Wednesday: a normal day

Today was rather normal.  We did some work.  We did some play.  We went over to a friend's house for a little bit, which was very nice (and got us out of the house).

Isaac made this donut in class and for some reason it ended up in his backpack when it was supposed to stay at school.  He wanted me to take a picture of it.

Tuesday: box and dance

Today when we got home there was a surprise box waiting for us!  It was full of some fun books that the boys have already enjoyed.  (One book had conductive clay with LEDs.)

We also went to a follow up thing at the library with the dance company.  They did some dances that they had done on Saturday, but also involved the kids in some movement/dancing.  Joshua did ok...there were several other kids there that were really under the recommended age and so they grouped together and tried.  Joshua did not want to be far from me though.

I convinced Isaac to go into the other group.  I looked over a few times and it looked like he was having a good time as I saw many smiles.  Apparently there are a few more workshops coming up this semester and Isaac said that he'd be interested in them.  We'll see what happens.

Monday

I don't really have much to say about today.  It was a pretty normal day.  There was some work.  There were some errands.  I went to an exercise class.

Sunday - 3.5yrs

Today is Joshua's 3.5 year old birthday.  We happened to be at Meijer on Friday and he saw a small cake and wanted it.  I wasn't going to get it, but a half birthday seemed like a good reason.  He proceeded to tell everyone about his cake, telling Ben, Isaac, and myself that it was our favorite cake because it is chocolate.

Cruise - day 6: sea day

We had our last sea day today. 

In the morning we found Pluto.

At lunch Joshua really really wanted "sauce pizza" and then didn't eat a bite of it.

We rested in our rooms quite a bit in the afternoon.  It was too busy to go swimming...I'm sure that we got some ice cream and probably worked on the detective stuff (more coming on the last day), but we mostly lazed around.

That evening was the semi-formal dinner.  We got there just a bit early and who was roaming outside but Pluto!  Isaac and Joshua had both brought their Plutos, and were excited to introduce them.

Isaac also asked throughout the trip if we wanted to play, "rock, paper, scissors, shoot."  We kept telling him there was no shoot on the end.

I haven't touched much on the wait staff, but they were incredible.  They cut up the kids' food.  They had drinks waiting for us when we got to the table.  They were happy to bring different food and anyone could order anything.  The food ranged between good and delicious.

Our main server was really good with a large table of mixed ages.  He had brain teasers for the adults. He had magic tricks for the kids.  The kids' food often came out first so that they could take their time eating.

There were three different restaurants.  In this one we were right by some windows, which was rather nice as the kids could get up and look out if they were getting antsy.

We went to the nightly show tonight.  It was a drumming show.  Well, the part I saw of it was drumming.  Joshua was rather tired and done with it after about twenty minutes.  The part I saw was good, although Ben said there was a part in the middle that wasn't quite as good.

Cheryl watched the kids at night while Larry, Ben, and I went to see Thor.  I thought the movie was excellent - it was your normal action movie with a bunch of funny parts.  (Oh, I forgot...the night before we saw Coco in the huge auditorium.  Joshua wanted to leave, but right after we got out the doors he changed his mind.  I was glad of this because I wanted to see the movie.)

Saturday: dance

This morning we went to a dance recital at the library. 

Isaac loved it.  The group is having a workshop through the library on Tuesday, so I signed him up for it.  We'll see how it goes.

Joshua liked it.  It was a nice break in the day; he had a rough one.  He decided that he doesn't want to clean his room this week but it has included a lot of tears.  He is fully accepting of the consequences...apparently we need to change the consequences.

Friday: laundry

Let's talk about laundry.  Mostly, the folding of it.

Folding laundry seems like something anyone should be able to do.  But it turns out there are many nuances.  For example, the kids socks.  You need to know that any that have letters on the bottom are Joshua's.  You need to know that some have the same design and are different sizes, the larger size for Isaac and the smaller for Joshua.  You need to know that currently Isaac and Joshua are wearing the same size sock (although Joshua's have shrunk some), so you can't go on size alone.  A long time ago I decided to make Ben's socks all the same kind.  Because of the kids' sock issues, I've decided I'm not going to fold Ben's socks anymore.  I'm just going to dump them in his sock drawer and he can pull out two.  They're all the same and don't wrinkle.  Why am I folding them?

