This weeked was pretty cool. I had all 5 of my boys for most of the weekend. It was nice having all 5 at once. Usually I have 3 on one weekend and 2 on the next. We probably spent too much time with video games this weekend, but we got a Wii friday night along with "Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess"; so it's hard to resist playing the first weekend with it!
We did manage to make it to the pond right next to my apartment. In the spring and summer we fish there, but today the pond was totally frozen over. Normally it's about the equivalent of a 5 block walk to get to the side of the pond where the playground equipment is, but not today! We just walked straight acrossed the pond. The boys had fun sliding across the ice and standing in the middle of the "lake". There were some people ice fishing and playing ice hockey on it too, so they liked that.
It's about 10:40 Sunday night now, and I'm lonely as hell. After having the boys over all weekend and there is always something going on, the silence can really kills. Their mom picks them up and my place becomes totally silent in no time at all. I try to ignore the silence and keep myself as busy as possible but Sunday night's are rough.
I can imagine many dads are sitting in their leased apartments right now just like me; with sudden silence. I look around and see all the toys they were playing with sitting right where they were left. Half eaten hot dogs rest on the table as though their are a bunch of ghosts having a meal. At least I live close to them now and I see them more often. I remember when I lived in Lincoln in a small apartment with mirrored closet doors. The boys would leave little hand prints all over the doors. I wouldn't clean them off for weeks just so I could be reminded that what I remember was real, and not some dream. I'll do that with the hot dogs and toys tonight. I'll leave them right there where they are until tomorrow night when I get home from work. When I walk in and see them after forgetting about it all day, I'll be flooded with memories from this weekend.