Welcome to my world

This photo pretty much sums up the phase of life we’re in at the House of Hondo right now. I live with a bunch of boys and the two littlest ones play hard. The crazy thing is that I love these stinky, dirty feet like there’s no tomorrow.



Tonight, when it’s time to shower them up, we’ll work together to scrub them until they shine so he can do it all over again tomorrow.

With friends like that...

After the boys showered tonight Thomas came to the kitchen seeking assistance with a stubborn pajama shirt sleeve. As I turned the offending sleeve right side out, Andrew was in the bathroom making hideously loud noises in his best "fake opera voice." I yelled at him asked him politely to please stop. He paused for one beat and went right back to his shrieking, but perhaps just a notch louder.

At this point Thomas was finished putting on his pajamas and was heading upstairs to brush teeth. He was pretty focused on being the first one to the bathroom and was making his way out of the kitchen.

When Andrew started singing again I looked at Mark and said, "Did you hear that? He clearly heard me ask him to stop and then went right back after it just to annoy me. I should go swat his bottom."

With that, Thomas whipped around and said, excitedly, "NO! DON'T GO!"

For a split second I thought it was very sweet that he was concerned I would really go do that. Then he finished his thought. "Dad should go. He's much stronger!"

That is love, folks.

Setting the bar high

I made a trek into Kansas City last weekend for a gathering of friends from college. There were almost 20 of us and there was tons of good food, good drinks and laughing. The occasion was a birthday celebration for a friend who was visiting from Chicago. Before she lived in the Windy City she spent years in Africa (I know, sounds just like my life, right?!) so most of us hadn’t seen her in many moons. 

As I sat and talked with her we both commented that the shared history in the room was pretty interesting. There is certainly something about spending four years living with people, during a formative period of your life, that connects you even decades later, in a very good and comfortable way. We also talked about the fact that those types of friendships become more difficult to replicate as you get older and life feels busier. We agreed that our college experience had set the bar high for future meaningful friendships with other women but that you just have to keep putting yourself out there.



Little did I know that while I was enjoying good company and dinner, my family was literally setting the bar high at the local high school track. I often read that kids in America aren’t getting enough exercise and are busy watching television and joining an obesity epidemic. I believe it’s happening and I believe it’s a problem, but it’s just not one I can relate to right now. I’m sure the day will come, when they’re teenagers and decide that sleep is pretty cool, that our boys will be couch potatoes but for now it’s not on our list of issues.  I sometimes find myself asking if they would like to watch a show because it’s possible that I might need them to sit down for 30 minutes. One of their very favorite activities is to go to the track to run and mess around in the long jump pits. Mark probably takes them once every 32 times they ask to go, but those odds never deter them. They’re persistent little buggers.

This video gives little snippets of what they love to do up there, and I promise that while it appears Mark is really putting them through their paces, they literally beg for this abuse. (My proof is at :03 where Thomas says, "Anyway, we really NEED this exercise.") If you’re not inclined to watch the whole clip, just check out the 1:30 mark, where Thomas shows us all what can happen if the bar’s too high and how to get back on the horse and just keep trying.

Henderson boys at the track…

A shout out to the free market

Andrew recently completed a unit with the Junior Achievement program at school. There was lots of good work that came home in that folder, but this gem stood out to me. Have you ever really stopped to think about all the businesses and service providers it takes to make our little capitalistic society spin round and round?  Don’t forget the little people. Or the Yak Rodeo.

 

Spring break by the numbers

I like to believe it’s not so much that I'm not a numbers person as it is that I am a word person. I rarely think numerically and, as the length of my average blog post will illustrate, I definitely think in narrative. This week, though, I’ve got numbers on the brain. It might be because our beloved Jayhawks played their hearts out in the Final Four, or the fact that Thomas turned six last week or, maybe, that Andrew played four soccer games last weekend. The reason isn’t yours to question but rather to rejoice. I’m going to recap our Spring Break trip to visit Butch, RoRo, Maria, Eric and the collective cousins in California by the numbers. Here goes:

37 – the number of seconds it took for all the kids to disappear into the house to play together once we arrived in Claremont this trip.

45 – the number of minutes after they disappeared before we saw them again.

1 – the number of days each of our boys spent, individually, with Aunt Maria in her first grade classroom. I worried they might not think it was fun to go to school during spring break. I worried for not. They loved it.

13 – the number of times Thomas marveled at the layout of California schools, which have no interior hallways and instead open to an outdoor courtyard.

