The danger of writing a blog about six kids is that I tend to leave some of them out.I can see Alan, years from now, when our then-adult kids find copies of Mom's Old Blog in a trunk in the attic. I can see him thinking, Where was I? as he reads about Francie and Lillie, who are little and say cute things and cause a lot of trouble, or as he reads about Angelo, who is difficult in his own way and absorbs a lot of attention from us even though he doesn't really want it. (I leave Amelia out too, but I'll get to her later.)
Yeah, Alan is here. He's just easy, most of the time. I go get him when I need furniture moved or someone to watch the little girls for half an hour. Sorry, Alan.
In case you are wondering what you were doing during Open House month, let's see:
You took the ACT a couple of weeks ago. I made you eat breakfast before the test, but I did go get your old favorite, an egg biscuit from McDonald's, so as to be sure you'd actually eat something, and I let you have a Dr. Pepper in the hopes that the caffeine would make you more alert at that hour on a Saturday morning. I didn't try to force-feed you oatmeal.
And I couldn't find a pencil sharpener, so I rounded up four mostly sharpened pencils for you to take, although as it turned out, you said they had boxes of pencils there so you didn't need them after all.
I even gave you two of your dad's handkerchiefs, one for each front pocket, because you were coming down with a cold. And I made you take Tylenol before leaving, because the cold had given you a sore throat the day before, and I didn't want a sore throat to distract you during the test.
I don't normally baby you like this--but the ACT is IMPORTANT, and I know you won't eat breakfast or take medicine or tissues unless I make you, so I did. I decided the Tylenol, egg biscuit, Dr. Pepper, and handkerchiefs could probably add five points to your score.
I didn't care if you took a calculator, but you cared, so you rounded one up yourself. You drove yourself to the test site, which was your own high school.
You've been working on the yard of the people who live behind us. They paid you $21 so far, and said they had more to do, but we haven't heard from them yet. You're having a hard time figuring out what they want done. Their yard is overgrown and not exactly self-explanatory.
They would have paid you more, probably, but Dad told them you'd worked three hours and it was actually four. Such is life with parents.
You have a chinchilla in your room, named Fan, because you were expecting a new fan for Christmas after yours sort of exploded, and you got a fan AND a chinchilla. He is a replacement for Chewy, who died shortly before Christmas. Chewy was gray. Fan is white with spots.
You don't take showers until I, Mom, tell you to. I hope you will outgrow this. After all, Bill Gates was not always known for having good personal hygiene. You hate haircuts, but Mom insists on cutting your hair sometimes anyway. You had a haircut just last weekend.
The youth group made you work the Kissing Booth at the church Fall Festival last weekend. You didn't have to actually kiss anyone--they were giving away chocolate kisses and fake lips instead. As usual when out in the world, you were extremely introverted, standing frozen with a glazed look on your face next to the Kissing Booth sign.
Angelo drives you nuts sometimes. You stop answering when he knocks on your door, after a while. But you do manage to stand your ground when he wants something from you that you don't want him to have.
You are a good kid. A senior in high school. Alan, September 2007, age 17.
("Alan," like all the kid names on this blog, is a pseudonym. But you know who you are.)
