Just Loving My Kids Again

Friday morning. My new feature, to be published next week, due at the office yesterday and still not done. Worse, I'm taking a moment to celebrate my kids. I told you last week about Italo's alternator and my great mechanic upping the price from $400 to near $500, in which case I bowed out and told Italo to handle it himself. Well, he did. Ordered a rebuilt for $165 and while I was out yesterday it arrived. By the time I returned from shopping, about two hours, bingo! he'd had it replaced. Excellent. No whining, no moaning, just put the thing in.
Of course, two hours later his car overheated while he was who knows where, and I'm hoping he didn't drive it and throw a rod or do any damage. But it was Marco whom he called and without hesitation, Marco, exhausted from some very long and very wierd hours at his job--a couple of 4AMs to 2AMs followed the same evenings with 10 PMs to 4 AM--jumped in his car and drove off to help Italo. They hadn't arrived by the time dinner was ready and in fact hadn't arrived before I went to bed. So I guess they worked a long time on it. Much longer than adding antifreeze would have required.
So good for the boys becoming men.
And I also told you about Madeleina and her Phantom of the Opera book project. Well, it's due today and she's been tweaking it all week from when she got it done last Saturday at my insistence.
Well, she also had a costume she had to come up with to go with the report, and while we'd normally make it somehow (with Sarah or Chepa doing the helping), neither of them were around and so it fell to me. And I cheated: I went out and rented her an opera cape and a black fedora with two beautiful feathers in it, then bought her a white face mask she could cut to make the Phantom's mask. She had only asked me for material--plain black--to make the cape, and I'd bought that before deciding to rent the cape.
So I asked her to help me with the groceries and when she went to the truck and saw the hat she nearly feinted. "Dad! You got me a costume!!! That's cheating but I'll take it, baby!!!" and on for quite some time.
To make it less like cheating--I always thought that of kids in school whose parents did what I had done--Madeleina blew my mind and used the black material to cover her blue jeans. Held in place with gaffer tape she turned the jeans into black dress pants, and her sneakers into black evening shoes. Good for her.
And then this morning I was to go over her report and make some corrections. I got to it about 6 AM. It turned out not to be a report at all, but a retelling of the 1910 book from the Phantom's point of view. I read it and howled, cried, and sort of jumped for joy. That is one pretty smart cookie, and that was one heck of a report. There were regular kid mistakes, but I didn't change a word.
So I'm just sitting here thinking how happy I am that these wonderful beings are willing to associate with me. I'm just flat thrilled to be part of their family.
Go, kids, you rule.