Friday: made it

This morning Joshua had a last minute doctor's appointment; his ears are fine though.  So we all got our flu shots since we were there.

We got home at 9am and I suddenly realized that I had no plans for today.  And that it was raining, so some of my backup plans weren't great.

We started with making my mailbox.  Isaac posted another package for me on his door last night; it was three pieces of blank paper.  He sure does like to give me blank paper.  When I questioned him, he said it was for my mailbox.  So we started with that.  (He also noted that he used up all the tape.  The tape that I kept putting back in the drawer would suddenly be back in Isaac's room.)

Then we did miscellaneous things.  Isaac found things that he wanted to test for whether they would float or not as I realized one thing we could do was to have a big bath this afternoon.  It included this airplane.

It ended up not raining after rest time, so we went to feed the ducks.  It was good to get out of the house for a bit.  Joshua kept saying, "Eat!"  and "Get it!"  Even some sparrows and seagulls ventured close for some bread.

Thursday: thickness

I was bringing an exam from one place to another today.  The exam was two pages.  One the way I thought, "hmm.  It feels a bit thick."  I take a look, because what else do I have to do on my walk, and realized I had grabbed an extra exam.

It think it's crazy that I can tell the difference between two pieces of paper and four.  Sure, it's double the thickness.  But since a piece of paper is about 0.1mm thick it means I could tell the difference of 0.2mm.  It seems a bit crazy to be able to detect that with our fingers.

Wednesday: reasons my son is crying

1. I wouldn't turn his chair 90 deg for him.  (We talked about other options...he could turn it, a different chair, etc. but those weren't good enough.)

2. I wouldn't dress him.  (This might have been because he didn't know exactly where his pants were, but he never said that.)

3. I wouldn't give him his apple cake 15 minutes before dinner, when he was going to get it.  After I asked him to go cry in his room he had a secondary meltdown because he didn't want to go in the dark room and didn't want to turn on his light.  He didn't want to turn on any lights.

4. Joshua had some tears when he had to share the blender.  He saw it this morning as I was putting away dishes and was impressed by all the buttons.  Since I don't use it any more, I took it down for him to look at.  It ended up being the toy of the day (and by the end of the day they were sharing nicely).  Now I just need to remember to hide it away soon.

Tuesday: fever

Time: 2:53 - I'm getting ready for my 3pm class.

The phone rings.  Oops, I forgot to put it on vibrate...well, at least it's in between classes.  I'll just shut it off.

Oh.  It's daycare.  I bet it's about Joshua.

Correct.  He has a fever and needs to be picked up.

Dad isn't around.  Bummer.  (To keep it in perspective, he has been around all the other daycare crises and I count myself rather lucky.  It's especially nice because he can take my car with the car seat...if it wasn't for the car seat I would have called Ben.)

Quick change of plans for the class.  They can start the "in class work" first with the TA.  It's on something that we had covered a previous class period, so it shouldn't be too bad.  I'll pick up Joshua.  Quickly.

I pick Joshua up and get back in about 20 minutes.  My goal was 30 minutes, so I am rather happy with it.  It is a short lecture time, so Joshua could eat his snack while I talked.  Then he walked around with me as I answer student questions on their work.

Joshua is a bit loud - that ceaseless babble that comes with young children - but I also haven't seen the students smile so much.  So while the whole thing isn't ideal, it worked out.

Monday: toilet training and mail

Joshua did a great job with toilet training today.  While we weren't accident free, there weren't any urine accidents and he was able to go on the toilet easily.  Hurray!  Daycare said I could send him in underwear tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.  I'm going to have to let him start wearing pants soon.  Summer has been nice.

Isaac decided to make me a lot of mail today.  The first one he stapled all around a sheet of paper.  Then he opened it for me.  Since there were about twenty staples, it took a while.  It had a bunch of cut up pipe cleaners in it, as he recently realized he could cut pipe cleaners.  The second and third came together.  One was well taped in a piece of white paper...it was a folded piece of paper on which I could draw a map and return it to castle.  The second one was also well taped, but the outer layer was just folded in half so it was a bit easier to open.  It was a ball of pipe cleaners that I could use for Puppy Dog to fetch.

