Goodbye to Football Season

Yesterday we said goodbye to the pee wee football season. I should be relieved since it consumes so much of my life between August and October. Having one less (huge) thing to do is always a gift. The boys play football six days a week and we travel to the far reaches of the earth for games on Saturdays. I've actually been sad, though. Tristan's team didn't get a win the entire season. They worked their tails off and still lost every single game. I also know this will be the end of a lot of great friendships. There's always hope that he'll end up playing with some of the same kids again next year but it doesn't happen very often.

It was a hard season but Tristan learned a lot and got better, he played a fair amount of each game, and his coaches were positive and treated the boys well (which hasn't always been the case). I came across this quote by Teddy Roosevelt which sums it all up pretty well:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

The video is of his team's "Haka" war dance. Tristan's head coach is part-Hawaiian and his son is the one leading the chant. Tristan is on the far side of the circle, in a white tee-shirt



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Multitasking Doesn't Pay

Um, look what I found baked into my brownies tonight (it's a spatula).

I've officially lost my mind.

What they say about multitasking is true. It doesn't pay to bake three pans of brownies, steam broccoli, bake chicken, and gossip on the phone... all at the same time. Tonight the brownies were the unfortunate victim of my multitasking. Tomorrow, who knows.

They still tasted good, though.

For Grandpa & Grandma

Please call Gavin and tell him which photo you like best. The title of his project is "Together we can change the world".

Pretty cool, huh?

My Brown Eyed Girl

Jolie was in the mood to play along with me tonight. I took her and Mia out to take some photos but the light was perfect and Mia was less cooperative, so it turned into mostly Jolie. There's a big road construction project down the road and one day when I was out walking, I noticed this metal box sitting on the side of the road. Leave it to me to turn it into a location for a photo shoot.

Help me out, which ones are your favorites?

**I have to mention that Jolie put this outfit together herself. She's developing quite a flair for fashion. Most of the time she does well but occasionally I have to remind her that less is sometimes more, if you know what I mean**

Readin' and 'Ritin' and 'Rithmetic

We've been back in school for nearly two weeks. Everyone seems to be adjusting well.

Tristan is in sixth grade with an infamous teacher whom everyone (students and parents alike) both fear and admire. She's super tough but I hear students go back to her years later to thank her for all that she taught them. She laid it all out on the first day- she told the kids that she's been teaching for 25 years and knows all the tricks that sixth graders try to pull. Tristan's retold these stories several times over the past two weeks. I can't tell if he's trying to figure out a way around her or if he simply admires the ones who went before and the tricks they've tried to pull. He's playing football right now so his life consists of getting up, doing homework, going to school, coming home, having a snack while he does a bit of homework, getting ready for football, two hours of football practice, coming home, eating dinner, doing more homework and going to bed. That's five days a week except for the day that he fits scouts in between football practice and dinner.

Jolie is in fourth grade. Her school career seems to be about breaking in new teachers. She's had a new (to the school) teacher for every grade now except for one (second grade). Jolie's first assessment of her fourth grade teacher was that she was mean. That was the word on the street last week. This week it's loosened up to her being "strict". Yes, there's a difference. I'm still trying to figure this teacher out myself and trying not to rush to judgement.

Gavin is loving first grade! Eating lunch at school is an amazing experience. There are three (yes, three!) recesses! You get more time in P.E. than kindergarteners. I'd been making lunch for all the kids just as I have been for years and one night Gavin started crying, saying that he felt left out. He was the only one of his friends who hadn't experienced school lunch. Truthfully, I was surprised that anyone would want to eat that crap. But just like all new first graders, you have to taste the crap to figure out what it is.

I keep waiting for the first grade meltdown but it hasn't happened yet. Both of the other kids have come home at some point during the beginning of first grade, when they're not used to being at school all day and they become overwhelmed and have a crying, screaming, fit-throwing meltdown. It's usually provoked by some innocent action on my part, like asking them to pick up their shoes. So far Gavin as been o.k. I'm watching and waiting, though.

