It's been a quiet, but crazy week here. (More on the crazy later). Here's the quiet. We're still adjusting to life on a school schedule, so there wasn't much to take pictures of this week. It's quite a job getting 3 kids up and (mostly ready) to get out the door every morning before 9. We're car-pooling with John this year, so we have to be sure to be on time every morning. The good news is that all 4 parents are strategic parts of the car pool, so mama never has to make the afternoon pick up during naptime. We're still trying to perfect the morning plan, because mama eventually wants to get back to the gym and her classes start at 9:15, not leaving much room to make the school drop-offs and get me into the gym daycare before all the spinning bikes are taken.
During one of the 15 minute periods that I took a nap without having to be touched, mama and Juner worked on a project. They made a paper mache bowl out of Clemson colored tissue paper. (We had purple and orange paper because papa's college gave me a t-shirt that said "Class of 2031." Adorable!) It was a great project because it didn't take too long and Junie got to "paint" with the flour paste with no fear of staining anything.
You look awfully pleased with yourself, missy.
After catching sight of June's project, Henry decided to give it a shot too. Mama wanted to added about 10 more layers, so the bowl could be stronger and ended up doing the last 5 herself because Henry got bored. Here's his bowl.
And here's Henry mere fractions of a second after throwing it across the room when mama asked for a picture. Now mama doesn't advocate violence against children, but, ooooh, does she want to smack him when she sees this picture. It's been a rough week for those two. It was Henry's first full week of school, and 5 hours a day of work and loud play is a lot for a guy who has had a very quiet summer. It all escalated when mama took the three of us out for a walk/bike ride. When we got a mile from the house, Henry threw a fit to end all fits and the entire neighborhood now knows that Henry thinks everything mama does is wrong and that mama would have gladly left him on the side of the road if it wasn't her legal duty to make sure he didn't get run over by a car. It took a long time to get home and by that point Henry had lost his bike for a week and his favorite computer game for two days. Mama put him straight in bed and he tried every excuse in the book to get some sympathy. It ended when he screamed for 10 minutes that he was afraid and mama finally yelled back "The only thing you need to be afraid of is me coming up those stairs." Eventually, he calmed down and he and mama reached a quiet understanding about what behavior will get you locked in an attic and that asking for a picture at 3pm on a Friday afternoon is probably not going to turn out how you'd like it. Needless to say, mama has checked out the series of "Love and Logic" books at the library to reread.
I continue to be completely cute. GG and GG sent this outfit to me. It says "Mommy says I'm purr-fect" and has a kitty on the back. Thanks, GG and GG! I still want to be held, but about once a day, I let mama put me down in my swing or bouncy seat for about a half hour. She can stretch it out longer if June is running around in front of me.
I can still be lured to sleep by a car ride or a cozy walk in the sling, but when I'm awake, I am really alert and aware of what's going on around me. I've started following sounds and looking around for things. I really like the birds and mirror on my swing. My most alert times continue to be in the evening after the kids go to bed, between 8 and midnight. Because of that, mama didn't feel bad taking me out to eat with her mom's club last night. She did feel bad when it turned out to be a sort of rowdy bar, but the murder mystery dinner theater complete with Vegas show girl costumes and men in drag helped distract attention from me. We really got some bizarre looks when she stopped at the grocery store at 10:30 to pick up milk and fudge. The big night must have worn me out because I slept from midnight until 6:45, then went back to sleep until mama woke me up to go to school at 8:40.
