and the Dominoes fall ...

Well, this evening DD and DS#3 added to the list of possible "sick folks" as both had the low-grade fever this bug seems to start with. It looks like DS#1 is on the downhill slide as he has been feeling better but his fever still isn't completely gone. This probably means another missed day of school for him tomorrow which is not a good thing.

I am sure my dear wife is going to be the most disappointed of all of us. She is using her last two days of vacation on the present contract tomorrow and Wednesday. Thursday she'll be at the same job but under a different contract with a different contracting company. Basically, it looks like she took two days of vacation on "early dismissal" and conference days in order to either be home sick or be home with sick people.

This bug is pretty brutal, not sure if it is H1N1 or something else, but it certainly isn't much fun. Worst part is, I was planning to get flu shots this week. Sigh.

Off for more ibuprofen and bed. Maybe I'll veg to the football game for a bit, we'll see.

Soccer and "The Bug"

Well, the family is starting to get hit with the bug that has taken so many kids out of school around here lately. DS#1's team was decimated by illness their first few games and had to play with 10 players. This weekend it was DS#1's turn. He played goal keeper the first half of the game on Saturday and a little bit on the field in the second half. When he got home, he was toast, done, finished, wiped out, etc. He is home from school today and I would say he isn't happy about it, but the truth is that he is sound asleep.

His team had a game Sunday too, but he simply could not make it, he was sick enough he couldn't even sit the sideline and support the team. DS#2 and DS#1 had overlapping games on different fields so I took DS#2 (I am his team manager) on Saturday and because DS#1 couldn't go on Sunday my lovely wife was finally able to watch DS#2 and his team play. Alas, Sunday's game didn't go well for his team and they lost badly. Saturday, the game she missed, his team won and really dominated ball control. Unfortunately, she started coming down with "the bug" and went straight home to shower and go to bed.

DS#3 came with me on Saturday so I had to keep him entertained. Low and behold, a small plastic train and the cooler. I guess sometimes it isn't so hard to keep a 2-year old entertained. He had a few bad moments but survived the game well.

DD only had one game this weekend. She played on Saturday morning and her team played quite well. Hers is the only "U8 Academy Girls" team in our club so they have to play against the boys and against the older girls. Saturday she played against the same team she played against last week and they lost 2-1 in a very close game. We enjoy watching her play when she is "serious" and still get a kick out of it when she is "silly." She has a good little team but the girls are new to the larger 8v8 format and fields so they are still adjusting a bit.

Well, that is about it, right now it seems that DS#1, my dear wife, and I all have "the bug." It might be the flu, it might be another virus. So far the younger 3 don't have it and I am glad that DD and DS#2 are at school away from us. I have been letting DS#3 play (and watch his favorite shows) to his heart's content in the hopes that keeping him away will keep him from getting it. Sometimes I think that (healthy) children somehow instinctively know that a parent is sick and seem to behave very well all of a sudden. So far today DS#3 has been fairly easy to deal with. I am hoping all my hand-washing, etc. helps keep him healthy.

I hope I can get everyone healthy for the weekend, we have lots of games and activities scheduled so we'll see how it goes.

I'm Not Tired

Quick post about DS#3 today. Lately he has been trying to give up his naps. Now, the truth is, he can play pretty well throughout the afternoon most days, but in the evenings he gets very tired and cranky. This means that I TRY to get him a nap everyday so that he'll be more pleasant in the evening. During the week (M-F) I think we get a nap about 3 days out of 5 but that is clearly starting to drop off. This picture from the other day shows him in "tired" mode just resting beneath the piano.

Yesterday and today he took naps, but took them much earlier than his usual and only napped about an hour or so each day. Today after telling me that he wasn't tired, he needed to be carried and simply draped himself over me as we left Costco. He fell asleep on the way home and I decided to let him sleep in the van. The weather was nice so I just opened up the doors and sat in a chair in the garage writing in my notebook while he slept.

When he woke up he wanted to be held and cuddled for a bit, which is always nice, and then it was "off to the races" as he went off to play with his trains. I am sure my dear wife will post about the fact that all three of the older kids had haircuts today at the salon where she gets her hair done so I will leave that to her. I just thought it would be nice to post a bit about DS#3 today because it'll be another "Soccer Saturday" tomorrow and this usually means news about the other three kids.

