"I stuck in the muck."

Around 11:30AM, Miss R's teachers called to say that she had a temperature of 101.5. So Jeff got her b/c I was on a conference call. She was warm when she came home, so we gave her some Tylenol. She was highly irritable and irrational. She claimed that she wanted "sleep" or "bed" but then would scream if I put her down. I got her some lunch. One minute she seemed fine, the next minute she was screaching as though someone had pinched her hard or something. The rapid change w/o cause was kind of disturbing. She again claimed that she wanted "sleep" but then threw a major fit. We ended up letting her cry it out b/c we couldn't do anything to satisfy her and we suspect that tiredness was perhaps a trigger for her irrationality.

When she woke up, Jeff took her to get Lily. Lily was spayed. She has to take it easy for the next two weeks. She looks exhausted. She also has to stay away from boy dogs b/c she'd already started her heat cycle. That includes neutered males who may not have the equipment but may still have the desire to act.

I took care of Miss R while Jeff got Henry. Henry had a good day. He and Daddy went to R&R Pizza to get us some dinner. He played some videogames while waiting for the order.

Henry had a large dinner. He had pizza and breadsticks. He's been a very good eater as of late. I don't think that he's putting on weight, but he is eating. Miss R picked at her food but didn't eat much.

After dinner, we opened a gift that Jeff and I bought over the weekend. It is cardboard pictures of children's faces from different nationalities. The cards can be matched if one wants to play memory. Henry has been wanting to open that box for a couple days now. He liked it a lot. And he was even able to match some of the cards with each other. Miss R just played with the box.

While we were playing with the cards, Henry found what I thought was a piece of cardboard on the floor. He mentioned something about Devonshire. Jeff asked me if he was talking about Robinhood. I thought so. Jeff pointed out that the cardboard sliver was the former binding of the Robinhood book. See picture on the left.

Once playing with the cards was done, Henry had fun climbing on the cat tree. Jeff made sure that he didn't hurt himself. I asked Henry if he was stuck. He replied, "I stuck in the muck." We have no idea where he learned that phrase.



Then, it was time for a bath and teeth brushing. Then bed. The kids went down easily until just now. Miss R is back up and crying. We don't know why. Jeff just relieved me. I suspect that it will be a long night.

"I need my cellphone."

Jeff took Lily to the vet's office this morning so that she could get spayed. Guess it was good timing when we found her. She was just about to go into heat.

I got the kids dressed and out the door. It was a challenge. Miss R especially was putting my temperament to the test. She refused to sit down in her high chair at breakfast. Got mad when I insisted that she sit if she wanted orange juice. Ugh. Henry was actually really good. Easy to dress. Cheerful.

The highlight of the morning took place in the parking lot of Children's Learning Adventure. As I was getting the kids out of the car, Henry matter of factly announced, "I need my cellphone." Indeed.

More "Needs"

This morning, Henry went to the pantry after waking up and pulled the box of Bisquick off the shelf. He was frustrated b/c it was too heavy to carry by himself (it was the Costco sized box of Bisquick). He announced that he wanted "pancakes."

As Jeff began making pancakes, Henry announced "I need food for Henry." So cute!

Henry ate a lot of breakfast. Three or four pancakes (where does he put them?!?), sausage, and Morning Star veggie bacon. Miss R barely touched her food. She didn't feel well upon waking up and threw up a little bit.

After breakfast, we played in the room formerly known as the dining room. The kids played with the trains. Miss R had Henry's carnival train. It has a little door that opens. There is a picture of a lion inside. When you open or close the door, it roars. Henry kept trying to take it from Miss R, saying "thank you, thank you" to make it OK. I told him that he had to wait until she was finished, which didn't make him happy when he'd been so polite about taking it.

We dropped the kids off at my parents' house and headed off to Phoenix for the Diamondbacks vs. L.A. Dodgers game. The game was not noteworthy.

The kids had a good day. Miss R was very easy to take care of, but my mom said that she was obviously not quite herself and rather subdued. Henry was active. Miss R napped. Henry did not.

