Blog on Hiatus

Sorry, folks, but I have re-evaluated my priorities and decided to stop regular postings to this blog -- at least for now. There are too many things going on simultaneously, and I was losing sleep trying to keep up with all of them. I also wasn’t exercising regularly like I used to, and like I need to.

Believe it or not, until September of 2009, I used to play tennis an average of twice a week. I am a membor of a tennis club and the USTA and everything!  Tennis used to be a big part of my life, and the life of my foster kids, too, as I would drag them to my league matches and practices. Then I injured my back and my elbow and took a break for them to heal. It was supposed to be a short break, but other things quickly filled in the time gap. Without really noticing it, six months went by!

I believe a balanced life leads to a happy life, and one element to a balanced life is regular exercise -- preferably the sort you look forward to rather than dread. My recent re-evaluation revealed how much I missed playing tennis, so I’ve rearranged my schedule to make playing a priority again. It sure feels good!

Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day. Even without tennis I was having trouble keeping up. To put tennis back in my life I had to give some things up. Regular posting to this blog was one of these sacrifices.

I do plan to post when I can, and hope that the craziness of 2010 will eventually die down enough for me to post more regularly.

Thanks, and take care, everyone!

Week of Storms

It’s been a week of storms, around Dave’s Home, across the country and around the world. I’m not just talking about the weather, either.

An earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck Chile early this morning. The ground shook for over a minute, and was felt thousands of miles away.

The Chilean quake generated tsunami tidal waves that have already hit some islands in the Pacific, and eight foot waves were expected to slam the Hawaiian Islands today, starting around 1:00pm PST.

I experienced the Loma Prieta earthquake back in 1989. It knocked down freeways and one section of the Bay Bridge, yet it was only a magnitude 6.9 lasting 15 seconds. I can’t imagine how terrifying a temblor nearly two orders of magnitude stronger and lasting four times as long would be – and I hope I never do.

I want you!
(Or your money)

Back at Dave’s Home, a couple of storms hit inside the house. The first was a storm of paperwork dredged up by the annual misery of income tax preparation. As in years past, I relied on Turbo Tax to guide me through this storm. So far this software has stood me in good stead with the IRS, knock on wood.

The second storm came in the form of illness. I couldn’t believe it myself, but little K fell sick yet again. He’s got strep throat, this time. Two more days of missed school for K, missed work for me, and piles of building blocks in the living room to keep him busy. Since November K has gotten sick an average of every 1.5 months. This time I took him to see the doctor right away, which turned out to be a good thing. He’s been on antibiotics ever since, and is feeling much better.

Let’s see, who haven’t I mentioned, yet? How about Cheesy the cat, who was caught red pawed trying to fish a fish out of the fish tank? Sorry, Cheesy, no fish for you!

Other news in brief: We finished Stuart Little and started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before bedtime. The court sent notice of a mid-March hearing to dissolve my guardianship of P. And H & K are finally over their pizza overload, choosing Mountain Mike’s (a pizza place) above all other restaurants for a Friday night dinner out. They went nearly two weeks without their favorite food!

Storms and all, we weathered the week well.

It could have been worse!  I shot this photo on

my way to work.  Talk about a bad commute!

Science Breakthrough

News flash....straight out of Dave’s Home in California....kids, eight and eleven, create volcano-in-a-cup, or so they claim....“We did it upstairs in my bedroom,” says the older child, “with water, this powdery stuff (baking soda), Play Doh, and balls of chewing gum for color!”....proud foster parent unavailable for comment, last seen rushing upstairs with Resolve carpet cleaner in one hand, and carpet brush in the other....

(Now I know why they were so quiet while I was writing the last blog post.)

Field Maintenance

On Wednesday we had another two hour double dose of therapy. Unfortunately this conflicted with K’s baseball practice, as his team chose Wednesdays for their weekday practice. When I signed the kids up for Little League I knew there was a good chance that one kid’s schedule or the other would conflict, but I rolled the dice anyway. Little K will have to make do with just one practice a week.

Thursday we were invited to Tracy’s house for a wonderful dinner of chicken parmesan and pasta. It was a welcome mid-week break from our normal evening routine.

Today was baseball practice for H (again at eight o'clock in the AM) and field maintenance for K’s team. H’s team plays on a different set of fields than K’s team, and the fields are a little over a mile from each other, as the crow flies. Next Saturday will be maintenance day for H’s fields.

The field had seen better days.

The fields that K’s team plays on are showing their age. The league was formed about 55 years ago! One of the infields needed a total makeover. Most of the volunteers worked on removing dead grass, leveling the ground, and spreading fresh clay.

Somehow I was recruited to repair the rotting walls of the combination equipment room and scorekeepers booth. I don’t mind that kind of work, though. I just hope they didn’t expect a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

The two-story scorekeepers booth.

Lots of rotten wood under the pealing

paint of that facing wall.

