For The Sake Of Grandchildren

ThatManILove is out of town this week.  And I have our Little Brother and his little brother for the week, as their mom’s gone to a teacher conference in DFW.

After I dropped the boys at their respective venues, I called ThatManILove.  Here’s how that conversation went:

Me:  I’m enjoying these boys.  I miss when Brody was little, taking him to school, doing the breakfast thing, hanging out.

TMIL:  Well, we could always adopt a couple more kiddos.

Me:  Right.  And you’d come in the door one day, and, like you did with Zanna the Wonderpup,  say, “Jane.  Do you realize we’ve just signed on for a 13 year commitment with this pup?” ; except we know now the commitment would be 30 years plus!

TMIL:  Yeah, I guess you’re right.  But, babe - look at it this way– we might be a little closer to having grandkids if we went ahead and adopted children now and raised them up.

Me:  The way our boys are going, you’re probably right!

Not The Talk! ANYTHING But The Talk!!!

This week, Little Brother Geoffrey and his real little brother are staying with me while their mom attends a teacher conference in Fort Worth.  So far, so good. 

I say that because kiddos in your house, especially those that aren’t yours, are a different animal entirely.  Your own kids are raised and on their own and are out and about.  The empty nest syndrome is really, after all, a relief.  And then all of a sudden, you have an 11 year old and a 14 year old for the week.  And you can't give them back to their mom when she's 5 hours away for a week.

This afternoon brought it all home for me, via a simple text message.  I’m heading to pick Geoffrey up from his summer gifted/talented program.

Geoffrey:  Guess who got a girlfriend.  BTW, the bus is about to leave (Odessa).

Me:  You better be on it, and aloooonnnnnneeeee.

Geoffrey:  Ohno I missed it......(then this long drill down of multiple spaces)....JK.

Geoffrey:  She lives in Odessa.  Yeah, and I don’t think they would allow that.

Then, a pause.

Geoffrey:  Are you almost here?

Me:  On the way.

Geoffrey:  Am I gonna get "the talk"?

Oh, Lordy, I lost it.

Me, to him: Not on your best day, son.  Not even on your best day.  Mebbe so.

He cracks me up.

I Lost A Week - Can Someone Tell Me Why?

How did this week fly by?

Let me count the ways. Work takes up a lot of time.  And then...constant entertainment. I think it started last week, when friends came over for supper two nights in a row (they were moving, and had no kitchen.) Here are some pix of their little girlies.  Beautiful?  You betcha.  Sweet babies, all of them.






























Last Saturday found us tooling around Midland, checking out real estate.  Yup.  Not to move, though, just to see what was hanging out on the foreclosure market.  Because I’m always looking for the next best deal. We saw some funny stuff, some cool stuff, and some very very scary stuff.  Interesting.  Verrrrrry interesting, people.
Saturday evening, I took some pix of a beautiful young lady. We had to book it to beat sunset (look hard, you can see the fading light in the background.  Cool, huh?  Who knew?)

Sunday morning, at dawn, more pix of the beautiful young lady, plus her beautiful sisters. We shot four locations in one hour and took over 300 shots.  And had fun! 

Then, we cooked out for Younger Son and friends.  Or wait, was that Saturday?  Arrrrrgh. All week, ThatManILove worked on taxes, and readied for his next frac job.  He was a busy man, sometimes home, sometimes on location.  And I worked.

We had dinner with clients or coworkers every. single. night.  And this morning, we’ll do brunch with co-workers considering moving to Midland.

Plus, the Little Brother and a friend spent the night.  They woke up at 6:30 am, I heard them drop something.

And I wonder why I look up, and it’s yet another holiday?  Yikes.  Okay.  Off to brunch.


(PS - having font trouble when I post pix to Blogger.  Sorry for the disarray!)

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Last weekend found us in the car with Little Brother, his mom and younger brother (let's name him Dulce, since he's so sweet!), heading to Rock Springs to drop Little Brother off at Camp Eagle. (By the way, what an awesome place!)