My mom tried to put the kids down for a nap in my parents' bedroom. Henry scooted down the bed and announced, "Poppy's in the TV room. We watch sports." And then he trotted off to find Poppy.

At one point in the day, Grammy reported that Henry said, "I need money." Apparently, he wanted something to put in his pocket. Money is a wise choice.

Miss R wanted to go swimming. My mom called us when we were on the road heading back to Tucson. We planned to take her swimming when we arrived, but she was asleep on the couch. So we had dinner. Henry played with dinner, didn't really eat. Miss R woke up in the middle of dinner. She had a few bites of banana but didn't really eat either. We came home after dinner.

Before we left, however, Henry was on the floor of the TV room pretending to sleep. He was pretending to snore too. Jeff and I squabbled over who he was imitating. My mom asked him, "Henry, does your mommy snore?" Henry threw himself dramatically over a pillow and gave an impression of me snoring. We laughed. Then, my mom asked him, "Henry, does your daddy snore?" Henry did another impression, snoring even louder this time.

Henry fell asleep (for real) in the car. Miss R was awake. I got her "food" at her request. But she just ate the cheese and ignored the pasta that I had put out for her. Halfway through the meal, she said she wanted "Daddy," so I got Daddy for her. Daddy took care of her. I attended to Henry who was having a nightmare of some sort. That makes me sad b/c unlike most kids his age, I know that Henry has some truly bad experiences in his past from the NICU and I hope that he isn't reliving them. Having been away from the NICU with some perspective, I know that what Henry endured was tantamount to torture in what it must have felt like to have needles poking into his fetal tissue with raw nerve endings. Obviously, the goal wasn't torture but survival, but the neonate doesn't know that at the time. I held him. He snuggled into me. Fell back to sleep after having some water.

"Happy Birthday, Aunt Carolyn!"

This morning, we went to a park in Marana. As we drove to the park, which is 10-15 minutes away from our house, we passed "Monkey Business," which Henry of course noticed and informed us of its location. He is very observant and has a keen sense of direction.



Henry had a great time at the park. Miss R was a fussy and basically wanted to sit on me just about the whole time. Jeff gave me some relief so that I could play with Henry. Miss R was irked that I wouldn't place her at the top of the roller slide every time that she wanted to go on it. I wanted her to actually walk up the steps by herself once in awhile.

After the park, we headed to Toys R Us. We passed "Monkey Business" again, and Henry repeatedly said "I want to go to Monkey Business!" Mind you, the building and sign for Monkey Business are fairly nondescript. There's no icon or animal character to let one know what it is w/o reading the sign.

When we pulled into the Toys R Us, Henry pointed out the sign for "AT&T" which is nearby. We still don't know why he knows AT&T. We aren't patrons. I asked Henry where we were going. He said, "Get toys!"

Henry was irked that Miss R was put in the basket, not him. So he decided to go on a shopping spree, putting anything he touched into our basket. Jeff spent his time putting the items back.

We made our way to the Thomas the Tank Engine table. Henry and Miss R happily played at the table display while Jeff and I debated if we should get it. We'd been talking about getting Henry the table for some time now. That Miss R appeared to love the table too, added to its appeal. We never got Henry his 2 year adjusted due date present, so it was time to do so.

While we debated what exactly to get, another family (dad and two boys probably 5 and 7) visited the area. Henry was fascinated by the older boy's brown curly hair. He ended up patting the boy on the head as the boy looked at the table. Luckily, the boy didn't mind and his father was amused. The boy's hair was pretty amazing, the kind of soft natural curls that would make most people envious.

We got the table and a starter set (with Thomas and Percy trains). The starter set doesn't come with enough track, but we figured that we should look on craigslist and ebay before investing more. The table has two sides. One side has a light built in track, which should keep the kids entertained for now.

We went back home. Got the kids some lunch. Then it was nap time. I took a nap myself. I was exhausted. It was pretty clear at this point that all four of us are sick with a cold. While the kids and I napped, Jeff set up the Thomas & Friends table in the dining room. It looks great!