In other news, it was gymnastics day.  Joshua loves hanging on the bars, Isaac likes the balance beam.

Sunday

Today was a rather rough day.  Sundays seem to be the hardest for some reason.

We were on the deck at the end of the day and Isaac wanted a picture of the sunset.

And Joshua loves to do whatever Isaac is doing...in this case acting silly.

Saturday: funny mail

Sometimes, you just wonder what the companies are thinking...and why it took them 6 months to notify Ben that I had requested access to his medical records.

Friday: apple picking

Ben took off work a bit early today and we all went apple picking.  It was a wonderful time to do it.  There were only a few people there...it was cloudy and warm, but not too warm.  They had some wheelbarrows that were very easy to use, so the kids got wheeled around for most of the time.  The only downside was that most of the honeycrisps were already gone, but there were still plenty of good apples.

Isaac had just studied apples in school, so he could tell us things like, "The best golden delicious are the yellowest ones."  We weren't sure what kind(s) to get, so we did a sampling and I think everyone enjoyed how they all tasted so different.

Oh yes, Isaac got a massive hair cut today.  It's a bit shorter than normal, but we went to a different place and I might have given them the wrong number for the cut.  But he suddenly seems to have a bald spot in the back of his head, and we have no idea what would cause it except for him pulling out his hair.  So it needed to be short enough that he couldn't pull.

Joshua didn't really care about picking apples but just wanted to eat his apple.  By the end of the trip most of the skin was off.  He just happily sat there, eating away.

Look!  Ben's here too.

The restaurant wasn't busy at all - we could sit right down - so we ended up eating there.  Joshua loved pointing out that there were airplanes and drinking out of the cup with a straw.  (Usually at restaurants if there's a straw we hold the cup because the positioning isn't very good.  But this time it worked.)

Wednesday: slides and teasing

We went to the Grandville mall today to meet up with a friend.  The boys love the little play area there.  It has surprised me because it's not really that big and it hasn't been a huge hit past years, but this month they're excited about it.

Yesterday on the way to drop the boys off at school I looked at Joshua and it looked like he was asleep.  (Sunglasses make it so hard to tell!)  I said, "Joshua, are you awake?"  No response.  "Joshua, are you awake?"  Still no response.  I was going to give up since he was already asleep, but Isaac started the chant.  "Joshua, are you awake?"  "Joshua, Joshua?"

I glance back one last time and see a huge smile on Joshua's face.  He hadn't otherwise moved, but he was pretty proud of his trick.

Tuesday: email

Saturday night my previously free email app on my phone changed to a paid subscription of $50/year.

I was very sad.

And so now I've been trying all sorts of different ones and none of them are "just right".  There's one that's pretty close, but for some reason it doesn't turn on the LED notification when I have an email.  There's a second that's pretty close too, but it isn't color coded like I like.

I'm still sad.  And have spent way too much time on this.

Monday: a full day

Today was a rather full day, but not necessarily busy.

It started out with Joshua only waking up once in the night and sleeping past his alarm clock turning green.  And the wake up was just because he was cold, not because of unknown causes, so he went right back to sleep.

We had gymnastics in the morning.  Joshua still wanted to be picked up a lot in the beginning when we were doing some new things, but once we got to the things that we did last week he had a lot more fun.  Isaac did well too, but I only watched bits and pieces.

Then we ate lunch and went to Closest Beach.  (Not to be confused with Close Beach.)  We had a sort beach time last night so I said we could go again today.  It was rather warm, but nice.  We made volcanoes and tickled each other with water.

After rest time we watered the flowers.  I had been hoping to make banana bread today too, but we didn't quite have enough time.  Oh well.  We'll see if the bananas are still good later...they've been on the edge for a while.

Saturday: Joshua

Joshua had a really good day with potty training.  He went on the toilet several times, and only had one accident when wearing underwear.

He was so tired that he was almost falling asleep at lunch but then woke up an hour later.  He's going to bed more easily  - he seems to want the door open - but is still waking up pretty early.

Also, my boys really like tasty water.  We seem to have a problem, but they were on sale.  Isaac's been doing assorted experiments with them and making super potent flavor ice and melting it and chopping it...I'm not really sure what's going on, but he's doing something.

