too freaky

I'm fascinated with close up pictures of the kids. Their skin is so clear and eyes so bright. So when I showed Grant his picture he wanted to see one of me. "Okay Granty" I said, "but it will be scary." Thirty-eight years just don't look so good close up. I showed him my self-portrait. "Oh mommy," he said. "You look too freaky like a skeleton." He was absolutely right. It was even worse, if you can imagine, than the one below. To this one Granty said, "Mommy, you're the skeleton and I'm the ghost."

I think I look pretty stressed out. Not from kiddos, just transition. Sometimes so much that I don't recognize myself. Big change is too freaky. To be absolutely honest, I've been too sad to write much these past ten days. I've spent my productive hours separating our garage things from Rob's, which seem to consist of mostly 1990's CDs, uncharted baskets of twisted black cable, a stray childhood baseball glove, and some still loved philosophy books, since most of his life is invested in his work, his guitar, or his ipod, oh yes and kid business.

For those waiting for news, so are we. Nothing official so far, though still the expectation that Rob will stay here and we will move to Utah. My dad and Judith have spent many hours touring houses on our behalf. They found a lovely white house that they call lilac cottage. The kids would love it, but as of this writing I am still debating, managing sticker shock, wondering how much money we really have after food and fun, clothing and gas to spend on housing costs, something we haven't had to worry about for years. Like many state department families, we are courageous in travel, timid in home ownership. And I'm thinking about what my wise father told me years ago, "Remember Remember my daughter...(I added that part).. I've never stayed awake at night worrying about how to pay for something I hadn't yet purchased." Insomnia is a big issue for Tourneys. Sam and I got the curse too. But where to house 10 children? Insomnia again, though we have warm welcome to Grandma Julia's basement and I am calculating the savings, at least for the summer camp out-in-the backyardable months, until the medevac money kicks in. That could work and could be quite memorable, hopefully happily.

Enough rambling about sadness and/or confusion. More about happy distractions at ISB. Field days at ISB. A week ago it was the upper grades. I noticed that Kyle's strongest event was the hurdles, which I contribute to his methodical nature. Then I spent Friday, the 21st out on the field with the three girls in the younger grades. They were up to relays, water games, bouncey house bouncing.

Friday Ben and Sam returned from their two day away class field trips. I won't try to spell where they went. Sam was exhausted from a lot of hiking, but woke up early Saturday morning to bike twenty-five miles with the boy scouts. Friday evening I took the kids to the pool. Sam helped me manage Grant, since I had William too, and a couple of the girls' friends. We ate their yummy french fries. At one point I looked around for Grant and found him and Sam dancing by the speakers to the Gypsy Kings. It was a nice evening and I thought how I would miss the pool.

Saturday afternoon,I took the girls to a birthday party with arts and crafts, Subway sandwiches and more bouncing. Another welcomed distraction.

Rob has been working long hours due to the SNED conference. We had time to go out for a bit Saturday afternoon. I wish we could avoid the what next discussions, but they seem inevitable these days. Saturday evening Rob had another work event and I took the kids back to the pool for swimming and dinner, french fries and Caesar salad.

Sunday evening Rob was back to another work event, as was Travis, so Lindsay and her kids came over for dinner, barbecued chicken, watermelon, and Sam's incredible homemade potato chips. Ben made some delicious chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips.