Venisa is off to sunny, warm, non-snowed in Hawaii con su madre to visit su hermano (Michael is learning family members in his Spanish class and its one of the things I actually remember from my Spanish class - sort of, I think I remember correctly - so it's stuck in my brain lately) and Jon and the kids are staying with Mom and Dad for the week. My kids have been SO excited that "czns" (the way Jacob writes "cousins") were coming. (Anytime Jacob has to write a sentence or story about his weekend, or holiday, or something fun he did, or something he wants to do, it always includes "czns.")
I went to the church tonight to pick up Michael and Nathan from Scouts. They had about 3 minutes left and all the young men were in the gym playing dodge ball. I opened the gym door and saw the end of their last round. Jackets and other stuff laying across the middle of the room making a line with several boys on each side, some boys who were already "out" standing by the walls cheering and instructing who to hit and when to dodge, Scout Leaders sitting on the edge near the center line leaning back in their chairs watching the boys who were still "in" slaughter each other. Several balls were flying back and forth HARD, did I mention there were several, SEVERAL balls being basically shot as HARD as possible at the opposing team, just to be scooped up and shot back. SEVERAL balls, thrown HARD!! Back and forth, back and forth!! The boys were in Heaven. My trained mommy/yard duty/big sister eyes quickly scanned the room and saw no basketballs or golf balls, just volleyballs and soccer balls, and I told myself I should step back out of the room and not watch, but I was like a deer in the headlights, stuck, trapped, unable to look away, and unable flee to safety. I stood there and watched as they picked each other off until everyone was eliminated but one. "That's it," called the Leaders and Scouts was officially over - they must have finished their First Aid merit badges long ago, said the closing prayer and started the game with their remaining time to give each other reasons to need to practice the first aid they'd learned.
Balls started flying again as the "Scouts is over but we're going to keep playing something until they turn the lights out and kick us out" activities began. Normally, my kids are IN the thick of these "hanging out afterward" games and I encourage them to play for about 10 minutes to use up energy, sending Jessica and Jacob in with them too (as long as its not killer dodge ball), to insure that they will all be good and tired and sleep at night. Tonight however, Nathan grabbed his stuff and beelined over to me wanting to leave, saying, "home, home, home!" in a very determined way, thrusting his stuff toward me to hold while he went to get Michael. Nathan said something to him I couldn't hear and they both headed straight for me, practically knocking me down wanting to go right home. Oh, I thought, pizza - they want the pizza Jon got, and/or the ice cream he got. "Pizza?" I asked. "No," Nathan said, "cousins!" Awwww - how sweet.
So they went straight to the van and wanted to hurry home, when I got in the driveway, they didn't want to wait for me to back in just so and park, they jumped out and ran in to see - COUSINS! I parked, gathered up some stuff I needed to take inside and went into Mom's. Michael and Nathan were on the stairs, Nathan slightly higher up then Michael, both "laying" sort of face down and all tangled together, quietly (no loud disturbances allowed at Grandma's house) "wrestling." Michael got a good hold of Nathan's foot and Nathan pulled the rest of himself out of the tangle and farther up the stairs and pushed against Michael with his other foot. I told Michael to let go. "But he's going to get Sam," Michael said woefully, but he obediently let go and Nathan shot up the remaining stairs and around the corner with Michael rushing after him. Again, awwww how sweet.
Michael is 15, Nathan is 13, Sam just turned 3. Isn't that sweet, these great big boys so excited and fighting to be with this little guy, each fighting and competing to be "Sam's favorite." I went to tell Jon how sweet, in their own destructive way, the boys were being. Jon and I had talked for maybe 3 whole minutes when Nathan suddenly brought Sam to Jon and said, "um, he's stinky," and left. Apparently, Sam, full of Grandma's multi-whole-grain hot cereal and soy milk and health-food-blender-concoctions AND Jon's pizza and ice cream had "tooted" and as much as Nathan and Michael adore him and fight to be with him - that was their limit. Jon and I got a good laugh. Sam looked a little confused. The air cleared though and Sam's attention became the prized goal once again.