Friday: playground, gravity maze, rain

We went to the playground with some friends this morning.  It was a beautiful day for it.  We even managed to get all the kids in the same spot for a picture...I took a bunch and Betsy took a bunch, and I think she got one of the best.

Later on in the day I was changing Isaac's sheets and found several lost toys.  This led to Isaac and Joshua playing one of them together, and really playing quite well.  (It's been happening more and more often lately.  But then there was yesterday, when Isaac came out of his room and asked Joshua, "Do you want to chase yourself?"  When Joshua responded affirmatively, Isaac went back in his bedroom and Joshua was left with tears.)

We played down by the beach for a little bit tonight.  The forecast said no rain, but of course about five minutes after we were out it started raining lightly.  I exchanged my book and phone for an umbrella and we stayed out for another fifteen minutes, until it started raining harder and neither boy wanted to play in the rain.  I thought it would last a bit longer, but oh well.

Wednesday: sleep

Well, after Joshua fell asleep yesterday he did stay asleep until 6am.  Six is still too early though...I finally went into his room and tried to get him down.  Then I went back to bed, turning off the monitor.  I intended to stay awake and make sure that he calmed down.  I'm not sure if he calmed down or if I just fell asleep, but I awoke later to "green, green, green!", meaning his light said it was time to wake up.

And yup, I put him in front of the TV and went back to sleep.  It was day 2 after a poor night's sleep and it is always the worst for me.  I feel like I've been doing that a bit more lately, but hopefully I'll reevaluate my sleep habits and Joshua will sleep better.

Monday/Tuesday: sleep?

Over the past few nights Joshua has been sleeping more and more poorly.  First I just had to go in there and he'd calm back down.  Then it would be close to morning and calming and rocking didn't work, so I'd bring him into bed with us for a bit.

And then last night happened.  He woke up just as we were going to bed, of course.  He wouldn't listen like normal to go to sleep and any time we'd go in he would easily lay down.  But was up again in a few minutes.

Ben: What's wrong Joshua?
Joshua: wall
Ben: the wall?
Joshua lies down.

Since he was keeping most of the household awake, Joshua and I slept in the guest bed.  He calmed right down, except for one time that he started awake yelling "Mom!"  It was almost as if the yell woke him up.  He nicely slept on the bed itself instead of me, so I got a comfortable, although not full, night of sleep.

Tonight he continued the trend, crying right away and not going to sleep.  Eventually he ended up like this:

That's right, sleeping while standing up.  He eventually moved to the corner and it worked ok, but he'd still sort of wake up every few minutes, wimper a bit, and go back to sleep.  Ben finally got in the crib with him and got him to lay down.  We haven't heard anything since then, but it also isn't time for us to go to bed yet. :)

Stay tuned!

Monday: paper crafts

Lately the boys have both been enjoying paper and pens/markers/etc.  Joshua colors up a storm.

Isaac punches holes in the paper.  He also really like to staple it and then remove the staples.  But we have a ton of staples and barely use any, so why not.  He rarely uses paper to color.  Coloring is on the list of his not-fun school activities.  (It makes it a bit hard because coloring is so easy to bring to different places, but he gets bored with it so quickly.)

Today Joshua also enjoyed coloring himself.  Perhaps he ran out of paper?  We were both tinged blue for most of the day, but it's now mostly gone.

We also had our first day of gymnastics.  Joshua and I started with a Mommy and Me class.  He held on to me pretty tightly for the first half.  I got him to do a few things, but not much.  Then the class split in half and he did a lot better with fewer people.  He really like hanging from the high bar and letting go and was ok at the balance beam too.  There's a foam pit for some "free time" at the end that he enjoyed jumping into.

Isaac had his class right after it.  I could only see him a little bit.  He wasn't great, but he wasn't bad either.  Several students had been there before and knew the routine, so that seemed to make a large difference.  He said he enjoyed it.

Sunday: non adventures

Sunday.

The day started out with Ben and I "teaching" the Sunday school class Isaac is in.  There was no lesson though, so it was just an hour of play.  While I'm happy to help out and think that this is super, super important, it is also so draining.  At the end of the hour I felt as though all my reserves had been used up for other kids and I didn't have much left for my own.  (It was a good thing we had played Duplos for a bit before church.)

