good fun things....

Today was the activity club kick-off party, for church. A.C. is for the kids, run by the older kids/youth, for the younger kids. We rented a gym, full of gymnastic equipment and trampolines. Oh the fun....Miss Char can do a split on the balance beam.

Jon didn't get bored at all:)

It was just Kathryn's thing, she is really into gymnastics.

These two always make me smile....well, unless they are puking or rolling in yucky stuff. Or chewing on Camille's pink plastic ice cream cone, or a Barbie's foot.

It just tickles me somehow that my oldest child, Emily, is closer to my age than she is to my youngest, Camille....Em and I are 19 years apart, she and Camille are 22. Here is Emily with Camille, while we sang Happy Birthday yesterday....

Working at the Dome is a good fun thing. The Syracuse men's basketball team is amazing this year, again. They are 17-0, so far. Over 30,000 fans packed the stadium yesterday, and it was LOUD. I was thankful to be able to watch a few plays:)

Coming home after working at the Dome...oh tiredness. It is a concrete floor, and after the long hike up the hill and up all the steps to get in building, then stand on me feetsies for hours....we can take a few quick breaks, but there is no place to sit....by the time I get home after a Dome, oh dear I am done for. We had a little party for Em last night after the game, I was so thankful I had but beef in the crockpot in the morning. I had also bought two nice fresh loaves of Italian bread, so we had barbecued beef (I had no bread, no cupcake, no ice cream...but dang it I had chocolate. Again. rrrrr.)We also had sliced cucumbers and celery and carrots and broccoli.

Anyway, I enjoy my girls, well of course ALL of my kids, but my older girls are amazing.

So after our A.C. party today, I only had THREE kids with me, and one of them was my niece Danielle. Jonathan went home with his friend Toby, and Emily and Abigail and the other older youth girls from church took some of the younger girls out to eat. Margaret, Kathryn, Evelyn, Suzanne, and Sonja got to go. Anyway, in my van, three little girls. I took them to the grocery store. They got to pick out some candy, and we got some tiny cones for ice cream. We stopped after that for a few pizzas, because they are having a sleepover! They got to watch a movie in my bed with the electric blanket on while we watched, "Downton Abbey", out here. They are now all tucked into the bunkbeds, and fooling around like crazy.

It is cold out, getting colder. Tomorrow the temperature will be slipping down towards ten degrees (-12 C) by evening, then even lower for the rest of the week....highs in the single digits, lows near zero. brr. Tomorrow, some wind and snow too. Winter is back! It is all fresh and white and snowy and cold again.

The kids don't have school tomorrow in observance of Martin Luther King Day. We plan to stay home and play WII dance, have a tea party, and perhaps play outside for a bit. Sam wants to go play airsoft with his friends....

Sam...oh dear Sam. I am deeply sad that he is leaving, and that has nothing to do with worrying about his or wondering how he will function in the Army. I will just plain miss him. He is my friend, he is funny and he is kind...for example, a few weeks ago, after several of us worked at a basketball game, we left in the cold...Mirielle walked slower with me while everyone else moved along ahead of us, it was bitterly cold and no one wanted to be out in that wind....but Sam came all the way back to offer me his arm, because the sidewalk was slippery going down the hill. I was just so amazingly thankful for his thoughtfulness. He can be a stinker sometimes, but he has a great big soft heart. (he was talking to his friend on Saturday, right in front of me, about the time his friend had spilled something all over Sam's new sneakers, and told his friend how I had said, "Well, he should pay for them then!". I about died. Sam, what the heck?) Anyway. Sam thought it was funny. He took Jon to a few stores the other day and bought him two video games and lots of airsoft pellets, plus a nice pair of safety goggles.