You also need to know that, during the summer, Isaac can wear some 2T shorts but most of the 2T shorts are Joshua's.  Beyond that sizing is pretty obvious, with the exception of a few T-shirts that Joshua has that are way too big for him.

I was telling Joshua that I didn't want to do laundry anymore at lunch time, and he said I didn't have to.

A: Are you going to do it?
J: No.
A: Are we going to wear dirty clothes?
J: No.
A: Who's going to do the laundry?
J: Dad.  He's the biggest.

Thursday: mostly back to normal

Today was mostly back to normal, and it felt nice.

I even had the motivation to do some house work.  (It's been a while.  There are piles of dirty laundry.  There are many piles of clean laundry.  There are piles of dirty dishes.  And of course, there are toys all over.)  Joshua decided that he was in the mood to help, and he did a great job.  So I gave him some money...a while ago he wanted to buy a fire plane, but didn't have enough money for it.  So we said he could do some extra chores to earn the money and buy it.  He remembered right away that he was saving up for a fire plane.

Needless to say, we've ordered the fire plane ahead of schedule.  The one he wants is out of print (print?) so we need to order it from a third-party seller and sometimes that can take a while.  At the rate he was going tonight, he might have most of the money tomorrow. :)

Yesterday we were talking about summer activities and Isaac was excited about science camp the most.  Ok, that's cool.  He said he wanted to do something with molecules.  Well... That would be chemistry camp about and he already did that.  Next he wanted to do something with atoms.  Well... Same thing.  Next he wanted to do something with the things smaller than atoms.  Electrons? I asked. Well... That one isn't an option.  We settled on a Lego one, but I'm glad that he remembered things from the last camp!  Maybe I should see if there are any other chemistry things going on this summer for his age.

Wednesday: life

This morning was rough.  I was feeling awful due to other non-whatever-I-had-this-weekend reasons.  After getting Isaac to school, I went home and went back to sleep.  I felt better after that and Joshua and I went about our day.

We were meeting a friend at the local play cafe.  It was a nice morning with a delicious muffin!

But went we got home I crashed.  Joshua was nice enough to help me still be engaged while still crashed on the couch.

One more nap later and things were getting better.  Ben suggested Fiesta Lime Chicken for dinner, which sounded good...when nothing had since the muffin this morning.  We both ate all of it, but didn't touch the mozzarella sticks.  I love mozzarella sticks!  All three of us are still dealing with a yucky tummy some of the time.  But we're constantly improving, so hopefully will be back to normal soon.

Tuesday: grading

I had three different Gatorade bottles on my desk today, all with different flavors in them.  Guess how often I drank the flavor I was expecting?  (Probably about 50%)

Also, I was having a hard time typing 'proof read,' which struck me as ironic.  For the first try many came out as proff read, and I'd grudgingly go back and fix it because it just didn't seem like a typo I could get away with.

Monday: the saga continues

Well, Isaac had it relatively easy.  He was up for 40 minutes and then went back to sleep.  He woke up two more times to throw up, but had a decent stretch of sleeping time in between.  He was fine this morning.  (Although we might keep him home one more day because it is so contagious.)

Ben got it at 3:30am.  He was able to handle himself, thankfully.

I didn't sleep last night.  I don't think I've ever had insomnia that bad.  I heard Isaac throw up before he called to me.  I heard Ben.  I was too hot.  The light was too bright.  My back hurt.  My legs hurt.  I got some rest, but not a ton of sleep.  I finally fell asleep around 5:30 when Ben came to bed too.

The boys were told they could have as much screens as they wanted today.  Unfortunatly, that didn't stop them from coming into the bedroom every 15 minutes and asking, "mom..."  Seriously.  At first it was ok because I wasn't asleep.  But then I was sleepy and still got it.  I did finally just give up.  I can tell the boys are older at least because it wasn't "mom, can I have a yogurt?" but instead, "Mom, can you open up this yogurt for me?"  I didn't have to get out of bed every time.

Sunday: my buddy and me

While Joshua's only symptom today was extra sleepiness, Isaac and I came down with the bug.  Luckily, Isaac is old enough to get it in a bucket himself.

