Back in the saddle again

Well, we returned back home in one piece to our lovely family life. The little buggahs were no worse as they were treated like kings and queens as nana, doe and auntie Joe took great care of them in our absence. They seemed to have had an excellent adventure. Saturday night I called at around 8:30 at night and Laura had come running to the phone because she said that I had told her I would call her Saturday. Whew, I dont really think I said that but Thank buddah I did call, I hate to disappoint the little buggahs with things like that. I got to talk to her for a bit and she seemed very happy.
Sunday night we were right back to normal and realized the party weekend was over as soon as the relatives left and we became parents again. Aunt Jo seemed a little beat by the time she left...might have been the lack of sleep. We just knew that Jackie doesnt sleep at night and I'm sure that was in the back of her head all night.
Jack has been throwing new words out every single day. He woke auntie Joe up on Sunday morning singing his version of the numa numa song to her. He really loves to listen to that little chubby guy from YouTube, singing and dancing along with him. After the first version of the song, there are other versions and one of them is a guy dressed like Osama singing numa numa. Jack calls him 'that guy' and asks to listen to him next. Cracks me up.
Catherine is on a kick about learning how to write letters. She is dying to write her name all at once and is frustrated that her name is so long. When I ask her how long her name is, she puts her hands way out and then I ask her how long everyone else's name is she puts her fingers together and says 'this short'. It softens the blow a bit. Tonight she wrote a bunch of letters on the writing paper and loved doing it. She would keep running into Lyn and I showing us different letters she can write. She has some trouble recognizing the letter E and calls it A. She is so passionate about the things that she does.
Laura is impressing me so much with her reading skills. The longer words still get her but she is getting so much better sounding out words. She tells me she doesnt like the bus because the people on the bus are so loud and annoying. There is a boy named Harold on the bus who said rude things to her. I asked her what and she said that Harold told her that she doesnt pay attention during class....she was pissed. I had to have a talk with her about how to handle it. Its the first talk about telling Harold that she was going to tell her brother Jimmy about him bothering her because Harold likes to yell in her ear. I also told Jimmy to stick up for his sister. With Jimmy it is always so tough because he asked about all the alternatives that might happen...'what if 'this or that happens......I said just tell him to knock it off.
Jimmy has been doing spring training this past week with me. Out on the street throwing the ball around using the sewer cap as home plate, he has been throwing strikes to me and I must say, he's getting there. The same thing has been happening where he wants to throw like Red Sox pitchers. He told me yesterday that he was Josh Beckett. It is fun for him to do it that way. I think he'll be okay this year, the first year of kids pitching. This is the exciting part of the year when the weather gets good enough for us to go to the baseball field. I'll be managing his team again. My greatest hope is that he'll put the hockey thing off until the hockey season starts in September....he seems addicted though.
On another note, Umple Eddie gave us tickets to the Bruins game in a couple of weeks. He is excited and is fixated on me picking him up early from school on the day we go. Charlie's dad got Charlie out of school a couple of hours early last week when they went to the Bruins so Jimmy thinks that is the way to go.
Tonight before bed the kids wanted a story read to them because I always tell them that they can only get a book if they go to bed on time. Of course that never happens so we never have to worry. Well, tonight they did get there on time so we had to read a book on a bunch of farm animals starting a band to play at the County fair. It was funny because Jimmy sat in front and read the story before I was reading it and he kind of threw me off...keep forgetting the kid can read.