Another "quiet" Weekend!

This weekend all ready looked a bit hectic but I think it will be a trifle more full than I had originally expected.  Tomorrow:  shopping, banking dance class and picking up our books on reserve at the library will take up our morning.  A quick lunch and then we skip next door to spend about 45 minutes at the little neighbor friends birthday party.  From there, we then go to our church to a memorial service for a member who has passed.  Sandy's daughter Susan is a good friend of Rob's and active in the youth group.  I served on the religious education committee with Sandy's wife Mary Monica.  I can't believe Sandy is gone.  I think it is important to have us all there as a family both to support our friends but also to help the kids understand the ways in which we honor lives and say goodbye for now.

After the service there is a reception.  I made cookies to bring tonight.  The dog ate a bunch of them.  I swear the dog has an accordian neck. I had them SO far back on the counter.  Argh!  But those which were untouched will be delicious.  After the reception, Rob's friend Drew wants to come to our house to spend the rest of the weekend.  This is fine with me. I suspect that I won't know till about 5 minutes before he gets in the car that he is coming for sure. Drew tends to ask me if something is okay and forgets to ask his own family.  LOL  For me, it is just one more kid in a house that brims with kid laughter, noise and chaos as a general rule.  I have noticed too that Rob's friends without exception seem to want to hang out here.  They like the fact that we are all a happy noisy jumble of humanity.  We are not upscale enough to have "the kids wing" or the "finished basement" where kids are supposed to hang out.  We are all in the same general area of one another because of the way our house is.  I am not invading what they are doing, but I am around doing my things.  With kids the thing I am doing is usually cooking things!  :-) I watch a lot of HGTV and marvel at the things that people want for their homes.  They want their master bedrooms to be far away from their kids.  They want bonus rooms where their kids can be far away from them.  They want finished basements for the same reason.

I have a friend who grew up as a family of 6 in a 2 bedroom home. She and her husband bought their first home a few months back. It has some of those bells and whistles I just mentioned.  She finds herself not using them because she likes the kids near her. She likes them all to be involved as a family. I think not having those amenities teaches about compromise.  We have to take turns for things in our house.  Everyone does not have their own computer for instance, though most of Rob's friends find this amazing!  Ditto on the TV.  There are not TV's in bedrooms.  I want a reason for teens to walk out that bedroom door. You can have music in  your room but for anything else, come join the family.

So for all that on paper it looks like my kids have less than their peers, I think in the long run, we have more. We have each other, and we have a happy place where people like to come and join in the fun.  For me, that's better than a bonus room!