"Time marches on..."
My friend Jacques has little girls ages two and four. He has been over to the house a couple of times and has brought his girls along. The last visit he came with his daughter Joceylyn. Watching her curiosity and her delight with playing with some of Rachel's stuffed horses or petting the dogs or the cats, it really hit me that it did not seem that long ago when Ian and Rachel were pre-school age. I told Jacques to enjoy this time, it really does go fast.
Rachel has developed a work ethic that even my late maternal grandfather, the carpenter, would have appreciated. It is true that she is NOT a morning person, but once she is up, she is not afraid to hustle for a dollar. She does house cleaning at my brother's house and my rugby coach Denny's house. She has been doing some house and dog-sitting this 4 day weekend and she still goes to her job answering phones at the company that Ian works at. As far as high school is concerned, she is SO ready to be done with it. She is tired of what she views as busy work, surrounded by a lot of kids who are too lazy and unmotivated to do anything with their lives. It's true she did have a great time in France, like this shot near Versailles will show:
The downside is that the trip kind of put her behind the 8-ball at school. She is getting caught back up and is talking to me about colleges: UW-River Falls, North Dakota State, and also she has talked with me about going out with some friends to check out Wyomming. Any place that has an Equine program is pretty much fair game.
Ian is in the unique position of being good at a lot of things, but unlike his sister, has not developed the passion for any ONE thing. At this point, he is looking to transfer to the University of Minnesota with an eye on a general Liberal Arts degree with a Japanese minor. He talks about maybe doing the Peace Corps and then after that teaching English in Japan. One thing is for sure, with him working and going to school full time, I doubt that he will have time to do Rugby this spring.
I don't know if I will ever get a chance to be his teamate in any more games anyway-I think I am going to stick to Old Boy games in 2008. It took me way to long to physically recover after playing prop against the Upper Midwest Selects this Spring in our last game. Thank God Denny moved me over flanker in the second half. As it was, it took a good couple of months before my left shoulder and neck really felt right after that.
At any rate, one thing I have not said, that I should have said is that I am REALLY thankful for my kids. Even if they were not my kids, I would still enjoy being around them. When you talk with parents who are alienated from their kids, or their kids have drug or alcohol issues, or they got pregnant, or they have no motivation to do anything with their lives, I feel really blessed. It is like they got their mom's smarts and good looks-just without going off the deep end in the science fiction stuff...May the force be with you this weekend.
