Grateful Friday

With Emma gone and Mark recuperating, this has been a rare and quiet week.  I have relished the Mark time.  He has not been hatching schemes with his friends or trying to convince me what car Adam and I should buy him when he turns 16 (to which all I can say is Oh Mark, you are a funny funny boy).  He has been playing on the computer and watching Netflix and going with me on excursions to buy milkshakes. (The peanut butter shake at JCW's is superior to The Purple Turtle's peanut butter shake.  Honorable mention goes to the Taco Amigo fresh strawberry shake--in recognition of the highly acclaimed Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days.)  Mark has been creating Lego masterpieces and beating me at Battleship and helping weed the garden a tiny bit.

Also he's been thanking me a hundred times a day for being so good to him.  He's a sweet patient.  I have learned about Mark that he is composed and charitable in adversity.  He has led the way in our family in that regard.  Getting his wisdom teeth out is just another example of his stoic acceptance of his fate.  He's texted funny pictures of his chubby cheeked self to Emma and he has subsisted on a diet of mainly pudding and applesauce and yogurt and milkshakes without complaint (and that is a marvel when you consider how much he loves to eat).

He has listed to me what he wants to eat when he can eat real food again.

Whenever I have one on one time with any of our children, I am grateful for it.  I just really really like these people and spending time with them.

As much as I have enjoyed having Quiet Mark and keeping him close, I will be glad when he is healthy again.  I look forward to him bounding up and down the stairs and adventuring with his friends and doing flips on the trampoline.  I look forward to him making a sandwich ten minutes after the dinner dishes are done.

He is already on the mend.  Last night, between telling us the news on the cars he read about in his Car and Driver magazine (which couldn't have arrived at a better time), he related a plan for a get together with his friends.

It will be good to have noisy hungry Mark back.