Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Catching Up
Last weekend was spent primarily at the pool. We’ve had a run of hot weather with temperatures getting into the 90s. Nora and I are still getting used to the idea of Pierce swimming without water wings, but he’s doing great. Anna absolutely loves to jump into the pool. She’s got different jumps (of course, they all look the same to me). She particularly likes it when we hold hands and jump in together.
We had some neighbors over for hamburgers and hotdogs on Saturday night. They’re new additions to the neighborhood and very nice. They have three children, the oldest two are close to Pierce and Anna’s ages and they play well together. Both their older boys are Star Wars fans, so there was a lot of singing of the movie’s theme song during dinner. We had dessert out on the patio (messy and delicious ice cream bars) then Pierce started catching fireflies with his bug net. The evening ended when all the kids were ready to drop from exhaustion.
Last night (Monday) was a pretty quiet evening. Sunday night Anna did not sleep well, she seemed to be having a lot of nightmares. Consequently, she fell asleep at dinner and was in bed before 7:00 pm. When she fell asleep she was wearing a Cinderella costume and pretty much refused to let me take it off her when putting her to bed. I ultimately let her fall into a deep sleep before Nora made another attempt.
Nora and I grabbed a couple of beers and read out on the patio while Pierce went on another mad bug hunt. I found a caterpillar in our vegetable garden and gave it to Pierce –he was extremely excited. We put him in a bug jar with some lettuce leaves and Pierce named him Harold. Pierce has a deep and abiding interest in caterpillars/butterflies and has decided he’d like to keep this one until it turns into a butterfly. We have several books on the subject and Nora and I thought we knew what we were committing to. This morning most of the lettuce had been eaten and the bug jar was filled with caterpillar poop –yuck, none of the books told us about caterpillar poop.
Pierce finished off the evening by catching fireflies with Nora. He’s the expert catcher, than Nora helps transfer the bugs from the net to the bug cage. The cage must have had upwards of 20 fireflies by the end of the evening. Before we went in Pierce released them back into the “wild” –mostly by tossing them into the air as if he were releasing carrier pigeons.
We’ve been having some problems with our dog, Josie. After a year of perfect behavior, she’s started peeing in the front rooms of the house. You can imagine how excited I am by the prospect. She’s been checked by the vet (who suspected a bladder infection) and has gone through two rounds of antibiotics, but the problem doesn’t appear to be getting appreciably better. Out of self-defense we’ve decided to start keeping her in a dog cage when we’re not home. Pierce and I went out to PetsMart after dinner last night to pick one out.
Nora and I (the two Stooges) somehow managed to assemble the thing. All I can say is you don’t get much dog cage for your money these days. Interestingly, PetsMart’s credit authorization process was not working when we went to checkout. In a desperate attempt to keep my business, they actually sold me the cage for the amount of cash I had in my pocket –appreciably less than it originally rang up for.
Since Pierce is out of school for the summer, Nora has modified her schedule. A few days a week she’s taking Pierce and Anna over to her parent’s house early then going straight to the gym for a workout. I’m so proud of her. She seems to be enjoying the workouts (she reads her favorite books while riding the stationary bike).
Our poor house is way overdue for an exterior painting. We haven’t had it painted since we bought it and the housing is suffering from wood rot and areas where the paint was touched up distinctly show as a different shade. After numerous estimates we finally decided on a painter. The company is so backed up we’re not scheduled to start until July –so we haven’t actually picked a color yet. The company offers a deal where they’ll paint the interior of your house for cost during the off-season. How can you beat that?
Pierce and Anna continue to grow like weeds. While their faces still look the same (to me anyway) it looks like they’ve been put on stretching machines. Interestingly, even as they grow and thin out they are retaining their little Buddha bellies.
Pierce has a loose tooth that he’s very proud of. He’ll show anyone, including strangers, how he can wiggle it. I expect he’ll be getting a visit from the Tooth Fairy any day now. Anna, who of course adores Pierce, insists that she has a loose tooth too.
Anna is absolutely fascinated with the idea of putting things in other things. She puts balls and beads in boxes, stuffed bears and bunnies in Barbie clothes, and paper dolls in anywhere they’ll fit. Paper dolls are big with her. She regularly carries around a Cinderella paper doll and she’s having Nora make her a “Frosty the Snowman” paper dolls frequently (she must have 3 or 4 of them by now).
Over the weekend Pierce asked that the Herbie costume I made him for Halloween be brought up from the basement. Several months ago I added functional wheels to it, so he can push it or climb into it and race it around. Anna was pretty jealous and was asking me to make one for her –unfortunately, a task a little larger than I want to take on. Ultimately I drew a large-scale picture of Herbie (which Anna colored yellow) that we taped to the front of a large toy car that Anna can climb in and drive. She was ecstatic and of course Pierce was jealous –could I build a steering wheel and horn into his Herbie?
