Moving dreams and Hayley

I wonder what it means when you have moving dreams? (Moving as in leaving one house to live in another) The apartment we moved to (yes, an apartment) was huge. The master bedroom went on for ages and had all these great built-in bookshelves and a wall of windows to look out over a scenic view. There were hidden passages and nooks and crannies and red velvet curtains. Then we moved in and the staircase was flimsy and collapsed and the tv reception we found out to be a mirrored reflection off the lobby tv sent through a crazy maze of mirrors and a hole in the door. Might it mean that what I want (bigger things) might actually be not what is best for me? Might it mean I'm trying to take control over too much and life is falling apart? Might it mean don't ever move or your husband will hurt himself on a collapsed staircase? Might it mean that I need to go to bed earlier so I don't fall asleep on the couch and have vivid dreams? Oh, who knows what it means. I just woke up and am still suffering from the after-effects of living a completely different life. (What, I have 5 kids? and a tiny TV?)

On to Hayley. Two things.

She was invited to be in the combined middle schools' honor band. The invitation made her very happy! I was almost convinced that she didn't care much about music because she spends most of her time drawing or reading and not talking about band like her big sister used to (and still does now that she's going to play the flute in a volunteer orchestra that will present the Messiah later this month). But this made her very happy. Paul was in this same band (Kate wasn't because they hadn't formed it when she was in the middle school) and enjoyed it for the most part (he didn't like the concert uniform which consisted of black pants, a tux shirt, a bow tie and a cummerbund--DANGIT I FORGOT TO GIVE HAYLEY HER MEASUREMENT SHEET FOR UNIFORM ORDERING!!!! SEE ARE AY PEA!--guess what that is). The honor band is a very good group. They play difficult music and spend time on performance technique. They participate in contests (the equivalent of conference meets for cross country). Last year the group even went to Chicago for a bigger contest and did very well. Cheers to Hayley for making it in! She's been practicing using some program on the computer/web that plays the song as if a school band were playing it and she plays along. It can, through a microphone, chart what she plays and show her where she played notes (wrong and right). It's really a nifty set-up. And she can send her recording to her teacher (over the web) for grading.

Also for Hayley, she babysat for the first time last night! It the first job she had performed for someone outside the family. She said the baby was a little difficult to get to sleep but otherwise she liked it. She REALLY liked getting paid. I wish she'd had more experience with babysitting at home, but that would have meant I had to have more children. And no. But she had a unit on babysitting last year in school and I gave her a few suggestions and told her that I would be just a phone call away. She didn't call and she came home several sheets of green paper with faces on it richer.

I'm finally starting to wake up now and it's time for me to eat breakfast and attend to my babysitting. Fake child is here.