Miss R got up long before Henry did. We called Carolyn and left her a happy birthday message. By 5PM, Jeff decided it was time to get Henry out of bed. Henry was reluctant. As he entered the kitchen, however, he perked up and announced "I need ketchup." He repeated this several times. I don't think that he had plans for putting the ketchup on anything. Perhaps he, like members of the Reagan Administration, felt that ketchup constituted a vegetable on its own. While I was making dinner, Carolyn returned my call. Henry sang her Happy Birthday. He did an excellent job.

I was tempted to put a DVD into the machine as we are all sick and it would have been nice to veg out. Jeff gave me a little bit of a guilt trip over it. He's more anti-TV than I am when it comes to the kids (and I'm not exactly a big TV proponent). So the TV stayed off as usual. Jeff took the dogs for their evening walk, and the kids and I read books. We read "Bambi Grows Up" and "Mickey Mouse and the Haunted House." It's been a long time since we had read the latter. Then, we headed to the dining room to play with the trains.

Henry discovered the drawer on the bottom of the table. He enjoyed putting the trains away and announced "That's better" when it was all cleaned up.

Then, it was bath time. Henry allowed me to film his rendition of Happy Birthday for Aunt Carolyn...



Then, it was time to brush teeth and head to bed. A busy day.

Tomorrow, Jeff and I are going to Phoenix for a Diamondbacks game. Miss R and Henry will be spending the day with their grandparents.

"I need a cookie!"

This morning, we took the kids to Tohono Chul Park's tearoom for breakfast. We sat outside. It started to sprinkle, so we ended up under an awning. Henry managed to grab a tsp of butter and stick the whole thing in his mouth before we could stop him. He seemed happy with it at first but then less enamored toward the final swallow. The kids were a little loud, singing Ring-Around-The-Rosie, but ate well. Jeff took Henry and Miss R to the back gardens where they joined a five year old girl and her little brother playing hide and seek. Henry enjoyed chasing the little girl.

We then headed to the park near CDO. We had a good time. We had a weird experience when we first got there though. Jeff kept close tabs on Henry. I was helping Miss R. There was a corkscrew slide on this particular equipment. There was a little girl Henry's age or maybe a couple months older taking FOREVER to get to the slide, so Henry went around her and went down the slide. She had a fit that Henry passed her and claimed that he'd pushed her. Jeff was watching and said that it wasn't true. The mom responded to the girl's fit by saying something like "Don't worry honey. You don't have to stay here. I'll take you to buy shoes instead" blah blah blah and completely catered to her whining and lying. Such a sad state when parents don't introduce a little bit of realism and responsibility into their child's life. So the mom decided to take the girl away. She left her other child, about 5 years old, with her aunt. The 5 year old was making sand piles near the equipment. At one point, she left her stuff to go play, and Henry went over and was fiddling with her shovel. Now, in our experience, all of the park parents are pretty cool with sharing toys if kids aren't using them. On several occasions, we've let other kids play with Henry's stuff and Henry has on occasion used other kids' stuff. I asked the aunt if it was OK if Henry used the shovel for a minute. She said that I had to ask the little five year old. The little five year old wasn't happy that someone would touch her stuff. So it didn't work out. Oh well. I took Henry back to other area to play with some things that we'd brought. I had to raise an eyebrow when the little girl was rejected from another group of kids who basically didn't want her to play with them. Perhaps it was b/c she had been instructing them on the proper way to build a sand castle. That's a sure way to become popular. Don't share, be selfish. And if you do "share," only do it under the condition that the other kids have to do everything your way. I know that there isn't a best way to parent, but I'm darn sure that there are wrong ways to parent. I didn't like Henry getting blamed for something he did not do by the little sister. I didn't like watching the older kid be selfish (although I know if it's not illegal, otherwise half of America would be behind bars) and not get called out on it. Frankly, the kid is going to be lonely as evidenced by other kids her own age already rejecting her. Had I not seen how she'd treated Henry, I probably would have felt sorry for her under the assumption that she'd been wronged. I do feel sorry for it but b/c her family obviously is spoiling these kids to the point where no one else is going to be able to stand them (unless they are fabulously rich, I suppose).