This evening DS#2 and I went with DS#1 to a "Family Game Night" at the high school. DS#2 and I played a board game together and then joined the larger group DS#1 was playing "Apples to Apples" with. It was a pleasant evening and I enjoyed meeting a few of the friends that DS#1 has been talking about.

Thanks Mom!

I haven't been posting often enough lately. I just wanted to mention the fact that my mom came to visit this past weekend and was a HUGE help. She was planning to try to come sometime during September and when I realized DS#1 had a soccer game in Laredo on a day my dear wife was on-call I decided to give her a call and encourage her to come that weekend. The fact that she came kept me from having to find other babysitting for the younger three kids. Sunday was basically an all-day trip with travel time to Laredo, the soccer game, lunch afterward, and the drive back home.

The kids love seeing their grandparents and don't get to see my mom and dad very often so they were very excited about seeing their grandma. DS#3 warmed up to her again pretty quickly and was more than happy to get grandma to do things for him. I think my mom was a bit surprised at how busy our weekends can be, but she jumped in with both feet and attended several soccer games (2 and a half games worth) including DS#2's away game in San Marcos.


This picture of DS#3 when we went out to the shopping mall for lunch (it was raining and we wanted DS#3 to be able to walk around a bit) was hilarious. And I think a great close to this post. Thanks again Mom!

Soccer Saturday ...

Okay, for the rest of fall, all Saturdays are "Soccer Saturday" but I guess that is just the way it goes. DD is loving her team, and we are getting a kick out of watching her (and her team) play. We have seen DS#1 and DS#2 progress through "Bumble Bee Ball" to the passing games that they play and now we get to see DD play, well, "Bumble Bee Ball." In truth, the game she and her teammates play is VERY good for 7 year olds. Right now their team only competes with older teams (or boys' teams) because there isn't another girls' team in her age group. Today she played against a "U9" girl's team and the teams played to a 2-2 tie. In fact, her team was ahead for much of the game.

We get a HUGE kick out of watching her strange combination of "girliness" and determination. As you can see here, the competition was just SLIGHTLY larger than DD, but she (eventually) found a way to hold her own.

After DD's game was over I rushed everyone home and my mom (whoops! I haven't posted that Grandma is in town, I'll have to talk about that tomorrow!), DS#2 and I headed out to San Marcos (about an hour from here) for his game. As his team manager I knew that the BEST we could do was "Iron Man" soccer due to illness. Right now we play 8v8 so that meant having 8 boys on the field for the entire game. Well, we started with 7, the 8th showed up 5 minutes into the game and that was a big help. Without subs the boys played to a 1-1 tie. We play this team again later this year and with a few subs I think it will be a very different outcome. I don't know why I like this picture so much, I didn't quite catch the shot where he hit it with his head, but it does show how hard he was working (he is in dark blue, #17).

The drive back was difficult as we had to go far out of our way to avoid a major construction-related traffic jam. Fortunately, we knew about it in advance so I could adjust our route. Once home, I had 45 minutes to have lunch (at 4:00 PM) before taking DS#1 to his 6:00 PM game.

DS#1's team has had some difficulties the past few years, but this year has looked very different. This means something HAS to happen, Murphy's Law appeared to be in effect. We have enough injured boys, and sick boys that we could only start with 11 (for full 11v11 FIFA rules). The other team started with 10. We rapidly hit 10 as one of our boys was truly simply so sick he couldn't play any longer. We did, however, win this game but not without some serious problems with one of the parents from the opposing team. Truly sad reaction and some of us suspect the gentleman in question might have had a tad to drink before the game.

Tomorrow I will drive DS#1 to Laredo, TX, for another soccer game. My dear wife is on-call tomorrow but my mother came to town and will stay with the younger children. I will miss them, particularly DS#3 who needs this mention here as my dear wife snapped a picture of us walking along the sidelines.

Fun Weekend

Looks like it is time for one of those posts that is a collection of pictures, captions, and information spaced such that it'll look terrible when it exports to FaceBook.

