There Goes Summer!

We are so overextended financially right now. It just kind of...happened. One minute we were getting back on track with Kerry's second job, and the next minute, baseball signups and swim team signups seemed to take the last of our money for food. On top of this, I need to pay for my USTA team today, too.

This is one of our crazy weekends. Most aren't like this, but this one had so many things converging. Frances is dancing in the four performances of the Latin Ballet's Mujeres. She has four costume changes and appears in four scenes--as a dead girl during the ghost walk, as a Catholic schoolgirl, as a poor Argentine girl in Evita, and in a more formal dress in the Evita finale when Santa Evita dies into the arms of her husband. Today, Saturday, is the most challenging day. Frances did not get home until 11 p.m. last night, and today she has a performance at 3 and at 7:30; it will be another long night. Then get up, rinse, and repeat tomorrow.

This morning we had swim and dive team tryouts, and all three kids made the team. Frances is too small for even the smallest size of a team suit, so we are trying to figure out what happens next in this case--the supplier is looking into a, um, fitting alternative for her. Frances was pretty amazing swimming her laps of freestyle and backstroke. Walter was the most flailing, but I feel sure he'll come around. He is a fabulous diver off both the low and high dive. And even Ollie, who was more fearful, is now diving from the high dive, although he has a tendency to over-rotate. But there went another nearly $400, which is all we had for the rest of the week until Kerry gets paid next Friday :(

Oliver has a baseball game, his first of the season, this afternoon at 5:30. He is more excited about baseball than I've ever seen him excited about anything else he's ever done. But there goes more cash--the team fee, the new bat because everyone else's is too heavy for him because he's smaller than they are, the new glove, a stash of practice balls, a cup (!). And of course the fundraising responsibility--10 Braves tickets, 5 cases of Coke.

And if this wasn't enough, today is the Lego Expo at RES. All year the boys have been doing a Junior First Lego League, and although they did not exactly do the team challenge put out by Lego this year, which is always a vague and less interesting venture, there is going to be a group expo where they show what they have done this year, show how they have responded to this year's energy challenge (they built a power plant with generators, turbines, transmission lines, etc.) and their posters on alternative energy sources. I'm not thrilled to be going, I have to say. Saturday belongs to us, not to weekday school events, and this would have worked much better for us on a Wednesday or Friday afternoon. But here it is. Walter is also exhibiting some of his projects from home--a mega-plane, a K-Nex creation, his Lego skyride he designed.

In the midst of all of the activity, we also got the news yesterday that the Beagle whose puppies we were hoping to get only has two in this litter. It's a disappointment for everyone. So now I am having to put together a Plan B. Researching breeders again, accepting that they aren't in Virginia, trying to find someone with a litter coming who doesn't have an endless waiting list. We have two prospects, but I'm back having to convince people that we are worthy, that we are going to be good enough owners and that our children aren't a liability. Breeders are an interesting lot--they have some exacting standards for who they will release their dogs to, and it's hard to measure up to their perfection. The ideal owner, from what I can tell, would probably be someone young, athletic (takes five mile-long walks a day totalling up to 3 or more hours of exercise), has no children and never plans to have any, has a 12 foot high wooden privacy fence with a backup fence underneath, and is independently wealthy without working so that they are home 24 hours a day with time to prepare a raw diet for the dog or purchase ultra-premium fresh dog food for hundreds a month. But I digress. We have two prospects. One is a puppy who is already on hold for someone else, but the situation might fall through. That breeder also has another litter coming in a little over a month, and I'm not sure if I met her standards. The other is a breeder in NC who has a puppy available now, according to the website (when did beagles start costing $1000?!), and who also has another young litter with puppies available. Unfortunately, they aren't answering the phone or emails, so I don't know what kind of progress I can expect.

Meanwhile, I need to start thinking about testing for the schoolyear. We can't afford to do it right now--$100 for the cognitive abilities testing I'd like to do and then the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. But I have just been approved as a test provider for these, so my only obstacle now is actually getting the tests. I'm optimistic about these, though still coming to terms with Walter's ongoing "on the spectrum" reality.

Kerry's parents were up for a day. Came Thursday afternoon but didn't come over. Kerry and all of the boys met them at Ruby Tuesday and they misbehaved, which is unfortunate because his parents have no good opinion of our parenting in the first place, so this was a pretty harsh blow and may not portend much good for their future visits. Friday his parents were here most of the day, but little happened. They did take the older kids to the park across the street while Kerry got Rutledge down for a nap. I picked up some books--okay, more like 40 books--at Goodwill yesterday. Lots of Great Illustrated Classics, which Walter loves, lots of Oprah's Book Club picks because I need some diverting matter to read, and lots of Newbery Winners. Kerry and his parents went to see Frances' show last night while I stayed with the boys. Notably, I won Monopoly for the first time against Ollie; he was none too happy, but I wouldn't let him quit when he was begging. This builds character.

Ollie and I finished reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde last night, and now he is very excited about reading the next Little House on the Prairie book. We need to get the full seasons of the television show once we finish all of the books. I'm so pleased that he is loving them so much. They have fit in well with the Gary Paulsen books we've been reading this winter, especially the Mr. Tucket series, which is a boys' Little House, of sorts. We also watched Shane the other night--and Mr. Tucket really was just a retelling of the Shane story. Even Kerry was taken aback by the depth of the movie, one he has disparaged for many years without ever watching. I confess that I myself had never taken much to Westerns, but now I'm finding a new fascination.

My pondering thought for today: Boy am I glad that I didn't have to qualify this well to have human children!