Well, Henry and Miss R had a wonderful time at the park. Miss R went down the corkscrew slide all by herself several times. I worried that it was too steep, but as Jeff pointed out, Miss R manages to go down slides slower than anyone would have thought possible by positioning her feet much like one does when when is trying to stop on skis.

The kids spent time on several different pieces of equipment. We met a very cute 20 month old named Brooke who was very nice. Henry watched some of the big kids climb across the monkey bars. He wanted to try them too. So I picked him up and let him grab one of the bars. I stood underneath him but let him do the work. He managed to let go of one hand and swing his body to the next bar and grab on. I was impressed. He then let go, and I caught him.

As we left the park, Henry had an accident. Jeff was holding his hand. Henry was running his other hand along the metal rope lining the side walk. He stuck his finger in the post holding up the rope, but Jeff didn't notice and pulled him. Henry's finger was scraped pretty good with some flesh having come off. I'm pretty sure that Jeff was more upset than Henry. We had planned a trip to Trader Joe's and then home, but instead, we went to Grammy's house to get some antiseptic on the wound. I washed Henry's hand with soap and water. My mom put some antibacterial ointment on it, and then put a band aid on it. Henry was interested in the band aid for a couple minutes but then wanted it off. My mom volunteered to keep the kids for the afternoon.

On the way to the bedroom for nap time around 2PM, Henry said to Grammy, "Take it off and put it in the garbage" in reference to the band aid.

So Jeff and I went to a movie, (500) Days of Summer. In our absence, the kids took a three hour nap at the grandparents' house. We joined them for dinner. Both kids were coughing and sneezing. Jeff's now coughing and sneezing too. He says that I've sneezed several times, I just seem not to have noticed. My head is feeling pressured at the moment. I can't believe we've acquired yet another illness. We are magnets.

We came back home after dinner. We gave the kids a much needed bath, after their day in the sand. We brushed the kids' teeth. Henry wanted a book, so we read. Then he announced "I need a cookie!" (thanks Grammy). We don't have any refined sugary treats in the house. He was adamant about it too. He settled for a Trader Joe's fruit bar. Then Miss R wanted some too. We ended up brushing their teeth again. After Miss R's last pediatric visit, I'm especially serious about making sure that she brushes her teeth after eating. No eating before bed w/o following up with a trip to the bathroom.

Grammy said that she'd take the kids tomorrow, but Jeff and I want a full day with the kids. We had some fun things planned, but it will depend on everyone's level of sickness. Henry was complaining about his ear tonight, so a trip to Urgent Care for an ear check may be in our future.

Cheeky Little Fellow

Grammy and Poppy collected the kids at daycare. They both had good days. And they both ate large dinners. Henry ate a lot of sausage apparently. Miss R ate some sausage but ate all of her raisins and mandarin oranges.

Jeff had a great time playing golf. I got a couple things done around the house and took the dogs for a walk. We went to dinner before collecting the kids around 7:30PM.

Per usual, Henry saw me, smiled, and proceeded to turn toward the TV. Miss R was excited to see me, squealed with delight, and ran over to me. She told me that she wanted to go "home." I sat with her on the couch while I caught up with my parents.

I asked Henry if he knew what tomorrow was. He said, "Saturday. No school." We were surprised that he knew the days of the week. We've mentioned them a couple times before, but not recently. I didn't expect him to know the order or anything. Perhaps the teachers were talking about "Saturday" at school.

My mom said that Miss R had pooped in her pants at one point in the late afternoon. She asked Miss R, "Do you have a poopy pants?" Miss R said "No. Henry," and then pointed toward him. My mom was sure it wasn't Henry. But she asked him. "Henry, do you have a poopy pants?" Henry said, "No. Grammy have poopy pants?" He was being cheeky.

