Some Holy Water, Football and Rats,.. A Winning Weekend Combination

Quite the weekend, which began on Friday as my sons brought home the memo in triplicate stating that Monday was a,... HOLIDAY. For whom? Do they not understand how rewarding it for me as a slacker mom to wave audieu to my little cherubs for a full six hours five days a week? I suppose if I paid more attention I would have had more warning.

Friday night was Jared's football practice and they ended early,.. with no Jared parent in sight. Thank goodness we have friends looking out for us and transported the child to the Von's parking lot where we were buying donut holes and Sunny D for the next day's games. I think my excuse of 'I have five children,...!!!' may be wearing thin. I'm usually a little more on top of it than that. I may have to give in and buy the oldest child a cell phone, so he can remind me I have responsibilities as his mother, like be there when his practice ends. I don't understand the parents who do hang out for the entire practice,.. although I used to be that parent, but now I have three other kids who need my attention, a house to clean and a job to try and not get fired from. I figure if the kid is having fun at a practice, my eyeballs need not be on him, but on the other siblings who need something fun to do.

Hubby had an all day meeting in San Bernardino for his Parish council position. So, he had a small detour to Corona on his way in the morning dropping Zach off for his pregame warm up. I got the rest of us out the door before eight (yay for me!) and made it to see the second half of the game. Okay, I was really only physically present for the game, since between bathroom trips for the B, picking up flung toys from the stroller from Feefee and explaining to Kyle that NO YOU AREN"T GOING TO THE SNACKBAR FOR SOUR GUMMY WORMS AT 9 A.M.,j again,.. I really didn't see much of the game. Zach won in spite of his pathetic cheering squad.

Then, hung out until Jared was safely practicing with his team and on to Burger King for an early lunch. Back in time to actually watch the kick off for Jared's game! Unbelievable! Feefee slept for about the first half of the game, miraculously, even staying asleep as I carefully deposited her in the stoller so I could take the B to her one millionth bathroom trip.

Poor Jared didn't win, but it wasn't for not trying. The other team looked three times bigger and threw our players around like rag dolls. Or maybe that was my mommy perspective.

Daddy got home after us and we went for our usual run around the neighborhood for a couple of miles with whining children on bikes and in the stroller,... then every crabby kid to bed by 8 so we could watch a movie. Sigh,.. date night.

Sunday was Mass then Kyle's practice, which, in tune with our slacker initative, we had his brother escort him to. Hubby took the baby to catch the beginning of the game and the rest of the kids and I came down a bit later, after going to the 'Blessing of the Animals' at Church. Why? Becuase I love chaos and the fear of the unknown. We came with our foster German Shepherd and three rats. Which, since we brought all the rats in one cage, in about 21 days I can count on another rat explosion in the Richardson household. The Blessing of the Animals is a fun little celebration and rememberance of Saint Frances of Assisi. If anyone knows a good Catholic, they'll know their penchant for a party. So we hoofed it, or pawed it, as the case may be, over to our Church and had some Holy water sprinkled on our lot. Sabrina got to ride a pony, Jane the foster dog got her fill of doggy biscuits and no cat fights, dog fights, hamster fights or any other fights broke out.

Back at Kyle's baseball game, he successfully hit the ball every time he was at bat, and if he'd just put a little fire in his step, he'd be making a double instead of a single. Sauntering around the little league field doesn't cut it here in Yucaipa.

Another jaunt around the neighborhood and then force feeding of left over enchilada casserole. Hubby noticed the 'bbq'd' flavor of the chicken. I thought he meant my lovingly slow cooked chicken where I thoughtfully dumped a can of stewed tomatoes in, but he was instead talking about the chocolate chip cookie that plummeted to its death and spent three days giving a smoky, bbq'd flavor to the pizza, casserole and anything else I cooked in the oven until Hubby took matters into his own hands and turned on the self clean feature of the oven.

We watched Iron Man with the kids last night, had Hubby's famous oil popped popcorn which means those 15 or so miles I ran this week? All for naught.