I let Fern have Mandy sleep over Friday night. I tend to be lenient when I'm on solo fort patrol, if Fern is occupied, then she's not as much as of a pain as when she's by herself. Saturday morning I dropped Kevin off at AM's for her oldest to watch and took the girls to Danny's bar mitzvah. There was no way Kevin could have sat through a two and a half hour service. Afterward, I took home three girls and collected Kevin.
At 5:30 AM's oldest and her cousin came over and I took the three girls to the Bar Mitzva reception party. AM and Mark were seated at another table and I didn't know anyone at my table so initially I thought I was going to hate the next four hours. But my table mates turned out to be lovely people, one even works here in my building. I'd never had the privilege of attending a party like this, except maybe my own wedding, and my children weren't there then. Havdalah was new to me as well. I stayed out of Fern's way so she could have a good time without me around, but I still spied on her when I could. She did a good job keeping other people between me and her a lot of the time, the rabbi even reported he'd seen her dancing a slow dance with a boy but I missed it.
As it turns out, this was the same boy with whom she was on the phone for 75 minutes Friday night. My teeth almost fell out when I found that out. I was perusing the cell phone bill Sunday and saw the calls. I had wanted to check the number of text messages she used on the way home from the party on Saturday. She and the girls were talking about how much fun they'd had, and after a while I gathered (yes, I was eaves dropping!) two of them were texting another boy from the party on the car ride home, one being my daughter. Giggling never lies.
Anyway, Sunday. I took the kids to church, and to Five Guys afterward. Fern got soup from Panera, instead. I've entered a new level of bribing Kevin. Instead of promising him Five Guys if he goes to church, I promised him Five Guys after church if he'd let me check his teeth brushing. See how sneaky that was? He's not good at brushing his front bottom teeth well enough and he doesn't want me to inspect. Now he lets me check his teeth and he goes to church. Brilliant.
In the afternoon I did some yard work. I got the shrubs around sidewalk trimmed, and used the wagon to haul over some mulch JustMe offered. The wagon broke after the second load. Ever since the break, I've been trying to work out in my mind how I can rebuild the wagon. It was a beautiful Radio Flier when it was new. My parents gave it to us for the kids. Now we use it for yard work, except not any more. The trucks are still in good shape, it's just the deck that needs replaced. And since I won't be carrying kids, it doesn't have to be pretty, just functional. I need to get more mulch, I've got more beds that still need attention. But what's another year of neglect, anyway?
I took Fern and Mandy shopping for a new bathing suit and then went to a Mexican restaurant for a late supper. The girls have a Spanish final this week so they ordered their food in Spanish. Kevin even ate a taco! Then I let Mandy spend the night again. And for some reason there is a 98 minute call to that same boy. Maybe Mandy has something to do with Fern's propensity to talk a lot with him? Hmm. I'll have to inspect her phone bill some more to determine a correlation.
Monday I taught Fern how to drive the lawn tractor and mow the lawn. At first she was going too fast relative to her ability to control her mowing so I made her keep it in 2nd gear. I mow in 4th. Her legs were too short to reach the break so I scooted the seat forward for her. I'm hoping with years of practice, she'll transfer the knowledge to driving a car. When we let her. When she's 20.
Dan got home at 2:00 and I'd promised Kevin I'd take him to the pool so we all went. I already posted about that. Not some of my better posts, but what do you expect tapping out one letter at a time on an iPhone while getting sunburned poolside?
This morning on my walk with AM, in a neighbor's trash pile, (Tuesdays are trash days) I saw a piece of wood, a perfect new deck for my wagon project. wahoo!
Fern at the Bar Mitzvah
Fern with AM's son and Danny.
3 comments:
love the pictures!
Let me know if you make that wood work - I'll actually have some time on my hands this weekend to help you shlep.
btw, did you know those neighbors (on the left when looking at our house) are moving out this week? I'll be glad when the owners of that house are back (in one year - Navy assignment).
Glad you had fun Sat night - I know that Danny's mom worked long and hard on the seating chart.
I've always suspected that the reason that Jews don't have family reunions as much as the rest of the populace is because bar/bat mitzvahs serve essentially the same purpose :)
That's why I'm glad I pay a flat fee for phone usage at home and the kids don't have cell phones!
Post a Comment