We’re driving through the country south of Junction, Texas, home of several game ranches. We've seen horses, cows, sheep, goats, buffalo...and then we get to the good stuff. We’re having fun spotting all the wildlife, when a squeal comes out of the back seat. It’s Dulce, and he's jumping up and down in the seat and pointing…

“Look, y’all! It’s a deer – a real one! Not one of those fake heads that you see hanging on the wall!”

Blessings Come In Bottomless Pits

Zanna the Wonderpup was due for her second segment of hunter puppy training at Decatur, so we decided to take Little Brother along and make a weekend of it. His eyes gleaming with the promise of swimming at the hotel, he buckled up and settled down in the back seat, new Ipod jamming, earphones in, sometimes singing along. You've been there - you're trucking along, and all of a sudden, a song you know is being sung, sans music, from the back seat, and wonder of wonders, you know the song, too? Well, there we were. He's got a great voice, and always cracks us up with his song choices - he loves the 80's bands!

As I drove and ThatManILove settled down to do some computer work, we counted back. LB1 was my “Little” first, and he was 8 years old when I first met him at his school. I would go in for an hour, once a week, and the principal would take him out of class and we would just hang out on the school premises. (This is what Big Brothers Big Sisters call “a school-based match” –since I was on the Big Brothers Big Sisters board, I wasn’t allowed to have a community based match. This policy has since changed. ) Around Christmas, when we were making his mom a surprise Christmas tile, I visited with his grandma to arrange surprise delivery of the present.

At that point, Grandma politely told me that though LB loved my school visits, that their desire was that he be matched with a man who could take him to activities outside of the school. I told her that they had him signed up for the wrong program – that I would call (as my heart was breaking!) and ask their coordinator to call them and get LB signed up for the community program. Not too long afterwards, ThatManILove got a call…they had a match for him in the community based program. To our surprise, that match was my former Little! And Little Brother’s been a huge part of our lives ever since.

We arrive at the Anderson Ranch, let Zack and Zanna out of the truck, and LB starts exploring the grounds. It had recently rained, so everything was wet and muddy. LB goes and checks out all the different dog breeds, the Labs, the German Shorthairs, and the Walker Coon dogs. LB goes to all the barns, and checks out the contents. There, he finds the baby goats, and falls in love. The Andersons let the babies out so LB can play with them. Meanwhile, the family cat is all over him, and later follows him up on the trampoline, where they jump together. (Sorry, LB’s Mom – hopefully Shout will get all that dirt out of that white t-shirt, and we bought him replacement tennis shoes!) Then, he climbs all over the new Ranger Polaris, and asks to drive it. No way, Jose!

We make it to the hotel, where we’ve arranged for connecting rooms. We arranged for his room to have two doubles in case he doesn't want to stay there by himself. He’s a little nervous about staying in a room by himself, but gets over it quickly after moving freely between the two rooms and realizing we’re right there. ThatManILove goes into LB’s room, and they order the Simpsons movie. They laugh throughout the movie.

LB wakes up with the chickens, and has to go downstairs to grab breakfast. He's starving, he says, and can't wait for us to get ready. (We call him the bottomless pit.) He finishes breakfast, comes back up to the rooms; by then, ThatManILove wants to go to the Waffle House. I'm eating fruit, and LB is now into a movie, so ThatManILove goes by himself. Before he can even get back to the hotel, LB is hungry again - but the breakfast area at the hotel has been closed. I call ThatManILove, and ask him to order an omelette to go for LB. ThatManILove laughingly says, "The Bottomless Pit strikes again?" Soon after, it’s swimming time, and they finally come back up to the room at 2pm, exhausted. We pack up, and head out to eat lunch (LB ate a huge Mexican plate) and drive home. It was a great weekend!

People try to recruit Big Brothers and Big Sisters because it's a way to bless a child. They've got it all wrong...I promise you, we're the ones that are blessed.