Where did My Week Go?

Aack! Another week gone, and my "to do" list hardly got touched.



Monday Travis had a very hard time finding his brain, after nearly two weeks of Spring Break.




Tuesday he found his brain and we got all our work done in record time and then went to a cookie making get together with some of our homeschooling friends. I had a good time chatting and drinking coffee, and learned that I have no interest in making Moravian sugar cookies on my own because they are more time consuming than any sugar cookie has a right to be. Katie had fun playing with her friends and helping watch the babies. Travis learned that fighting (hitting, kicking, wrestling) is not much fun. This was actually a very good thing, because Ed and I have been Telling him that fighting with his buddies is dumb since it is likely to get out of hand, and he has been insisting that we just don't know what "kids these days" like. This Tuesday, things Did get a little out of hand, and Travis found that he did not enjoy the bruises and scratches that he received from boys who fight tougher than he does.





Wednesday Travis was sick. He didn't feel up to karate in Tuesday night, and I figured it was because he had played so hard in the afternoon. Turns out it was the beginning stage of some sort of bug.





Thursday was an okay school day, but the evening turned out to be a long one. Ed and I have been taking a class on Thursday nights to learn about being foster parents, and the kids have been staying with one of our homeschooling friends during the classes. There is a fencing class on Thursdays nights that Travis and the two boys in the family have been taking, and Katie plays with their daughter. This Thursday the class was particularly depressing (we are beginning to see Why they need foster homes so badly -- they discourage all the prospective parents with hour after hour of relentlessly depressing information!), and we picked the kids up at 9:45. Then Ed decided to take a Short Cut home. We didn't end up in Virginia, but it was a very near thing, and Ed was pretty shocked to learn Where we were when he finally asked for directions. We finally got home and went straight up to bed. We noticed our neighbor tinkering in his garage as we opened the windows and turned out the lights, and at 11:10, he started Mowing His Lawn. It was so very odd that we could only laugh.




Friday we met with our hs group at a park to discuss the first half of Caddie Woodlawn. We are enjoying the book very much, and the leader made a point of telling me afterwards that Travis did not make One Single Comment that was not related to the book! No digressions about how much he likes various foods mentioned in the book, no speculations on how things might have gone if aliens had showed up and blasted various characters to bits! Just relevant, thoughtful answers. Sometimes I think there might be hope for that boy after all! The weather was warm and gorgeous, and after the discussion we played and picnicked. Katie took off her shoes and waded in the creek, and we ate watermelon. It was lovely. Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up whatever Travis had on Wednesday, and by the time we got home I wasn't feeling so great. The kids were very kindly willing to take the rest of the afternoon off, and I spent the afternoon reading The Scarlet Pimpernel (for my book group, which meets on Tuesday). It isn't great literature by a very long shot, but it was a fun, quick read, and that was just what I needed! (I recommend the movie, which we watched last weekend, if you are in the mood for old movie silliness and some wonderfully melodramatic lines. We are still saying, "Well, sink me!" which is the main character's favorite remark!)





Travis decided to cut his bangs tonight. We suspected things hadn't gone as he intended when we heard shrieks of despair. Ed very kindly stepped in and salvaged things, which (happily) included trimming Travis's hair all around to go with his newly shortened bangs.




And here is our new Deck! Katie and I read Little House on the Prairie here on Wednesday and drew pictures. I love our deck! Now I want to plant something along the back of the house (the part where the deck isn't) -- I was thinking boxwoods?