Wiggles

People are just finding out that one of the guys from the football field. I don’t get it… you have people that would kill to be healthy and others that are just bent on killing themselves giving themselves heart problems at the age of 16!! Crazy I tell you!!
We tell the kids to go out and get involved with a sport to be healthy so they aren’t sitting there in front of the TV, computer or game system. So in order to play the sport they need to gain weight to the point it damages their hearts… Insane.
I will pull my kids from sports before I allow a coach to tell them to gain weight or loss too much! There needs to be a balance...

What we did this summer:

It’s the age ole question one that causes you to think on how you spent your time while not in school…

Unlike other summers where all of our time is spent getting ready, doing and cleaning up after a faire we had time… time to clean up the back yard. Time to go camping. Time to do swim lessons, summer school and internships.

We went camping (well Miss Bee and I) a grand total of four times… Once to the Russian River with Grandma, Sparkles, Froggy, and Sparkles BF… just for the weekend but the kids had a great time playing in the river and just relaxing, it was really HOT that weekend but still the river was great fun. The next camping trip involved friends and Miss Bee and I again to the river and with more kids (two god children and one YOTC) we had a fire both nights, good food and great company. Then Grandma, Sparkles, Froggy, Miss Bee and myself packed up for a week in Yosemite!!! That was great fun! We managed to hike up to three waterfalls: Bridalvail, Vernal and Yosemite falls the hardest one being Vernal but we made it all of us and Miss Bee hiked like a champ! We also hiked to thru the Mariposa meadows and up to Sentinel dome the second highest peek it was wonderful! Now we have to get Grandma’s camera to give up the pictures! Technology doesn’t like Grandma very much it hides things from her… or so she claims. The last trip was the three-day-weekend Miss Bee and myself went up to Yuba Gap in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and set up the site, Grandma and Froggy joined us Saturday after his football game. Then my sister and Brother-in-law joined us for one day also, it was a really great weekend!! We will have one more weekend in Oct we will spend the weekend at Apple Hill. GREAT Fall fun!

Camping is one of my fav things to do for me its relaxing. We play cards, just sit and read, just sit, get away from stuff…

All Things New

Just wanted you to know that Sparkles is now part of the working force... she has a job, not a babysitting job, not a volunteer job but a real paying job... she is working for Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza... she starts training Today.

Now I am of mixed feelings about this job thing on the one hand she needs the job to help pay for her insurance and gas money and her Senior Year (I am already trying to figure out the bill for that one: Homecoming, year book, senior pictures, Washington DC trip, Grad night, Prom, Graduation....)(UGH!!) And now with the new driving laws until the kids are 18 they have a driving curfew of 11pm. good right? But for Prom night well that means a Limo... so she wants a job to be able to get the extras... But on the other hand she has, well her Senior year... she has one College class that she needs to take in order to graduate and to finish her internship, and to well do her Senior project to be presented at the Washington DC trip, she normally does Color Guard and she is talking about dropping that (which I have mixed feelings about) then there is all the committees that she wants to be on: Prom and Senior activities I don't think she said anything about yearbook but I know that she was really upset about how it was done last year. Whew! I just hope she can juggle it all... I know she has watched the best of the best (Barbara) let’s see if she can put what she has learned into practice.

The other wonderful news is Froggy... he will be a freshman this year and instead of signing up for Soccer he signed up for Football... Now Froggy has put on quite a few inches he is 14 years old and is 5 foot 5... but still a rail thin guy... Think build of say a string bean. So I will be on the bleachers every Friday night hoping (a) that they play him - he is a freshman and (b) he doesn't get hurt... they are trying him for kicker (he played Soccer for many years as a goalie he can kick) but they were also talking about the guy that passes the ball back to the quarterback (Center?) you know the one that gets mushed since everyone is trying to get to the QB... lovely... fun... just what I wanted him to do... ugh but I don't tell him that I just grin and tell him he can do it! Ugh the things you do and say when you are a Mom.
(note after writing this he came home from practice and :They have signed him up for Receiver… panic ensues.)

Luckily the only thing Miss Bee right now wants to do is go to swim lessons which she is doing quite well at and really loves but I am lucky in the respect that all of my kids have the love of water that I have. Miss Bee is even starting to do a freestyle stroke (well kinda) its really cool to watch. I sit there and watch my kids and wonder “God I hope that my Mom had as much fun watching us and I do my kids”... and really all parents should have this much fun watching their kids try something new and succeed at it or at least do their very best. I may complain about Prom or Football or whatever but really I love watching them grow and expand and not be afraid to try something. To attack the world with such fearlessness...

I am proud of Froggy for not staying at home and playing video games and for going to the football field. I am proud of Sparkles for going out and getting a job, and proud of Miss Bee for loving swimming lessons even if she doesn't get the same teacher each session. Even if I am scared, concerned or even doubtful that they can manage all that they take on I am very proud of them and I wouldn't tell them any different.

Promotion

Praise youth and it will prosper ~ Irish Proverb

Promotion... instead of graduation is what they call it now... and Frogs was Promoted to HIGH SCHOOL last night... WOW... I have this image in my head of him playing rounders, not at faire but at a park in Oakland when he was very little... its very hard to believe that he will be in High School, a freshman... They grow up far to fast, of course Mr Sullen Teenager doesn't believe that a big deal should be made about this but its a milestone none the less... Last night while doing my Mom duty of helping out the school, making sure that all the kids were in the lines they were supposed to be and NOT chewing gum, and making sure their cell phones were turned OFF!! Its like herding cats… “No you can’t climb that on that table, NO really I need you to stay with the rest of the class, NO I don’t know when we are going to start.”

One of his old teachers showed up, this particular teacher is the type that makes an impact on all of his students and for reasons that where his alone he had to go back out to the corporate work force leaving the school a situation neither he, the kids or the school wanted. Anyway he showed up and all the kids were very happy, even Frogs, he walked down the lines he talked with each and every one of them! And when he walked out of the hallway that we had the kids lining up in, he was crying. The kids on the other hand were just so happy to see him they didn’t realized what kind of impact they made on him how proud he was of them and how much he missed the chaos that is Middle School. I was privileged to be a part of that to see the kids really just so happy to see this teacher of theirs, to watch just how nervous some of them were, to see how much fun that they all have together and I realize that for him (the sullen teenager) this is the last time that I will do that… I mean when they graduate High School a Jr. parent is involved with the behind the scenes stuff. I only have to be there and sit in my seat and wait for it all to begin or end depends on how you look at it…

Its strange to see your children grow up you know its coming but you still don’t think that it will ever get here and then it is and you don’t know where the time went.

Weekend business

Okay so the last few weekends have been “get things done weekends”… we have done yard work, dump runs, and garage sales. We have more yard work to do and now that the garage sale is over maybe one more dump run…

The kids have been a wonderful help. NO really they have! Even the sullen 14-year-old! And of course the 4-year-old is always great help (she says drolly). I feel like we have really accomplished something and this summer we will continue to do weekend ‘work parties’! So I am going to keep a list here simply because it will keep me honest and I can update the list as I go.

1) Plant the veggies for the garden
2) Finish cleaning up the back yard
3) Paint the living room
4) Clean up the garage now that a lot of stuff is gone time to re organize
5) Clean gutters
6) Hang shade cloth on those windows that get way too much sun
7) Paint the hallway
8) Get camping stuff together
I am hoping that with this list of “things to do” I will get some things done, lets see how I do!