Spring break

We didn't do anything special for Spring Break this year. I had wanted to make a list of neat places to take the boys like I did last year, but I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday so I gave up on that idea. But we managed to have a pretty fun week anyway.

Macy came to hang out with us for a whole day on Thursday. It was really good to get to spend time with her. We have fallen behind on our niece/nephew weekend stays. We played outside and she got to try out my new obstacle course idea (that I saw on Pinterest, thank you very much). Gabriel likes to run it once and then quits. But Macy was a trooper and even had me video her.

Cousins!

This is what happens when you spend the night with your Tia the night before, then spend all day with your cousin playing. Late afternoon nap. Of course he had trouble going to sleep that night even though we kept him up a little later.

Friday afternoon I took the boys to our friend Harper's party at Little Gym In hellish Spring Break/Friday afternoon/Parks Mall traffic no less. We were only a few minutes late, and the boys had a blast. This is Gabriel with Bennett. Bennett, Harper and Gabriel are friends through our neighborhood Moms group. We've been doing something once a month for about 2-1/2 years and they are starting to become better and better friends, which I love. I also really like their moms!

And of course, since the weather was beautiful, we played outside. A bunch. In fact, we didn't want to go inside for some of those days. This little guy is getting almost too big for the baby swing, which makes me sad.

In my next post I'll talk more about my yard project, which is where we found the old soaker hose that Gabriel decided to turn into a big pretend snake.

We had a play date with our new neighborhood friend Nicholas. Nicholas and Gabriel are complete opposites. Whereas Gabriel is bookish and artsy, Nicholas loves sports and was the fastest runner on our soccer team last fall. I was wondering if Gabriel could even keep up with him at the park, but he did great. But he was one tired boy that night. Sunday we took the boys to get new shoes for (hopefully) the next year, then dinner and more playing in the backyard. I used to complain about the early time change, but right now I'm thinking it was a fantastic idea!

Adults only post. No really.

This thought didn't occur to me until the next day after we watched the Season Premier, but if I were to try something like this my husband would be more turned on over the fact that I was cleaning the house than over the fact that I was doing it in my underwear. Sad, but true.

Neighborhood blight - gone!

Our awful neighbors on the other side of Tim (who lives right next to us), have been living in that house for about two years. They were renters, which just makes all of us homeowners crazy. I always had suspicions that they were drug dealers because when they first moved in there was a steady stream of different cars and people that would stop on a nightly basis. Then we found out the couple (we never knew if they were married) had a four-year-old son with a heart condition. We would hear him and sometimes see him,and he seemed to have all the energy and vitality of a healthy kid. But he had to go in the hospital for sometimes weeks at a time for surgery and recovery.

And even though the traffic outside the house slowed down, the problems with them being loud at night started. The guy owned a tree trimming business, and would be out at 8 or 9 at night with his chain saw or a wood chipper. Then they would all be up, sitting outside the garage (which was at the back of the house), smoking cigarettes and trying to repair whichever of their vehicles had broken down that day. Hammering and laughing, laughing and hammering. Poor Tim next door's bedroom was right below their driveway, and he ended up having to move his mattress to the living room to sleep. And what wonderful conditions for the four-year-old to exist in. When we would go out to take Molly out for the last time around midnight, most nights I would hear the little boy out there too.

They were just bad news.

About a month ago I was walking Tucker past their house at dusk and there was a truck putting a flat-bed trailer pulled up to the front door and people were loading furniture into it. Hallelujah! I said to myself and started trying to call Jav. The next day there were new trucks that started appearing, and trash left in the driveway, some spilling out onto the driveway from the garage. We could see this because both garage doors were broken (it looked like someone backed into them), and they wouldn't close any more. There were two screens that had been removed from windows and never put back. Well, we decided that the mom and little boy must have moved out and left his sorry posterior there after a week went by and nothing much changed. Our hopes of him moving out too started vanishing after two weeks, and pretty much died after three.

