Sunday Fun

We had a really nice weekend and a great family day today. After our usual church rounds (worship and crafts for me and the girls at the Episcopal church, then Sunday School for the girls and round 2 of worship for me at the Presbyterian church), we came home for lunch and then went to the local roller rink for some roller skating. Fer got new skates for Christmas and her old skates fit Wendy perfectly, so the girls were all set to hit the rink. For some reason they had put on their skates yesterday and gotten excited about roller skating again, so off we went this afternoon. I watched the bags and the excitement while Chris strapped on a pair of skates and went around with them. Mainly he skated with Wendy while Fer stayed close to the wall, and it was so sweet to see how excited she was -- huge smiles and waves every time they passed me.

We came home and spent about an hour on schoolwork. Both girls had projects to do so we divided and conquered -- Chris spent time with Fer reviewing the American Revolution in preparation for making a Jeopardy game, and I worked with Wendy on creating a "Weeks Family Garden" bar graph of the heights of all 6 of us, dogs included. I couldn't help but find some significance in the fact that at first she was just going to include herself and the dogs, then she added Fer, and then decided it would be all of us in her graph. Both of them did a great job on their work, and Wendy even finished hers and now has no math homework for the week, yay!

We ended the day with a much-anticipated trip to the Colombian restaurant in Elizabeth. The food was so good, and the people really nice. I found myself right back in Spanish pretty easily, though the girls were too shy to try out theirs! It encouraged me to try to do a little more at home -- Fer's ELL teacher was urging us to start to do some reading or listening with the girls so they would get back some of what they have forgotten. Our trip today made me think perhaps I haven't forgotten as much as I had thought, and maybe the same is true for them.

Overall, 2 years in, it's pretty amazing how far we've come. Though we still struggle at times in ways that would probably horrify parents of more typical children (!), we also find such joy in the progress that all of us have made in becoming a family together. I'm trying to give up being impatient for Lent. Though initially that meant to me trying not to be snappish/irritable when I'm frustrated, it occurred to me today in church that I can also strive for a deeper kind of patience, one where I recognize that some things just take time to come to fruition, and I work on trusting that if we continue to be faithful, they will, as so much has already.