Summer O' Fun Starts Now

Where to start, where to start? Once again, things happened too fast for me to write them all down for you.  Here are some random, unrelated paragraphs for you, in lieu of a real and coherent post:

Ruby just came home early from school with a fever.  She says her throat really hurts, but the nurse said that because Ruby’s throat looks fine to her, and because Ruby wasn’t coughing, Ruby didn’t need to go get the swine flu test.  Then Ruby coughed in the car.  So we’ll see how it goes, but maybe I should go get her tested just to know for sure?  The only thing a positive flu test might change is my travel plans next weekend. 

• I brought Carl home too, because I couldn’t find him another ride, and I didn’t want to have to make two trips to school.  He was wearing wet pants, apparently from an accident hours and hours ago that he didn’t want to tell anyone about.  Both he and Ruby have decided lately that going to the bathroom to pee is just too time consuming and dull for them, leading to the predictable consequence.  Let’s hope they figure it out soon, because I am too old to be dealing with pee pee accidents now.

• Friday night was the annual song and dance performance at the kids’ school and also their spring carnival.  Rod helped set up the carnival in the heat all afternoon, and I took a death-defying shift at the Throw Darts at Balloons Station. 
• Saturday was our seventeenth wedding anniversary, which Rod and I both neglected to do anything special about.  We’ll try and get a real date night later.  I started writing you a nice list of Good Things about Being Married, but I ran out after “Good sex basically anytime I feel like it so long as my kids are otherwise occupied,” and that was probably too much information anyway.  I attribute us making it seventeen years in mostly blissful happiness to amazing luck and a bit of tenacity.  May we hold it together seventeen more.
• Otherwise, this weekend we spent a lot of time swimming: at the pool on Saturday and Monday (festive holiday barbecue included), and at the beach on Sunday.  Carl has discovered the diving board.  His swimming form still isn’t the greatest, so to his great dismay he is required to take a grownup with him to the deep end.  But, he can jump in and swim to the ladder with his face in the water, which is solid progress.  Ruby is upset because despite a Whole Entire Hour of group lessons a month ago, she seems to have forgotten how to dive in head first. The whole “not everything is easy to do the first time.  I’m sure you’ll get it with a little more practice” speech I gave her didn’t sink in well.  I think I’ll try to find both kids a few more lessons this summer to help things along.  
• Sunday we went to the beach with a bunch of friends for kid surfing lessons and general amusement.  Ruby tried very hard but only made it up to balancing on her knees on the surfboard.  Carl wasn’t interested in trying at all.  I thought it would be his kind of daredevil, fast-moving fun sport, but I hadn’t accounted for the intensive engineering focus he brings to sandcastle construction.  For about three hours, Carl couldn’t be distracted from the digging and filling.  We had to force him to drink something.  Finally, we were preparing to leave when he suddenly discovered the ocean in front of him and played in the surf for another hour or so. 
• Summer seems to be Carl’s favorite time of year.  All his favorite foods (watermelon, ice cream, hot dogs, corn on the cob) are abundantly available, there’s pool time and beach time and no school.  It makes up a bit for how much I hate summer.
• Carl and I spent a lot of time playing with Legos this weekend.  I did sort of enjoy myself, so perhaps we are related after all.
• There are one and a half days left of school, except of course Ruby will probably miss it all.   
• My friend who has been trying to get pregnant for years and years finally managed it.  I have somehow been appointed her official doctor visit buddy, and we have been there five times in two and a half weeks.  It may be a long eight months, but I still think good-news ultrasounds are really cool, even when they aren’t mine.
• Ruby says she loves me more than the universe.  This is far more romantic than anything Rod has come up with.
•  Carl observed, in the context of a discussion of his friends of various sizes and how tall he is compared to most of them, that I am fat. I said “yes, you’re right, I am fat….kind of.”  Carl replied, “no, Mom, you’re really fat.” The refreshing thing is that he doesn’t yet see anything morally wrong with being fat, so it was just an observation.  If only I could keep him that way.