18 – the number of miles we drove from Butch and RoRo’s house to reach the Mt. Baldy Ski Area with the boys. We threw snowballs since we haven’t done that at home this winter. (Global warming is real, people.)

 

72 – the number of times Thomas told us he didn’t like the curvy mountain road and asked to go back to Butch and RoRo’s house on said trip up the mountain. We assured him he would love it at the top. He did not love it at the top. You win some, you lose some.

17 – the number of notes I found in the boys’ bedroom during the week with floor plans of the house drawn on one side and narrative on the other that said, “Susan and Maria talking again. RoRo laughing. Butch watching television. Mark on computer. Eric texting.” The Spy Game evolved this trip into hours of entertainment.  The kids sneak around the house “spying” on - and “whispering” about - the adults and they take notes on what they find. The adults go about their business pretending as if we can’t see the kids, per their request. The Spy Game is a win-win.

58 – the number of times my kids asked Butch when he would get out the Model A so they could go for a drive.

58 – the miles per hour all the kids moved, as they raced toward the Model A, when Butch surprised us at the playground offering rides on a beautiful afternoon.

5 – the number of kids Maria had sleeping in her house on the Tuesday night of our visit. “Hooray for sleepovers,” says the woman who went home and slept in a big quiet house with three other adults.

 

4:45 a.m. – the time that Zac and Andrew woke Maria up on the morning after the sleepover. No need to worry; they were just going to feed the dog and play Mario Kart. “Hilarious. They’re so helpful,” says the woman who was sound asleep in a big quiet house with three other adults at 4:45 a.m.

34 – the length of the largest T. Rex at the LA Natural History Museum, which we visited the next day. His name is Thomas, which we obviously found charming. RoRo purchased t-shirts for all the kids and I was that mom, asking museum staff to please check the back room, because we really needed the Thomas the T. Rex shirt in the right size!!!

4,000 – the number of Dire Wolves it is estimated have been pulled from the tar at the La Brea Tar Pits. We visited there after the Natural History Museum and it was fascinating for most of us.

1 – the number of people in our party who weren’t so impressed by the Tar Pits. I won’t name names, but someone whose name rhymes with “hair” was most disappointed to find out that all the animals available for viewing at the Tar Pits were dead. I believe the quote was, “Where are all the alive animals?” and when the answer was, “There aren’t any. They died in the tar,” the response was, “This place is stupid.”

4 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who ended up with tar on some part of their body as we wandered the grounds. That place is nuts; the tar is still bubbling in pits and is literally seeping from the ground mere feet from the sidewalk.

1 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who were still awake when we arrived home that evening. Andrew. Of course. He had only been up since 4:45 a.m.

3 – the number of hours of adult conversation, great food and beer we enjoyed with the Tuckers that evening while our collective kids were in the care of babysitters and RoRo. As always, the gift of being related to people you like and who make you laugh is not lost on me.

45- the number of miles we drove the next day to have a delicious lunch in Long Beach and enjoy a Harbor Cruise. We could see snowy Mt. Baldy from the boat. Crazy.

2 – the number of rides we let the kids enjoy at the Santa Monica Pier, where we journeyed after Long Beach. Watching Luke, Claire and Thomas ride the bumper cars was worth the price of admission. Afterwards they got to touch the very cold Pacific Ocean and we took the scenic route along the beach back to the car.

2.5 – the number of hours it took us to make the return journey to Butch and RoRo’s that night. It’s a 50-mile drive; I’ll let you do that math. We only had one child end up car sick and it only took 30 chicken nuggets and five Sprites to keep them quiet enough to make it possible for Maria to navigate the route.

3 – the number of miles that Mark told me we would be hiking on Friday morning in the beautiful foothills of the Claremont Wilderness Park.

5 – the number of miles we actually hiked on our last morning in the foothills. It was so worth it and something I want to do again with the boys, next time with some water.  

2 – the number of minutes we saw of the KU vs. NC State basketball when we arrived home after an easy day of travel. Rock Chalk!

128 – the number of times the boys have asked if we can return to California this summer for more family time, in the 10 days we’ve been home.

We had a great trip and can’t thank Butch, RoRo and the Tuckers enough for all the good food, accommodations and company. We’re very, very lucky indeed!

 

p.s. I had vowed when we left for CA that I would not write another blog post before I recapped our late-December journey to Florida to see Mickey and his friends. That trip, it turns out, is overwhelming to blog. Stay tuned, though!