Sunday is cleaning day.  The house looks pretty nice.  Isaac's bedroom...does not look so nice.  We had some tears at the beginning because he wanted to do his search and find and I said no.  I realized that I was in error about five minutes later, and he calmed down.  (Technically, the rules are no ipad and no playing with mom or dad until the room is clean.)  We had more tears later as I was trying to get him to recycle a few pieces from his art wall.  Not very many, just a few.  I almost gave in because the difference of saving three pieces of paper versus recycling them is dumb, but didn't because he also needs to learn how to get rid of things.

After dinner Isaac and Joshua had a great time playing tag.  (Remember, no parent play?  It worked nicely for everyone.)  They coexisted in the bath very well too.  Isaac's room is barely cleaner than it started out today.  He did get Joshua to pick up a few toys for him, which in all honesty is probably pretty fair.  Joshua takes some toys out too.

Saturday: potty training adventures

We've more-or-less started potty training.  Joshua likes underwear and knows when he's gone, so we're trying a bit harder.  But not too hard; I'm not quite prepared for that.  Anyway, we have a lot of conversations that go like this...

Joshua: Poop!
Amanda: Great job.  Isaac, do you want to give him a treat?
Isaac: What color [M&M] do you want?
Joshua: Yellow.
Isaac: how about [some other color].

Friday: unexpected

Today held several unexpected things.  Most were the boring sort of unexpected - plans changed, Joshua fell down a lot, Isaac sang some interesting songs.  But two stood out.

1. The boys and I were going down the escalator for the fourth time (!!) and the escalator caught my skirt.  I freaked out for a second and got a death grip on it, yanking most of it from the claws of sure embarrassment.  It only ate a very small piece.  I'm not really sure how it happened...it's not as though my skirt was dragging on the ground.  We continued to ride the escalator two more times because it is super fun.

2. We came home from dinner at it was about a half hour before bed time.  Ben and I were talking, taking off our shoes, etc., and looked over at the boys.  Isaac was brushing his teeth and Joshua was trying to put toothpaste on his toothbrush.  Ok, bedtime it is!  I expect Isaac started this and Joshua followed, but we're not really sure.  Routine definitely worked in our favor this time; once they started we didn't let them stop.

Family pictures

A few months ago... July?  August?  we had some family pictures done.  Here are some of my favorites.

They were done by Christen Bordenkircher.

Wednesday: rules

Aunt C was babysitting today and Isaac was going on and on about a kiss [s]tealer.  (It's a hard s-blend).  She finally asked for five rules for the game, having no idea what was going on since she wasn't there in the morning and Isaac couldn't say stealer.

Rule #1: Figure out Rule #2.

I was relating this to Ben and Isaac gave us a new set of rules.

Rule #1: Find the kiss stealer.
Rule #2: Chase the kiss stealer.
Rule #3: Catch the kiss stealer.
Rule #4: Recatch the kiss stealer since it escaped.
Rule #5: Trap the kiss stealer.

When the kiss stealer escapes again, because it will, go back to rule #2 and continue down.

Tuesday: looking old

I thought Isaac looked all grown up today.  Wearing khaki shorts, a white shirt, and sunglasses and with slightly tousled hair it seemed as though I might be looking into the future when he's in college.

And then he would shout "La-da-duh-do-do-do-la-da-do" and I'd be reminded that he's really only four.

Monday: Labor Day

Labor Day started out with the truck parade.  The trucks were super late...maybe about a half hour?  For a ten minute parade, that's a decent chunk of time.  However, they were all in the same group this year, instead of two groups of years past.  So that was good.

Isaac and Joshua had fun playing with Ethan and Leah ahead of time, and I talked with Betsy, so the wait wasn't too bad.

Look!  The trucks are coming!

The boys did a really good job.  Joshua cuddled up with me due to the loud horns, but wasn't crying.  Isaac covered his ears.  About half way through we went to the car.  I'm not really sure it was any quieter because I left a door open for air, but having the window there made it feel a lot safer.

