A weekend at home

If you’ve been keeping up with my BLOG, you’d know that the weekend before last ended the baseball season around here, leaving this as the first weekend in awhile that we didn’t have to run somewhere for an all-day tournament. So, Saturday, Lisa and I slept in then got up and decided to run into town to go to the farmers market, the meat market and the fruit market. We never did make it to the farmers market, but found some good deals on fruits and veggies at the fruit market. We came home and I ran back to town with Trevor as he wanted to go to the bookstore and get a few books and spend some time with me...yeah, this is the same teenager, who not that long ago was angry at the world! After going to the bookstore, we went to a favorite restaurant of Lisa’s downtown…Trev and I ate and joked and laughed and it felt good to see the ‘old’ Trevor back…I hope he stays for a good long while.

When we got home, Lisa and I worked on the house; she got the basement living room cleaned up, Trev and I brought the last piece of furniture down from the garage…the recliner! And as Lisa finished up, I went out and started to breakdown the 100 lbs of cardboard boxes flat and then bound them together like two small bales. We also hung up more pictures and just generally continued with settling in. I grilled steaks along with some veggies and grilled some fruit too! I’d never grilled fruit before…it was yummy!

Lisa and I were sitting on the deck the other night while Kyle and Hope played in the backyard. Listening to them play make-believe (Kyle was the Ninja master and Hope was his student), I heard Hope say, ‘Master, I want to learn more…teach me some more moves!’ Lisa and I laughed and I thought to myself…’The kids are happier than I’ve seen them in some time.’ I voiced this thought to Lisa and it came to me that for the past year, we were ALWAYS gone on weekends. Either Lisa and the boys would come to our place or we’d go to hers. It's nice...no, it's been GREAT being together on the weekends and not having to run to see each other. In spite of the petty bickering or picking...pretty normal sibling issues...we see happiness, we see silliness and more importantly, we see everyone bonding together as a family! Trevor, Nick, Vinny and I went over to the back ball field and spent about an hour just hitting golf balls. We had a great time laughing, teasing and just having simple fun.

Here's the thing...in amongst our simple family fun, I learned something important; in this age of PSP's, Ipods, IMs, Face Book and 200 + cable channels, kids still value simple play and personal connection with their mom and dad. The games systems, music players and TV shows can only offer them momentary escapism. We as parents can offer them SO much more...a reality without the need to 'escape'! And parents? The payback on this investment is immediate...in the smile on your son's face or glint in your daughter's eye. Now THAT, my friend, is priceless...

~ V