Recently Overheard


Zinabu: Lily, you don't love me as much as you love Buddy.

Lily: Yes I do. We bought you way before we bought Buddy, so you've lived here longer.

(Me: Total horror and mentally going over adoption sensitivity training for my children again.)

Right. So besides needing to have a talk with Lily that we shouldn't use the phrase "bought you" when talking about her brother, we are winding down with the last 2 weeks of summer vacation. Where we live, kids get out of school in mid-May and go back to school in mid-August. I am always sad to think about school starting again, until these last 2 weeks of vacation when our unstructured time becomes just plain boring to Carver, Lily, and Zinabu. Getting a dog has not helped because I feel tethered to the house... we can only leave him for so long. Buddy whines and barks non-stop when we're not home. Yeah, he's a superstar that way. And other than the fact that he desires to be the alpha dog in our neighborhood and barks at every living thing that we walk past, he's doing well. Lily is loving her dog, but because we're working so hard on training him to heel and have good manners, she doesn't actually get to walk him. He could pull her off her feet if he wanted to.

Carver has had the best past few weeks building a fort on our property. The contractor has left all kinds of scrap wood for him to use, and he and his friend Nathan have spent hours working on it. They even decorated the outside to make it look as if it had been in a paintball war. It's very...um...colorful. I love watching Carver be a kid. He's still so sweet and playful and still into imaginary play, unlike a lot of other 10 year olds these days. Kids want to grow up way too fast and I think it's a tragedy when parents let them. David and I continue to strive to let our kids be young for as long as possible.

We have 2 quick camping trips planned for the end of August. We have not had one single summer trip as a family. The move to our new house sucked the entire summer up and left us with empty boxes and no quality time. At least we can squeeze in a small getaway before fall and try to make up for lost time. And in 11 days my baby starts kindergarten! It has taken almost 11 years, but on August 18 ALL MY CHILDREN will be in school. Wow.

I need a drink.