I thought they would never leave. I’ve been holding on by a thread today waiting for everyone to leave me in the house alone for a while. I’ve been in dire need of some peace and quiet.
The Spy family has been having a great deal of fun this weekend. It all started Thursday night when AJ was invited to his first every sleep away sleepover. He and Ben Franklin boy stayed over at The Boy Across The Street’s house. They played Ghosts in the Graveyard until at least 10:30, watched School of Rock, stayed up late playing video games (AJ claimed he outlasted them all and was playing at 3:30 in the momrning). At 12:30, the phone rang. I’d been deeply asleep and didn’t make it down in time. AJ left a message asking to come home. I agonized, but didn’t call back. I was pretty sure the rest of the household was asleep and I figured AJ could figure it out. I was right. The next day he said he’d been tired and the other boys were not going to sleep. But then he changed his mind and decided to have fun. And that’s what I’d hoped would happen. He needs to break out of his comfort zone sometimes.
I, on the other hand, agonized over that missed phone call and my response to it and didn’t get too much sleep either.
But Friday, we all survived. We had the great pleasure of hosting the Unfocused Family for the day. And we had a blast. They came out around lunch time and as soon as they arrived, Unfocused Boy and Unfocused Girl had taken off for the yard, with a still-sleepy AJ trailing behind. Unfocused Girl was particularly excited about the yard, which she asked if she could call “The Wild Frontier.” Absolutely, we said. And we’ve started calling it that ourselves. We managed to pack in a lot. We all went out to lunch, watched the kids run around the yard, went for a drive through the neighborhood, splashed in the river, walked to the pool and swam, and ate a stunning amount of food at a local pizza joint. I was sorry I’d let AJ be so tired, because he’d been really looking forward to seeing Unfocused Girl and I think he was a little too exhausted to be as interactive as he would have liked. But we all had fun and were sorry to see them drive away.
Yesterday, the Fourth of July, we headed to Mr. Spy’s family’s annual 4th of July party. The weather was most un-seasonal — cool and drizzly. AJ was disappointed to be cheated out of the annual family softball game, but the weather otherwise didn’t dampen the fun. By early evening, though, the rain had moved on and Mr. Spy and his brother and AJ and his second cousin J headed over to the park. I walked over later with Mr. Spy’s sister and our youngest niece to watch. We all ran around the park and swatted at a few balls and then headed back as the sun came out. We ate too much and stayed too late, as usual. Consequently, we are all crabby today.
Despite crabbiness, we managed to get out to a park fairly early this morning. Mr. Spy went for a bike ride and AJ and I went letterboxing. We found the first box of a 4 box trail, but the mosquitoes were so bad, that we decided to forgo the rest of the boxes in favor of staying on the much less buggy path. Now Mr. Spy and AJ are on their way to a minor league ball park where they are meeting Mr Spy’s brother for a game. It is unclear whether Mr. Spy is staying to watch, or whether he’s coming back. I”m trying to enjoy the quiet now, in case he’s back in a few minutes. I did managed to pull some weeds in the back yard and clean up my vegetable garden, which is showing some signs of life — giant squash flowers, tiny peas, growing carrots and beets, garlic greens.
Today it’s showing signs of summer again. It’s nearly 80 and I’m definitely in the mood to lounge in a hammock with an umbrella drink. Too bad I don’t have a hammock.
Posted by harri3tspy 
