A new habit that we hope to foster once back home is that of sleeping in on the weekends. Our eldest is known for being a morning person. As I write this I am haunted by ghosts of birthdays past. On her eighth, (8/Mar/08), we gave her her first American Girl Doll and all of the accoutrement that went with it including the entire book set about Kit, who was a girl of the great depression. While enormously proud of our little bookworm, we soon realized that at her normal reading pace, she would have had to have been getting up at about 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. to be consuming the books at the pace she was consuming them. And, as they say, if you want to soar with the eagles, you can't really hoot with the owls. So it became our regular routine to not worry too much about her early morningness, but to pay a bit more attention about the bedtime, to make sure she was rested enough to do the normal day's duties.
Johnny's a different story though.
We discovered upon our last trip to Ireland (when Dustin and Laura got married and Johnny was four) that he was a bit of a late owl like Sheila. He can definitely hoot with the owls and, as opposed to his older sister, he just adjusts his sleep on the other end. The wedding was at noon (at least that's when members of the wedding party were supposed to be gathering and he was a pageboy in the wedding) and he was still sawing logs at 11:30! On our way home Maggie and I were dragging with jetlag by 8 p.m. while Sheila and Johnny were ready to hit the town in Chicago where we got held over due to bad weather.
So here we are, two and a half years later and while I can't be sure exactly when Maggie is rising on the weekends, Johnny is sleeping in, enjoying all the benefits of a day off of school, rousing late, having a late breakfast and just all-round relaxing.
I had to push him a bit to get him in his cleats and on his bike in time for hurling, but once there he is a sweaty ball of smiles. I've got a few videos here that I will try to attach. If they don't work I will post once I'm at work and hardwired. I've got them trying a bit of "air hurling" and then playing a short scrimmage. He is excellent at what we'd call a "one timer" or they call, I think a "first timer" where instead of stopping the ball with the hurley and then hitting it on the ground, you try to hit it while it is still in motion. This has huge advantages in the game because the defense don't have time to get on you and "hook" your hurley or block a hit. He still feels like he's not as good as the rest, but I think that's still just nerves. Unfortunately, no kid from his class at school is on the team, so he only pals around with the guys he sees there, which is nice, but no one consistently.
Here's a video of practicing "air hurling" this is the part that drives Johnny crazy. It is hard.
I forgot to relay one funny moment before the Kilmacud Crokes cheer today (this is a quick update to my initial post) and which had Johnny laughing for a good hour. Let me preface by saying that the boys here do have little sailor's mouths on them. Anyway, the coach went over and blew his whistle and said to the boys who were chatting like mad with each other, "What do you do when the coach is talking?" and according to Johnny one kid yelled "Yeh SHUT UP!" The coach responded by saying "Yes, but a nicer way to put it is that you quiet down listen to coach!"
Here's the cheer, again. I can't get enough of it check out Johnny's sweaty, smiley face (gob) at the end:
While we were out Sheila and Maggie headed into Dublin for a little "mom and me" birthday celebration. They had lunch and I think tried to get pedicures but nothing was open on Sunday.
Johnny and I then grabbed a bus to O'Connell (Johnny is continually amazed by the Spire) and met them down on Grafton Street.
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| The Spire: 3/3/13 |
We might have stopped in a few shops along the way.
We met Maggie and Sheila at our fav ice cream place, Murphys, and, because Sheila and I were bursting to give her her birthday present early, we made a whole date of it.
Johnny bought the sundaes and gave Maggie an awesome One Direction card and some pens she had seen at the airport on the way to Paris.
Sheila and I have had her birthday present for her for months... In all honesty, I think Sheila started working on getting this gift about ten months ago... So... Why did we surprise her today? Well, for a couple of reasons.
On her sixth birthday we gave her a surprise birthday party. It was awesome. We invited literally all of the girls in her class (kindergarten class at the time). She loved it but when it was over, it was really over... All the girls went home and her birthday was over.
Surprise parties are cool and all, but they don't allow you to savor the planning and really look forward to the event.
This reason and another one I'm about to say is why we told her that we got her
She had started making plans with some girls from school to go camp out at the O2 in Dublin because they heard that the guards sometimes give away tickets. While fun, we just weren't ready to let her do this as the O2 is not in a particularly great neighborhood.
This is the present we got:
Priceless.
Let's just say Ireland just got a lot better for our formerly grumpy teen.
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