Early morning just for me

I used to be a work out fiend.  When we only had one child, I would go to the gym after he went to bed.  I did all kinds of things, aerobics, free weights, you name it.  Then I gradually morphed into a 12 year study of martial arts.  2 to 3 nights at at the dojo working out and learning, and using a Soloflex in our basement on the off days for strength and conditioning.

Then our family grew. And my exercise is pretty much the time I play with the kids, walk and hike with them and run around picking up after them.  It is active, but it isn't really enough.  It isn't so much a diet/weight loss kind of not enough. It is just not a healthy amount of exercise.

So I got up today at 5:30 (which is pretty much my usual time) But this time I spent 20 minutes walking to start the day.  I will be able to walk a full 30 minutes when I add a few more streets to the jaunt.  I started with something slightly longer than what I walk when I am with the kids. I obviously have proven I walk faster on my own.  It was really pretty outside. The sunrise was amazing and the moon was still riding high in the sky as well.  The birdsong was delightful also.  Our city is never silent but it was about as close to that as we get on some of the streets I was on.

Then I came home and K left for her walk with our dog. I also need to remember to bring a piece of fruit with me to eat when I go as I was starving by the time I got home.  In all my years of exercise I was never a morning workout gal--it was always evenings. So it did not occur to me that (insert duh here!) since I had not eaten since 4:30 the evening before, I was going to be seriously hungry.  Thankfully my morning smoothie and my blessedly hot cup of tea have solved that problem as well!

Scouting musings

None of my kids have been part of Scouting.  It would not have been a good fit for Chet or Rob and frankly the Boy Scout position on gays troubles me too much to find a way to re-closet myself for the sake of my children.  The Pinewood Derby always intrigued me and I had a dear friend who was a life long Scout.  As an adult he became an awesome leader, taking boys on winter overnights and such.  But I could not reconcile what the organization said about gays, and thankfully as I said, it was just not a good fit anyway for the older two boys.

I am hoping that the Scouts are going to change their views--I have read some potentially positive things about this recently--because it would be a good fit for KC.  He is at 9, just really starting to spread his wings and to want to do things with friends when family are not present.  Camping is something dear to all our hearts, it would be great.

I myself was a Girl Scout up through Cadette level and worked at Scout camps in the summer.  I have always hoped that my daughter would experience Girl Scouting.  They haven't the language and the out there ban on my lifestyle.  But Girl Scouts sure have changed since I was involved.  There are quotas on the amounts of cookies that must be sold and my friends kids spent literally hours with their troops week after week standing in the cold hawking cookies.  I bought an untold number of cookies that I don't eat because I felt so badly for the kids.  (thankfully Chet also loves thin mints but I think even he got sick of them after a while, I bought so many!)

Badges have changed too.  One of my friends has a daughter who is going for her cupcake badge.  Yup, you read that correctly.  She posted pics of some very beautifully decorated cupcakes that her daughter did for the badge. But I still can't wrap my mind around a cupcake badge!

Maybe we will look at 4H!

Fiona's visit

Fiona had a great visit!  I am so happy.  We had our photoshoot last night and in a few weeks, a picture of all 7 of us together will hang on our living room wall.  Like those Visa commercials--priceless!  :-)  Today in the morning we had to spend most all of it at the dance school while KC had his classes and then Lissa had hers.  Fi was gracious and patient, during what had to have been sort of a boring time. We chatted some and she and Rob spent a lot of time looking at videos on his phone and listening to his playlist.  After that, the littles wanted to go to the park across the street and play with some of their friends for a bit.  Fiona hung in for that, playing tag in the field with abandon.  Like Chet, sometimes she is so child like that it belies her years.  Other times she speaks with the wisdom and pain of her life experience. It is a strange dichotomy and one of the hardest things I deal with in parenting her.

Then we went to the shop where we were bringing her dress for alterations.  The owner was quiet and hard to understand when she did speak. I think she may be Eastern European as I usually can glom onto an accent and get a conversation done pretty easily. But something about her cadence and inflections were very hard for me to get.  However she clearly knows what she is doing and the dress will be completed by May 6th.

Then we got picnic food and went to a couple of parks to hang out and play for a while.  It was fun and the weather was so beautiful.  We have been starved for spring.  Not so much as my Minnesota and Michigan friends for sure, but it hasn't been a great or early spring in the Northeast like that darn groundhog promised! When we came home, Fiona was tired and needed some down time. So she and I made some peanut butter cookies while the littles played outside with Rob.  She enjoys cooking and it is a companionable thing to do together.  We brought the completed snacks out to share with the rest of the family and the neighbors who had by this time joined in the play and just hung out and chatted for the remainder of the time she was here.  It was a great day and we will travel into town on Tuesday to see her schools annual Art Extravaganza.  I hear she has a dance number in it.

Smile!