-Eric (Dad)
We had some neighbors over for hamburgers and hotdogs on Saturday night. They’re new additions to the neighborhood and very nice. They have three children, the oldest two are close to Pierce and Anna’s ages and they play well together. Both their older boys are Star Wars fans, so there was a lot of singing of the movie’s theme song during dinner. We had dessert out on the patio (messy and delicious ice cream bars) then Pierce started catching fireflies with his bug net. The evening ended when all the kids were ready to drop from exhaustion.
Last night (Monday) was a pretty quiet evening. Sunday night Anna did not sleep well, she seemed to be having a lot of nightmares. Consequently, she fell asleep at dinner and was in bed before 7:00 pm. When she fell asleep she was wearing a Cinderella costume and pretty much refused to let me take it off her when putting her to bed. I ultimately let her fall into a deep sleep before Nora made another attempt.
Nora and I grabbed a couple of beers and read out on the patio while Pierce went on another mad bug hunt. I found a caterpillar in our vegetable garden and gave it to Pierce –he was extremely excited. We put him in a bug jar with some lettuce leaves and Pierce named him Harold. Pierce has a deep and abiding interest in caterpillars/butterflies and has decided he’d like to keep this one until it turns into a butterfly. We have several books on the subject and Nora and I thought we knew what we were committing to. This morning most of the lettuce had been eaten and the bug jar was filled with caterpillar poop –yuck, none of the books told us about caterpillar poop.
Pierce finished off the evening by catching fireflies with Nora. He’s the expert catcher, than Nora helps transfer the bugs from the net to the bug cage. The cage must have had upwards of 20 fireflies by the end of the evening. Before we went in Pierce released them back into the “wild” –mostly by tossing them into the air as if he were releasing carrier pigeons.
We’ve been having some problems with our dog, Josie. After a year of perfect behavior, she’s started peeing in the front rooms of the house. You can imagine how excited I am by the prospect. She’s been checked by the vet (who suspected a bladder infection) and has gone through two rounds of antibiotics, but the problem doesn’t appear to be getting appreciably better. Out of self-defense we’ve decided to start keeping her in a dog cage when we’re not home. Pierce and I went out to PetsMart after dinner last night to pick one out.
Nora and I (the two Stooges) somehow managed to assemble the thing. All I can say is you don’t get much dog cage for your money these days. Interestingly, PetsMart’s credit authorization process was not working when we went to checkout. In a desperate attempt to keep my business, they actually sold me the cage for the amount of cash I had in my pocket –appreciably less than it originally rang up for.
Since Pierce is out of school for the summer, Nora has modified her schedule. A few days a week she’s taking Pierce and Anna over to her parent’s house early then going straight to the gym for a workout. I’m so proud of her. She seems to be enjoying the workouts (she reads her favorite books while riding the stationary bike).
Our poor house is way overdue for an exterior painting. We haven’t had it painted since we bought it and the housing is suffering from wood rot and areas where the paint was touched up distinctly show as a different shade. After numerous estimates we finally decided on a painter. The company is so backed up we’re not scheduled to start until July –so we haven’t actually picked a color yet. The company offers a deal where they’ll paint the interior of your house for cost during the off-season. How can you beat that?
Pierce and Anna continue to grow like weeds. While their faces still look the same (to me anyway) it looks like they’ve been put on stretching machines. Interestingly, even as they grow and thin out they are retaining their little Buddha bellies.
Pierce has a loose tooth that he’s very proud of. He’ll show anyone, including strangers, how he can wiggle it. I expect he’ll be getting a visit from the Tooth Fairy any day now. Anna, who of course adores Pierce, insists that she has a loose tooth too.
Anna is absolutely fascinated with the idea of putting things in other things. She puts balls and beads in boxes, stuffed bears and bunnies in Barbie clothes, and paper dolls in anywhere they’ll fit. Paper dolls are big with her. She regularly carries around a Cinderella paper doll and she’s having Nora make her a “Frosty the Snowman” paper dolls frequently (she must have 3 or 4 of them by now).
Over the weekend Pierce asked that the Herbie costume I made him for Halloween be brought up from the basement. Several months ago I added functional wheels to it, so he can push it or climb into it and race it around. Anna was pretty jealous and was asking me to make one for her –unfortunately, a task a little larger than I want to take on. Ultimately I drew a large-scale picture of Herbie (which Anna colored yellow) that we taped to the front of a large toy car that Anna can climb in and drive. She was ecstatic and of course Pierce was jealous –could I build a steering wheel and horn into his Herbie?
-Eric (Dad)
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