We're still around

All right, Max, because you asked.

The highlights:

• After taking the kids to Ireland, we spent a lot of time babysitting the grand kids in order to give Erin a break while she wallows in her pregnancy. This one has been exhausting her, mostly because of the vast amounts of energy her two little boys have. She spends a lot of time here, too, so the babysitting is more like just helping, but two toddlers on crack is a lot of work.
• I left Char alone to deal with our kids as well as helping Erin and took Craig to Ireland; he had time off and we’d intended to take that trip 25-30 years ago, and Char thought it would be a good excuse for me to explore some retirement possibilities. I’ll tell you what; Ireland with a recovering alcoholic is kind of a bummer sometimes. He did well around the rest of our family who drank in front of him, though. And I don’t think he’ll ever go back; this was a see it for the last time kind of trip for him.
• Overall he’s doing really well. Great job, awesome girlfriend, and moving out of TK’s soon. Half of that is wanting to move in with Frankie, half is not wanting to live with TK’s kids. They’re great kids, but with them comes their mother. Yeah. That’s back on.
• Alex is now taller than I am, but I don’t think he’s realized it yet. He needs to stop growing before he hits the freak zone.
• He’s also declared a major; while we were sure it would be engineering or architecture, he’s decided on (for now) psychology. When asked why, because we were sure he’d go in another direction based upon his interest in building and fixing things, he answered that he’s more interested in fixing people. He looked at Char right after he said it, too.
• Rachel. Holy fuck, the stream of teenaged boys that go through this house. She’s not “dating” anyone and has declared boys for the most part to be “so totally not worth it” but that’s not stopping her from flirting like crazy and driving me nuts. And I admit to some curiosity over why she’s not actually going out with any of these guys; Char tells me that none of them have passed the big brother test, and his opinion matters to her. I hope he knows this.
• Kevin. I seriously think I will be chasing him and Elizabeth around with the garden hose more than I have Alex and Stephanie. For a kid who sets off nearly everyone’s gaydar…he’s either trying to figure it all out for himself, or he’s headed for some major stupidity, or both. And no, I am not feeling relief that he’s focused on a girl; I don’t want him groping anyone just yet.
• Remember Damien? He’s testing for his brown belt this week. This kid has made a huge turn around in the last couple of years; he graduated from high school at the end of summer and is heading into the Marine Corps. He can still be a bit of a dick, but now when something completely stupid comes out of his mouth he often catches himself and apologizes. Considering I expected him to be in jail by now, or dead because he picked on the wrong person, I am impressed by how he’s done.

Yeah. That's it. Traveling and kids and traveling with kids. And a lot of waiting for grandkid #4, who isn't due for 2 weeks but could come any time given Erin's past of delivering early. There may also be some coraling of the pseudo-son-in-law and dragging his ass to a doctor, because if he does't get snipped soon, she's going to do it for him while he sleeps.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

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.

Testing 1,2,3

Heyya Chuckles

Happy birthday, angel :)

Just call him Dad

I had a nice long post here but someone was uncomfortable with it and asked me to take it down. But, in a nutshell, we went to Vegas on a whim, Ian did a few nice things for a young couple, and we had a good time.

Sometimes in the dark is a good place to be

The start of what looks like it will be a very busy summer came with news that had, frankly, stumped both Char and me. What to do with it. Keep it to ourselves or let it loose and see where it went. We weren't sure what the right thing to do was, and the one person we asked for advice, Brad, could only shrug. He had no idea either.

He came over last week to tell us that Kevin's biological mother gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and she wanted us to know. What we did with that, tell Kevin or not, was up to us. She married last year, has created a good life for herself far from the neighborhood no one wanted Kevin to grow up in, and now that he has siblings, she thought he might want to know.

His birth mother is an issue we've struggled with. We know that the day will come when he wants to meet her; we agreed that once he was eighteen we would facilitate the meeting if he wanted us to. We've allowed Brad to share news about Kevin and photos of him, but she doesn't know where he is exactly, and Brad has honored out wish to keep it that way. What we don't know is what we'll do if he expresses a strong interest in meeting her before then. Or what to do if we allow it and they develop a relationship.

Whether it sounds petty or not, we really don't want him to ever consider her to be his mother. She gave birth to him, and in a streak of maturity beyond her age she gave him up to us to assure he would have a good life, but Char is his mother. It's more than a title; it's part of her identity and God help anyone who gets between her and her kids. If he ever called someone else "Mom" it would break her heart.

I know other families manage it, and we've tried to position ourselves to be fair about it when and if the time comes, but now that we're staring down the barrel of the gun, so to speak, now that there's a brother and sister he's related to by blood and he's only six years from us having no say in it, we're realizing that we're not as mature about it as we thought we would be. It's one thing for him to meet her; it's another thing to contemplate where meeting her could lead.

When Brad told us he has other siblings, Char was taken aback and I got this horrible, sick feeling weighing me down. He reiterated we were under no obligation to tell him, but after some consideration, we both realized we didn't have a choice. If we didn't tell him, and he found out some other way, especially if he found out we knew and didn't say anything, the fallout might be suffocating.

So we waited until Alex and Rachel were involved in something else and called him into the kitchen, and told him. We tried to make is as non-major as we could; Grandpa talked to your birth mother, and she got married a while ago and just had twins. A boy and a girl. We thought you would want to know.

He wanted to know their names, something we hadn't asked Brad, but assured him we could.

Do I have to get them like a birthday present or something? Or at Christmas?

That had never occurred to us. But no.

Well, that's good. Alex and Rachel cost me enough.

And for now, that's all he cares about. What might be expected of him. But we both know that the older he gets, the more curious he will become, and frankly, as prepared as we thought we were, now we know we're not, not at all.