Thursday: work

Isaac joined me at work for an hour or so before dropping him off with Aunt C.  We stopped by Dad's office to say hi and he finally got to see the robot wheel, after asking on and off for two months.

The day did go better than Tuesday.  It was still busier than (hopefully) normal but not quite so crazy.  Hmm, I feel like there was something of note that I was going to mention.  Oh well.  It was an exhausting day though and I'm glad for the weekend.

We were driving home and Joshua suddenly asked, "Why are there bathrooms on the train?" while Isaac was trying to concoct a plan that would give us a legitimate reason to stay at the hotel by Joshua's school.  Then Joshua saw the Ferris wheel at Dutch Village and switched to how he would keep Ben safe next time they go.

Wednesday: school visit

Today was the kindergarten class visitation.  We had a scavenger hunt in Isaac's classroom...find his cubby, find his desk, find the trash, etc.

The last one was to find his teacher.  Now, to be fair, we had met her for about one minute a half hour before.  I told him the item to find while standing right next to his teacher.  He turned around and went the other way, looking for her.  It was cute.

Isaac's favorite part of the day was playing on a new playground while the parents had the parent meeting.  He loves new playgrounds, but I'm running out of them.  It's what he wants to do on Friday too with the last normal day of summer, and I do have one more up my sleeve.  After that it might start to get a little harder.

Tuesday: first day of school

Joshua and I had our first days of school today; Isaac got to hang out with Cheryl all day.

Joshua was not excited about going to school.  He seemed especially nervous about nap time for some reason.  I didn't get a huge report when picking him up, but the teachers said he had a good day and Joshua seemed happy.

I knew I was going to have a busy day, but it ended up a bit crazier than expected.  One of my transitions had less time than I wanted so I felt a bit rushed.  Also, my second class was about fifteen minutes shorter than my first.  They're supposed to be the same...did I miss something important or was I just sick of talking by the fourth hour that I got rid of all the extra stuff?  Maybe I talked way too fast?  Who knows.  Beyond that though, the first day went pretty well.

Monday: Joshua - 37 months

Joshua is 37 months!

Growth: We had his three year well child check up this month and he's doing great.  He actually increased a bit in height and weight percentiles (to about 14% and 11%, respectively).  He is still in 2T clothes, which annoys me as I'm ready to move to the next set, but guess I'll just wait a bit longer.  All the other things the doctors checked out - motor function, talking, etc. - checked out fine.  The first thing Joshua said to the doctor was "No shots!"

On school: Joshua is not looking forward to the toddler room tomorrow.  There were tears at lunch time.  I'm hoping that once he gets there and understands that is the only option he'll be ok.

On the alphabet: He has J down!  He can recognize it in different contexts.  He might have I down too, but Isaac usually chimes in quickly for that one.  There might be a few more too, I haven't really checked lately.

On playing: He loves to play.  He especially loves to play with Isaac and will pretty much copy anything Isaac is doing.  He loves Legos and Duplos.  He likes bike rides and playing in the sand.  He like books.

On emotions: Oh, it's been a hard month with Joshua's emotions.  There are tears all the time, and sometimes I don't understand what's going on as the smallest things can set him off.

On sleeping: He is sleeping from 8pm-7am pretty well.  Some days he takes a nap and some days he doesn't.  I'm wondering if some of the emotional problems are due to not getting quite enough sleep, but it's just an awkward time.  He will sometimes put himself down for a nap during quiet time instead of playing.  (But sometimes we make him stay in the bed and sometimes I think the nap just happens where ever he is.)

On food: He's slowly starting to eat a little bit better, but still not a ton better.  He is starting to understand that in order to get a treat he needs to eat all his food, and so sometimes manages to do so.

On cuddles: He still is oh so cuddly, but really only when he wants to be.

Sunday: cleaning time

This afternoon was our house cleaner's last day, as she is off on new adventures next week.  However, the past...year and a half?...I loved having her come.  It gave us a time that was blocked off as cleaning time.  Most of the time the house looked incredibly better after she left.  (The times it didn't weren't her fault...it usually meant that something weird was going on that I needed to take care of.)  I also enjoyed not needing to do some of the monotonous chores all the time.  Anyway, it worked very well and so a new high schooler is starting next week.

