Still here!

Are you still there, vast readership? I know I know, it's been awhile. There is lots to report, yet not much at all. Let's see, Surprise had his preschool graduation, and it was as precious as expected. Oldest finished Kindergarten, and got an award for being "a pillar" of the school, "caring and responsible"...say what? Caring and responsible are not words I would use to describe Oldest, especially when he is beating up his brother, but I have to say, he has matured tremendously in the last year. Sometimes I can't believe he's the same kid as that difficult, sassy four or five year old. I worry about him a lot less, although sometimes he still says things that give me pause - for different reasons.

Last week, for example. We were making container arrangements of indoor plants. He likes dirt and digging, and I wanted some container plants, so I figured this would be a good project to work on together. When pouring dirt, he spilled some of it. A lot of it. No biggie though, I knew I could sweep it up later. He got very apologetic though, and I told him it was nothing to worry about.

"It was just a mistake. It's OK."
"Yeah" he said. "I make mistakes a lot."
Hmmm. How to respond to that? He was still smiling, and said it in a joking tone, but it still bothered me a little. I told him that everyone makes mistakes and that most of the time he really DOESN'T make them. I hope this is nothing to worry about.

Summer is passing too quickly! The first post-40 birthday went by, virtually unnoticed. Phew! I still haven't found a new writing job, but the other one dragged on well past the mid-June deadline, with various carrot dangling, so I'm good through August. I'm working on various blogs and other money-making ventures which I will finish up and hopefully post about next week (yeah right!).

The boys are in various camps this summer. Right now it's a daily, 3-hr, supposedly science and math related camp sponsored by a local university. They've played hopscotch (math?) and made ice cream (science?) so far. This being somewhere by 9AM every day is seriously killing me. I don't know how I ever held down a 9-5 job.

Last week we went on our first summer daytrip activity, Northlandz in New Jersey. It's a giant, three story train layout. We seem to have a train theme this summer, with other train related trips planned - Steamtown and Strasburg. Hooray!! Actually, trains are cool, given some of the male centered alternatives (Lego convention, anyone?)