I'm super excited about Gavin's French immersion program. Last year was fun but I can tell he's starting to pick things up and that being in a French classroom for more time is helping him progress. Last year he would count in French or ask me which day of the week it was (mommy, is it mercredi or jeudi aujourd-hui?). Last week, after his second day in Mme Dean's class, we were eating dinner and he said, "Mom, quel temps fait-il?" Just completely out of the blue he was attempting to have a conversation with me. After we had a little exchange back and forth, the other kids asked us to translate. Gavin got a huge rush from the fact that they wanted to know what we were saying. We decided that we'd have a French conversation every night at dinner. In fact, the next afternoon Gavin caught me away from the other kids and asked what we should talk about that night. I've also started doing my $450 Pimsleur lessons so that I can get myself up to speed. It's amazing how things start to come back from the rusty crevices of your brain if you practice them. I'm hoping to help in Gavin's French classroom and it would be pretty embarassing for a bunch of first graders to be able to say more than me. Plus I need to keep up on what they're learning so that we can continue to have our secret conversations at dinner.

In Case Ya Hadn't Heard

We had an unfortunate surprise waiting for us the morning of August 6th (yes, Gavin's birthday).

I'd taken Tristan, Jolie and Gavin to see Music Man at a local theater company the night before. I went to bed around 12:30. Everything was fine at 12:30, I'm certain of that. Dan got up at 4:30 to go to work, he woke me to ask if the toilet had overflowed in the hall bathroom because the floor was wet. I said no. He gave me the rundown of what I needed to do when I got up- wetvac, carpet, yada yada yada. He came back in a few minutes later and said (I remember this verbatim because it's the type of conversation one doesn't forget), "Michelle, I need you to come with me and I need you to remain calm." I followed him down the stairs and when I walked into the kitchen and saw that our ENTIRE KITCHEN CEILING HAD COLLAPSED AND WATER WAS DRIPPING OUT IT... I believe I gasped (but I remained calm).

I won't bore you with the details of what we've endured these last several days, lets just say that it's all thrown a wrench in the last 2 weeks of our summer. The low point was last Tuesday morning when I was sitting on my front porch with Gavin who was running a 104 degree fever, lethargic and sick as can be, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I couldn't go in the house, our water remediation company had gone to extreme measures to finish drying out the walls of our kitchen (gotta love that oak wainscot). There was essentially a huge barometric chamber in our house, plastic visquene from floor to ceiling between the family room and kitchen; the front entry and kitchen; and between the dining room and kitchen. You could enter the barometric chamber from the back door but then you'd have to endure the 180 watt heater and the LOUD, SCREAMING noise of the fans and de-humidity machines. I can't over-emphasize the noise. After spending a night in this house I came to understand one of the many ways a human being can be driven insane- through loud, unrelenting NOISE. That was the day I checked us into a hotel. Another low point was when Gavin started vomitting all over the hotel room, but I'll spare you the details of that.

They've started putting us back together but we still have no kitchen table (most of the ceiling fell on the table and the large section of our countertop), the hall bathroom is gutted, and there's a layer of Beirut covering every surface of our house. Furniture, china, lamps, the contents of our bathroom, etc. are moved all over the place because the remediation company had to cut huge holes in the walls in order to circulate air into them as well as lift up the carpet and cut out the pad, and my black car is parked in the driveway all day and night because our garage is currently inhabited by our dinette set and bathroom vanity.

The good news is that it could have been worse. Nobody was hurt. My Viking cooktop and oven (that cost more than some of Dan's vehicles, in case you hadn't heard) were unharmed. Our washer and dryer are fine so I still have the honor and privilege of doing laundry. Our cabinets were mostly unaffected. The area of the basement that was affected is unfinished. Sometimes during dinner we explore all the ways that it could have been worse. We decided a fire would have been much worse. One night we were all glad that Gavin wasn't under the ceiling when it collapsed.

