Tuesday: books

I've tried to buy three children's books in the past two months.  Two were out of print.

I don't know if I'm doing something right or something wrong.

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Monday: not what I expected

This morning, if you asked me what we'd be doing from 7-8pm tonight, I'd probably guess chores.  That's not what we ended up doing.

We played Taker Monsters.  Isaac started by taking our slippers and running them to his room, and Joshua just ran behind Isaac.  Then Isaac took my socks.  Joshua got stuck on Ben's sock, but finally got it.  Ben and I suddenly had to find more things, since this was an easy game for us and the boys were happy.  Pillows...spare blankets...dirty clothes.  "Taker monsters, please don't take our dirty clothes," we would say as the boys happily took something and ran off with it.  We caught them at one point and tried changing them into bringer monsters, but it wasn't until it was time to be done did they change into Giver Monsters.

In other news, the stuffed animal from my childhood had an exciting day.  He visited Joshua a few nights ago to try and help with the wind scares, which didn't really help.  Today Joshua got him out of the crib though.

Saturday: scary wind

It's been rather windy here last night and today.  This wasn't really unexpected; the high yesterday was in the sixties and today was in the forties.

Needless to say, something about the wind at night scared Joshua.  Really scared him.  He was up several times last night before I gave up and brought him into bed with Ben and me.  (I really need to get sheets on the guest bed so that at least one adult can have a good night sleep on nights like these.)  Anyway, the three of us didn't get a great nights sleep.

It snowed today.

The boys were out for about two minutes before coming back in.  Then we went to the pool at the gym; I didn't really want to exercise or play "racquetball" with the boys, but we needed to get out of the house.

Ben and I had a date tonight and saw Dr. Strange.  It was a bit strange, but also interesting.

Joshua had a hard time going to sleep with the wind again tonight...it took three or four scares where he thought it was "thunder! lightning!" before he got to sleep.  I'm not sure why he's suddenly scared of thunder either.  We'll see how the rest of the night shapes up.

Friday: miscallaneous

After story time we went to the grocery store.  It was rather busy, but we still did ok.  At the end the boys get to ride the horse, as normal, but this time there was a snow globe set up behind it so I took a picture.  Isaac likes to get two rides.

Today the interesting thing in Isaac's room was a duplo tower.

It goes through the handle of the laundry basket, has a support on the other side, has some scotch tape on this side for support, and is taller than Isaac.  He was especially proud of that last part.

Thursday: leaves

It was a beautiful day outside today and I knew that we needed to rake, so the first thing we did when we got home was go down to rake.  Our neighbor offered us his leaf vaccuum.  I look at those things every year, and then every year decide not to get one.  It's just one more thing and the boys really love jumping in the leaves.

They really, really loved the leaves.  They love running through them, being buried in them, having leaves fall on their heads, going in the waste bin to stomp the leaves down, and jumping in them.  How could I deny them such a simple pleasure?  And to hear them laugh was wonderful.

So while my yard still has leaves, because there are more leaves coming and I'm not going to rake every single one, it also has a lot of laughter.

  (Picture from earlier this month...but still about the same today.)

Tuesday: videos

It's always interesting to go in Isaac's room and see what interesting thing he has thought to do.  Today it was put his puzzle pieces on the doorknob.  I was going to just take a picture but he decided to narrate it instead:




Then Isaac and Joshua were playing, pretty much as normal.  They've never done this exact thing before, but do tend to do things like this on a normal basis.  Especially the running and screaming. :)  And yes, I did think about stopping it at one point so I didn't have to deal with a cracked head but instead kept filming.  Everything ended up ok, so it was the right choice.

Tuesday: post crossings

A while ago I heard about PostCrossing.  You send some postcards and then you get some back between anywhere in the world.  We've now sent five and just received our first one back!

It's from India.  The other side of the world.  Isaac often has been asking if the other side of the world is sleeping when we're awake, so I had a nice example of it this time.  (He actually asks it a surprising amount right now.)

The idea is a pretty neat one.  You start by sending 1 to 5 postcards.  Once the person(s) receives it, your name goes on the list for someone to send one to you.  You can also send another once yours is received.  So really, you should always get as many postcards as you send.