Herding cats

I title my post today "herding cats" because that's the best description I have for life with these 4 boys. Every time it seems like things are under control, everyone is happy & taking care of business, they all break free, meowing madly, into out-of-control chaos. It turns out that homework isn't getting done (or, more importantly, turned in), classes aren't good, friends are not nice, activities are not fun, and so on... I can never relax and just know that all is well in the butterworld, because there's always a boy lurking around the corner with some terrible grievance, insoluble problem, or request to use the car.

But we do have our moments, and they are wonderful. (And trust me, I hang on to them!) Yesterday was one - Carson had play practice, so I was picking up just Reed from school. I looked out the window at 1:30 and saw it was raining, but not hard, so I put his boots in my pack and walked down to school. Our walk home was so fun - he walked in every gutter, puddle, rivulet, wet spot and trickle he could find. We went slowly, enjoying the wet and checking out what we saw... and then we went really quickly, because he learned that even rain boots don't keep your socks from getting soaked if you jump in deep puddles, and wet is... surprise here... cold!

I'll get back to the mud in a moment. First, check out the handsome guy on the left here! Satchel took his girl (and my car*) to the Winter Formal last weekend and yes, he looked good! I wanted to get a photo of him yesterday, when we got home from our rain walk, to contrast with this photo - he'd been taking his bike out to the muddy, rained on, eroded, muddy creek bed behind school (did I say it's muddy?) and doing drops and jumps. Luckily he does NOT do that in the clothes at left! ;-)

(An aside: one of my prouder moments as a parent was when I was reading a story to Carson in which a kid got in trouble for getting his clothes dirty, and I had to explain it because Carson had never heard of such a thing. Good mom!)

I'm looking forward to this afternoon - Reed, Carson & I are going to go down to the high school and watch a wrestling meet! My only worry is that because Reed talks 105% of the time when he's awake, I won't be able to hear the coaches yelling, "knee in the butt!" or other priceless gems. But I'll try to collect a few of these deathless outcries, for posterity and for the edification of all my loyal readers. Stay tuned!

*The car stayed in the parking lot and did not get flowers.