Sunday, July 3

10:30 am
Patio

Sitting out here in the sunshine, sipping tea and icing my knee.  First quiet time I've had to myself since the Kids woke up this morning.  I'm all fucked-up timewise and probably need to take a nap, but I don't want to.  Want to spend every second I can with my Kids before I have to go back to work next week.

Jakey and Romeo were hilarious this morning.  I thought their eyes were gonna pop out of their heads when they came downstairs and found me sitting at the breakfast table in my pajamas.  They climbed all over me like I was a damned jungle gym, had to tell them to be careful of my knee even though it was caged up in its brace.  Romeo was so surprised he couldn't even speak.  Choked me up a little too.

Of course Jake didn't have that problem, his mouth was going a mile a minute, ha ha.  And then he had to go try to wake up Steph and Jess too, to tell them Daddy was home.  Of course they weren't interested; I saw them both last night when they came in.  Stephie was sweet, she gave me a big hug and kiss and was all smiley.  Made me flash back to when she was a little girl in pigtails, how she would get all excited to see me when I came back from a trip.

Brendan was with her, he shook my hand and asked about my knee.  He even seemed happy to see me.  Though in his teenage-boy mind he was probably thinking "Shit.  Now I can't sleep in Steph's room."  Ha ha.

And no, he fucking well CAN'T.

Jess was late for curfew.  Didn't make it home until almost 12:30.  Imagine his surprise when Mom and Boyfriend AND Dad and StepMama met him in the living room.  He mumbled his apology then came over and shook my hand and kissed Cate on the cheek.  Said he was glad to see me.

Dorothea read him a little of the riot act before I asked why Jess was late.  He said he had to drive Bridget back to her friends' house and traffic was bad.  Bridget, huh?  Heh heh.  I told D to give him a break, just this one time.  She didn't argue.

So neither of the teenagers were too interested in getting up early to have breakfast with Dad.  Oh well.

But Jakey and Romey have been glued to my side.  The only reason they're not sitting here with me right now is Dorothea made them go in and get changed so we can go out to the Farmer's Market.  I'm sure they'll be back any second now.

Romeo will have Russell in tow, probably on the silly little purple leash Cate bought for him.  Romey's glad to have his pet back, said Russell had fun on tour but he missed home.  He doesn't think Russell will want to go back to Europe with me next week, which is fine with me.  I have enough to do without babysitting an imaginary ferret.

Besides, it was getting harder and harder to come up with photo-ops for him.  And people were starting to think I was losing it, taking pics of random things like amps and plates of food and  flower boxes.

Ah, here they come.  I can hear the mayhem from out here.

Damn, it's good to be home.