In truth, I am the only one that needs to go through these positive-thinking exercises. Dan goes into calm mode when this sort of thing happens. Someone spills their milk at the dinner table and he goes into an anxiety attack. He wakes up to thousands of dollars of damage to his home and before long he's on the phone cracking jokes about it to his dad. The kids will remember this as the most exciting thing that happened this summer (maybe in thier LIVES!) We had a hole in the floor of our second story bathroom and we got to wiggle our FINGERS through it! We made huge Zoob ropes and passed them through the hole! When our mom asked us to get something from upstairs we THREW IT THROUGH THE HOLE! We got to stay in a HOTEL (yes, a HOTEL!) Our friends told us we were SO LUCKY! The hotel had a POOL! We ate dinner at KFC! There was a breakfast room! The breakfast room had HOT CHOCOLATE!

What more could a family have asked for this summer? Come to think of it, what's my problem because it's all so darned exciting? I seem to be the only one having melt-downs and stressing out around here.

Oh, and did I mention that my SLR- that would normally have taken lots of fantastic photos for this blog post- happened to be sitting on our kitchen table, along with our video camera, when all of this devastation took place? I did take some photos with Jolie's camera but we've never uploaded her photos to the computer. I'll work on that tomorrow because I know you're just dying to see the devastation.

Gavin's Six!

Where is the time going? Seriously? How is this kid possibly six years old?

We celebrated Gavin's birthday with his friends on the 5th. Gavin wasn't sure about celebrating on a day other than the real thing. There was a Primary party scheduled for his birthday so we talked him into it. This ended up being a huge blessing (see above post).

This time around, Gavin wanted to go somewhere for his party. I have to admit that I was relieved. We've done some elaborate parties the last two years. When I saw August on the calendar I had flashbacks to paper mache dinosaur eggs and images of myself in a flashy superhero outfit. Scarry. It was nice to load the boys up and take them to a place where they could exhaust themselves on their own. Two of Gavin's guests called at the last minute to say they weren't coming so Tristan and Jolie were each able to invite a friend. It was a good time.

Who Ever Said Summer Days Were Lazy?

I bought this Slip n Slide weeks ago and hid it in my closet. Somehow I knew the inevitable summer day would come... you know the one. The one in which there is nothing left to do and the entertainment committee is sick and tired of entertaining and needs some down time. Well, Saturday was the day. Tristan and Jolie were off on more exciting adventures and the little ones were left to sulk about being a bit to young.

I pulled this baby out et voila... hours and hours of self-contained fun (well, not hours and hours but any little bit helps).

I tried and tried to get decent photo of Mia at the bottom of the slide but she wouldn't stay there for long or hardly look anywhere in my direction. She knew her daredevil brother was seconds behind her and somehow sensed the danger.

Soccer

I thought I'd post some photos of our soccer season. Gavin played with the Green Swamp Monsters and had a fabulous time. It was his first taste of organized soccer. He wasn't much for offense but he has a fierce defensive strategy. Gavin loves taking the ball away from other players and if that doesn't work, he makes a b-line for the goal and stands in front of it, ready to deflect anything that could possibly come close. I often watched this, realizing the benefits of being a middle child and having bullying older siblings. He's definitely learned to defend himself and dish it back.

As a third grader, Jolie moved from a small field with a few rules to a HUGE field with many technicalities that were fiercely enforced (off sides, etc). She couldn't even wear jewelry (the horror!) It was a rough season for the Thin Mints. They didn't win a single game. In fact, it was a good game if they scored at all. Jolie was discouraged, and, this spring on the way home from one of her games she asked me if she could not play next year. My heart sank.

This summer I signed Jolie up (Gavin, too) for an indoor soccer camp. Our goal was to build her confidence and help her remember the fun of the game. She loved it. We're planning for her to play with her team this fall and I'm told that it will be easier since her team will no longer be the youngest in the league and they'll be used to the larger field. Here's to hoping.

I think I'm slated to coach Gavin's team this fall. They're (obviously) desperate for coaches. One of our friends coached both of the kids last season and I could tell it was waring on him. My contribution last year was taking the team photos. I hope I can be as handy with a whistle as I am with a camera.