Saturday: games

Today we played a lot of games.  I played one with Joshua that he had made up based on Quarriors.  It...was not really that fun.  I didn't understand the rules and that never helps.  But he realized it was a test run and he worked really hard on the card art.

I played a game of Dominion with Isaac.  He chose some new cards and it was fun.

I played a game Isaac made up in the afternoon.  Usually the games and cards that the children make up don't work well and I don't enjoy playing them.  This game, on the other hand, worked pretty well (and I understood the rules!)  It was a bit like making a nerdle.

 

Thursday: classes, stitches, ducks

Today was the last day of classes for me!  I had a 7:30am class, and while it wasn't too bad to get up for it I'm also glad that it's done.  The students did a good job of showing up, and I was a bit afraid of that.

Joshua got his stitches out today.  The wound is healing well.

Isaac and I saw another duck on a roof today.  We wondered if we've just missed seeing ducks on roofs before or if the ducks have suddenly changed their habits and are perching on roofs.

Wednesday: duck

Isaac: There's a duck on our roof!

Amanda/Joshua: what?  I've never seen a duck on our roof.

*Assorted laughter by all of us*

Amanda: look!  There's a duck on our neighbor's roof too!

*Isaac almost dies from laughter.*

Monday: eventually

 Eventually the boys will probably be about the same size.

...I have no idea how I'll remember whose clothes are whose when sorting laundry.

One of these things just doesn't belong

 ...one of these things is not like the others, can you tell by the time I finish this song.

I also made peanut butter-nutella-strawberry jam three way sandwich for the boys.  They were excited, but said it was rather hard to eat.

Saturday: a good run

Well, we had a good run.

Today was the first day a child went to Urgent Care/ER.  It's been 10 years - I wasn't expecting to make it this long, honestly.

Isaac and Joshua were playing in the basement and Joshua hit his head on the Duplo table.  Ben and I heard the urgent cry and Isaac came up to get us, and about the time Isaac got up the stairs the cries changed into an "I'm going to die" cry.  Joshua had just touched the place that hurt and realized that his hand now had blood on it.

Yes, there was quite a bit of blood.  No, it wasn't terrible.  We got it cleaned up and while it was still bleeding continually, it wasn't spouting blood.  But we realized early on that it'd need stitches.  So Joshua and I headed to urgent care.

The wait wasn't too bad and Joshua was well distracted by his screen.  They got us back, the nurse took a quick look to confirm it needed stitches, and they got started.  The whole thing took about 1.5hours, which isn't too bad.  After they numbed the outside Joshua was in much better spirits, but he hated the internal shot.  He did a great job though and stayed still.

He was in good spirits the rest of the day without any pain medication.  The band-aid was bothering him, so we tried to do a better placement of it before bedtime and he seemed happy with it.  We need to get the stitches out in 5-7 days.

Friday: a reason

This evening Joshua was working on his homework and messed it up just a bit.  I told him to erase it and do his best work.  Oh my, that was apparently the wrong thing to say!  He continued working on it, while crying and not talking to us.  He was almost done when I had him stop for to brush his teeth.  (He was running late and it was almost time for bedtime.)  I told him he could do it in the morning, but he was having none of that.

Fast forward to after Ben read the books.  He came downstairs to me to finish up the one question on his homework and we naturally started talking about what happened.  It turned out that Joshua's teacher had made him erase two lines of writing today because he had done it upside-down on the paper and he was rather upset about it.  So when I told him to erase some work he just couldn't quite handle it.  

Everything clicked in place for me too.  Context is helpful.

Thursday: book

Last night I finished my book.  It was #10 in a series...the last one currently written but not the last book.  I'm a bit sad.  I was invested in these characters and didn't really want it to end.

There was a plot twist, as these things normally go.  Neither Ben or I saw it coming, although in hind-sight we both realized that we should have seen it coming.  It was so obvious.

Most of these books have also had bloopers at the end, and they were especially funny this time.

Wednesday: well child and glasses

 Isaac had his well child appointment today.  He's 59% for height and 16% for weight.

Joshua's glasses came in the mail.  They're not required for when he does close-up work, but we'll try to encourage their use.  They were cheap, so I got two: one for home and one for school.

Monday: snow

It snowed out this morning.  I thought it'd melt quickly, but instead it snowed a little bit all morning.  The bird feeders have been empty for a while as I've pretended it's spring, but I wanted to use up one of the bags of birdseed that is left so I put a bunch out this morning.  It was a perfect morning for it and a ton of birds showed up, to my surprise.

Isaac has a stuffy nose and it's making him feel a bit lethargic and bored.  I got him to read on the couch at the same time I was reading, which is one of my life goals.  The next goal is to get the whole family cuddled up reading at the same time.  With the cats.

Sunday: Happy Easter!

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Joshua greeted me with these words as I came out of the bedroom in the morning and it felt good.  

We had a pretty normal Sunday, although we did (finally) make empty tomb rolls.  I've been meaning to for years, but finally had all the right ingredients and remembered.  Joshua was quite surprised that there was no marshmallow in the final product and asked if I had taken it out.  (He also wondered why they are called empty tomb rolls when we put Jesus inside before baking.)  Isaac figured it out right away, but was still delighted by it.

Making the rolls was a bit of a surprise.  Joshua's four when fine.  I got Isaac started, and after one he asked if he could take a break to have first breakfast because he was so hungry.  I asked him to keep going because I wanted to get them in the oven.  After the second one he was more firm...he needed first breakfast then and there. He was still hungry after the third one, and couldn't finish the fourth because he needed more food.  I finished it up while he had a half of an apple.  I feel like this might be a bad sign for things to come. :)

We got Boston Market for our Easter dinner, and the mashed potatoes were a surprising hit.  Not for Ben and I - I know we love mashed potatoes.  But I feel like the boys haven't always enjoyed them.  Anyway, as somewhat normal, I made more potatoes in the evening to round out the rest of the left overs.  The boys were excited to help peel the potatoes (and Joshua even had seconds of the mashed potatoes!)

Saturday: Silent Saturday

As normal, in this day in between Good Friday and Easter when I 'don't know what to do with myself', we do the secular Easter activities.

We dyed eggs.  I think they came out wonderful.  Joshua enjoyed putting rubber bands on and was patient enough to leave them in the dye(s) for a while to create some nice rich tones.  (His are mostly the last picture.)  Isaac tried some interesting techniques, including using a fork to punch little holes, dying an egg and then adding some color dots, and a few two-color eggs. (His are mostly the second picture.)

After rest time we had an Easter Egg hunt.  Surprisingly, there was really only one.  Joshua did hide some of his eggs a second time, but didn't really follow up on having anyone find them so they're still scattered around the house on Monday.

Isaac: 109 to 123 months

 109 months - Jan 30, 2021

110 months - missed

111 months - March 21

112 months - April 21

113 months - May 21

114 months - June 21

115 months - July 21

116 months - Aug 21

117 months - Sep 21

118 months - Oct 21

119 month - Nov 21

120 month - Dec 21 - 10 years!!

121 months - Jan 22 - COVID

122 months - Feb 22

123 months - March 22

Joshua: 78 to 92 months

Hah!  A year and a half ago I wasn't going to wait so long in between posting these.  So much for that...

78 months - January 28, 2021

79- missed

80 months  

81 months

82 months - May '21

83 months - June 21

84 months - July '21

85 months - Aug 21

86 months  - Sep 21

87 months - Oct 21

88 months - Nov 21

 89 months - Dec 21 (Self-hair cut month)

90 months  - Jan 22 - with COVID

91 months - Feb 22

92 months - Mar 22