Ack! Long, catch-up post!

Another week down. Another week closer to Race coming home. I'll admit, I am languishing a bit. Just tired mostly, and missing my husband.

On the bright side, we had a pretty good week this week. I managed to get everyone where they needed to be without slipping into a coma-like state(yay!). I was being careful to make the most of the time that I had with each of the kids....even if it WAS in the car! I tried not to slip off into that quiet utopia called "my own thoughts", and instead engaged the kids in conversation about their own thoughts. This doesn't exactly come naturally to me, because.......I like my privacy. Seeing that Race is gone, and we home school.......well, privacy just isn't anything that I see much of these days! So, I am quick to jealously grab that time in the car(where we live), and let the kids veg out on a video, or drain their brains with the Gameboy. Bad, bad, mom. So, on that front, I have turned a corner and made a new start, and I know it's worth the effort.
Parenthood is a funny thing. It isn't a list that you can just check things off of. A good parent isn't about being the Team Mom, or the Coach of the ball team, or driving around with a soccer ball on your mini van. It is about investing in a child's life. YOUR child's life. And you can do that from your living room.......or your suburban. You can do that from your own home, or from the other side of the world.

Mom and Dad came and picked up Austin for his baseball lessons this weekend. Austin had a great time, and they brought him back today super happy, and super tired.For the month of March, he will spend every weekend with them. They take him to his private lessons and to their church on Sunday's , before bringing him home. He is loving it! His varsity practice is going really well. There are only 3 things that could happen to make his life sheer heaven. 1. Race could be home enjoying all this baseball WITH him, and 2. That I would wake up and say, "That's it. You've graduated. I have taught you all you need to know. You are free to pursue a career in baseball to it's fullest." and 3. That varsity would practice on Wednesday's too, so that he would be playing a full 7 days a week.

Savannah went with the youth group today after church up to the ski resort to go snow tubing! She had a blast. There were more girls that boys going, and she and her friends managed to all pile into one car. She also returned home really happy and really tired.

Jackson and I had some time to ourselves today, so we went and picked out his baseball pants, socks and cleats. He quickly shed his clothing on the way home and was dressed out completely when he got out of the car. He is pretty sure that those cleats(his first pair) enable him to run at the speed of light. he practiced running back and forth about 100 times to show me.

We wrapped things up today by meeting Mom, Dad, Austin, Thom, and The Lawman at a local Italian dive. This was my first time meeting Lawman. He's pretty quiet, so I don't feel like I really got to know him. He did seem to get a kick out of Jacks antics, though and definitely seems genuine. I guess we'll have to see if he hangs around much with the fam in the future! BTW, a HUGE thanks to Thom this week for picking up my kids at their various places so that I could liberate my hair from it's ratty ends. It was bad. Really, really bad. SO, thanks Thom!

Thanks for checking in, here. And thanks for your prayers. They mean so much to Race and I.
G'night,
Melissa