Right now my muscles are so sore.  Dehydration?  Fever?  I just took some ibprofin, my miracle drug, so as long as it stays down I'm hopeful.

Cruise, Day5: cozumel

Today brought us to Cozumel.

But first we went down to breakfast.  I noticed this server's name was Isaac and pointed it out to Isaac...he made us a origami Nemo (which we left at the table :(  ).  But it was fun to see him around the rest of the cruise.  Isaac thought it was cool to find someone else with his name.

Joshua wanted his picture by the Mickey Mouse.

We had a little bit of time before our excursion, and so we hung out in our room.  It was pirate night, and Joshua was ready for it!  (Also, I almost didn't bring the Duplos because they are so big but I'm glad I did.  I'm always glad that I did...the boys can get so much play out of a ziplock full of them.)

I managed to get one whole picture of our room.  I wanted to get some right after housekeeping had come, but thought I'd grab this one in case I forgot.  Good thing.  Anyway, Isaac got the top bunk and he loved it.  It folds into the ceiling and they would have done that every day, but we asked them to leave the beds up.  It gave us a bit more room, as crazy as that sounds, and was better for naps. To the right there is a desk and to the left there is a bed.  While not spacious, we also had plenty of room.

Our excursion for the day was a tour of a Mayan Chocolate ...thingy.  It was heavy on the tour and light on the chocolate.  I was hoping that we would be able to see the actual factory and learn about the supply chain to get ingredients and some of the issues affecting chocolate growing.  Instead we got a five minute explanation about the history, a five minute demo on how they used to make chocolate, and assorted other local information.  The chocolate information was good.  The rest was ok.  There were also many samples, which was nice.  After this we went back in the bus, drove around to a tourist stop, and then drove back to the boat.  The guide did a good job explaining the local culture, but I was very glad that I had brought screens for the boys.  Overall, I'd rate it 'ok.'  It didn't really meet my expectations, but wasn't bad either.

This is Joshua drinking a chocolate frosty.  It was delicious.

This is at the tourist stop.

That night for dinner we had mango soup.  It was delicious!!  I had two bowls.  Ben had a migraine and was upstairs, so I asked for some to bring to him.  They gave me three bowls. :)  

 That night was pirate night!  We didn't dress up much, although both boys had pirate shirts on.  I had some hats that Joshua didn't want to wear and Cheryl had eye patches.  I wore a bandanna...a rather normal style for me.

We stayed up late for fireworks and a pirate show.  Joshua really liked the fireworks.

Saturday: who knows

Well, once he got to bed Joshua didn't throw up any more last night.  I woke up a few times as he crashed around with his drinks, but didn't need to help him.  Ben let me sleep in and even brought me breakfast in bed.

We had homemade popsicles for lunch.  They were a hit.

Joshua did throw up around 4pm again, but that was the only time.  He doesn't have a fever.  He doesn't have diarrhea.  So whatever's hitting him is a bit weird and hopefully not as contagious as the other stuff going around.  He hasn't been eating much, but I'm ok with that.  The 1.5 crackers he had for dinner did stay down.

Friday: tonight

Well, I had been looking forward to a relaxing evening of computer games and quilting.  (Side note: I wanted to get my sewing machine a tune-up and the wait list is currently three weeks out.  However, I can't sign up and bring my sewing machine in in two weeks.  I can't get in the queue without bringing my sewing machine in.  It seems a bit ridiculous to me.)

Then at 6:45pm Joshua said he wasn't feeling well.  At 7:15pm, while we were putting him to bed and reading books he threw up.  All over.  I changed everything.  At 7:30, as we were settling down to books again, he threw up.  Most of it got in the bucket this time, but not enough to save the sheets.  (Side note: we had borrowed two copies of the book that we were reading, so we were able to continue in a clean copy.  It stayed clean.)  At 8:15 he threw up again, and since he was alone and had probably been asleep it was all over the place again.  (The volume was thankfully less though.)  I moved to the couch with him since I was out of sheets where he proceeded to throw up about every 15 minutes for the next two to three hours.  Luckily there was nothing left in his stomach, so handling it was easy.

