Did you take my panties, boy?" Obviously the dog just grinned at me with that goofy "I'll do anything for you, if only I understood you" expression on his face. I checked over the other side of the bed, wondering if perhaps he'd dragged them around the room a bit - no sign of them.
It wouldn't have been the first time I'd caught him with a wad of worn panties in his mouth, but there were only so many places he'd ever take them. Not a sign. Oh well, on with the dressing and packing - they'd show up sooner or later. In my relative naivety, I never imagined one of the kids might have taken them...
By the way, I say "kids" - my Greg is seventeen and Grant just turned eighteen last weekend, so maybe "young men" is a better term.
Our drive up to Boston was uneventful - only one spot of inclement weather and we made it in about five and a half hours. For the first two nights, the three of us would be sharing one room (two beds, of course), then Grant and his father (and two other kids) would have a separate room when Jim arrived to share ours on the Friday evening. Greg and Grant shared one bed while I had the other. The kids crashed almost right away and I watched some TV for a while (hard to go to sleep straight away after a long drive) before I turned it off and turned in, too.
I thought I slept pretty well on Wednesday night, but I did have the strangest dream. At least, I thought it was a dream at the time, but in retrospect it was likely at least partly for real. I imagined someone lifting the covers from behind me (I tend to sleep on whatever side faces the bathroom and in this case it was my right side) and snuggling against me. This was not at all unpleasant and didn't seem to bother me in the least. I felt breath in my hair (I have long, chestnut-auburn hair, down to just past my shoulders), gently stirring the back of my neck. As I said, not an unpleasant dream at all.
A light brushing of my upper arm made me shiver a tiny bit, then I felt the weight of somebody else's forearm on my bicep. Ahhh, Jim wants to snuggle, that's so unlike him these days, but so nice... it's been way too long...
The sensation of fingers very slowly and gently caressing my left boob through the t-shirt I wore to sleep. So tired, but yet my nipple didn't seem to hesitate to stand to attention. Fingers stroking along the top and bottom of my nipple, almost rolling it between them. Not at all an unpleasant sensation, but I was soooo tired "Jim, honey", I murmured in my sleep "I'm sooo tired - can we wait a while?"
The fingers withdrew and I slumbered deeper.