Monday, April 20, 2009

I'm at a danger point with this chronicle. I've allowed too much time to elapse since the last post so that every time I think of sitting down to write an update the task feels overwhelming and I can easily find something else to do. I'll start from the weekend with the goal of working back to Easter and just see how things go.

Team Kenyon was in full force on Saturday morning for the March for Babies. We had more walkers than ever before and including people and dogs we got close to my goal of 40 walkers in honor of John's 40th birthday in December. It was such an honor to have so many friends and family with us. I did feel bad for dragging everyone out so early on a Saturday only to be pelted by rain about 10 minutes after the walk started. We had about one hour of daytime rain over the weekend, coordinated exactly with the walk time. A few intrepid walkers made it the whole route, but we left the boys with my parents at the library (about half way through the route loop) and then cut straight back to the park instead of following the whole loop. If not for the kids, it wouldn't have been bad to keep going--it wasn't super cold and it wasn't a driving rain. But I think we made the right choice.

My sisters surprised me by digging through the family archives to unearth two t-shirts from a long-forgotten era during which the Geraghty family attended summer picnics wearing matching green t-shirts with "Geraghty Gang" emblazoned on them. You probably had to be there, but I almost fell over laughing when I saw them walking toward me.

This month at daycare they are celebrating "The Month of the Young Child" with special activities each day. Some are simple, like the various color days (wear red one day, green the next, blue, etc.) One of the days this last week was "Dress like mom or dad day." Some boys wore their dads' ties, but John doesn't really have enough to spare and our kids don't have that kind of button down shirt anyway. We decided they could all wear long sleeve polo collar shirts and do just fine (even though I sprung it on John at the last minute and he had to go iron a different shirt.) Ed was pleased with the outcome and didn't seem to notice or care that John's shirts lacked stripes--a fashion lesson he is bound to learn for himself later in life.

I'm not even sure what to say about this picture except I hope we are not stifling Edward's musical abilities with this ghetto instrument. You are not mistaken: that is a cookie tin with its lid duct-taped shut holding an elastic band that was used to secure the monitoring devices for my many stress tests during pregnancy. The drumsticks are spoons and the headgear will just have to speak for itself.

OK, on to Easter. We started the morning with 8 a.m. mass. This may seem crazy, but since our kids don't differentiate between weekends and weekdays in terms of sleeping patterns, it actually meant we just followed our usual M-F routine and went together to church instead of work/daycare. Ed was pretty excited about Daniel and Dad coming with us. Usually they stay home. We managed to snap this family picture before we left. The angle is a little weird since we had to set the camera on a stool, but it's passable. We told Edward the Easter Bunny would come while we were at church, just as Santa Claus did back in December. The baskets were a hit--sunglasses, wiffle balls and bat, coloring tools (markers for Ed, crayons for Dan) and the all-important plastic eggs with jelly beans (Ed) and teddy grahams (Dan.) And, yes, Daniel's "basket" is a bike helmet. What can I say?In preparation for Easter dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, the boys "helped" me make a cake. Lesson learned in the process: the expiration date on a cake mix is actually important. John had to be dispatched for another mix after the first cake didn't rise. Still tasted pretty good, but I didn't think it was presentable as dessert.
I think we're all caught up now. I leave you with a video John prepped a couple of days ago showing some of the boys' latest antics. And I think you know that includes all three of them!