A weekend

I had an interesting weekend. It wasn't spectacular, but it was interesting.

My wife has been suffering through a particular difficult bout with bronchitis. She went to the doctor on Friday and received a bunch of pills and other potions to lift her from the pits of despair. Honestly, I thought the coughing was going to kill her eventually. Sadly, just one day on the meds were not enough to cure her of the plight so she had to cancel on her Relief Society brunch that she wanted to attend. This was not the way she wanted to start the weekend.

That evening, we had an award ceremony to attend for our daughter's cheering activities that completely dominated our Autumn. It was held in a church camp/retreat along the river. It was quite nice. They were also going to have a sleep-over there, and that is an important item to be referred to later. Honestly, I am so grateful that there are women that can assist and help our daughters and young women become more assertive and confident. I certainly couldn't survive a long overnight with over 40 girls all screaming and running and dancing and doing the stuff that young girls do. We had pizza and salad. We weren't there for the food, but it was going to take time so we might as well have dinner, right? The girls performed their routines and then held awards where the received their participation trophies. My daughter was part of the program where the coaches singled them out for special comments. She received the Most Motivational award. She was quite happy with it as she bounced back to our table.

One thing to mention, is that our son was clearly annoyed. He did not want to be there. We realized that he isn't one to like noise or a lot of people so I sat out with him in the foyer for a little bit. That calmed him down. It was a good thing because at one point during the evening I had to squash a discussion he wanted to have about our church having something like this place and why not and what was the deal with the catholics.....AUUGH! Really, I don't want to have this discussion right now!

After we gave our daughter the sleeping bag and pillow we headed back home. We wondered what the legal ramifications were if we just decided to leave her there, or perhaps pick her up a year late or so. We decided that we do kind of like having her around so we decided to pick her up the next morning as planned.

The next day DW and I discussed going to the ward Christmas party this year. It has always been uncomfortable for me and not a lot of fun. Keeping track of the kids is nearly impossible, let alone trying to monitor their behavior. The other kids are also bad. It seems to us that the majority of the parents use this as an opportunity to be free of their children so they run amok. The noise and crowded space have always made me slightly stressed and we were reminded of how uncomfortable DS is with the whole event last evening. So, we decided that we weren't going this year. It isn't easy at times being people less inclined for social events and being a member of a church that likes to hold them. Not only that, but two of our children adore the social aspects of the church. Just saying that "We're not going." isn't good enough. We have to explain why, and what are we doing instead. "Why are you destroying my friendships?" is what they seem to be saying. We can't just say it and walk away from it. Well, now their expectations are of our own Christmas party. We're not sure how we are going to pull that off. We usually have something for Christmas Eve. Maybe this will change that. I am hoping they'll just forget about it.

After about a month and a half of not attending church, I finally attended. It is probably the first time since I spoke with the bishop about my issues with the church. Since my children are older, I decided that I wanted to sit next to my wife, and that the kids can sit by themselves. No such luck. Our youngest DS was crawling all over her like a spider monkey, and she was wearing a shirt that for some reason is "sticky". My hand cannot easily move over it so I can't enjoy rubbing her back or running my fingers through her hair. I'm not sure why I do that other than to show affection. I remember on one message board this was being discussed. It was determined that it is something to do with trying to stay awake during boring meetings. That is probably the case. Anyway, I didn't have any joy there and on the other side of me, my DD was recovering from a night and morning of going nuts with her friends. She was tired and as I wasn't sitting where I normally do, she couldn't snuggle up next to me as usual. Instead she was slumping forward with her face mashed up against my arm. Considering that nothing was working here as expected, I might as well sit where I normally do and let my DD lean up against me and snuggle, as she was going to sleep regardless of what I was doing so might as well make her comfortable. We switched places and settled in for the High Councilman's talk. He was a pretty good speaker, and I was enjoying his talk. He was from Guatemala, same as my two children, but his voice was soft and melodic....well, at least to me it was. I had my DD snuggled up and warm against me and WHO IN THE HECK HAS CHURCH AT 1:00 PM IN THE BLESSED AFTERNOON?! I was quickly out myself, evidently snoring because my DW rattled my cage and told me to wake up. I was pretty embarrassed and both my DD and myself apologized to her. Is this a symptom of age, or just bad coincidences?

After a few more exasperating encounters with other people, we wandered to the Primary room to watch my DS's last day in primary and his last talk. It went well. It was the last time all 4 of our kids would be together in Primary. DW was fighting back the tears as she played a birthday song for our oldest.

The rest of the night was uneventful. I did have to work at 9pm as a database died and I had to get it running again. I really miss my friend working for me, and it has only been a day.

That was my weekend. Never ending fun and excitement.