During our lunch break, we picked up the boys’ eight-year-old cousin for a play date. While I helped to finish repairing the walls, the three kids chased each other around the empty fields. All of us were pretty worn out by the time we got home.

The boys, their cousin, and a neighbor

friend playing video games after a long

day of baseball and field maintenance..

Early Spring Luffing

There’s still more than a month before the vernal equinox, but around Dave’s home it looks like Spring has already sprung. After weeks of nothing but cold, clouds and rain, last weekend was clear and warm. Thankfully it was also a three-day weekend. The kids and I had Monday off from school and work for President’s Day.

H had his first baseball practice early Saturday – at 8am, a bit too early on a weekend for me. I prefer to sleep in. Instead, we had to get up as though it was a school day, and in the rush I forgot my camera. This photo was taken with my cell phone, which I poked through the fence for an unobstructed picture. Sorry about the angle.

Being so nice out, we spent much of the weekend outdoors. H & K found a lot more other kids around to play with, probably because everyone was so sick of being couped up indoors.  While the kids played, I pressure washed a few years of dirt and mold off the front steps of the house, and gave the car a thorough wash, inside and out.

We also explored and had a picnic dinner in a nearby park. We had such a good time that we lost track of it (time, that is) and dusk fell before we made it back to the car.  H said it was kind of spooky.

A carved stump

in the park

Lots of water thanks
to the recent rains

Something fowl in the water

This little taste of good weather makes me yearn for Spring.

By the way, I’ve decided to continue writing about the kids, but not on a daily basis like I was before – at least not for a while. Events this last month have kind of taken the wind out of my blogging sail, so for now I’m going to luff it and hope to find inspiration again.

Sliver moon hanging
over the spooky park

Super Hockey Wine Bowl

Like many other folks, last Sunday afternoon the boys and I went to a Super Bowl party. Two parties, actually. I had planned to go skiing since I’m such a big football fan, but the suckiness of the prior two days caused me to cancel out of that trip.  As it turned out, if I had to watch football instead of ski, this was the game to see. The underdog New Orleans Saints came from behind in the second half for quite an exciting win.

My friend, Tracy, threw a party at her house and we stopped by there first.  Then we headed back to Dave’s Home where a neighbor threw another party. While the adults drank, talked and watched the game on TV, the kids mostly stayed outside. When I checked on them during the second party, the older kids (seven and up) were playing street hockey instead of football. Any chance to play makes them happy. Makes me happy, too!

Meanwhile, inside the house the younger kids were having a lot of fun, also. Typical five-year-old stuff. You know, boys wrestling each other. Boys wrestling a girl. The girl pinning the boys. The girl’s parents cheering her on. Typical stuff.

Back in the adult party world, there were at least two different football betting pools going on. There were probably more, but I’m not into gambling and so didn’t pay close attention. Except that one of the pools was for wine rather than money. Contribute one bottle and you get six squares. Contribute two bottles and you get twelve squares.  Twelve squares!  Each square an opportunity to win lots more wine than you contributed, depending on the score of the game at the end of each quarter. I went all in with two bottles.

Like I said, I don’t gamble very much and rarely win when I do – which is why I don’t.  Guess who won the fourth quarter wine pool?

Baseball Team Meetings

Yesterday and today we went to Little League baseball team meetings. Last night was for K’s team. He’s on the Farm Division Giants. And tonight was for H’s team, the AAA Division (or Minor A) Yankees.  All right, both coasts are covered.

We met the team managers, and the coaches that had already volunteered, and met most of the kids and their parents. Getting parents to volunteer was a big part of these meetings. Each team needs a bevy helpers, including backup coaches, umpires, scorekeepers, a safety parent, and a team reporter, as well as folks to cover snack shack and fund raising duties.

Back when P was in middle school he played Little League baseball, too, and I volunteered to umpire. After three years behind the plate, I decided to volunteer for something else this time around. I signed up for scorekeeper and team reporter. The team reporter writes a short article about each game and submits it via computer to the local newspaper. I can do that, I think.

One of my biggest concerns when signing the boys up for baseball was how I’d get them to all their games and practices. At these meetings I found out their practice schedule, at least for the first month or two, and it seems doable. H’s team practices twice a week; Saturday morning and Tuesday evening at 6pm. K’s team also practices twice a week, except his weeknight is Wednesday, which unfortunately conflicts with almighty therapy. His team manager was cool with K coming one day a week rather than two, though, thinking that the practice schedule would likely change anyway once games start in March.

Both team meetings were held at pizza restaurants. After two straight days of it the boys and I are totally pizza’d out.

Little K says he doesn’t even want to see another pizza – for at least a couple of days. Hey, it’s pizza, a kid’s favorite food!

Three Day Update

Sorry for the lapse in blog posts, folks. Basically Friday and Saturday sucked so much that I didn’t feel like writing. Even now I don’t know what I want to say, especially since one of the main suckages remains unresolved. All I will say for now is that it involves P, and that he’s not dead.