During this time Isaac needs to clean his bedroom.  Hmm, I should rephrase that.  Isaac is strongly encouraged to clean his bedroom, as there are consequences if he doesn't.  (No screen time or playing with parents until it's clean.)  Joshua is starting to clean his room.  He still gets some help and a lot of guidance, but it's coming along.  Today the boys decided to play together instead.  I regularly reminded them of the consequences, which helped them clean for a few minutes, and then they starting playing together again.

It was almost dinnertime and they realized that they wouldn't get to watch Ben and I play our ten minutes of video games because they hadn't cleaned their rooms.  Needless to say, the rooms were clean within about fifteen minutes.  Oh!  Isaac got some new dressers.  I have a few plans for rearranging Joshua's room too, as his current set-up isn't working well for me.  Isaac's dressers are still mostly unfilled, as we haven't moved the stuff back into his room yet.

Saturday: Laura Ingalls Wilder

I've read the Little House on the Prairie series a dozen times or so.  I just finished Pioneer Girl, which was the original basis for most of the stories.  It is geared towards older readers and has more truth and less fiction.  It is also annotated, which was lovely.  The annotations gave glimpses of what really happened or just a little more information that modern readers wouldn't know.

It kind of makes me want someone to write up my life.  I've kept journals on and off from around eighth grade, when we were required to do it.  Readers wouldn't get everything that happens in my life or some of my deepest thoughts, but sometimes the most interesting things are what happens in a normal life.  So if you know of someone looking to write an endearing biography (semi-fictionalized or not) about a normal person, send them my way.

Friday: opening

Today was a day of openings.

Joshua opened the fridge by himself for the first time.  So I now have a separator in the bottom shelf, and they can both put their own drinks away.

Isaac opened the rear hatch of the car by himself.  (He got it all the way up, not just unlatched.)

Thursday: family

Nathan and his family came up for most of the day.  We started with some donuts.  Since it was cold and lightly raining, we had to rethink some of our plans.  We went to one church playground only to discover that they are closed during the summer.  So we went to the Nature Center, but then I remembered that there was another church playground across the street from it.  Happily, it was open.  Happily, it was perfect.  Not too big, not too busy, and the kids could run around.

At one point they were playing follow the leader.  (This was Isaac's favorite part of the day, by the way).  Later one only Isaac was playing follow the leader...he lead and didn't seem to care that no one was following him.

We picked up lunch and ate at home.  The kids played.  It was nice.

Wednesday: cuteness

Amanda: Isaac, you're cute.
Isaac: Well, when I look in the mirror...I don't think I'm cute.  But I'm glad you think so.

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We received a boxful of Legos yesterday and the boys really wanted to inventory it.  So that was their activity of choice several times today.  I figured if they did it then Ben and I didn't have to later.

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After lunch the boys decided to try and make the TV come alive.  They did a dance and a yell/chant.  It didn't work.  The TV remained inanimate.

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We cut down some tree branches.  I dragged them up to the driveway where Isaac cut them into smaller pieces.  Joshua pushed them to the other side of the driveway on his riding toy.  Since the branches were now on the opposite side of the yard waste bin, Isaac moved the yard waste bin so that pushing the branches to the other side made sense.

Tuesday: puppy dogs resting

...although not for very long.

At story time last Wednesday the leader asked if we had any dogs at home.  (Joshua said his name was Puppy Dog.)  Isaac said, "Two."  I almost smacked my forehead.

Sunday: Wild Chef

We went to Wild Chef for lunch for my birthday today.  It was fun.  The boys seemed to enjoy it too.

The fire was a bit scary, but they made it.

Fort Wayne: day 3

On Sunday we went to a splash pad with a river.  Liz had previously posted it on her blog, and it looked like a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun, although the water was really cold.  There were several different areas to go around in though, so the kids were occupied for quite a while.

We got home, ate lunch, and then packed up to go.  Joshua was very tired by this time and not playing very nicely with others, so he just got to play while they ate and then he ate while they played.

JJ woke up from his nap after we left and said that he wanted "more Amanda".  I love that he can say my name...it was super cute.

Saturday: birthday

Today is my birthday!  It was a very nice one, although nothing all that special happened.  A lot of relaxing.

The boys and I finally finished the puzzle that has been out for a few weeks.  Ben and the boys finished his Lego truck.

Joshua did a good job with a small part of his Legos.  He found the pieces, looked at the instructions to figure out how to put them together, and did it.  We haven't had a lot of luck with this before, so I was rather excited.

