Labor Day and Pancakes at 2:00 in the morning?

Usually my family gets together for Labor day but since we will all be together next weekend we didn't even attempt to get together this weekend. John worked on his trailer. Mackenzie had a friend over and Nicholas had 2 friends spend the night. That was a different experience. Anytime you get three teenage boys together you think you will have a lot of trouble. Well I was nervous but we locked all the doors and knew (okay hoped) they couldn't get out. About 10pm Nicholas sent me a text (because actually speaking takes too much time)asking me to make some pancakes. Of course I went to ask him why and tell him I would make them for breakfast. Well one of his friends is Muslim (I knew that already) and he started Ramadan Sunday night and he had to promise his dad that he would start it at our house if he could just "PLEASE" spend the night(I didn't know that). According to his mom this is the earliest they have ever started Ramadan in 20 years but it moves up a week each year. Nicholas and Jaime were going to feed their friend all night long so that he wouldn't be hungry the next day since he wouldn't be allowed to eat after 5:45am until 8:00pm. They had chips,drinks,candy and pizzas. (Good nutrional food to sustain you) They wanted pancakes so that they could get up at 4:45 and eat breakfast with their friend before he began his 30 day fast and they didn't want me to have to make pancakes that early in the morning. This led to an interesting discussion in which Nicholas explained that we fast once a month and why we fast. I was very proud of him. Jaime said "well the only fasting I do is when I go to bed each night. I don't eat anything until the next morning." They all laughed at this. I know in 6th grade when Jaime and Nicholas met Omar they didn't want him to be the only one not eating in the lunch room so they decided that they wouldn't eat lunch either. I was pretty proud but they were very happy when the school let Omar go to the library during 7th grade because as Nicholas put it "that was too hard". So how did their breakfast turn out. Well according to them. They ate pancakes at 2:00 and then Omar fell asleep at 3. Nicholas and Jaime tried to wake him up at 4:30 but he wouldn't get up but then he finally did. They all went to bed.

Nicholas and Jaime have been friends since Pre-School and I couldn't ask for a better friend for Nicholas. Even though they are "men" as they put it they really are great friends for each other. When my dad had cancer Jaime was so worried for Nicholas and was there when my dad had his laryngectomy. Nicholas spent the day with Jaime (they were both sick from school that day) and then Nicholas went there for the weekend. Earlier this year Jaime's dad passed away and Nicholas was right there at Jaimie's side from the moment he got out of school until the day of the funeral. I told Nicholas that it might be best to let Jaime go to the funeral himself and be with his family since in my wisdom I knew he was a teenage boy and emotions would be harder to express if he thought he wasn't being cool to his friend. Nicholas wasn't very happy and Jaime really wanted Nicholas to be there. As soon as the funeral was over Jaime called Nicholas and asked him to meet him in town to skateboard.

Thank goodness for friends. My nephew Ryan had a group of friends just like this while he was growing up and although they will never read this blog I want to publicly express to them how thankful I am for them. They know who they are and they know what they have done and there is nothing I could ever do,say, or give them to thank them.