This past weekend all of our soccer games were canceled due to the weather. Basically, it rained enough to soak the fields pretty thoroughly AND more storms were predicted. This meant that instead of leaving for Houston after DS#1's soccer game on Saturday, we left Friday evening. Now, one might expect that if soccer games were canceled for the entire weekend road conditions might not be the best. They weren't, the 3 hour or so drive took closer to 4 1/2 hours on Friday night and was pretty exhausting for the driver (me). Going to Houston to visit family and friends is always worth the effort. Particularly when DS#3 gets to play with his cousin N's Thomas the Tank Engine trains. He played hard enough to need some cozy time relaxing.

Now, the reason for the trip to Houston this weekend was to help celebrate CB's (my dear wife's youngest sister) birthday. Yup, she turned the big "4" ... well, we didn't have a "0" so I guess she'll just have to be 4.

The wonderful thing about being able to get together with the family is that the cousins all get along so incredibly well. DD and her cousins A and E are all within a year of age (all are in 2nd grade) and simply love to play together. Now, sometimes the way they play is slightly influenced by the boys, but, you know, only slightly.

The boys played together too, in fact Saturday evening pretty much devolved into a long, ongoing nerf gun battle that ended up involving several of the adults. Hmm, perhaps I should have put "adults" in quotes.

Sadly, all good times must come to an end and on Sunday afternoon it was time to head back to San Antonio. We had a silly hope that if we left at the right time DS#3 would nap in the car. Well, his mama got a bit of rest, DD got a short nap, but DS#3 is trying to get rid of this whole nap thing altogether. He actually does pretty well without a nap until, oh, about 5-6:00 in the evening. We do our best to get him to nap when we know we'll have a busy evening but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

We stopped at a rest stop just outside San Antonio for a bit of a break (one of the kids needed to use the bathroom) so everyone stretched their legs for a few minutes. This particular rest stop is very, very nice, it has clean restrooms, nice picnic areas, and a wonderful playscape. DD and DS#3 got some energy out and we continued home.

We have a full week, and weekend, coming up. I am excited that my Mom is coming to visit this Thursday and we are hoping my Dad decides to come too. We have a number of soccer games so it'll be a busy weekend, particularly because two of them are out of town. I'll do my best to post again soon.

Some Time at the Park

So far today has been a fairly relaxing day. I haven't gotten much done either than some laundry and a little bit of grocery shopping, but DS#3 and I have had quite a bit of fun together.

Lately, he has been playing by himself very, very well. This is a little bit surprising as he has had so many people around for most of the summer. Even if one or the other of his siblings was off playing somewhere else, somebody else had friends over so it seemed like there was always someone around for him to interact with.

This morning he was so busy playing with his trains, and having wonderful conversations, that I had to just watch. The playtime turned into "silly smiles" anytime he noticed me trying to catch a video so I put the camera away and just enjoyed it.

I decided to go ahead and take him to the park today, we picked up McDonald's (no, not a big fan, but he loves it and let's face it, he needs to put on some pounds) on the way and ate BEFORE playing. He ran around enough that he actually got hot and decided he wanted to go home and sleep. No, he didn't sleep, I knew it was early for that, but hey, it sounded good to me ;). So far, it is a napless day and late enough now that I probably won't bother.

Fortunately, I did get some pictures (have to earn points with my lovely wife) but I already deleted most of them. The middle picture of him at the bottom of the slide will probably go too, but I had to post it because I love the way the static from the slide made his hair stand up. I wish you could see the joy on his face as he was coming down, but I just couldn't get a good shot of him on the slides today.

My biggest surprise was that he not only wanted to sit on the swing, he wanted to actually swing. For a long time he seemed afraid of swings and swinging, lately he would sit on them but not swing. Now, he enjoys swinging too!

Well, the day isn't close to over yet. DS#3 is coming down the stairs, it sounds like it is time to read a book again. DS#2 and DD get off the bus at about 3:00 PM after which I need to get them to practice their respective instruments, take care of their homework, etc. before dinner and soccer practices tonight. In other words, I thought I'd post these now because I probably won't be posting anything tonight.

"Cool" days and Rain

Well, it is a lazy, cool (for San Antonio) afternoon. It is actually even cloudy right now and threatening to rain!

We have had a few "nice" days lately where the temperatures have only gone into the low 90's. This has meant more walks and playtime outside, including some walks with DS#3 and my dear wife during some comp days/pre-call mornings this past week.

