The end is near
3.21.09
So, I knew that this week wouldn’t last forever, but vacations and summer and trips and the like always seem that way when one is at the beginning of them. And now the reality of the end that’s been nagging at me from the back of my mind is almost reality: tomorrow Sean will go back to Chadbourne. No more hugs, no more seeing him sitting in his “encampment” in the family room in his bathrobe, no more hearing him bounding loudly down the stairs as is his habit.
Have I spent the week as I would have liked? No, not really. Alex had a ton of work to do. Sean had a lot of work to do (but also got in a goodly amount of sleep and fun stuff, too). And I had a lot of work to do. We all did it in a sort of parallel format — all of us on our laptops in different rooms — but we were at least together in the same house while Claire was at school.
We did make time for some family togetherness, though. Last night we carried out our Family Night — a tradition that we’ve had for as long as I can remember, when we all do something together. It usually happens on a Friday night, and we take turns choosing the meal and the entertainment option. It was Sean’s turn to choose (we don’t normally include him in the rotation anymore, of course, but it just happened that he was here to have his turn when it came up), and we included one of Claire’s friends for the evening, and then over night. We had a jolly time trying out a restaurant we hadn’t been to before, and then we gathered ’round the TV to watch a favorite movie. Good times.
This morning Sean woke me up (Alex had gone off to a meeting) to tell me that the next-door neighbor’s rooster (yes, rooster — even though we live in a very suburban setting, the neighbor has a rooster; we get a weird city-versus-farm feeling every time he crows — which he does often) had apparently escaped and was standing in the woods outside of his window, crowing and keeping him awake. A long story ensued, but eventually the errant bird was captured and taken home, and we all went back to sleep.
I hope that our goodbye tomorrow isn’t as grueling as it has been after visits home in the past. I don’t expect it to be, but you never know.
Have I spent the week as I would have liked? No, not really. Alex had a ton of work to do. Sean had a lot of work to do (but also got in a goodly amount of sleep and fun stuff, too). And I had a lot of work to do. We all did it in a sort of parallel format — all of us on our laptops in different rooms — but we were at least together in the same house while Claire was at school.
We did make time for some family togetherness, though. Last night we carried out our Family Night — a tradition that we’ve had for as long as I can remember, when we all do something together. It usually happens on a Friday night, and we take turns choosing the meal and the entertainment option. It was Sean’s turn to choose (we don’t normally include him in the rotation anymore, of course, but it just happened that he was here to have his turn when it came up), and we included one of Claire’s friends for the evening, and then over night. We had a jolly time trying out a restaurant we hadn’t been to before, and then we gathered ’round the TV to watch a favorite movie. Good times.
This morning Sean woke me up (Alex had gone off to a meeting) to tell me that the next-door neighbor’s rooster (yes, rooster — even though we live in a very suburban setting, the neighbor has a rooster; we get a weird city-versus-farm feeling every time he crows — which he does often) had apparently escaped and was standing in the woods outside of his window, crowing and keeping him awake. A long story ensued, but eventually the errant bird was captured and taken home, and we all went back to sleep.
I hope that our goodbye tomorrow isn’t as grueling as it has been after visits home in the past. I don’t expect it to be, but you never know.
