Ups and Downs at the Gormans

Well, it's been a couple of pretty interesting days at the Gorman's lately. Italo starts school and so moves into his dorm on Friday--he'll only be an hour and a half a way from here but he'll have 3 hours of soccer practice daily and then road games all over the state, so he's opted for me paying for his room and board rather than trying to commute. He's on a scholarship, but when it was offered he thought he's be living here so turned down the room and board. Now that he's changed his mind that scholarship has already been given to a teammate so I'm stuck with the bill. Ah, well.
On a slightly down note, I was busted letting little Sierra hold a lit cigarette on the porch swing two nights ago: Chepa almost killed me and Marco was screaming. I've got my logic though: If she insists on holding one now and then just to copy me, and I let her, I know she'll grow up not smoking. If I make it off limits, I know she's screwed like me.
Okay, I know I'm in for some heat on that one, but I stand by my logic as it worked with both Marco and Italo and not just with cigarettes. I don't think you could get them to smoke a joint or drink more than one beer. Why? Cause when they were little kids and insisted, I let them. And they choked on the beer and decided never to ask for it again, and they choked on cigarettes and decided they didn't like them either. But you shoulda been here when my form of parenting was noticed by Chepa, whom I thought was taking a nap: Hoowee! You woulda thought the house was on fire the way that girl screamed.
And then last night, after a pretty good paella, Chepa was leaving and collecting Sierra and the baby Alexa. She had Sierra, who didn't want to go, by the hand and Alexa in her arm. I was on the porch and opened the front door for her. Just as I did, Alexa puked. I don't mean baby-puked. She puked from inside the doorway and it landed all over my knees and shins, and I was on the far side of the screen door. Must have been a 3-foot rainbow of milk. And then she did it again, this time with water. Then again, this time with juice. I mean three, four 10 second water spouts like she had layers of the stuff in her stomach that hadn't even mixed. Absolutely better than the vomit scene from the Exorcist. What an amazing show. No crying, no discomfort, just spewing baby puke. Never saw anything like that in my life. It was the most beautiful and amazing thing. Took maybe 2 towels and 10 paper towels to get it all up and another couple of paper towels to get my legs cleaned.
So things are slow here in the Texas heat.