I have a new job. It's not keeping me busy. I'm having a hard time getting up to speed because there's so little time to spend at the computer with the kids home. Where I overbooked the entire family last year, such that we were either out of town or the kids were in camp, I totally underbooked this summer. Our planned trips are minimal, the days in camp are much the same. It's been a long summer already.
So, I was going to post about how my fabulous sister visited. Not the least of her fabulousness was that she spent an evening with all three kids, letting Daddy and me go to the City to see Wicked.
I think I would have enjoyed it quite a bit had it not been for the rather large, multiply pierced woman in the seat next to me who insisted on texting throughout the performance, talking to her friends in the seats next to her and singing loudly during the more famous songs. Oh, and she farted. A lot.But before that, I had a nice time hanging out with Aunt Karen and SPENCER! She's seven months pregnant right now, so we kept it mellow. We spent one late morning/early afternoon at a local park with a water feature. Naturally, my kids loved it.
SPENCER! wasn't altogether sure about the whole thing. Sure. It was fun while it lasted, but then you're just cold and wet, huh?
We took a picnic break, dressing the kids with strict instructions that there would be no more water play today. We had a great little shelter. Whoever invented the Sportbrella should be given a medal.
Easy to set up, easy to take down. Plenty of shade. Hard to fit back in that handy carrying case, but I'll forgive them for that. And, I'll have to forgive my kids for this.
Because those of you who have met my kids, perhaps even in this very park, know that I should know better than to get them dressed near water...ever.Aunt Karen and SPENCER! left on Wednesday, which was probably good for them since we had our final weekend of tournament baseball coming up. But prior to that, I had a couple of very bored children. I don't know what we did on Thursday, but it was probably miserable enough that I had to come up with a "real" activity for Friday. That turned out to be berry picking.
We spent a couple of hours and more than a couple of tens of dollars picking raspberries, blackberries and loganberries. It was fun and kept everyone busy for a while. Smunch couldn't contain his enthusiasm for the notion of berry pie. I asked who was going to make said pie and he offered to help. He and Mam had already helped themselves to plenty of berries, after all.
It was a really fun morning. And we came home with about 5 pounds of berries...enough to make two crumbles when I was too lazy to make an actual pie.Then tournament weekend came fast and furious. Another weekend of driving 45 minutes each way for three days just so Smunch's team could get beaten at his favorite game. Smunch got to play a little more this time around and made some excellent plays.
It was still fun to watch and the Red Fireballs managed to beat the team they played Sunday morning in their final game of the season.
It wasn't good enough to move on, but it was July 4th and there were barbeques to attend and fireworks to see.
The next week went by in a blur of new swim lessons and attempted end-of-season party planning...where the Fireballs coach and I clearly didn't see eye-to-eye. He asked for a barbeque at a particular park and that's exactly what I organized, but every time I set a date, he sent out another e-mail changing it. Then the day before the party, he announced that his wife would be bringing pizza. I ended up thwarting him by e-mailing his wife directly, telling her I'd purchased enough hot dogs for an army. She offered to not bring pizza. In the end, the party was perfect. Although very few families RSVP'd, the turnout was really good for a party in the middle of the summer. And it was so nice to see the boys playing together and goofing off for a change.
Of course, that doesn't mean they weren't playing baseball!
And at the end of it all, I got to present the coaches with the gifts I'd somehow been charged with organizing and each of the boys went home with a medal.
As frustrating as the all-star season felt, it was a really fun evening and it was nice to have my kid back...just being a kid.
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