Sunday reflections 11/6/2011

Halloween was fun.  The streets were beautifully decorated.  I don't know that I have ever seen such a show put on by a whole neighborhood as I did that night.  It truly was amazing.  I was in such awe that I forgot to take pictures.  Not surprising, is it?  I did snap a few photos in the car and one of them at the end of the night with their candy.



Riley the Ninja




Jordan, zombie; Kenzie, gypsy; Ben, Count Dracula and our sleeping Batman who was supposed to be a cowboy but insisted on his favorite old, ratty batman costume that he wears everyday.




The kids and their loot.  Do you know how much candy 5 kids collect?  We let them eat as much as they want for two days and then the candy is sent to Santa for Christmas stockings...call me mean if you will.

 As wonderful as it was, I do not think we will return to the same place next year.  Half of Colorado Springs must have been trick-or-treating on that street.  Both Brad and I felt that had we not been very vigilant it would have been very easy to lose a child or two.  Getting home with all five children is better than any great decorations.

Jordan and Brad went on their second motorcycling trip together to Moab this last weekend and left the kids and me home to enjoy the weekend without them.  We had pizza night, watched a few movies, played games and had a lot of fun together.  Last night, I decided I wanted to surprise them with cinnamon rolls.  So I made the dough, let it rise, put the filling on, rolled them up, put them in the oven and mixed the icing.  While waiting for the rolls to cook, I decided to catch up on some laundry I needed to get folded.  Unfortunately, while I was folding, the timer that sounded for the cinnamon rolls went unheard by my human ears and I overcooked them.  While still edible, they weren't as delectable as I had dreamed of them being.  Murphy's law, right?  Why do things like that always happen?  It's when you're trying to do something extra special for someone that it turns out to be a flop...at least for me.  It's the cornbread that I bake extra special for my family where I always mistake the baking soda for the baking powder (Mom, Dad, Miss, Anj, Rick and Matt, you all know what I'm talking about here).  I had to redeem myself so I whipped a new batch  of cinnamon rolls up this afternoon and they were a big hit.

When I was younger my father made me promise to never marry a wrestler. He made all of us girls promise this. I don't really ever remember him having such a strong aversion to wrestlers until we moved to Elma where the wrestling program stole some of the excellent athletes away from my father's own basketball program. From Elma on, the boys that would choose wrestling over basketball were automatically off limits to us girls. I never even dated a wrestler before Brad. Ironically enough, 2 out of 3 of us girls married ex-wrestlers and the last son-in-law did not even participate in athletics. His passion was (and truly still is) the piano. Let me just say, before I move on, that in no way is it my intent to demean my brother-in-law who plays the piano. He is an excellent pianist and a wonderful guy who does enjoy athletics, but when we first heard he was a pianist, well....let's just say Michael had some severe prejudices to overcome with our basketball/sport enthusiast family. It probably didn't help either that he was the first of the in-laws. My father has been able to swallow the bitter pill of having in-laws who chose wreslting over basketball, but this year I think I may have pushed him over the edge. Last week I officially enrolled 3 of my 4 boys in wrestling. This must cause my dad great pain. Not only must this cause him great pain, but it does produce feelings of guilt in me that I am having to overcome. You aren't raised in a basketball loyal family like mine just to become a wrestling mom. The cherry on top of it all is that every wrestling night I have to pass through the basketball gym smelling the familiar scent of sweat mixed with leather and hearing the sound of the squeaky sneakers on the wooden floor to climb the stairs leading up to the wrestling loft. It's taking a lot of effort from me to ascend those stairs and leave the basketball behind. Not only emotionally am I distressed but I find myself physically distressed watching them. Every muscle in my body tenses as I watch. I'm not sure whether to cry out in pain as my little Riley is contorted into some strange position (I have mother sympathy pains) or shout with joy as he get to his knees and does a reversal on the wrestler that just had the upper hand on him...and we haven't even had a real match yet. Am I cut out for this? I don't know. My boys sure do seem to be enjoying it though, regardless of the pain. Well Jordan enjoys all but the singlet. You should have seen his face when he got it, held up the tiny set of spandex overalls and said to me in disbelief, "This is what I have to wear?" Ben and Riley have no embarrassment at all and couldn't care less about what they wear wrestling...

or anyday for that matter. Let's take today for instance. Ben was in his church clothes and was ready to go 1/2 hour before we went to church. What did he do? He decided to play with Red. The rest of the family was running late and in my rush to get us there on time, I hustled Ben into the car and didn't have a good look at him until we got to church.  His hair was messed up, his shirt half tucked in and mud (from the puppy who loves to jump up on us) was all over his dark navy blue pants. I couldn't help but laugh at the dichotomy of his angelic face as he sat attentive and the boyish mischief that his clothes plainly bespoke. To top it all off, as he stood up I noticed that his zipper was down and as I told him he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly zipped it back up. Boys...and to think I have four of them.