We watered the flowers when we got home; Isaac did an awesome job on his bike.  I still wouldn't say we're going fast, but I only had to stop once or twice because he was going so slow.

And I'm sure all of you are wondering whether or not Isaac got FroYo...he did.  He finished cleaning his room about an hour before it was time to go.  Which means he also got his screen time.  Phew.

Sunday: instead of cleaning his room...

It's Sunday, which means Isaac is supposed to clean his room.

He didn't.  Or at least, barely did.

Instead, he did this.  (That's his bed sheet, by the way.)

It inched around on the floor, saying things like, "Mom, what's this big thing on the floor?"  I didn't respond, but it was so hard not to.  He was so cute and it would have been fun.  But he really was supposed to be cleaning his room.

We're going out for FroYo tomorrow afternoon.  If his bedroom isn't clean by then he, and one lucky adult, won't be going.  Stay tuned.

Saturday: Free media day

Today we did something new.  We let the boys have as much screen time as they wanted.  Well, almost.  Quiet time was screen free and we didn't watch TV while eating like normal.

I told Isaac yesterday afternoon, but he was thinking about something else and it must have gone in one ear and out the other.  Ben told him again in the evening and he was super excited...which is what I had been expecting to happen.

The main reason we did it was because of the WoW expansion, and Ben and I wanted to play a bit more.  But it is also fun to do something different.

Joshua only did ok with the whole concept.  He did have several times where he would watch something, but he didn't play the IPad at all.  While I was hoping he'd do a bit more, it didn't really surprise me at all.  And it was probably a good thing.

Isaac wanted to be on his robot quilt.  He took his shirt off mid morning "to be more comfortable" and it never got back on.  To be fair, Joshua didn't get pants on for the whole day either.  Isaac hung out on the laptop and loved it.  Nickjr.com ended up being the best place for him.  We stopped by PBSKids.org for a short time, but the game or two that he looked at didn't catch his interest.  I was a bit surprised that he had such an easy time with the mouse.  I know that he can use it a bit, but he really did a pretty good job with it.  (Nickjr gave good verbal instructions.  So we had to help him a few times, especially when he pushed the wrong mouse button, but for the most part he could navigate himself.)

Thursday: conversations

Isaac, in a sing song voice: I have a surprise for you!  But first you have to lay on the bed.
Ben/Amanda: ok...[and continue talking about something else while going to the bedroom]
Isaac: you have to lay down!
B/A: ok, what is it?
Isaac pulls something out of his pocket.  It's small, yellow, and looks sphericalish.  It looks a little bit like poop from some animal.
I: Look what I have!
A: What is it?
I: I don't know!!!
B: Where did you get it?
I: In the sandbox.
I: Do you want to feel it?
A: No.
I: It won't hurt you.  You can do it!
A: It's probably a seed.
Ben feels it.
B: Yeah, it's probably a seed.
I: Your turn Mom!
Amanda reluctantly feels it.
I: do you want to hold it?!?
A: sure.
I: See, it's not so bad.
I: Dad, do you want to hold it?
B: Sure.
I: And look, I have more in my pockets!
A: You do?
Isaac proceeds to pull out about six more.  He was so excited about them.

****************
Isaac: AAA-choo!!
Joshua: AAA-choo!
Hysterical laughter.
Isaac: AAA-choo!!
Joshua: AAA-choo!
Hysterical laughter.
Isaac: AAA-choo!!
Joshua: AAA-choo!
Hysterical laughter.
Isaac: AAA-choo!!
Joshua: AAA-choo!
Hysterical laughter.
Isaac: AAA-choo!!
Joshua: AAA-choo!
Hysterical laughter.
******************

Joshua sees me put Elephant in his bag for school and starts to cry.
Isaac: It's ok Joshua, it's just for school.  So you can have it there.
Isaac: You get to learn at school!
Isaac: As you get bigger school gets funner and funner.

****************
Joshua is crying.  Something is wrong with his fingers.
Joshua: kiss?
Joshua calms down.
Joshua starts crying.
Joshua: kiss?  here?
Joshua calms down.
Joshua starts crying...
...
Isaac: maybe Joshua would like some of the water I made him to help him calm down.
Ben: yeah, maybe that would help.