Wednesday: Critter barn, quiet day, flurry, exercise

Today's activity was the critter barn.  Isaac enjoyed it but didn't want to pet much...some of his comments made me think he didn't want to wash his hands.  After I told him he'd have to wash his hands anyway he got a bit more into it, but not as much as I had been expecting.

Joshua, on the other hand, seemed to love it!  He was a bit scared at all the noises from the big goat and sheep aisle, making a scared face I've never seen, but loved the birds and was not the one always ready to go to the next animal.

(After the picture Joshua really wanted to hold Isaac's hand but Isaac wouldn't hold Joshua's any more.  It was a bit sad.)

***
At lunch we had the following conversation:
Isaac:. Let's have a quiet day.
Amanda: OK.
Pause
I:. But we can talk.  And laugh.
A: what makes it a quiet day then?
I: well, it was a quiet second

***
Flurry's blood work came back and the vet said it was excellent, especially for an 11 year old cat.  She's probably just trying to show us who's the boss in this house, but it will backfire.  Especially as we get pills in her mouth to increase appetite.

***
We had our training day at the gym.  We have had a hard few months getting on a consistent schedule with our own exercise, so that's been a bit annoying.  Hopefully everything will calm down soon.  However, our trainer is moving away so we had the new trainer with us today too.  Ok, that wasn't all that interesting.  What is interesting is that in the time that we've been meeting with the trainer I've gained eight pounds but my body fat has gone down a bit...so I'm gaining muscle.  I was a bit surprised to get that result this week as I ate a lot at Disney, but was still happy.  It's hard to remember that muscle is better though, because I'm about at a milestone on the scale that I'd prefer to not hit.

Tuesday: melting

And the summer activities have begun!  I'm going to try it a bit differently this year...we're going to pull out the activities for the week at the beginning of the week.  I could still see pulling out an extra one if things aren't going well one day here or there, but this way I can schedule the week better.  The big things can happen on days that don't need to have errands or other pre-planned activites, while the small ones can be fit here and there.

I also let Isaac put several back when doing the first pull today; I don't know if we'll keep that up.  It seems like an easy way to just to the fun activities and not the work ones.  Oh, I put all the activities together this time.  If we have a work one scheduled I will probably try to do a fun one too.

Today's was "what things melt in the sun?"  It might have been better in the middle of summer, but was still interesting.

We started with a glob of wax, a rock, a dishwasher soap pack, frozen peas, cheese, hummas, bread, toast, soft butter, hard butter, chocolate, and and ice cube.  We checked it at 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, and at the end of the day.  (We made a chart too, but I don't have a picture of that.)

I don't know if there were any earth-shattering revelations, although it's sometimes hard to tell.  Isaac did notice how hot the rock got and we talked about how people sometimes would put rocks by a fire and then in their bed.  At the end of the day we saw how the things that didn't melt got rather hard.  I found it interesting, which is half the point too. :)

After a trip to Target we stopped at the PetStore to look at all the animals.  The cats were gone, but Joshua especially loved the birds.

We also went to the vet.  Flurry hasn't eaten much the last two weeks.  (And she's down to about 8.5 from 11.5 pounds.)  Nothing serious at this point, although we'll get the blood work back tomorrow.  We did get some special food (which she gobbled right up) and some pills to help her appetite.

Ben had a last minute band practice tonight, so I put some water in the water table.  Both boys played well with it and the squirters.  Isaac seems happier to spend time on the deck when Joshua is out there with him, even though I hear a lot of "no thank you!"s.

Monday: close beach

This morning Isaac asked a few times if we could go to close beach today.  I said maybe after school...we'll have to see how things are going.

Fast forward to after school, and he asks once before getting in the car.  I still hedge.  I'm not against the idea, but not ready to commit yet.  We're in the car and he says, "I've decided we'll go to close beach."  Oh really.  But at the same time there was no reason not to go.  So we went.

Isaac had a great time.  Joshua had a good time for about a half hour and then lost it.  He was having problems last night too, so I think something is going on.  (Or he really misses Zach and Jenny.)  Even food and TV didn't calm him down until we were several minutes into the movie.  I was hoping that Joshua would last a bit longer since Isaac showed no signs of slowing down, but as I told Isaac, "We're a family so we have to work together."

I also had my yearly doctors appointment today.  I got there a bit early, but was out twenty-five minutes after the scheduled start of my appointment...and that included going to the lab for a blood draw.  I was rather amazed.

Weekend

Zach and Jenny left this morning.  We had a very nice time with them...some frisbee golf, some games, and lots of talking.  I don't have any pictures.  Some of the things we did to entertain the boys while we did something else, like going to Ben's parents' house to play a game while the boys played with the toys.  We also went to close beach because Isaac's been asking to go for a while, but that kept them entertained while other conversations could go on.

But don't be fooled; Isaac talked to them plenty too.  He got a secret ingredient from Jenny for his dirty water and brought Zach down to the basement to play golf.

Friday: boys

We started out the day slowly.  Well, by slowly I mean it took us a while to get dressed.  I had moved the duplo table into Joshua's room, and it was a hit.  There isn't a ton of room in his bedroom, but I'm thinking about how it can stay in there for a bit longer.

Isaac made a porcupine with toothpicks.  He included a head, which I wasn't expecting.  I'm not sure I would have included a head.

Then we went to the playground.  I thought it was going to be a bit cold, but with sun and no wind it was actually rather hot.

Some friends came over for the weekend.  I got a puzzle out (because I like to talk over puzzles) and we proceeded to stay up until 1am working on it.

Thursday: jumps

Joshua had some swimming lessons again today.  It took him a while to warm up.  Last time he was doing the things right away; this time he was a bit clingy.

Until we got to the jumping part.  He loved the jumps.  It was interesting to watch his face.  Big smiles as I was about to jump him in and then as his feet hit the water a look of worry.  But then his face didn't go under and he was all smiles again.  We did some extra jumps at the end of the lesson just because he was enjoying them so much.

Wednesday: misguided priorities?

I read black book three times yesterday and Ben read it once.  It has no words, but I'm sure they'd be memorized by now.  I usually try to read a book only once a day, but Puppy Dog was just so excited about the book.

I, however, am not.