As you know, I don’t get out of the house much, especially lately, when work seems to have expanded to fill all available time, and then some. But yesterday I managed to find a way to have coffee with Suzanne in the morning, and to pay a visit to Tammy and David and the kids in the evening. And I didn’t feel a bit guilty about it, either. I will have to work most of the weekend, but I was probably going to do that anyway.

This time I did remember to take my camera. I just forgot to use it, except for a few shots when the kids were riding their race cars around the cul-de-sac after dinner.

When I got there, D.J. was finishing his homework. I don’t think he needed any help making sentences out of his spelling words, but he claimed to be stuck, so I made some slightly off-kilter suggestions. Being a third grader, he was all too willing to see the humor in writing that some of his friends were just “crazy.” Tammy quite properly suggested he changed it to “silly,” which is probably closer to the truth anyway. (The spelling words were “some” and “just.”)

Dakota sat at the table and watched all this, looking wise in his new glasses. It must be a relief for him to be seeing clearly again. “I like sharks,” he told me, as if I didn’t already know. He seems to be a fan of many different types of predators, for some reason. Make of that what you will. He’s a middle child, for what it’s worth.

And Aiden, I suppose, is the other middle child, but he sometimes acts as if he thinks he’s the only child. That’s not a bad thing, most of the time, because it means he doesn’t let anything or anyone get between him and what he wants. He’s very expressive, and he’ll argue a point until he’s convinced you that he’s right. One thing’s for sure. He never doubts that he is right.

Kylie turned two earlier this month, and she talks as much as Aiden. She doesn’t have as many words as he does, but she says them clearly and she will happily tell you what’s on her mind. She notices things, too, like the missing wheel on her little shopping cart that we had to search all through the house for before she decided the cart would be okay without it, for now. She pulled me into her bedroom so that she could turn on her CD player for me. The girl does love her music.

All of the three youngest ones were maniacs in their race cars. Dakota would stretch the limits of how far he was allowed to go, apparently wishing to cover the most ground he possibly could. Aiden took great pleasure in driving right at you, forcing you to move out of his way. And Kylie seemed to like driving in small circles, never looking in exactly the direction she was moving. I’m not sure what to make of that, either, but it was fun to watch.