The boys gave me some fabric for my birthday.  Joshua was sneaky and saying things like, "We're going to get you're present.  It's a surprise.  After we get it you can build it."  Isaac chose a bunch of blue fabric because he knows that blue is my fabric color.

Everyone also got a lot of stickers from Joshua.

Fort Wayne: day 1 and 2

Our camping trip was canceled for the weekend because Nathan broke his femur.  While he was doing good for having broken a bone, he was not moving very quickly or easily.  So we went down to visit them at their house instead.  It can be more chaotic with house guests, but the distraction can be nice too.  Ben and Nathan hung out at the house while Liz and I brought the kids places.

We got there Friday for dinner.  Isaac had strawberry pizza.

On Saturday we went to the zoo.  The weather was perfect.  Joshua was not in a mood for pictures the whole day.

My favorite part was the crane (not shown).  It clicked its beak for us and it was cool to see.

We got to feed giraffes.  It was neat to see them so close.

We rode the carasel.  Isaac really wanted a cheetah.  I think we ended up on a leopard, but I told them they go fast too.

Joshua's favorite was the jellyfish.  They were really cool.

Isaac's favorite was the penguins.  However, by that point he was sick of walking and told me that surprises with a lot of walking weren't so fun.  While I can understand that, many of the best surprises do have a lot of walking.  So he was a bit mopey in between exhibits and happy at exhibits.

The kids got popcorn and a movie at home.

chicago: day 2

On the second day we started with a ride on the Ferris wheel.  Well, actually we started by walking around a bit because we were up too early.

Then we went to the children's museum.  Once again, it was nice to have two people as the boys often wanted to do different things.

Joshua started out in the fire truck.  Isaac joined him for a bit.  (This did have a cute sign for the parents that said something like, "You're still at the fire truck?  Relax, it's good for kids to have the repetition.  If you don't get any farther today, that's fine."

Isaac started by climbing a ship's mast.  He did it several times throughout the day.

Then we went to the water area.

There were pipes to play with.

Ropes to pull and levers to push.

 
And there were walls to "paint" on.

Isaac and I went to the tinkery next.  There were a bunch of supplies and he got to make something that rolled (and didn't slide).  Joshua was not interested, so he and Cheryl explored some other rooms.

Isaac did a great job.  I wasn't sure it would work because the wheels weren't very sturdy or straight.  But he did an appropriate number of in process tests and it did end up working.  He was rather excited.  He also made a smokestack and thing on the front with beads and washers.  I'm wondering if some of the extra weight helped it work just a bit better.

Joshua finally went up the small part of the ship's mast.  After getting to the top they got to run down some ramps.

There was some dinosaur bone digging.  I think the dirt was recycled shoes.

Near the end we were at the play city.  The boys loved it; I didn't, but they were happy and content which is always a plus.  Cheryl and I got fed a lot of food (I get fed a lot of food at home).

Cheryl took several car rides,

a bus ride (while eating food),

 and another car ride.

The catapults were back out and Isaac had mentioned he wanted to do those.  It was almost time to go, so we did that for just a few minutes.

On the way out we got a picture of Joshua in his fire engine t-shirt by the fire engine.  He may have spilled all over his original shirt.

We stopped at the Lego store to buy Isaac his special 5 year old gift from Cheryl (and Larry).  He got a Lego train track.  I think he would have liked it a lot, but it probably wasn't what I would have picked out for him.  Then we saw the Lego boost - some programming and some robots and Legos, all put together.  He got that instead and has been loving it.  It has been the perfect choice.

We made it to the train back home with plenty of time to spare, but it didn't feel that way.  Traffic was busy because it was 5:45pm.  We stood in a line around a corner and thought we were going to have to go through a security check and that made us nervous (although everyone in the line was on the same train.)  It turns out they just hadn't opened the doors yet, but we couldn't see.

We ate a dinner of snacks on the train.  The boys loved it and no one went hungry. We had a lot of luggage on the way back.  We really only had one more bag, but for some reason it felt like a lot more.  I wasn't sure how we'd get all the luggage and a sleeping Joshua off quickly, and so I didn't take the screens away from them like I normally do a little bit after bedtime.  It worked; they were awake and walking when we got off the train.  I did, however, change their alarms so they didn't wake up so early the next morning. :)