June Sorts of Things

Josh's baseball season wrapped up last week.  He got hit in the side of the eye with a pitch on Tuesday, and luckily all he got was a little bruise.  His batting helmet protected him.   A lot of those little guys cry when they get hit by a pitch, because that business hurts, man, but Josh just took his base.  Scared me a little, though.

Tim McGraw was excellent, as predicted.  That is one fine looking man.  I was a little concerned at the very end when he brought Brantley Gilbert back out to help him finish up the last song of the encore... I was afraid that the stage might spontaneously combust from all the hot.

This was a lazy, relaxing weekend.  We did chores, worked in the yard a little, that's it.  For Father's Day, Sean's dad came over and we had dinner.  Courtney and Curtis came over as well.  Hopefully Sean enjoyed it.  He said he did.

I am very laid back in the summer.  I'm not a mom who gets worked up about her kids wanting to sleep in or sit around in pj's playing video games.  It's nice to just kick back in the summer.  It's not like they spend all day doing that; they get up and around and do other things.  But then I feel guilty and feel like I really *should make a schedule and make them do more chores than they do and be more regimented about making sure Josh reads and practices his times tables or whatever.  So I guess maybe I'll come up with a schedule of some sort and make a half-baked attempt at implementing it.

I've come to a very important conclusion about parenting and life in general.  Based on conversations I've had and things I've read over the last while, I think the most important thing a parent can do for a child is teach him or her to work.  Knowing how to work hard is a hugely important life skill, and I see a lot of kids/young adults who don't have it.  I'm really worried about if I'm teaching my kids to work hard enough, and how do I teach them?  My mom told me a few months ago that she wished she wouldn't have let us work in high school; that she now agrees with the idea that school is your job in high school.  I disagree.  It taught me so many important things.  School is very important, but the key component I think, no matter what, is knowing how to work hard.  We were talking with Sean's dad when he was here on Sunday and I said that I think college is overrated and I'm not encouraging my kids to go anymore. That's really not even true... I just said it to see if either Sean or his dad were listening to me.  I don't think they were.  But college isn't the end-all-be-all necessarily that people act like it is.

I told Sean that I'm going to get healthier (I tell him that at least once a month) and that I was going to start drinking less Pepsi and more water.  So today he asked me if I had managed to drink less Pepsi and I told him yes, but I'm switching to vodka instead of water.  He just said, "Well I guess we better hit the liquor store then."  Very supportive husband I have.  Today was not one of my better days.  The kids fought me all day long, and then they broke the garage door.  Sean spent the evening trying to repair it.  He did everything he could, but he can't do the thing with the spring, so I gotta call a guy tomorrow.  Over the last few days he fixed the computer, he fixed the dishwasher, he fixed his grandpa's leaf blower... he's a good guy to have around.  Everyone needs a Sean.

One of my former students made the Top 20 on So You Think You Can Dance.  If only I can remember to watch the show now....