The last game of the high school football season was yesterday. Benjamin has been involved with marching band for two years now, but given that the first year was Covid, it was very different then. This year has been far more time-consuming and intense. Originally I didn't want him to do it because it's very hard to have such a busy schedule at a school so far from home. He was set on doing it, though, and now that it's nearly over, I'm sad to see it go. Marching band really was a great thing for him. It created a sense of community and purpose. It provided something that he could do completely independently from us at which he could excel. It provided a great opportunity to get off the screen and do something fun with others. It was worth all the driving I had to do to get him to everything - games, practices, camps, etc. I took Christian and Bella to the game last night to cheer the team on. Benjamin had told me, "Don't come. I don't want you there." I promised him he'd never see me. I just never got a picture of him in his uniform because they didn't wear them during Covid and this year he always refused to put it on for me. I wanted to get one before the season ended. So all my pictures are when he was looking at something else and he never saw me. I was like a spy. We quickly realized, though, that the better seats were in the visitor team's stands because the home team's bleachers were sooo crowded! So we sat with the Novi fans. When Churchill made an interception and ran 90 yards for the touchdown, I was about to throw my arms up and cheer. Bella noticed threw her arms around me in a bear hug and shushed me violently. I looked around at all the devastated Novi fans next to me and realized, I'd make a terrible spy. I had to sit on my hands to keep from clapping at all the wrong times. At half time we had to hurry back over to the Churchill side so we didn't have to see it from behind. They did a wonderful job. Churchill ended up winning and it was a really fun night. Benjamin was happy and smiling nearly the entire time. When I came to pick him up, he was surprised to hear I'd been there!
A few happenings in Peter's life: his art class has ended. We've been going to a toddler art class for 7 weeks now. It was a terrible class and I regret paying for it, but it gave us something to do which he seemed to take pride in. He has a class to attend, just like his big siblings. The final day he was to paint a pumpkin and he chose this knobby ugly one that all his siblings are repulsed by, but he seems to really love. He wanted to paint the bumps. He tired quickly of that, though, and then he realized the joy of ripping paper. The first time was an accident as he was actually trying to cut it, but then he really got rolling with it. He was laughing and loving the sound it made as it tore. Four pieces ended up in bits before he was done. Such pure delight in such simple things.
Also, we made one last trip to Greenfield Village for the season. The close of GFV always makes me sad. April and their reopen can never come fast enough. It was unexpectedly cold and we were ill prepared so we didn't last long and spent most of the morning in the Henry Ford museum instead. It was my first time since Covid and sooo many of the good stuff has been taken out because they were hands-on things. Not a lot left which would interest a two year old, but he was still smitten by all the cars and the commotion. He sat in the engineer's seat of the huge, black Allegheny locomotive, he watched the model trains for a long time, he loved sitting and climbing around in the Rosa Park's bus, and he thought the Wiener mobile was hilarious. He loved the president's cars - Kennedy, Reagan, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, etc.- the best for some reason. He didn't want to stop walking around them and looking at them and the corresponding pictures of the presidents in them. He's so cute the way he loves trains, cars, and big machines, but he's also so sweet and tender with all the flowers he passes. He wanted to stroke and admire every one. It was a fun morning.
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