Sunday Swim Day

I found a lake for us to visit today.  Our usual "swmming hole" was not available as they have a sporting event there this weekend and it is thus closed to general swimming.  I was at a bit of a loss.  I did not want to drive over an hour of highway driving in near century temps to get to an ocean beach.  The local state forest beach is not a good fit for our family.  The way they rope their swimming areas the deep end is not acessable from the shallow end and thus I can't effectively life guard  my deep water swimmer(s) while watching the littles in the shallow end.  Also the beach is small and the number of people in the water is a bit of a challenge for Chet.  I had despaired of much beyond a slip and slide in our back yard when I remembered a lake in a nearby state.  It is less than an hour from us and we were on the road pretty quickly once I checked it out on line. They would allow food, my swim vests (some places don't!) and the cost would only be $10 to admit us for the day.  I had lunch packed and the car loaded and we were on the road before 10:30  As I drove through town, it read 97 degrees then.  Oy!

It was beautiful at the lake though.  It was significantly cooler--about 10 degrees or more.  The lake is very large and the roped swimming area is equally large.  So people were spread out and this was optimal for Chet.  Also there were fresh water snail shells to gather. Chet will spend literally the entire time you bring him to the beach gathering shells.  He stopped for lunch and that was it.  His intense fixation on this is baffling to KC.  He wants Chet to feel included.  He spent some time helping him look for shells but 5 1/2 hours of shell gathering was not something he wanted to do. He kept trying to call Chet over to us where we were playing in the water and could not understand his lack of interest in that.

The littles and I played water frisbee, mother may I (the "water version!" which truly must be seen to be believed!) water tag and just goofed around.  Finally about 3:10 or so it started to sprinkle a bit and I called it a day.  On the way home I stopped and bought them all a cone, not knowing today was National Ice Cream Day!  It was a great end to the weekend and a great summer memory to treasure in January when winter winds will howl!

I have great kids even when I screw up!

Today we all woke early--the kids were playing outside before 7 a.m., enjoying the dew on the grass and the comparative coolness because it was cloudy and the temps were probably only low 80s.  We did breakfast after K left for work shopped for groceries and had them all unpacked before 8:30.  Went to the post office to mail gifts to my daughter and 2 friends of K's and went to the library.  Came home and did the wash and started on the bathroom.

In there I also wrapped birthday gifts for the kids friend A. whose party at an indoor playground was today. Don't I sound like a paragon of efficiency?  Except that I wrote the time of the party wrong on my calendar.  It was 10:30 to 12:45 p.m.  I wrote it as starting at 1:30 p.m.  Missing the all important zero after the one and not discovering this till my second load of wash was in the washer, making it about 11:15 all ready.  And the venue was 20 minutes away.  I threw the gift and the kids in the car explaining in frantic harried tones what I had done wrong and how sorry I was.

I expected tears and wails. They have been looking forward to this for weeks. They both said that they understood and that they knew I had not done it on purpose.  We also had to buy sox on the way as you need those on your feet and my kids don't wear sox much in the summer. And when I threw them in the car in my panic I did not think to check for sox on their tootsies.

We got to the party in time to have pizza, sing happy birthday and have cake.  The jumping part of the indoor bounce place was all over with and they were all deflated.  I expected that the scene might start then, when the reality of what they could not do hit them.

But they were wonderful. They played with their friend A.  They invented games in the open space available to them, and played happily till 12:45 when we all left.  They are now outside cooling off on the slip and slide.  I am a really really lucky mom.

KC,Picasso, and Mario Bros!

 KC is my resident artist.  All the kids enjoy expressing themselves through art, but for him it is a bit more than that. It is at the very core of his being to use art of all forms to express himself.  He is especially enarmored of Pablo Picasso these days.  He has been experimenting a lot with geometrics in his art since reading Just Behave Pablo Picasso!  The above shot was on Lissa's magna doodle and I promised to take a picture of it so that it was saved for posterity and the magna doodle could be used by someone else!  LOL

 More cube art, this time of the sculputural variety.  He is also looking forward to pottery camp which starts next week and lets him work with clay all week long.