But then, salvation in the form of the landscape guys that came (we think hired by the owners), for the first time after winter to clean up and mow the yard. Presumably they saw the sorry state of the house and told the owners that they might want to check in. (Who rents out a house and NEVER checks up on the tenants?) Tim said late that afternoon that the owner was storming around pointing out to the guy what he needed to clean up. They moved the rest of their stuff the next day, but it took them a whole week to clean up.

We didn't know all of this was going on until Tim waited for Jav to come home one night and gleefully told him the good news. We all did a Dance of Joy. And even though there's still some trash they didn't take, and a HUGE pile of wood he never got around to chipping or chopping, every time I drive by I do the Dance of Joy in my head all over again.

Now I can officially say I really love all of my neighbors!

Another reason Sesame Street rocks!

I love this so much. I seem to be becoming quite the Elvis Costello fan in my middle age. He's moved to the top of my list of someone I'd like to see in concert. And Elmo, well, I've been a fan of his for awhile now. I've had a chance to get to know him much better as of late, and think he's just wonderful.

Watch Elmo (or Melmo, as Joel has always called him), dancing in the background. Cracks me up every single time.

Balance

Isn't this a great picture? They look so little. I love Joel's feet, and the fact that even though it looks like he's got his hand on his sweet brother's arm, he's probably trying to remove it from around his shoulder.

A few thoughts on being a working mom. Up until now my hours and days were set up perfectly. With Gabriel going to school all three days at the same time I was working, and Joel now going two of the three, it didn't seem like any of my time with them was affected. But starting next week I will be working an extra day, so now I feel like I will be missing out. There's a constant, pressure-filled tug at me both ways. I know how much we need the money I make. But I also know how much I miss being able to relax more around the boys, when we didn't have to go anywhere or be up at any certain time.

The thing is, it's not really the actual work time that gets to me. It's the time it takes to get all the stuff unpacked from the current day and the making lunches, picking out clothes and packing up for the next day. That takes an hour of my time away from them. At least I'm home, and am still accessible to them if Gabriel has a question about the solar system or if Joel wants to show me which letters and numbers he's learned from school. And at least I'm getting faster at it now that we've been doing this for a year(!). I've come up with a few methods of saving time for them, like sorting and folding all laundry after bedtime. All I really have to do each day is throw a load in when we get home. Then I make sure to spend at least an hour playing with them before starting dinner. The thing I still haven't figured out how to squeeze in is housework. It'll get done eventually.

Having to shell out the money that it will take to send both of them to private school has been weighing heavily on my mind. One of the hardest things about being an older parent is that you think waaaaaayyyy too much about the future, like the fact that you will never really be able to retire. Ick. I was even seriously considering home-schooling for a while. I have never believed that home schooling is a real good idea. The lack of social life just seemed crazy to me. Now there seems to be many opportunities for home-schooled kids to have a social life, at least with other home-schooled kids. But Jav pointed out to me that it takes a certain kind of relationship between the home school parent/teacher and kid/student to make it work well. Like maybe one where the kid doesn't already, at the ripe old age of five, think that he's smarter than his mother? Yea, like that. Oh well, obviously not for us.

But now that I've really been thinking about it so hard my head hurts, the bottom line is that I just don't believe the Texas public schools will provide them with a good education, let alone keep them safe. So, I need to quit bitching about it and just buckle down and figure it out. I think I've done pretty well, considering I wasn't really supposed to work at all until Joel started kindergarten. My pay is good, my hours are perfect, and because my mother- and sister-in-law are so wonderful about keeping the boys, none of the money I earn has to go towards day care or a babysitter. And I don't have to worry about who's keeping the boys. That peace of mind is priceless.

I'm also coming to grips with the fact that when I go back to work full-time, I can't really do whatever I want to do, but need to stick with accounting because that's where the money is. This has also been a hard pill to swallow. I really wanted to work with special ed kids in some capacity. But to do that without further education will mean hardly any pay. And we can't afford to send me back to school. So the world of debits and credits will have me around for a long, long time. Sigh.

I just have to keep looking at those faces in the picture above. They will give me the strength and determination I need.