Since she's been gone

Cate has been out of town for a few days helping her mom out, so it's just been the six of us (Nonna and Da, not some new-found offspring). And tomorrow I go out of town for a meeting at Verizon, so there's a span of 24 hours where neither of us is here.

But everything's been fine so far. Emptying the notebook of what you might have missed if you were out of town or otherwise really, really busy this weekend.

• I took Elizabeth and Robert with me to Stevens Point, Wis., for a D-III basketball game. Just 220 miles each way. I sat Elizabeth down beforehand and told her, "Now, Robert is going to annoy you, and he's going to annoy me. That's just the way he is. You and I need to deal with it and not let it stress us out, ok?" Elizabeth didn't get very stressed out. We saw a great game. Well, at least I did. Robert mostly sat on the floor under the media table because I told him he couldn't sit at the table and read Garfield at the same time. He chose the floor. And he's little, so that's great. Elizabeth drew pictures, some of them basketball-related. Afterwards the Wis.-Stevens Point men's basketball team had an autograph session and there were sets of trading cards, which Robert had a great time tracking down and getting signed while I was conducting postgame interviews.
  
• We listened to both of our Beatles compilation CDs. Elizabeth needs to show you her picture of I Am The Walrus. I also introduced them to the joys of listening to the Beatles one speaker at a time. You know, where the vocals are in one speaker and the instruments are in another, or the lead vocal is in one and the background vocals are in the other. Good times.
• After the game we stopped at a Noodles for dinner because Elizabeth had never been and Robert enjoyed his one meal at one. We got there about 10 minutes before a bus pulled up. Good timing.
  
• On the way home, they slept, at least for the last three hours or so. But before they drifted off, we pulled over by the side of the road, turned our lights off, rolled the windows down and looked at the stars. Neither of them had ever seen so many stars before. We've found something Abbotsford, Wis., is good for.
• Friday night we met a high school friend of mine and his family for dinner, Broadway Pizza. Our kids had a great time and his kids warmed up pretty quickly. You'd be surprised how well 3-year-olds can converse with each other over pizza. Robert had chicken fingers, of course. Elizabeth and I split a white pizza. She was the only person at the table between the ages of 7 and 35. And she did just fine.
• I have sitting next to me a worksheet Robert brought home from school, where there are six pictures and you color the needs one color and the wants another color. Well, he does great -- roller skates, a television and a cat are all wants, while fruits and vegetables and places to live are colored with needs. Then there's a shirt. He colored half of it one color and half the other color. Not every shirt is a need, definitely. There's also a second worksheet, asking what you would buy with a hundred dollars. He answers a toy ($20), candy ($10) and a job ($50). He also does the math to show that that's only 80 bucks. Hopefully he's saving the rest.
• Colleen got to stay with Nonna while the kids and I spent all day driving and hooping. They went to Aunt Alicia's birthday party and hung out with Amelia and Mackenzie and the like and reportedly had a grand old time.
  
• I took Robert and Elizabeth to church this morning. Since I sing in the choir, I go over a half-hour early for warm-ups and practicing, and Cate usually follows with the three kids at 9. But Colleen stayed home and I took the other two in. Robert sat very nicely during rehearsal and then he and Elizabeth sat in the congregation, very close to the choir's space, and behaved very appropriately. I was proud.
• On Friday night, Colleen did not crawl into bed with me. Robert reported that she crawled into his bed instead, and he pushed her off, "because she was literally all over me, Dad!"
• Nonna took Robert and Colleen over to visit Pa this afternoon. Robert impressed him with his reading ability and Colleen sang Skip to My Lou. Yeah, Colleen. The one who buries her head and won't look at her nearly-96-year-old great-grandfather.
• Elizabeth was off playing with a friend of hers from school. They went sledding. She didn't bring back any physical or emotional scars.
  
• Tonight we had lamb. Yum!
• We didn't have one tough bedtime the whole time I was here and Cate was gone.
  
• Stuff is all getting done, just maybe not at the same time that it would have otherwise. Robert's lunch box got cleaned out ... on Sunday night. Elizabeth has been practicing her clarinet, but mostly before school.