I think. I thank. I thunk.

I can still conjugate!

Breakfast was oatmeal. Chocolate oatmeal. That's how we like it. Nice and dark. When Emelie was half finished, she remembered that there was still some rice in the pot from last night. She piled a huge scoop of it on top of her remaining oatmeal. With my glasses off and through a hard squint, it looked pretty good; like a mound of marshmallow fluff on top of double chocolate-fudge ice cream. Sometimes its better to distort reality just a little. It's not like a lie. It's more like the use of creative license.

Don't tell a Filipino that rice is a side dish. Every meal starts and ends with rice. Pork, beef, fish, goat, and dog (just kidding, for the most part) all come on a small plate to accompany a large serving of rice. If my wife runs out of rice part way through a meal, she has to stop eating until another plate of it comes to the table. This is no exaggeration, and Emelie is not unique in this. Rice is the fuel of the Asian world.

The kids are coming this weekend: Emelie's sister's kids. We haven't had them with us for almost three weeks. It has been a quiet and uneventful three weeks. Salamat sa Dios! Stephanie and her 16 month-old daughter, Shane, will be moving back in with us. Frederick and Gabriel will be here until we drop them off at school on Monday morning, with their backpacks of untouched paper and pencils and a lunch purchased that morning at Rose's Carenderia.

Life seems to always put me in situations which point out my errors in thinking. For example: I thought I had boundless love for children and that any obstacle or challenge in caring for them would easily be overcome by that boundless love. I was wrong. I'm more selfish than that. Without going into details about the particulars of my brand of selfishness, or how it clashes with the needs and desires of the kids, I can tell you that I am okay with my limitations, in that regard. And it would be only truth to tell you that investing myself in being who I really am is much more important to the well-being of all of us - including the kids - than trying to live up to who I thought I was. So be it.

When the kids come tomorrow, I won't suggest any changes to our routine or our living and visiting arrangements. I will just see what transpires as each situation is approached from the perspective of my new awareness and resulting priorities.