Constant Refrain

Where does the time go?

I haven’t had time to sit down and even read any blogs, let alone write anything down, I’m not sure why the days seem to slip by so quickly. In Stephen King’s book Insomnia he talks about how time speeds up as we age, when we are children, the days seem to go so slowly, the time from on Christmas to another stretches out forever, or the long summer days of school breaks, that seem endless. As we age, time goes faster and faster and King’s claim was that for old people days can seem more like minutes than actual days. I wonder if that is true, it is certainly true so far, that as I get older time seems to just go much faster.

Anyway, the Cranes are doing well. We really enjoyed having Josh with us all week last week, Jake definitely enjoyed it, although when Josh drank the last of the Gatorade, or he had to let Josh pick out the shows to watch on T.V. sometimes, he started realizing some of the advantages of being home alone most of the time.

Josh left early Saturday morning, and they all arrived safely in St. Louis, and we’re very glad about that. After Josh left, we took Jake to swimming, we couldn’t get Jake into the weekday class for level III, so he’s actually taking an overlapping Level II, and Level III class with Level II M-W-F, and Level III on Saturday. He's doing really great, and he just enjoys swimming so much, that I think we will just keep in level III until summer (the kids in level IV and above are all much older than Jake). After swimming Jake and I did some grocery shopping, and then I headed home and made some dinner, and some "orange brownies" (considering they are "brownies" because they are chocolate and thus brown, calling something orange and orange brownies seems a bit of an oxymoron, but none the less) from a Paula Deen recipe I’ve been wanting to try. They were really gooey and fabulous, so they will be making it into the “treats” rotation.

Sunday we had church, and then I came home and made some buffalo chicken dip for the Superbowl party at mom and dad’s (I brought a plate of the brownies to share, they seem to be more of a grown up hit than a kid hit, although Jake loved them). Neither Rob nor I are football fans (I didn’t even have a clue who was playing in the Superbowl) but we’re always up for good food. We headed up to mom and dad’s about 4:00 and spent the afternoon, eating and talking; and I suppose someone was actually watching the game, I think New York won and it was a big upset.

Monday we woke up to another storm after the big snow storm on Sunday, so I took another “work from home snow day”. The pre-school called and pre-school was cancelled for Jake, and then at 11:30, Rob went and picked up Freestone, so he could spend the day with Jake while Circe was in Florida. At 12:00 Milo came over to join the playdate as well, I was a bit worried about how the 3 of them would do, because with girls (which I am so that's where most of my experience is) the number 3 as far as playing can be pretty deadly, but I’ve found it’s not as much of an issue with boys, the three of them played together great. Rob dropped Free off about 4:45 before Jake had swimming, and I puttered about the house. After playing hard all day and swimming, Jake was out Monday night by 5:30 (and even did over 10 hours, and slept until 7:00 a.m. Tuesday).

Tuesday and Wednesday were exceptionally busy days at work that just flew by, but are kind of a blur because they were so busy. I’ve worked 9-10 hour days all week to make up for the fact that my “work from home” day on Monday really only involved a couple hours of actual work, and I had lots to catch up on. Tuesday I worked from 9-7, and Wednesday I left a little befor 7:00 a.m. but it was a bad snow commute, so didn’t get to the office until 8:30, and worked until 7:00 again, so both days it was almost 8:00 when I got home. I barely have time to eat dinner, and catch up with my boys before it’s time for bed.

Wednesday night mom called and said that dad wanted to go up to Idaho to check on the cabin, and could we come stay Thursday-Saturday, Nikki and Clint went up with them but left early in the day. Mom and dad didn’t get away until late afternoon, and Rob and Jake headed up Syracuse after gymnastics. This was Jake’s third week at gymnastics through the Flips Gymnastics program, I wasn't really familiar with it before, but they seem to have a really great program for kid, they do some "real" gymnastics building skills (laying over barrels then flipping over and over to start learning back hand springs, jumping on the trampoline, and Jake's already picking up walking backwards on the little balance beam), but mostly concentrate on building confidence, taking turns, working well with others, etc. which are great concentration skills (esp. for our little bundle of energy) for school. Jake really loves it, he was nervous for the first class, but after 3 classes told me last night that he is "very good at gymnastics". We will probably sign him up for the next class after we get back from Disneyland. He seems to like the individual sports (swimming and gynastics) we've put him in more than the team sports (basketball and soccer, although he really likes the eating treats and hanging out with his cousins part of soccer) so far.

Nothing really exciting planned for this weekend, not sure when mom and dad, and Nikki and Clint are coming home Saturday, so we will probably just putter about there. We will also be a mom and dad’s most of next week (the 12th-15th ), and Valentine’s Day is coming, so we need to get Valentines made, and ready to go.

We’re just counting down the days to the big Dopp Disneyland trip (Jake asks everyday how many more days until Disneyland, and we have been going online to look at the pictures and descriptions of all the rides), which is coming up soon.

So with that in mind, remember “it’s a world of laughter, a world of tears…”