While talking with my parents, Henry tried to push Miss R off my lap by head butting her. I said, "Henry. No. Timeout." Firm and curt. Miss R was crying b/c he hit her hard enough to hear the sound of two skull colliding. Henry got upset at being put in timeout. I'm of the opinion that we need to nip these actions in the bud before he really hurts someone or himself. Of course he wanted attention, but he isn't allowed to hurt someone else to get it. Period. My feeling is that one should neither act hostilely nor do the pretend sad thing toward toddlers under some delusion that it will induce guilt. Trying to induce guilt in a two year old is about as productive as herding cats. Frankly, I find it nauseating when caregivers do the "Oh honey, I'm sure that you didn't mean to hurt anybody but that was naughty, let's not do it again" in a sugary voice. It is misleading to a child who does not yet rationalize his/her actions. The vocal intonation should be forceful and firm (not yelling of course, unless one wants loud kids) and should match the rhetoric. Jeff agrees. He put Henry in timeout for 2 minutes. Henry was upset but not remorseful. He was reluctant to apologize. Sometimes, he is very good about it. This time, he was not. But when he finally said "I'm sorry, R" and gave her a hug, he did a good job. Miss R wasn't particularly receptive toward the hug. I suspect her head was still aching. As Henry does feel pain like a normal person does b/c of his high pain tolerance, we have to be serious about him learning to control his actions around others lest he hurt someone else or hurt his body but not know it.

We headed home around 8PM. The kids were obviously tired. They didn't fall asleep in the car. Jeff read "Robinhood" and "Bambi Grows Up" to Henry when we got home. While reading "Robinhood," Miss R and I leafed through "Bambi." She pointed out many of the characters in the pictures. She is doing so well with her vocabulary. It is nice to see.

The kids took forever to get to bed. Miss R strugged with teeth brushing before bed as usual. She told me that she wanted to go to bed. She was settled in her bed. Then Henry came into the room and snuggled with me on the floor. That sent Miss R into a tizzy. She cried even after Henry got into his bed. I left the room figuring that she was putting on a little green monster show for my benefit. Ah, the joys of parenthood. Jeff got them settled and fell asleep on their floor. I got him up after awhile so that he could sleep in a real bed. The household is currently quiet. I had wanted to watch a movie but decided that I would just fall asleep during such a thing.

Lily

One knows that things are quiet on the western front when one gets to blog about one's dog. As we mentioned earlier this week, the pup that I found in the middle of a major road a week and a half ago is legally ours. I just wanted to post a picture of her. We are calling her Lily.

I dropped off the kids at daycare around 8AM. Henry's class was coming inside and Miss R's class was going outside. Henry joined Miss R's class so that he could use the slide about five times before I caught him (he kept giving me the slip) and took him to join his class in their classroom. We need to do a better job getting out the door so that Henry can have his early morning exercise too.

I've been working on book and home stuff today. One of my co-authors met with our editor at a conference this morning. He's reading the first draft now and will have comments to us next week. We then have until October 1 to finalize everything. Publication is set for March.

The weather looks great outside. Jeff has headed out the door to play golf with Steve. The grandparents want to pick up the kids at school. I have the house to myself (and two dogs, three cats, and probably some hidden scorpions).

OK. Back to work.

Emotional Days

On Wednesday, Grammy and Poppy wanted to pick up the kids in the afternoon. I teach in the afternoons, so it was a good time for Henry and Miss R to spend with them. They went swimming.

When they got home, I asked Miss R what she did that day. She said, "Grammy's house." I was pleased b/c I think that's the first time that she's answered a question for me unrelated to food, teeth, or bed and where the answer to the question wasn't "no."

Henry was fussying about wanting more food when he came home, although my understanding is that he had a decent sized dinner. We agreed to give him a snack if he took his gummi vitamin bear first (tastes just like the candy). That resulted in a major melt down b/c he refused to try gummi bears. Why is a mystery. Miss R, on the other hand, loves them so much that she gets mad when we only give her two (the recommended daily allowance). We have added gummi "fiber bears" to her menu, but she's only allowed one bear at a time (3 times per day). Long story short, the kids went to bed grumpy.

Both Jeff and I stayed up late. Jeff worked on a project until 3AM. I got caught up on paying our bills.

On Thursday morning, I dropped the kids at school around 8:30AM. Miss Josie told me that Miss R had a strange, emotional moment yesterday. She was playing near the window by herself. Seemed to be fine. And then all of a sudden, she got a very sad look on her face and started crying. No other kids were near her, so it wasn't as though someone took a toy from her or something.

