Our Busy Day

Vicki and Adam stayed at the hospital all day, today, so Adam could soak up the rays of the Bili Light. His numbers look really good tonight, but they are keeping him one more night just to avoid any chance of having to go back later. His Billirubins, which was as high as 23 on Friday, was down to 14 tonight, the upper end of the acceptable range. Thanks for your prayers this week!

With Vicki relaxing in Pediatrics all day, I had to figure out how to get the athletes to their games. Kenzie and I had to leave early this morning to get to her  softball scrimmage games. Alex watched everyone else until Mommom came over to watch the little girls and Tyler, who is off sports until Sunday afternoon, when he has two footbal games. A friend of mine picked up Taylor for his soccer game, and also took Alex and Connor to the same field because they were refs for they're little brother's game. Connor had to walk across the street, to the high school, after he finished reffing, to play his select soccer game. Alex had to take Taylor with him when he went to play his game at a different field. My friend then brought them all home and Mommom could go home. Meanwhile, I was driving Kenzie from softball to the soccer field so she could play her select soccer game. Kenzie and I did get a chace to spend fifteen minutes at the hospital as we passed by on our way from softball to soccer.

I have to hand it to Alex. He was great big brother/caregiver today. He babysat when he was home. He took care of Tay at the fields. He fed them all dinner. And even helped put Keary to bed. He must really want his license because he put in a lot time and earned a lot of points in my "prove-you're-mature-enough-to-drive" book.

To the events of the day. Taylor's soccer team won their game. I didn't get many details because Taylor doesn't talk much. He said he had fun, and that's what counts for rec soccer. I got more details from Alex and Connor about the reffing. Actually, it was Connor complaining about how Alex didn't make calls that Connor thought should be made. This was Connor's first game, ever, reffing, so naturally he knew what he was talking about. As center ref, Alex had the final say, and that's that. I've always heard positive feedback from caoches and parents about Alex's reffing, so I'm not going there.

Connor's select game went well. His team won, 6-2. Connor plays mostly defense because he is a very good fullback. He is also a very good striker, but his team has lots of those, and fewer fullbacks. He said he also played a bit at halfback, for about three minutes, he said. He said that was enough. He doesn't like to run too much; I can't blame him.

Alex's team lost, but at least Alex scored a goal (the only goal) for his team. He usually scores the "trash" goals, but he said this one was an honest to goodness clean shot off of a give-and-go from a teammate.

Kenzie had more of mixed bag today. Her softball team, having been formed only a few weeks ago, experienced a few jitters and nerves in their first game against a more experienced team today. They started off good, scored the first run of the game, but lost in the end. The second game was much better. They were losing by a couple runs for most of the game, but came back in the bottom of the last inning and won. The nice thing about this scrimmage was that we learned exactly what needs to be worked over the next few weeks and over the winter. Oh, and while Kenzie has yet to get her first hit as a 12U player, she consistently put the ball in play, and was indispensably involved in the winning of the second game.

At her select soccer game, Kenzie was astonishing. Her coach has been in the process of training a few girls to be Goalie. Kenzie has not had much practice time as Goalie, but has some experience and skill in that position. Kenzie played Goal the whole game and we all lost count of the number of spectacular saves she made. She only gave up two goals in a game that saw dozens of shots on goal. She even earned a special mention in the coach's post game email, where coach said, "Last but certainly not least McKenzie played an awesome job at goal "The buck (ball) stops here" with McKenzie. We have a couple other girls that we are training for goal and we told them all to take notes!" They really do miss Kenzie when she can't make it to soccer because of softball.

The Weather Is Breaking

...and it is good. I think Spring is finally here, and the weather's been nice, except for all the rained out weekends. We took a walk to the beach the other day; the kids got to play in sand and get wet. I got them to sit still for a few seconds for some pictures. I was just missing one, since it was a school day. The joy of homeschool.

Guess Who

See the answers in comments.

The Final Tally

The final count: 16 chicks. Out of 24 eggs, 7 never developed into chicks and one pipped, but died in-ovum. Not too bad, I guess, for an attempt to hatch chicks this late in the year. With any luck, we'll be getting our first eggs sometime around Easter and perhaps start our next brood of chicks next Summer!

On the baby front: no baby yet. Vicki's appointment this morning ended with a trip home and a "come back next Tuesday".

Now, I just know this baby is planning on messing up our weekend. Kenzie has her tournament (Saturday AND Sunday) in Salisbury (about 90 minutes to 2 hrs away, depending on beach traffic), and everyone else has soccer games on Saturday, except Alex, who'll be reffing all day. To complicate things further, Alex and Connor are scheduled to be Altar Servers at the Saturday evening Mass and I won't be home from Salisbury until much later. Kenzie and I are going to have to get up early and go to 7:00 am Mass on Sunday and then head back to the tournament. If her team goes to the championship game on Sunday, we won't be getting home until very late. This would be easier if her team had more than 9 players, but it doesn't. The tenth girl recently broke her wrist. They need everyone there, if at all possible.

Kearsyn, if you want to make friends with your future siblings, you'll just relax where you are until next week, girl. It won't help that Vicki will be driving kids around all over the Island in my absence on Saturday. It's a good thing she's made from pioneer stock.

The First Day

We started school today. Our fourth year as homeschoolers has begun. It was appropriately dreary and rainy, to suit the mood of the kids. Yes, even homeschoolers don't relish the thought of returning to the grind. Summer vacation, although not void of educational value, is much preferred among my crew.

We had several snags today, the primary being Math, for my six year-olds, the twins, Taylor and Tyler. Taylor is following in the footsteps of his older siblings, excelling, well beyond the average student, in his academic endeavors. Tyler is normal. Things come harder for him, as they should; he is only six. I tend to forget this sometimes, and my frustration becomes evident. While Tay will most likely continue in his second grade Math curriculum, I will be backing up a bit with Ty, perhaps as far as Kindergarten Math, at least until we figure out where we first hit the bump in the road. This is a fortunate by-product of homeschooling: the ability to switch gears when something does not work for a particular individual. This is one of the primary reasons we took our kids out of public school: the government school's lack of adaptability.

We took Alex out of the government school in the fifth grade. He was struggling in Math with a third grade level of comprehension. Three years later, he is half way through Algebra I, and he is chronologically in the eighth grade. That was the other snag today: Alex was sick, so he got to take most of the day off. He did, however, get some work done later in the day.

Kenzie and Connor (don't ask me what grades they're in; it varies by subject) had very good days today, considering we are all feeling our way into the new schedule. After a week or two, we'll all be running fairly smoothly, once we make necesary adjustments to our daily schedules.

Bekah, the two-year-old, was remarkably cooperative today. Normally she insists on being in the middle of everything. In fact, at least one of the kids, during our morning prayer, usually prays that Rebekah not be a distraction today. I don't like calling my daughter a distraction, but it can be an accurate description when she wants to play music while we are all trying to study History. But today, we hardly knew she was in the room with us, she was being so good. And to think, in a few weeks, the new baby will be here. Just exactly what we need to liven up the place a bit.

Well, there you go. In a round-about way you've met the crew. Alex, Connor, McKenzie, Taylor, Tyler, Rebekah, and Kearsyn. And me, of course. To meet my wife, you can visit her Blog at http://anabundanceofblessings.blogspot.com/. She actually inspired me to start my own Blog. She'll have more traffic because she has more friends, but I see how her blogging has been good therapy for those stressful days. I will have some of those coming up. In fact, I should have started this 9 years ago, when I quit my job to become a Happy SAHD.