Friday Night Fights

Friday evening Ethan had his second cross country meet of the season.  Even though it was also Jane's birthday, I really wanted to make it a full family affair and make everyone turn out to support him in the race.  In retrospect, it might not have been the BEST timing to try and make fetch happen.  Hahaha.  

Ethan took the bus with his team right after school and we joined him for the start, along with hundreds of other people.  This was one HUGE invitational meet. Unfortunately, certain children were not super stoked to be going, and they certainly let us know it.  I, on the other hand, was really excited to be there and couldn't wait to see him run.  I think that all of the kids actually enjoyed seeing the finishers as they came in, but other than that brief 5 minute window of watching and waiting for Ethan to come through, the only highlight for them, was getting a Kona Ice before we left.  

By the time we got home, it wasn't all that late, but Jane was already deteriorating and refusing to go to bed because it was her birthday!  And she never got a chance to play with the brand new game she picked out with her birthday money that afternoon!  And then the night just continued to go downhill as we realized the game needed C batteries -- which we didn't have -- and then Grace started clamoring for a movie night because it was Friday and they never got screen time because they had to go to the "stupid meet" that she never even wanted to go to anyway, and everyone was just overtired and overly wound up.  It was great.  Scott ran to Walgreens for the batteries to avert that crisis, while I tried to convince Grace that there was NO WAY a movie night was happening that late in the evening.  Once the batteries were in place, the next 20 or so minutes were spent fighting over the "Go Fishing" game that Jane had picked out and which EVERYONE ELSE really wished was theirs.  It was epically amazing.  I cannot even BELIEVE how much contention was brought out with the playing of that game.

Once we finally got Alex and Jane in bed -- a good 2 hours past their bedtime -- the next natural disaster to diffuse was Tropical Storm Grace, who would not let Movie Night die.  Those kids.  They just can't handle life when they're overtired.  And I think being back in school and all that it entails, has really drained them more than they recognize.  After another hour or so, we finally got the older three in bed with the promise that we'd do Movie Night on Saturday instead.  And THAT was our Friday night!  Hahahaha.  I'd like to say that the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and rejuvenating, but I don't think this family knows how to do those things.  Stay tuned for the highlight of the weekend, when we celebrated Jane's birthday for real, on Saturday afternoon.