Almost Normal

Self-portrait #1 - Adolfo Chavez III
Originally uploaded by killy.

This weekend, as a whole, came together pretty nicely. Friday night was my first back at work (Katz) since we had Paola. I worked on project after project for five hours. Carol kept adolfo busy and Paola slept.

Saturday morning i woke up, showered the sleep off my body and met the Katz guys at UH for a soccer game. The UH field was chosen after Rodrigo lightly twisted his ankle and a few others had taken some nasty spills on the field on Fairview, which we had moved to after having gotten kicked off the fields on Stella Link. I went into the game strong, with two solid goals, but lost my energy after 30 mins or so. The last 15 minutes i was useless. I passed as soon as the ball was given to me.

From there i sped home and picked up Adolfo IV for his 10:00 soccer game at the YMCA. We showed up right before halftime. It's a good thing he isn't really enthusiastic about playing or else i would have felt pretty bad about that. The problem is, he only wants to play soccer with his daddy. When he tried to play with the kids, he gets angry at them for taking his ball away and at his worst, throws a crying fit on the practice field. At the last practice (wednesday) i had to hold his hand while we were on the field in order to get him to follow the crowd of running little people that ran after the ball. It was positive, i think; he was laughing and enjoying himself.

When we got to the game, the ref blew the halftime whistle and while the rest of the kids ran in for a break, adolfo and i practiced together out near one of the goals. He kicked it in the goal and yelled GOAL! and threw him in the air (he loves that). When the kids ran back onto the field coach Ron Charle put Adolfo in. He had a good two minutes - he even managed to get his foot on the ball, but after a bit he just walked back towards his daddy on the sidelines. I wasn't going to let him get away with that so we played together there on the sidelines, until he just wanted to sit and watch the other kids play.

Liz and Taggart showed up while i was napping off my soccer game. What a pleasant surprise that was. It felt wonderfully normal. Adolfo was running around the backyard pretending to be Samurai Jack and Paola was, again, asleep. Infants are so easy.

What happened the rest of Saturday escapes me at the moment, prolly because i was really happy with how Sunday turned out. I woke up around 8, ironed shirts for both adolfo and i and we went to church. I hadn't been to church in awhile. It was oddly comforting - I guess cause i spent a good portion of my childhood in church with my mother finding particular comfort and support from it. We were heavily involved. I was a star altar boy (of course i was), an usher when i came of age, and eventually president of the youth group. My mother was a coach for the girls softball team for a number of years, she eventually became a reader, and then an euchaistic minister. She also happened to meet my step-father, Bob, there who was also a familiar face around the church. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus, and did all the BBQ-ing for various church functions, and i believe had a hand in the Bingo at St. Mark's before it went away. Sitting in the pews with Adolfo fidgetting next to me i indulged myself in these memories.

Back in the car Amber&Adolph called for a breakfast meet-up. We met at El Rey just down the street from their place. (Mental note: i'll be spending more money there). They looked great. Amber has such a wonderfully bright, freckly, smily face. Sitting there i realized i really had missed adolph. I'm looking forward to hanging out.

We managed to hang at his place just long enough for carol to feed Paola and Adolfo to run up and down the stairs a few times. We got back home just in time to take carol's parents to church for the spanish mass; for me to build a contraption to take holga type pics with my D80; and for us to be here for a visit from Sara Cress who brought us yummy homemade blueberry muffins.

It was a good weekend.