Thursday, November 28, 2013

Surprise, it's Andrew!

When Anthony and Laura arrived with the kids this evening, I was surprised to see Andrew Whisler, fresh from Colorado, coming up the stairs as well. Unknown to me, he had traveled out to Maine with my brother's family for a second time and will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner here tomorrow. Laura thought that I knew Andrew was accompanying them and, of course, felt bad. Not to worry. I vacuumed the crumbs from the futon and Voila! one more bed available for our Rocky Mountain State friend.

I love having my brother home to visit and it's always fun to note the differences in our two families. As I walked down the stairs at one point this evening, the shoe arrangement near the door spotlighted one difference: the Romano's shoes on the left and the Gilbert's on the right.
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Thursday, November 14, 2013

Birthday Suit

Today marked my eldest child's entrance into adulthood. Although I won't admit to being old, I'm quite sure that Jubal's birthday means my days of being young have come to an end. Today we celebrated a sweet little preemie in his birthday suit entering our lives. 18 years later, a new kind of suit was Jubal's gift of choice. It only required three torturous hours of shopping last Saturday.







Jubal's main party will be at a later date so tonight was just a quick birthday chorus after Jubal had a lengthy chat with his Aussie grandparents. I didn't even have a candle for his ice cream cake so Jubal had to resort to "blowing out" Jim's technological iPhone candle. It was a sad little party and we enjoyed it.









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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Double Checking

While I tucked 8 year old Tell into bed tonight, he reminded me to wake him up to go to the bathroom before I went to sleep. About a half-hour later he caught my eyes as he ascended the stairs.

Me: "What are you doing up, Tell? "
Tell: "I just wanted to make sure you wake me up before you go to bed."
Me: " Don't worry. I won't forget."
Tell: " Just so I know, what time are you intending to wake me up?"
Me: "About 12:30."
Tell: (heading back downstairs). Hmmm. OK. I will prolly be asleep by
12:30."
Me: (Chuckling) "Well, I would hope so."


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Finding What You Like

After Nolan spent over a year expressing interest in learning Karate, I finally signed him up at Five Elements Mountain this past spring and it was a decision that I should have made sooner. Like his father, Nolan has never been interested in team sports.






He tried baseball when he was about seven and spent a lot of time plucking grass. I remember one game that my mom came to watch. Before heading out to the field, she gave Nolan some gum to chew with the instructions: "When you get tired of chewing the gum, don't just spit it out; Bring it to me. I'll put it in some paper and throw it away." Nolan was very obedient. When he was finished chewing the gum he jogged from shortstop, across the third baseline, to the bleachers outside the fence and deposited the wad of gum into his Mimi's hand...during the middle of the inning. Yeah. Baseball wasn't for Nolan. He tried basketball one year and that wasn't for him either. Running Club, with more focus on individual competition, kept him occupied for a few years but that wasn't quite his thing either. It took until his teen years to discover that he loves martial arts.






He's enjoying Karate three times a week and Jiu Jitsu twice a week. I love that he has found something that is completely his own, apart from the rest of the family. We recently watched his belt test at the dojo and saw him level up to the 3rd degree yellow belt.










Because they are kid's classes, in karate, Nolan is one of the oldest but his Jiu Jitsu class is a different kettle of fish. In that mostly adult class, at 14, he is the youngest. Therefore he is always grappling with those that are older and bigger. That keeps him always working harder to overcome and better his skills. This weekend he took part in his first Grappling Tournament and placed 2nd in his division. I think Nolan has found what he likes.


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Friday, November 1, 2013

Halloween Twenty-thirteen


I took the two younger kids out to trick-or-treat last night. Instead of heading to my parents' home and neighborhood, like every other year, Tell wanted to go with his friends Ben and Zack. We went with them and the Johnston boys to a Trick or Trunk event and then canvassed a few houses near the Foreman's.









The ninja and Iron Man still ended the night at Mom and Dad's, visiting for a few minutes and picking up the special goody bag that Mom always has for them. Despite the company of his friends, Tell decided that he preferred walking door to door over the assembly line feel of getting candy at the Trick-or-Trunk event.

Wednesday night, my friend Nick and I were discussing how fun and stress-free Halloween might be if we applied some Liberal socialist principles to the evening. We could find the kid that put a huge amount of effort into his costume and spent hours walking from house to house and ended up scoring a nearly full pillowcase of sweet treats. If we found a kid like that we wouldn't need to put much effort in for the evening to result in a net candy profit. Our words as we approached the parents of the hard-working child would be along the lines of: "You don't mind if I take just half of your kid's candy, do you? My kid was pretty lazy and didn't feel like dressing up tonight but he'll still want some candy later. Your kid obviously has WAY more than he needs so we'll just take some." What a haul we'd make!






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West Bath, Maine, United States