I've felt that Miss R has been very emotional this month. After bio visits, she expects me to hold her for an hour or two. I'm good with that within certain boundaries. For her, sitting next to me won't do. She practically climbs on top of me. Freaks out if I put her down to go to the kitchen to get her a bottle. That's where the situation becomes problematic. It probably hasn't helped that I've been working so hard the last couple weeks. Preparing classes. Finishing up book chapters. Now that most of that work is done, I'll be able to get back to normal. I mean, I've certainly spent time with the kids but not as much as usual. Jeff has tending to their needs the past couple weekend. Taking them places. And they've been having a good time. Miss R just seems a bit needy and possessive of me when she sees me. I love how excited she gets when she sees me; I just wish we had a little more balance and she didn't get upset if I choose not to hold her every moment. Tonight, she was in a state. I was holding her. She wanted my tea. I tried to give her the tea. She rejected it. She wanted her juice. I gave her the juice. She threw it but then wanted it. So irrational! And then she'd cry. I don't know what's up.

My parents offered to take the kids in the afternoon, but we wanted them. The plan was to pick them up and take them to Toys R Us. Henry has a gift card from his aunt and cousins that he hasn't used yet. Long story short, my cough returned (again) this afternoon. I took my cough medicine but had a really bad reaction to it. Majorly tired and dizzy. And I can't keep anything down. I assume that it is the cough medicine anyway. When it was time to get the kids, Jeff looked at me and said that I looked really pale. So he picked up the kids.

They went to the car wash, which the kids found scary at first but then interesting. When it was done, Henry wanted to do it again. They came home and we played in the living room. I bought some alphabet flashcards awhile ago. We've only used them a couple times for a few minutes here and there. Henry likes holding the cards, throwing the cards, and identifying the objects in the pictures. We haven't discussed letters yet. Miss R got into the act as well (from my lap of course). She did a good job identifying objects. Jeff and Henry played on couch mountain.

They had a good dinner. Henry really wanted babyfood greenbeans. We had some in the pantry and let him have them. He had two tubs (as well as other things). Perplexing. Babyfood greenbeans: YES! Gummi bear vitamins: NO! I made the mistake of having some soup. It didn't go over well.

We played in the living room again. The kids had a bath. And then bed.

Grammy and Poppy want the kids tomorow afternoon. Jeff playing golf with our friend Steve. I'll be staying home, finishing up what I didn't accomplish today b/c of that awful cough syrup.

The Thinker

On Tuesday, I picked up Henry around 4:30PM. Grammy had volunteered to get him, but I was craving some time with him. I decided to go a little later than usual so that he'd have time on the playground. His class gets to go outside from 4-4:30PM. Miss Diana said that he'd had a good day. My impression is that she has been the major force behind getting Henry to go potty, which he does very well for her. One of his favorite things outside is a water fountain that's just his height. He enjoyed letting the water run over his mouth.

When we got to the car, Henry announced that he wanted to go to "Borders!" I'd been planning to take him to Monkey Business. But I gave him the options: Borders, Barnes & Noble, or Monkey Business. He decided to go to Monkey Business.

We got our tokens once there. Henry looked at me and said "Money!" I gave him a coin. He first wanted to put it on the Space Shuttle, but it was broken. I then put him on the horse, but it was broken as well. So he ended up putting it in a game designed to win tickets. He must have the touch b/c he won 100 tickets. We played skee ball and a game very similar to skee ball. Henry would walk up the alley and put the balls in the gutter. We didn't getting very many tickets that way, but he had a good time. We played basketball. My goal was to make the basket. Henry's goal was to get the ball to stay inside the gaming area. Henry enjoyed his Sponge Bob driving game.

For dinner, I read him his options from the kid's meals. He decided on mini corn dogs and french fries. While at the order counter, the cashier said, "Your son looks like he's a thinker." I guess that she'd been watching him and observed how calm and focused he seemed to be for his age. I couldn't disagree. He enjoyed his dinner and ate A LOT of french fries. He had maybe four bites of hot dog.