He only has four days of school left. Four days. All these years of school melted away like nothing, and I can remember him as a kindergartner. He was always taller than his classmates, plus he was six when he started, as his birthday is in August, and at five, he was just too...well, too...little. Too sweet, and kind, just too good for this world. He was smart, he used to count the tractor-trailers on the Thruway when we drove the 35 minutes to visit my parents...when we got there, he would say, "Gramma, 134 trucks today." But he was in his own little world most of the time. He could lie down on the floor with some trucks and play for hours. He didn't need more to do, or a social life, because he was simply never bored. When he did go to school, he did fine. He has this knack for getting the gist of people, and he makes the funniest jokes. And he seems immune to others' teasing. It just doesn't get to him.

So he is leaving next month, and he is watching all the football he can, playing his video games, enjoying life. He is going to pack up all his books and maybe bring them to Emily's attic. The girls are fighting over his room, wah. I would rather leave it so he can still have a place when he comes home on leave, but around here, an empty room....well, no way.

So the sadness is building up in me about Sam leaving. Because he is leaving as a kid, and when he comes home....he will be a grown-up. He will still have his soft heart, but it will be more hidden in a toughness. He will have seen some of the world, met lots of people, he'll see our house through different eyes. He won't feel like he belongs here so much, he will be too big for our house, like Ben seems to be when he comes home.

I know change has to come, they grow up and change and leave. I wish I could be all calm and cool and detached about it. But that boy is taking a piece of my heart with him.

Do you know what he did to me the other day? We went to the big dreaded mall in the big city, and he kept bugging about getting something to eat in from the foodcourt. Now, I don't like to eat mall food, nor do I like to spend money on food I can make better at home...we hadn't been gone that long, and I already had chicken marinating in the fridge at home. I promised him orange ginger chicken and rice and veggies. He kept asking for fast food. He wanted to stop on the way home, please, Mom. I persisted in saying that we would eat at home. He said, "But what if I die?" Sorry, but that's playing dirty. I said, "Oh no, don't do that to me. I am not going to stop at Subway, no sir. Don't you dare do that to me, Mister." He thought he was funny, and he was only half bugging, to get the food, he said he would be okay eating the "crappy chicken" I always make. Yeah, he's a funny kid:)

Paul is in France again, we dropped him off at the airport yesterday. He texted me pictures of the lovely little town he is staying in, of an old cathedral, of a bakery window full of treats. I am truly happy he enjoys himself there and appreciates his travels. Can I be truly happy AND jealous at the same time? Jealous that I am not enjoying it with him? Jealous that I am not there with him while he is so happy about seeing new places and learning the language and trying new food? That's the clincher, I don't get to experience that joy with him. So much of our life together is the drudge work - the fixing of kids' problems and the house problems and paying bills and appointments, figuring out why the dishwasher isn't getting the dishes clean enough and why the washing machine leaks ....he is only home a few hours each evening, usually, and the weekends are usually filled with going to the Dome, church...so our life together is good, it is nice, but it isn't wonderous and interesting, at least compared to exploring French villages and German towns. It's not that I am being eaten alive by jealousy, nor am I miserable about it. I am still enjoying my days, and my kids, and my lot in life. I stayed up with Mirielle way too late last night, as she is nocturnal now since she works nights...she had the night off last night, so I stayed up with her until I couldn't see straight. I have a good life, no doubt about that. It's just that I really really like Paul. I like him when he's tucking the kids in and fixing the stove and asking me not to spend so much money. I really do. But the Exploring France Paul seems like a Paul I would like to be with:)

Ah well though, life has it's trials.

And it's not as if I am bored. Oh no, not me.

I am just trying to get out of this winter rut. Emily's starting to train to be in a triathalon in the summer. I am inspired to pretend I am going to be in one too, and get moving more! I stayed away from chocolate today, and didn't have any of the pizza I bought tonight. I made some chili, and ate it without any rice or tortilla chips. I did have some popcorn tonight, but not too much.

And at the A.C. party today, just an orange. Nary a crumb of the cinnamon streusal cake I made for it, nor the stacks of cookies that were there.

This post is far too long and boring, I am tired and rambling.