I left him in his room, where he wanted to be, with some pedialite because he was really thirsty.  The frequency had dropped considerably, so I thought we'd try it.  He kept some water down, and I haven't heard anything from the first few sips of pedialite.  Hopefully we're almost over this stage.  However, when I left him he was also wide awake.  Hopefully my leaving him also will help him go to sleep.

(I felt about like I did when pregnant.  A small child, calling Ben to do easy tasks like get me water, and a throw up spot.)

In other news, we got Valentines today and Isaac got right to work.  He has about a third finished...we'll see if the novelty has worn off or if he'll finish the rest easily.

Cruise Day 4: Grand Cayman

We tried the sit down restaruant instead of the buffet for breakfast this morning.  There were some nice things about it - it was less crowded and easier, but the selection wasn't quite as large.  (It was the same food as the buffet though.)  The donuts were super yummy, but also rather sticky.  Joshua decided to eat it with a fork.

We were slowly walking to the next thing but took a break by the windows.

The next thing was a Wake-Up Disney thing.  We were the only people there for the first half.  We weren't sure what we were getting into, so at first we were 'worried.'  We needn't have worried.  The leader was energetic and Isaac was in the mood.  Joshua hung back, but still had a good time.

They started by asking Isaac if he watches Disney Jr.  "Yeah!"  "What's your favorite show?"  "Paw Patrol" "...well, ok!"  The leader tried really hard, but it turns out that we don't watch Disney Jr. and so Isaac didn't have the right knowledge.

Goofy showed up half way through and the leader faked ignorance and Goofy stayed behind him.  Isaac and Joshua tried so hard to point out that Goofy was there.

They did the hot dog dance.  Goofy and the leader were doing something semi-coordinated, while Isaac put his arms straight up in the air and wiggled around.  I knew exactly what he was doing, but the leader (nicely) asked, what are you doing?  Isaac said, "I'm being a hot dog," and the leader laughed.

At the very end the leader said, "well, I hope this helped to wake you up this morning," and Joshua immediately lay down and started snoring.  He has a funny sense of humor sometimes.

There were some characters up for pictures, so we did that.  We didn't have a ton of time, and Isaac wanted Stitch and Joshua wanted Buzz, so we split up.

Then it was time for Ben and Isaac to go on their excursion.  They were going in a submarine.

(This is the view from shore.  We were in the boat in the middle with a black bottom.)

They had a nice card to identify the wildlife.

They went down to about 100ft and saw a large cliff where the sea floor just dropped off. 

Joshua and I went back to the room for a bit.  He watched TV and I read on the balcony.

We had that little port door open for part of the week.  The balconies can be connected, but it is more like a little hallway between them versus actually being the same balcony.  (Most are more hallway like as shown in the second.)

On the ferry ride to shore Joshua fell asleep.  I was kind of hoping for this as he had been rather grumpy all morning.  I carried him off the ferry, to the waiting place (at which point someone nicely gave me a seat), and through the short bus ride.  We had a trip that we were calling a sub ride, but the top of the boat never actually went under the water.  (Joshua wasn't old enough for the other.)

We had square windows.  It was interesting to hear what Joshua was looking for...I think he found a fish maze in the coral at one point.

This trip was just right for Joshua.  Not too long, but long enough.  The coral didn't seem very colorful; they said it was due to hurricane Irma.  We didn't have a fish identifier card, which would have been nice, but we saw lots of fish and some barracudas.

He was able to do the seat belt on the bus back by himself and wanted me to take a video because he was so excited.  I compromised with a picture.

Our boat again.

Joshua enjoyed being at the front of the ferry on the way back.

Time for ice cream!  It was a late ice cream and that was a mistake...they didn't eat much for dinner.

Dinner was at Animator's Restaurant.  I think this was my favorite of the three...the kids loved it a lot too.  This first time there was a Nemo theme, so on screens all over the restaurant Nemo characters were swimming in and out.  Then Crush came and talked to our table, asking where we were from and how we greet other people.  ("Hey" was what he heard.)  He went to another table then, doing the same thing.  They also said "hey", so then Crush came back to our table and told us to yell "Hey" to the other table.

This evening (or possibly yesterday...some of my days are getting mixed up) we went to a show with juggling, hula hoops, ceiling ribbons, and a unicycle.  It was interesting to watch.