Amazingly, we have also had rain. Normally, September is the "rainy" month for San Antonio and the fact that it has rained twice in two days (Friday night and Saturday late afternoon/evening (and night)) has been amazing. It was even misty/drizzling this morning when I went out on the Sunday morning doughnut run.

Friday night DS#1 got caught in the rain coming home from his friend N's house. Yesterday afternoon, well, he got caught in the rain coming home from his friend N's house. Yes, everyone noticed the pattern and made jokes about it. DS#2 thinks his older brother should simply walk back and forth to N's house in order to make it rain. San Antonio is in desperate need of more rain so we'll just have to smile when it finally comes.

My sister and mother-in-law are in town, okay, they are visiting us but at this very moment they are shopping at the outlet stores in San Marcos, TX. My dear wife would have gone with them, but she isn't really willing to shop ALL DAY LONG like they are.

We all went out to dinner last night and came home to find the garage door wouldn't open. We went in through the front door and I headed into the garage to see what was wrong. BOTH overhead springs were broken with my dear wife's car basically trapped inside the garage. I was able to find someone to come and fix it today which was both lucky, and expensive due to the holiday weekend. It seems I can't get away from "stimulating the economy" lately. I do think it is much more fun to spend money on electronics and games than on garage door repairs.

The Tooth Fairy

Well, yesterday evening on the way to soccer practice (what a surprise!) I was teasingly threatening DD about her loose tooth that STILL hadn't come out. Some of you might recall that she had to have her first two "lost" teeth pulled by the dentist as the new teeth grew in and simply pushed the old ones aside. I told her that if DS#2 lost his next tooth before hers came out we would let HIM wiggle her tooth FOR her! Well, DS#2 promptly popped out his tooth on the way to practice--GAME ON! Those of you that really know DD and DS#2 and their love-hate/brother-sister relationship can REALLY appreciate this!

My dear wife brought DS#1 and DS#3 to the fields (DS#1 practices later than DD and DS#2) so I took all three of the younger kids home. After bathing DD and DS#3 I brushed DD's teeth with the express purpose of, well, wiggling that darned tooth. You guessed it, it popped right out! In fact, it came out so quickly I was afraid I'd lose it down her throat! I think she was both happy to have it out AND surprised that it really didn't hurt that much. She also got a bit excited about the tooth fairy.

This meant that the tooth fairy had to come 2 times last night. Well, a certain person's stock of the $1 coins used as "rewards" for teeth had but one coin left. Fortunately, DS#1 doesn't have any organization to his drawers and I, ahem, the tooth fairy, had a pretty good guess where to find a $1 coin to buy--Translation: "Holy Cow! (DS#1) what is all this stuff!? Oh, look, Thank God!"

Today my dear wife took pictures of the kids with their rewards. She got a particular kick out of how DS#2 wanted to ham it up by putting the coin over his eye. Basically, if you want a picture of DS#2 you pretty much have to let him go a bit wild ;). Hey, it works...

Just Cleats

Okay, silly title, but I thought that after talking about DS#1 and DS#3 in my last post I should talk about DS#2 and DD today. Here they are gearing up for soccer practice tonight. As luck would have it, they are putting their cleats on side by side (okay, as close as they'll get) on the bottom step so that my dear wife could take pictures.

Sometimes I think that it is strange how we became a "soccer family" but I think it really does come down from the younger kids going to so many soccer games for the older. I remember once being concerned that DS#2 wouldn't go into soccer because his brother played, well that went by. Just days ago (okay, maybe hours) I was concerned that DD didn't have the dedication needed to play at the level she said she wanted to play.

I also think about the fact that just yesterday (okay, about 8-9 years ago) I told my wife not to let me force my kids into a sport (swimming) just because that is what *I* did when I was a kid. Coaching swimming and seeing children forced into a sport by their parents was an eye-opener for me. My dear wife and I have agreed that we want the children to participate in sports, or something physical and active, but that we'll let them choose the sport/activity. Last year DD chose gymnastics and dance, this year, well, this year is different, she has chosen soccer this year and it is rather convincing that she wants to play soccer right now.

DD and DS#2 still have a lot of sports and activities to choose from. We will do our best to keep all of their options open. They are young and can easily change their minds so we have to both encourage them in whatever they choose and still keep other opportunities open in the future.