July 6, 2006

Well, Bobby died. Dad and David were with him all day yesterday, all night (except for a couple hours' sleep in the car) and all day today. There wasn't any significant change, and it looked like it could take a really long time, so they decided to go home for a bit. Less than a half-hour later, they weren't even out of Portland yet, and the call came that he had passed. I feel so badly for Dad, and Aunt Doris, and the others who were close to Bobby. I myself hadn't seen him for many years, so it is not affecting me so deeply, and my kids had never met him at all. (there was an odd rift in that portion of the family when I was a teenager, which I won't get into.)

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Mark went over to his friend MarkS's house this afternoon/evening, and Kira and I had a taste of the mom-daughter time we'll have all next week while Mark's at summer camp. We watched a movie, and made French toast for dinner, I tried my first double-french-braid on her hair (it came out great, we're going to do it again tomorrow), and then I had her show me how to play Lego Star Wars on the Playstation2. I am NOT good at video games, never have been, but this one was pretty fun. We ended up playing it for almost 2 hours (Mark came home for the last 45 minutes or so--he was stunned that *I* was playing, but he got right into it, trying to direct us around--it was actually more fun when Kira and I were blundering through cluelessly, although we progressed much farther with Mark's help).

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Saturday the kids and I are going to see Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest. It's my birthday, so my ticket will be free. I think it's an ideal way of spending my birthday, seeing a movie with my kids, followed by Dorman's ice cream (yummmmm). My friend Kimmie called today and is coming to Maine for the weekend (her grandmother lives in Lincolnville), so I invited her to go with us (if she wakes up on time, lol--I told her we'd leave without her).

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Found out today that MarkS. is going to Fairhaven this next week also...his mother made extra effort to get him there the same week that Mark is. While I know Mark's pretty psyched that his best friend will be there, I'm a little disappointed because a major part of the idea of summer camp (IMO) is the broadening of horizons and trying new things. I hope he doesn't end up spending every minute with MarkS. (I sound awful, don't I? There are only 6 boys in Mark's class at school, and I would just love for him to be able to experience new people on his own--and he had such an incredible time last year.....oh, I need to shut up and stop worrying.) Also, now we're going to carpool, which really does make sense that both of us don't have to drive the whole way (and I do know where it is). But now it feels like a little special part of the trip, a "just me n Mark" part, is gone.

Oh, I feel so SELFISH even thinking these things! But, but (there's always a "but") Mark is 11....there isn't much time left for there to *be* special things with his mom before he's grown, and being able to give him a week at summer camp just feels like such a precious thing.

Well, what is, is. We'll see how it turns out.

Off I go.