And here is the little artiste in his new room he is sharing with Rob.  His Mario Bros sheet set came today so the bed is all dressed as he wishes and he had to try it out and make sure it was comfy.  Some of the Mario wall clings have come but not all and I think I will wait and see if he wants to journal this on his blog before I co-opt more of his story! :-)

Almost the weekend

It is only Friday but the vistas of last week seem far away.  I remember cool mountain breezes and campfires and laughter.  There is still laughter, but the air is hot and still and heavy and our schedules are full of many things to do. Some are fun, like the party the kids go to tomorrow afternoon. It is at a place with inflatable jumping things; I have never been there and am curious as to what it is like.  Some things are less fun, like all the piece work we need to get through this weekend.  Some are in between, like finishing hanging the new curtains in the living room.  That normally would not be such a chore but ironing in this heat is not something even I am fond of! LOL  Sunday I want to take most of the kids swimming but have to find a place--the state park we usually go to hosts a triatholon there this weekend.

Teen Anecdote

I have not been on Facebook much the past week or ten days.  But last night I was on for a short bit.  I was reading a conversation Rob was having with a friend about where he (Rob) wanted to work.  Rob said he wanted to work at a large department store.  His girlfriend (who all ready has a job) said "yay, you finally want a job!"  His best friend said "won't  you be too tired?  Don't forget you have a job on Sundays (volunteer maintenance at a childrens museum).Best friend is not an energetic ball of fire!   Rob said to his best friend, "don't worry about me, I have a mom who can do that.   Made me smile.

KC Moves out!

Of my bedroom that is!  He has been sleeping in his own bed at the bottom of my bed for months but not been ready to make the leap to sleeping in Rob's room.  I didn't push, finding that if I mentioned it too often, we had incidents of sleep walking and night terrors that to me, just were not worth it.  I figured he would go when he was ready and today, he apparently decided he was ready.

He and Rob readied his side of the room,Kirsty helped him hang is Mario poster.  In went the bed, the new night light and a small bookcase for treasures and all his books.  He is very very proud of the space and other KC specific items will decorate it in the future.  I just didn't buy them in advance since I wasn't sure when this great event was going to happen.  LOL

Meanwhile I am LOVING how spacious and airy my room feels.  And Rob says he is okay with things as long as KC does not wake him or try to get in bed with him.  Neither are likely, and even Rob admits that! LOL  Speaking of Rob, he is off on a date tonight.  He and his gf have had a hard time getting together recently.  T's grandmother has been ill and T has been in charge of being with gmom in the day while her parents are at work, as well as keeping an eye on her 13 y/o brother.  But tonight she is free and they are dining out and he was dressed to the 9's when he left the house.

Fiona's Letter

Yesterday I put the finishing touches on the letter to DSS requesting that Fiona's case be transferred to our locale.  2 pages of details about our life together with Fi and all the reasons I could think of as to how such a move would benefit her.  And in so many ways I think it would.

It also scares me as I don't know all the services and supports that she gets in the Big City and I worry that there may not always be comparable ones in our smaller city.  However there is another city only 20 minutes away that I could bring her to for mental health services.  There are no longer any mental health inpatient services in our city--budget cuts removed those 2 years ago.  But again, there are in the city that is 20 minutes away.  Would she need those services less if she could be with us more?  And at 22 she would not liikely stay in the Big City anyway but go back to a far less wealthy city even farther from us which is where her case originated.  If none of this makes sense, don't worry. These are the mental crazies that  I do at night as I try to visualize many different scenarios and how we would be able to logistically make any one of them work.

Above all, I don't want her 22 and feeling lost and unloved.  I don't want her becoming homeless because she can't manage money or runs off in anger.  I don't know if I can stop all those things, but I feel like if she is not 90 minutes away I have a better shot at helping her succeed.