Equal

I now have as many posts on this blog as I did on my long past one from a few years ago--24. Not that this matters. But I noticed this fact, and I decided it was blogworthy. So there it is.

Oh my, summer is here. Today was a gorgeous day. Okay, fine, this morning was a little cruddy looking, but it was the perfect day to go to Busch Gardens, which we did. Not too hot, but warm enough that you weren't a total ice cube after getting soaked on a ride. Which I did. I was heartily happy that I was wearing a navy blue shirt instead of a white one, and that my underwear roughly matched the tone of my light-colored shorts, which were clinging to me for hours after I got completely dumped on by the Roman Rapids. I've never seen Walter exuding such sheer joy as when probably 40 gallons of water went straight onto his head and decimated the map he was holding into a pulp (which, this being Walter, he scrunched up and sculpted into a chili pepper). The poor strangers we were riding with! Walter just talked their ear right off with his exuberant excitement in being soaked to the bone. Other notable moments: Rutledge cackling and shouting "Whee!" with his little chunky arms held high in the air on the Battering Ram (otherwise known as "The Bope" to Rutledge), Rutledge on the log flume, and Frances traumatized for the rest of the day by a ride that was too fast.

I've determined that I am spending too much mental energy in thinking about next school year and what we are doing, so I have decided to put some limits on it. I'm not being super-anal about it right now: I have 30 minutes at 4:00 to devote to this and then no more. But I am going to just give is what I can and leave the rest behind for now. I'm kind of off the trumpet thing at the moment. It's not working in our schedule, it may be the one thing too many (you know how that one goes...), and it will still be there next year, and the year after. I could take that trumpet time and money and put it toward a piano lesson three minutes away.

I think I already said that we decided to go ahead with gymnastics for Frances. Big time commitment. There go two nights a week. Ollie wants to try soccer. Walter might like to do that, too, so hey, why not? So that's something to look into. Like we need another sport, but they're only young once, and maybe now they are excited about it and willing to give it some more effort and a new try.

I'm exhausted, and I have a tennis game at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow all the way across town. Ack! It's my final one of the USTA season, and I'm glad for that. I'm over finding the child care, which is a scramble each week. I'm in a combo league starting in July, where players with different ratings are paired together, but that happens on Saturdays, when someone to watch the kids is less of a mystery. I will be playing probably #1 singles, which is always interesting, but I'm happy I'm getting the opportunity to do the more strenuous running game more often now. My legs are feeling much more toned because of it, and I have found that now when we do our evening walks to the Pavilion or the park, I'm not huffing and puffing at all or feeling the pain for days afterward.

I had all of these things to write about tonight, and suddenly they have all slipped my mind. Hmmm. Rutledge is now climbing out of his crib, so enter a whole new era in our lives. I'm way behind on staying in touch with people I need to talk to, partly because my phone time is limited by my nearly-defunct cell phone. I am a chronic multi-tasker, and without my phone with me when I'm out and about, I'm seriously limited in how much time I can spend at home taking care of adult business, either personal or volunteer. I learned my lesson well yesterday about what can happen if you let your attention slip for even a moment: Rutledge unwound 13 Harry Potter cassettes from the library, precipitating an entire afternoon of pencils spinning on tape gears and splicing with Scotch tape. Sigh.... And I thought I was *cleaning* when I was over vacuuming and making our lives look somewhat together!

Ollie and I are reading lately about inventions, which has been fascinating. He's even reading the book on his own when we're not doing it together. And we have been reading and talking about World War II, the Cold War, and terrorism. We're finally finding more friendly resources that are doing a better job of explaining the difference between politics and economics and more succinctly describing rival forms of government and rival forms of economic systems, which is helping him answer his own questions about why the U.S. might have involved itself with North Vietnam. Ollie is the man of a million questions, but no deep interests. I keep thinking that if we just read enough, finally something will get into him to a point where he wants to go past the surface and keep taking himself further.

Walter is Walter. Building traps for the chipmunk that is still in our house. Planting dead trees in holes in our backyard. Creating a display of his most challenging Bionicle figures. Having a war with tennis balls in the playroom. He keeps himself very busy.

In order to keep myself functioning, I absolutely must sign off and go to bed. Midnight. Again.