Thoughts on the last week....

• Parenting is a lot easier when you have an equal child-adult ratio.

• You would think I'd be used to being this tired.  Or being tired, period.  I've been tired for the last four years.  (Most of the time, it's a good tired.)

• I have discovered why I've been feeling so wonky for the last week or so.  Wacky hormones will do that to you.  (No, I am not pregnant.)

• It has been beastly hot here.  We're supposed to reach triple-digits again tomorrow.  Alaska is looking nicer and nicer.

• Going to the pool is great.  Always having to be in the water because my kids are still learning  how to swim is fine while I'm in the water.  Once I get out, I remember that I'm no longer pre-30s or pre-accident.  My ankle always forgets in water what it can and can't do.  I limped out to the van tonight after nearly three and a half hours turning into a prune.

• Large Fry burst into tears tonight because the lifeguard determined that she's not quite 48" tall and said she could no longer go down the slide into the pool.  (She's really close, so it's sort of a toss-up if she reaches or falls short of the height requirement.)

• Pool noodles are lots of fun.  Especially when you let the hollow center fill with water, and then aim and blow.

• The revelation that someone I know had Hodgkin's Lymphoma as a child (now, full-grown, strapping adult with two kids) gives me great hope for my former youth group kid who was recently diagnosed.  If he was cured as a child, 30ish years or so ago, there's great hope for my dear friend.

• Eating ice cream has become difficult.  I burst into tears the other night after Hubby brought home some frozen custard from Rita's for me, because I set my empty cup down on the floor for Keiki to lick, without thinking.  And, of course, she's not here to lick out the dregs like she's done for most of the last 13 years.  It broke my heart.  Grief is such a funny thing. The weirdest stuff will bring it racing to the forefront.  Keiki could hear the ice cream scoop hit the ice cream, and she would be right there.  Out of a sound sleep, I tell you!  And then she would sit in front of me and watch me eat, often sitting up on her hind legs like a prairie dog and plaintively meowing.

Small, Medium, and the PA Memorial.

• We spent the 4th in Gettysburg, touring the battlefield in an abbreviated fashion, with some good friends of ours.  It was quite a day.  We finished the day with watching the local fireworks.  Getting home this year was considerably easier and quicker than last year in C-burg, where it took us an hour to get out of the parking lot and another half hour to get home, from the elementary school where we parked...which was all of a ten-minute drive from our house (the Fries were all zonked within three minutes of classical music in the van).

• Today we got invited to my oldest great-nephew's birthday party.  Why, yes, I am a great-aunt (in addition to being a great aunt).  That's what happens when you marry the "what do you mean, you're pregnant?" baby of the family, and there's 12 years between him and his oldest sister.  He'll be six.  My great-nephew, that is, not Hubby.  The party's at Chuck E. Cheese.  I'm torn between really wanting to go--Little D and I share the same birthday--and being leery of stepping inside a Chuck E. Cheese's again, mostly because my brother took the Fries there the last time they went to one.

• We have to play the party thing by ear, anyway.  My friend A posted this on Facebook tonight: "Walking with someone into eternity is a painful blessing."  I know her sister and family arrived today from where they're missionaries abroad, and I know some hard decisions were being made.  My guess is that they have decided, as a family, to stop her dad's sedation and remove the ventilator at some point this weekend, and they do not expect her dad to make it.  I am going to try to make it to the funeral if at all possible, and that may throw a wrench in other plans.

• I am seriously contemplating going to bed right now, but I had a nightmare last night that we were facing court again because of another custody suit, and  Hubby and I spent the greater portion of the dream meeting with our lawyer's senior partner.  I still feel rattled.  (Our lawyer would love to go back to court.  She's that confident in our case.)

• I smell like chlorine.

• I have a huge craving for more french fries.