Who's Your Daddy?

melissa (and her mom who decided to make a vacation out of it too) went to a school lawyer convention in north carolina this morning. what does that mean? it means yours truly'll be looking after the welfare of three kids, that's what it means (shoot. four if you count me!)! this morning wasn't so bad though because maricel spent the night with grandpa because she was going to a birthday party this morning. i couldn't take maura to her game and take maricel to her designated pickup-hence spending the night at grandpa's in order for grandpa to play delivery man for which i am grateful.
melissa and maricel left at 5 this morning so i got up to say goodbye. unfortunately mason got up an hour and a half later so i couldn't sleep in. might as well get up even though i'm slamming tired. this morning i made them a bagel omelette sandwich in order for maura to top off her gas tank for her big game. speaking of which, maura scored another goal today. she has awesome breakout speed but at the point that when the ball's about to get near the goal it kind of escapes her. she had three near misses like that.
here she is, busting a move.
oh man she looked great though...mason's down (well he's in his room, farting around not really napping yet) so it kind of frees up some time for me to clean my truck. i like trucks. actually i like all manner of vehicles that appeal to my (lack of) style (i really dig fast wagons, for instance). my cars (owned) tally is this-in chronological order: '76 dodge demon (muscle car), '83 nissan sentra (loved it!), '90 jeep wrangler (loved it!), 93 f-150 (ite), 93 volvo 855 glt (loved it!), 96 audi a-6 avant (loved it!), 95 audi s-6 avant (bittersweet!), '02 toyota tacoma (would marry it but i think there are laws against these kinds of things). i like standards too. standards are cool like that. from all these, what i really miss was the light-pressure turbo'd volvo, glt wagon-even if it was front-wheel drive. it would haul ass and haul a lot of cargo too in that cavernous wagon area. it even had a turd-row seat and a booster (the audis did too). it was a sleeper vehicle in such a way that cheese-eating high school kids would get the swedish, soccer-dad smackdown for their testosterone-induced transgression of trying to beat me off the line (i can ride the brakes like anybody else at the stop light to spool up the light pressure turbo for take-off). the look on their faces as my baby launched was priceless. it expressed oh no he di'in't!
picked up maricel from her birthday soiree with three of her classmates/friends. they were all beaming from having such a perfect trinity of enjoying each others' company.

here she is, grinning from ear-to-ear with her just finished build-a-bear named izzy, with her fiercely loyal german shepherd hanging around to ensure she's safe. no cycling today, but i get to see my kids be kids and truly enjoy themselves as these little sentient, lucid beings, with a sense of humor showing emergent personality/intellectual characteristics that at times is incomprehensible--for me--because they're growing up at a pace that i wish i could steep myself in just a wee bit longer. i'll take that trade-off...
this vegetarian pizza's (artichoke hearts, spinach, white sauce, zucchini...) what we're having for din-din. we're waiting for it to cool off. we'll wash it down with some coca-cola and watch shrek for the apres-dinner entertainment.