Quiet

Margaret was reading a book after 4.30 this afternoon.  When she was done, she told me she had a headache, so I told her to go to bed and brought her a snack.  She's been in bed since.
As Jack laid down to go to sleep, he told me; "I don't like it when Margaret is sick."  I asked why and he responded that it was strange, but that it's "too quiet".  Ah, that gentle spirit that peeks through sometimes!  He gets so irritated with so much that Margaret does, but when it comes right down to it, he misses that which annoys him.

Tigers

Delta's nose

Delta poked her nose in some other dog's territory today, while on a walk with Jack.

Honesty, poor Jack was more traumatized than poor Delta!

Happy Jack and Dirty Maggie Mae

1-hr photo

In the car passing Walgreens today, Jack asks

"Who would want just a one-hour photo?"

Nerf Football Suggestions?

First Grade Spelling Woes

Margaret this evening:

"I need to spell Minnessippi! M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i."

lol

take away 10

"How cold is it?" asked Margaret.

"Minus ten", I replied.

Later I heard her answer the same question.

Absurd

"Teenagers can be absurd." - Jack

2nd lost tooth

Margaret lost her first tooth a little while ago.  She and Jack were [typically] not getting along after dinner, and Jack was heading towards the kitchen to tattle on her (usually, it's her tattling on him).  She held on to him as he passed, and subsequently fell out of her chair.  The tooth came out with the fall. So,

The other night at dinner, she was making noises about the difficulty of eating pizza with her second loose tooth.  I asked her if she wanted to pull the tooth out and then finish dinner.  She whined and then asked; "But do I have to bonk my head on the floor again to make it come out?"

Sometimes, she is sensitive, sometimes she is resilient.  This turned out to be one of the sensitive times as all those present at the table chuckled at her reasoning.

The tooth did come out when daddy was brushing her teeth at night.  It was momentous, so she had to tell everyone, then take the tooth to school.

random pictures of reading

burning

Burning brush and junk mail on a nice Sunday afternoon. The kiddos were helping safely. Jack was using some rediculous gardening gloves. He grabbed a pine branch and a needle poked through and got him. He then said "OUCH!, that branch was sinister."

random picture

successfully captured the positive spirit of the morning in this picture. Twas a good start of the day.

Flu? 2014

Oh no, it's hit.  Leesha hurts, has a sore throat a cough and a fever.  Ugh.

We were planning to all attend Jack's last fencing class, meeting all 5 grandparents at 6pm.  When I informed Jack that his big sister wouldn't be there because she's not feeling good, he crumbled.  Poor kid.  When he learned his little sister would also not be going (mostly because she's been whiney, and may have a little fever, so I just wanted her to go to bed early), his heart went out to her.  He came to me saying something along the lines of ...
"I feel bad for Maggie.  She's the only one my age.  Dad's usually at work, you're usually busy in the kitchen, Leesha is usually not feeling good or in her room, but Maggie wants to play with me."

This little guy, sometimes he just hits it right on the nose and makes my heart melt a little more.

Of course, this was after he drove me batty on the walk home from school by sloshing through the decomposing leaves along the side of the road, kicking them at his sister and then proceeding to insist on playing outside in the mud with the jacket and gloves I just washed yesterday ....

I know I will miss this someday - my teenager needing me because she doesn't feel good, my son being messy and my "baby" actually being snuggly because she too isn't feeling well.

Jack Fencing

stella-cope

"What is it called?"

She knows she's saying it wrong.

"You know the thing with the three sticks?"

Oh For Crying Out Loud!

...said Jack tonight about something. Such a grown-up phrase that Cara and I immediately started laughing.

"Mom, why are you laughing at Dad?" he said next!




He had to have heard that from his Grandpa Steve. No one else uses that term anymore.

Midnight Marksman

Jack sleeps so deeply that he is unable to wake up and go to the bathroom. The was resulting in chronic wet beds. To avoid this, we fell into a routine of waking Jack up about two hours after bedtime to void. And then again before the last parent's bedtime, which usually ended up another two hours later.

One night we were watching something downstairs when we heard him get up. This usually meant one of us needed to race up stairs and assist in aiming before the entirety of the target was hit. But this night Jack was no where to be found. The bathroom was empty. His and Maggie's room was empty. Moments later we found him in our room, in the closet, and a variety of my laundry was no longer clean! The little guy was sorely confused. Poor Jack has no recall of the events.

The interesting pattern developed for most nights. It was like this: in the first round, Jack was greatly incoherent. He was able to kind of assist in moving his body from bed to bathroom, but you'd have to guide him by the shoulders and definitely aim for him. The second round was completely different. He would almost spring out of bed and shuffle his way to the bathroom with no assistance. You'd have to double time to make sure you were on spot to aim before he fired! Sometimes in second round, Jack was even conversational.

Tonight's Midnight Marksman went like this. Cara and I made the rounds (which mean we peeked in on them and kissed their heads). This stirred Jack. Next thing we know, he is standing on his bed, gathering up his blankets and walks West, right off his bed! and say "Ow!" from under this pile of blankets.

After we help him recover he continues into the bathroom, where I catch up to make double sure we are on target. But instead Jack appears to be trying to climb into the tub. I stop him and sort him out. He pees for quite a while. We finish up and shake it off and he heads back. Gets a hug from Mom and then turns around towards me. I give him a hug, but receive none back. It dawns on me that he isn't attempting to hug, but rather I have blocked his attempt at leaving his room for who knows where! After I let him go he turns to his right and takes one step right into his door! Cara almost totally failed at containing her laugh at that point. Poor little fella, just crawled up on his bed and curled up into a ball, giving up entirely.

In the end, mission accomplished with no mess, nor miss.