Day off Fun

My wife is in Maine today with my mom. I have spent the day here home with the tribe. While that may sound weird, it really isn't. My mom has known Kirsty since K and I were in high school. She has always been a "mom figure" to Kirsty and even more so, since K's mom passed away 12 years ago. They are celebrating Kirsty's birthday with a dinner out at the restaurant of her choosing. Kirsty was leaning toward Thai food when she left, I am not sure what eventually she'll decide on. It is a nice time for both of them. My mom's husband is in a care facility but the lack of quality care means that she normally spends most of her time there. It is a sad commentary on our society that those who have chosen to work with the elderly need to be told to put a blanket on a sleeping elderly person, or not to leave them in the bathroom, or not to leave the wheelchair unlocked so it will slide away when they try to get out of bed. But that is the reality of what she deals with. She enjoys seeing me and the kids, but time with Kirsty is really kind of a mental health break for her.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the kids and i have had a blast. We removed most of the valentine decorations and began welcoming those mysterious little folk called leprecauns into our house. I made a big picture of a leprecaun for our dining room, now that the heart poster is down. KC changed out all the gew gaws on our napkin rings to rainbows, and the hearts and snowmen are all put away for another year. (We use cloth napkins and on our napkin rings we have a bit of velcro so that we can change the little wooden thing on the napkin ring seasonally. The kids love it)

KC and I made pictures of shamrocks, some with crayon rubbing, some with tracing, just sort of exploring mediums of art. Rob got to read about his favorite band (The Fray) on line. There were clips from the UK tour that we got to see snippets of.

Lissa is finally getting into art and did some work with markers. I was thrilled; she has not really enjoyed expressing herself with anything other than her voice till now! However the bright colors that markers give seem to intrigue her more than the toddler crayons etc that we have been offering.

We were supposed to go to Unos for lunch but the muffler system on my car seems to be hanging by the proverbial thread. I suspect more rust has drifted earthward, leaving some bolt free of its mooring. At any rate, it appears that I would not want to drive it with children in it so we made cookies and iced tea and had a "tea party " as KC calls it here at home.

And because I had time to just noodle around on the computer a bit I went to Youtube and found that one of our favorite musicians Joe Jencks has some videos up of his performances. I love his music but KC adores the music. If you happen to look at the sites you can see Joe has a broken foot in one of the clips. We are on his email list and found out via that that he had broken his foot. KC made him a get well card covered in music notes and sent it out to Chicago! So needless to say, KC was thrilled with my Youtube discovery as well.