Growing ,growing, strong!

This is one of my new favorite pictures. Back when the leaves were green and still on the trees, my wife managed to snap a shot with all the kids together.This one is my present screen saver and I adore it.  I love the glee that is in their eyes. As they have increasingly grown and stretched their wings, there are fewer times that we and they are all together. But when the team is together, it is joyful. I am grateful for that.  I am also grateful that most of them are well grounded enough to really stretch and experience new things.

Rob is loving his new job.  Between his restaurant job, and his school work, and his cleaning job with my wife, I feel like I need an appointment to see him.  In reality I DO have an appointment to see him as I pick him up from the train most nghts.  Then we race across town to his job!  But it is worth it to see him growing in confidence, and to see him making connections that will help him as he increasingly steps out into the wider world on his own.

KC also is blossoming.  He adores a monthly boys book group that our local library holds.  It started with only about 5 kids going and now has more than doubled in size.  KC has been in it from the start, thrilled that finally there was a group which focussed on the literature that boys specifically like in these pre teen years.  This week when I picked him up, the librarian took me aside and said she wanted me to know what a leader he was. That he was kind and inclusive and always had great ideas that the group benefited from  Thinking back to how timid my guy once was, I can only shake my head and smile. Blooming indeed.

Lissa has always been assertive.  I have few worries that she will make her desires and needs known! She is quick to access a situation and equally quick to participate in it.   But her growth has been in becoming more empathetic and also in improving her abilities with the written word.

Fiona too is growing. We have moments of clarity and times when she understands and appreciates parental concern, pretty evenly balanced against the times she does not understand it at all.  Overall a better ratio for her than in the past, so I'll take that.

Chet has been doing better at taking social cues of late.  I am hoping this is going to continue.  It has been hard to convince him that societal norms are not something we need to rail against.  It does not make us mindless drones etc.  He is very happy that church has started again and this is always a good vehicle for showing him a variety of social connections.

As the kids have gotten older, my wife and I are rediscovering time that is just for us.  We have had adult times this fall with glasses of wine sipped while sitting in front of the little portable fire pit.  We are able to take morning walks together sans the kids.  (even sans dog since he is such a lazy pooch!)  It has been good to rediscover that facet of our relationship as well.