Welcome to my weekend journal update!
The parents are all sure that they had more fun at the Valentine’s party at Sheldon’s than we – their kids – had at home. They’re probably right about that, but we managed to keep entertained too while they were out dancing and having fun with their friends.
Saturday morning included a fairly standard house-cleaning session that took until a bit after one to finish before we stopped for lunch. Rowen and I both had the afternoon off, but we mostly spent that time getting things ready in my room and the lounge for the night. That included stocking snacks and drinks; getting some games ready; and bringing a few of Ethan and Ehlana’s favorite toys upstairs so they’d have something to do with Naomi and Sophia Bassett. Hannah and Nathan Draper went to the party too, and Aiden stayed with us while they were out; but he’s only three and a half months old, and isn’t quite ready to run around with Naomi, or sit on the floor and play with Sophia and the twins.
Rowen and I helped Alicia and her friends with most of the kids, and thinking about the cuddle time I had last night with Aiden seems funny now; only because Ethan, Ehlana, and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on what we’re all thinking of as our ‘future plans’. Considering what we know, I’m sure that there will be lots of jokes some day about me cuddling with Aiden; and the ten-year age difference will just add cradle-robbing and older women comments to the mix.
Before I get to that – our future planning chat – the babysitting service opened for incoming kids at five o’clock yesterday. While Mom and Dad were busy getting ready to go out to dinner at the Inn with everyone they were going to the party at Sheldon’s with; Alicia led a personal pizza-making adventure in the kitchen. Rowen and I helped Alicia with that while her friends handled general kid control; and took care of Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, Aiden, and Sophia.
Mom and Dad were on their way to the Inn by the time the first pizzas went into the oven, and after seeing them out, Rowen and I were put to work on kid control while we waited for the food to be ready. That included watching Patrick and Scott, and while they weren’t giving us the kind of trouble they usually did when we were all at the Emerson’s house; Patrick wasn’t anywhere near as shy as he’d been the first time he’d been here while the parents were out on a date night. I was definitely wishing that Andrew could have been here to help out with them instead of being away at school with Isabelle.
Anyway, moving along, Rowen and I didn’t have to spend much time with Patrick and Scott, but we did have Jessica Bassett and Lindsay Faulkner for shadows most of the night; and we ended up keeping them overnight too when they were too cute to take home after falling asleep in my bed with Mandy long before the parents started stopping by to pick up their kids after the party. They played with us when we were helping to entertain Ethan, Ehlana, and their little buddies; wanted to cuddle while we watched a movie after the youngest kids were put to bed; and fell asleep to my second bedtime story of the night.
Rowen and I were the only kids still awake when Mom and Dad got home with about half of the other parents, but we stayed in the lounge while our babysitters helped out with getting kids bundled up and out into cars and car seats. Dad was one of the designated drivers this time, and he went back out to take one group home; pick up another at Sheldon’s; and drop them off too. His last run of the night was to take Alicia and her friends home while Mom was sent off to bed, and Rowen and I got set up to spend the night sleeping on the sectional sofa in the lounge.
This morning started out with Tai Chi for one. Mom and Dad needed the extra sleep, and we – the six kids – managed to let them stay sleeping until nearly seven-thirty. That did mean that we needed to rush around a bit to get the rest of the usual Sunday morning routine done before heading to church; but we managed to do that and get there on time even with the added stop at the Bassett’s house to play dress-up with Jessica and Lindsay.
After taking most of the weekend off, Dad needed to spend the afternoon and evening working to get ready for his week in the city. Mom wanted to get some work done too, and Rowen was busy with her family; so Ethan, Ehlana, and I spent a lot of our time hanging out in the lounge. We started out watching a movie after lunch, but it wasn’t long before we were more interested in our telepathic conversation than the show; and I eventually turned it off and got my computer so we could do a little research while we worked through some of the details we needed to have ready soon.
Knowing about certain things that are going to happen in the future doesn’t mean that we know the ‘how’ it will happen; or even the ‘why’. We’re a fairly bright trio of kids, but we quickly found out this afternoon that there is going to be a lot of work involved with making that future happen; and we’re going to need a lot of help – including from people who will never be able to really find out the real importance of what they’ll be doing. I was doing all of the actual researching, but Ethan and Ehlana wanted to discuss everything I was working on; and we made a fair bit of progress with laying the groundwork for the construction and infrastructure changes that were going to be so important to everyone in Witch Falls. Spending the afternoon doing research ranging from geology and physics to law and finance would be mind-boggling boring to our friends; but we love working together, and it’s all very exciting to us.
We did eventually get around to a little play time, and watched a movie with Mom after dinner. There were bedtime baths for all of us, and I’ve been working on my computer in bed with Mandy for nearly three hours now. I started out with the usual email and entertainment updates; spent an hour and a half chatting in Japanese with a teenaged girl in Tokyo; read a book in Japanese; and studied in the archive for an hour.
It’s definitely time to get some sleep now, so...
...live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie Proctor, signing off!