Alex started back to school last week, and today Rachel and Kevin’s school year began. I had worried about how Rachel would do heading off to her first day of high school, mostly because this is the first time she’s gone to school without one of her brothers, but she was surrounded by friends at the bus stop and never looked back.
I wasn’t worried about Kevin heading off without his sister; he spent enough time over the summer blabbering about how much fun this year was going to be—ninety percent of that owed to the fact that Elizabeth would be joining him there—and he’s enough of a social butterfly that if the thought that he was also heading to school without a sibling for the first had occurred to him, it was a fleeting thought.
But, the summer; between friends hanging around the house and Alex’s jobs, Rachel venturing out into babysitting, camp, Kevin immersing a little further into dance, the kids kept us busy. There was still a lot of family time crammed into the chaos, and last month we took them to Ireland to meet some of Ian’s cousins and to sight-see, and then took a detour on the way home because they really wanted to see Cardiff. Secretly, they harbored hope that they would find a Doctor Who-like police box; they didn’t, but they were thrilled to find a touch of Torchwood.
Early in the summer a new family moved into a house across the street, and they have kids close to the ages of ours, and Kevin made a fast friend out of their 13 year old son, Carlos. With Elizabeth, it was like the three amigos and they spent a lot of time hanging out by the pool. He seems like a good kid, very funny and as quick witted as Kevin, but more than that he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and knows when to be polite and when he can mess with the adults around him.
He has two older brothers and an older sister, but we didn’t see as much of them. Alex hung out with the oldest boy a bit and took him on a tour of the college, but the other two kids kept to themselves a lot. If Carlos is any indication, we’ll get to know them later, after they’ve gotten tired of being so annoyed about having to move.
Ian and I did take some time for us with a quick trip to Vegas, but for the most part it’s been a summer full of kids and carting them to jobs and movies and places to hang with their friends. We’ve been babysitting the grandkids quite a bit, too, trying to give Erin some breathing room, because she is still not happy about being pregnant. She’s happy about having another baby, but she’s not enjoying getting through being pregnant and would be thrilled of one of us could snap our fingers and make this baby be here now instead of the end of October.
The cap to the summer: Ian getting kissed by one of the regulars in my dad’s bar. Male regular. And hearing Alex blurt out “Dude that’s my dad!”
Funnier, I don’t think Ian minded.