Fiona is here for a visit and today was "picture day" at church.  The photo will be used in our church directory but additional shots were taken to lure families into buying more pictures.  Which we did.  We have not had a real portrait sitting since Lissa was a baby. They are typically very hard on Chet and we decided it was not worth it. But this one, while loooooong (as one would expect with 7 people in the sitting) was very well done.  The photographer could cue Chet without touching him and for probably the first time in many years, he does not look strained or somewhat feral in the shots. It was worth any amount of money to me to see that.  Rob and Fiona are both very good photography subjects.  KC is typically but has a problem of blinking at the wrong moment. Great smiles, eyes closed. LOL  Miss Lissa hates having her picture taken and it was very hard to get a shot where she was smiling.  She is not smiling in the big picture of all 7 of us, but she is not scowling either.  Just somber looking.   Smaller groupings of us were taken as well.  My wife and I alone.  Have not had a professional picture of the two of us ever.  Then ones of just the boys and ones of just the girls.  I bought a trio frame of those as I loved the way they came out. In the "girls rule" shot, Lissa was almost smiling.

It all took about 2 hours start to finish. Of course part of that time is looking at the photos and choosing what you want. But the kids were amazing and hung in there so well.  We had reward of "dinner and a movie"  (pizza and an on demand movie) when we got home.

It will be so great to have a picture of all of us hanging soon!

Kid Magnet

Rob showed me a text from his friend D tonight.  Apparently D turns 19 this weekend and he wants to celebrate it at our house!  LOL  Well I am kind of honored I guess (though also feeling sad as I know there are some tensions in his own house) but this weekend is out.  So D has invited himself  here for next weekend and is looking forward to it.  He and Rob will see the new Ironman movie together, and I told him I would make whatever kind of cake he wanted.  He likes chocolate with chocolate frosting apparently.  I make what I have been told is a very excellent chocolate cake (I am allergic to chocolate so I have never eaten it myself) so I will whip that up for him. I told D that the only caveat to his spending Saturday and Saturday night with us was the Kentucky Derby.  He had to watch the Derby with us because that is a J-E tradition going back to when I was about 9 and was going to be a jockey.  He said he would find his inner jockey.  ROLF

More Visit Plans

Fiona's visit will happen this Friday starting at noon. She will be here till about 3 p.m. on Saturday.  I am super excited as are the kids. This change in plans means that she is here for a family photo.  Our church is doing a photo directory of the congregation and everyone who comes for the shoot gets an 8 x 10 of their family FREE!  I am loving that, though I know i will probably buy some others as well if they come out 1/2 way decent.

K is not sharing our joy in this as she comes to the relationship with Fiona from a different place. She says she is fond of her, but she does not feel we are family. Extended family, or a resource, but not family.  I am a weirdo I guess. She is my daughter.  She is family.  I think families are created in different ways and that parenting a child, particularly a child of trauma can look very differently.  We have talked about it but at this point, it is more agreeing to disagree.

On Saturday, Fiona is stuck coming to the dance school and hanging out with me for a long morning.  I am going to bring the kids DS and my cell phone which has a couple of games on it so she can amuse herself.  It is mere weeks to recital and I know the kids can't miss. I also know KC would have a breakdown if I asked him to miss. He loves his sister dearly but he takes his dance very seriously--way more seriously than I did at that age. Actually make that more seriously than I did EVER!  LOL  After we get out of the studio, we will go and get Fiona's prom dress fitted for an alteration. She wants it shortened and I have found someone who appears up to the challenge.  From there I hope that the weather will cooperate for a picnic. That would be fun and low key and different for her.  She will head back to school about 3 so it would be just about right time wise.

It was a good phone call tonight as Jane and Fiona and I hashed out all the plans. We also talked about how scared we all felt last weekend when the citywide lockdown happened.  Fiona I know had behavioral issues but I think that between the disappointment of not seeing us and the anxiety caused by knowing what was going on, it was understandable.  She sounded surprised when I said we were nervous and worried too--about her.  And that is not a lie. She was in my thoughts and KC was the first to ask if she was okay when he heard what was going on in the big City.  

So our plans have morphed and reshaped and I find myself all ready looking forward to the weekend!

Plans and prom shopping

And in the whirlwind--nothing stays the same for 2 seconds--reality that is my life. . . the visit did not happen.  Saturday morning staff called and Fiona had an incident of unsafe behavior.  While she has not lost the opportunity to come, they felt she was too unstable to come Saturday.  So I have all ready emailed Jane to find out if she can possibly come this weekend. Friday afternoon and stay through Saturday. We will see.

Meanwhile Rob and his girl have accomplished the great Prom Shop. Egads, I have never been through Prom Shop before as Chet never went to a prom.  It is a Big.Deal.  Even when it is a junior prom.  K has a  bit of a hard time seeing how important this is to the two of them.  She keeps saying "it is just junior prom" when she and i speak about it. But it is one of those rites of passage that most kids crave and that Rob certainly wants.  How much does he want it?  He chose dress shoes!  This young man has refused to wear dress shoes since he was about 12. He has always had a pair of "dress sneakers".  Which were pretty stylish and I have to confess that fighting about a choice of footwear is pretty low on my list unless safety is involved.  But he has chosen dress shoes, has a nice suit and he and his lovely girl friend found a coordinating shirt and tie that will apparently match her dress perfectly.  The best part?  I did not have to go shopping.  I dropped the two of them at the mall and said, "get it done!"  They did, with time for a movie afterwards.  Life is good. :-)