I was tempted to play more games with him, but I had forgotten the diaper bag. So we went to the toy counter on our way out. Henry wanted a wooden toy train. He actually already has one, but it is one of the sturdier trinkets that they have there. We used our 174 tickets for the purchase.

As we went to the car, Henry said that he wanted to go to the "mall." I said, "Don't you want to see Daddy?" He said, "No. Mall first." I didn't know that he understood the concept of "first," but he used it appropriately in context. I promised him that we'd take a trip to the mall this week.

It was really nice spending some one-on-one time with Henry. In general, we spend a lot of time with the kids. We are hands-on at home. We don't leave the kids unattended. One of us is just about always engaged with them. Jeff's taken that on especially this last month when I've been finalizing things for the book (all pieces of first draft soon to be delivered to the editor). We love having two of them. But it is nice to spend that quality time with just one. I had been getting that quality time with my girl since Miss R's bio visits switched to the late afternoon/early evening a couple weeks ago. She comes home around 6:30PM. Jeff would go to get Henry at the grandparents' house, leaving me and Miss R with good some one-on-one sessions. I missed out on that tonight, but I was really glad to do something special with just the Doodle Bug.

"This isn't Barnes and Noble!"

It's difficult to remember what happened over the last few days. I guess it is because things have been fairly ordinary, if there is such a thing. I'm not complaining.

On Friday afternoon the kids went to their grandparents' house. They went to Borders where Henry declared, "This isn't Barnes and Noble!" They had a great time in the children's section and were given several new books and toys by their grandparents.

Saturday I took the kids to Costco to go shopping with their Grandparents. They sampled their way around the store. Henry insisted on going through the refrigerated fruit room several times. Miss R managed to drop and break a syrup bottle. Note to self, don't let toddlers play with syrup bottles. Grandma bought Miss R a very cute winter vest. The kids went home with their grandparents. Grandma recently replaced their VHS collection of children's classics with DVDs and they have been enjoying the increased clarity. I picked them up around 4:30pm.

Sunday I played with the kids at home until just after lunch. Then we headed to their grandparents', falling asleep on the way over. They didn't go swimming as it was too hot and there was thunder and lightning in the area. It was hot enough that someone passed out at the driving range while I was there just before picking up the kids around 5:30pm. Kate watched the kids while I walked the dogs. On the walk I saw one rattlesnake (I haven't seen many at all this year) and two deer who went bounding across the road a short distance in front of us.

Kate was finishing up a chapter of her book that was due on Sunday so Grandma and Grandpa took care of the kids much of the week and weekend.

Yesterday Kate was teaching so I got to have the kids to myself. Henry didn't want to leave daycare again. He wanted to outside and play. He had received a sticker for being good and sitting down in his chair and he was very pleased with it. We played around a little at home then had dinner before heading out to walk the dogs. Our neighbor Yvonne had a present for Lily, a stuffed chew toy. She also had some Spongebob and Patrick stickers for the kids. I let Lily off the leash for the first time and she did very well. She wore Roger out. I thought he might not make it back home.

Last night was not a good night. At about 3am the kids decided to start taking turns waking up every 15 minutes. I ended up on the floor of their room because I was tired of going back and forth to bed. Of course by morning they didn't want to wake up.

It was a parental visitation day for Miss R today, so she was returned home around 6:30pm. Kate picked up Henry from daycare and took him out to Monkey Business, his favorite restaurant. I'll let her share the details of that adventure.

Miss R and I took the dogs for a walk. Again I let Lily off the leash and she did well. We ran into our neighbor who has 2 dogs, one of which loves to play. Lily, Roger and Annie all had a great time. Thankfully Lily is faster and more nimble than the others who all look like great brutes in comparison. Miss R watched from the comfort of her chauffeured wagon.

When we returned home Kate and Henry were home. Kate put on Mary Poppins and it seems like it was a big hit. Miss R danced to the music and Henry marched around with one of Poppy's old hats on, a shirt, a diaper, two socks and one shoe. He has his own sense of style.