Kiss of Silence

For the first time in a long time, between shuttling kids around to various activities today, C and I found ourselves in our home by ourselves for a brief moment.  It was strange and wonderful all at once.  We shared a single kiss to commemorate the moment.

Earlier today, H had his football game, Lego club at the library and a birthday party to attend.  Z went to a friend's house and then to a birthday party.  J went to a birthday party and then a friend's house.  The same with O.  S decided after grabbing dinner with C and I (it's rare she gets to have us both to herself), she would attend this evening's church service and thankfully grabbed a ride home with my sister and family.

I tried some new camera settings (thanks to my other sister) at the football game, but need to keep working on that.  As I told Jessica, I fear that "M" on the dial of my Nikon D90 and tend to rely on automatic settings.  She's trying hard to help me get over that.  Mostly, I don't have the focus to figure out stuff like that, but she's very patient and explains it all to me in a way I can grasp.  Anyway, the team lost this week, so if the pictures didn't work out as well, it's not such a big deal, right?  Right.  There are many games to come.

And who knew there are so many St. Patrick's Day birthdays?!  It is really an anomaly for four of our kids to have birthday parties to attend on one weekend.  It seemed like a gift from heaven at first, till we realized that the parties all just partly overlapped each other and the game.  So we were more than thankful when our dear friend offered to bring home J and O and then on the way home, she decided to invite them over for a little while.

Birthday presents for all our St. Patrick's Day birthday friends.

This gave us just enough time to grab a little pasta for dinner with S before the next driving shift began.  And then after dropping S at the church, we went home so C could be there to receive J and O, while I picked up the older boys.  But before I left, I realized the silence in the house and after announcing it, stole a kiss from my beloved.

Then, the best part of the silence was that I was able to use the potty without a single knock at the door (or worse, no knock and just an unannounced visitor appearing before me).  A mom's dream!  Using the bathroom alone.  (Sigh.)  These are the moments to celebrate!

But soon, I was back out the door and on my way to pick up H and Z.  C called and asked me to pick up some whole milk for the duck-egg yellow cake he was making (yes, duck eggs ... S earned them while working at the farm the other day, so C was excited to try them in a cake).  The boys hadn't gotten dinner at their party, so I grabbed them McDonald's on the way to Walgreen's to get the whole milk.  Never mind the long road I took to get to those places, thinking I was taking a shortcut.  Ha!  (There are so few shortcuts on dark, desert roads.)

The mom at that party gave me some cupcakes to take home.  They had marshmallow creme frosting.  One fell off the top of my water-cup lid and landed upside-down on my seat.  So first thing when I got home, I was cleaning the sticky mess off my seat.  Thanks to God it was leather, or I'd still be out there instead of in here writing down my meandering thoughts about this day.

Oh, and S asked for her cell phone back.  She hasn't had it for a year due to broken trust issues.  But she's been more trustworthy in the past five months (than she was probably in the past five years).  We need to work out a plan.  We won't give it to her all at once because it's too risky.  We don't know yet how the plan will go.  We'll see.

She'll be 17 in June and letting go a little more is part of her age.  I guess I'm just struggling to come to terms with that -- especially with regards to some things.  Theoretically, in less than two years, she'll be enlisted in the air force and training to serve our country with countless other brave men and women.  It's hard to believe.

Maybe having some silence in the house is too much of a good thing.  Too much time for me to ponder things.  If I keep moving, keep shuttling kids around, keep answering knocks at the bathroom door, I can stay focused on the problem-solving of the moment instead of thinking too much about the future and the time when I must let all of them go be adults in the world.

Not yet though.