Another feel-bad issue keeping me from writing kind of sprung from the former. Frankly, up until recently it’s felt right to write about the good things going on with my foster kids, and even alright to write about some of the tougher things that go on. But it gets uncomfortable when things really go south. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this lately, and it’s led me to wonder whether it’s really OK to write about these kids at all. What if they read this blog one day? Others may not know who they are, but they’ll recognize themselves even with blurred out faces, won’t they?

I need to think about this some more, and to re-read my past blog entries with this concern in mind. In the meantime I’ll write about some benign goings on like the kittens and Super Bowl parties.

Lawyer, Therapy and Hiding Homework

Yesterday I met with an attorney about dissolving my legal guardianship of P. I’ve been concerned that his behavior of late poses a serious liability risk to me, and I’ve got absolutely no control over him. In the past week two different social worker supervisors have warned me about this, and recommended that I consult an attorney. I hate doing this, but what choice do I have?  I told P that I was worried about this before his latest bounce in and out of the house, and I spoke to him again about it this morning. It has no influence on him.

Yesterday was also double therapy day for H & K. To keep the boys from bickering with each other, which they so love to do, they now take turns going first. While one kid is in with the therapist, I help the other with homework in the waiting room.

When it was little K’s turn to do homework, I discovered that he’s been hiding worksheet pages from me! If the teacher gives him two pages, he sometimes brings just one to the table, claiming that it’s his only homework. He got caught because back in class he turns in both pages -- one of them blank.

Little dickens!

So with all of this we didn’t get home yesterday until after 8pm. In a blink it was after 9pm, past bedtime and the boys were still awake. Wednesdays are tough.

Today was easier, though. As I write this the boys are upstairs sawing logs, the cats are wrestling outside my office door, and I'm watching the Groundhog Day movie in a DivX window on my computer. After posting about this movie on Tuesday, both my Dad and my brother Joe sent me online links to it. Thanks, guys!

Six More Weeks of Winter

Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today! That’s right, Happy Groundhog’s Day, everyone! This morning the great Punxsutawney Phil, seer of seers, sage of sages, prognosticator of prognosticators, and weather prophet extraordinary, reportedly saw his shadow. That means six more weeks of winter weather, if you believe that sort of rot.

Cake makes six more weeks of

winter go down easier.

Coincidentally, back at Dave’s Home, the local grocery store had a sale on single layer cakes. That’s reason enough to celebrate in my book, so we bought a cake for after our dinner feast of roast beast, leftover chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and broccoli. The potatoes were from scratch! (I felt like cooking this evening.)

Seeing Phil on the news this morning made me think of another movie favorite of mine -- Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. The opening line in this post came from that movie. I don’t have it in my DVD library, yet, but I hope to some day.

P.S. We didn’t read from Stuart Little tonight because the kids took such a long time showering, but tomorrow I’ll try some of the suggestions about empathy sent in by readers. (Referring to yesterday’s post.)

A mere photo fails to capture the true excitement
of a large squirrel predicting the weather.

New Bedtime Story

We finished reading a simplified version of The Swiss Family Robinson a while ago and started on a new book; Stuart Little by E. B. White. Each night before bed we read one chapter together. Tonight’s chapter was titled “Spring”, and in it Stuart’s good friend, Margalo the bird, finds out that a cat will be coming after her and so decides to fly away. The chapter ends after Margalo leaves, but before Stuart finds out that she's gone. (Margalo didn't tell anyone she was leaving.)

I’ve been told many times that when reading with kids it’s important to test their comprehension, so every night I start off by asking H & K to recount what happened in the last chapter, and then finish up with a question or two about the current chapter. Tonight I wondered if the kids felt sad for Stuart because he was losing his good friend, so my questions prodded in that area. Both kids remembered that Margalo and Stuart were friends, and that Margalo had flown away, but when asked what might happen in the next chapter, neither kid said that Stuart might be sad.

I guess this is one step beyond reading comprehension. It was more of a test to see if the kids empathized with Stuart, and could foresee what would happen next. I wonder when children are supposed be able to do this?

Batting Practice

After a yummy lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup, I took the boys to the local batting cages to work on their swings. Twenty balls for $3.00, and they let us borrow a bat and helmets.  We went over where to stand, how to grip the bat, the ready position, and the swing. I know just enough to be dangerous!

For H & K the hardest part was remembering to get into the ready position with their elbows up, hands back and bat at about a 45 degree angle. Still, both of them got in some decent cuts, and connected quite a few times.

We’ll keep at it until team practices begin. I hope their practice and game schedules will be manageable!

Some time in the next week or two I'll have to invest in some more baseball clothes and equipment for the kids.  They are going to need cleats, socks, pants, and helmets.  Maybe bats, too.  Play It Again Sports, here I come!

As we went up to bed I spotted
Mac & Cheesy staring out into the dark.

The calm before the nightly kitten storm.