4 Miles

Monday night, James called me at 6:10 and said his boss had tickets to the Pacer’s game, would we like to go? (Games starts at 7. We’re about 25 minutes away from the game.) We thought it’d be fun to take Will to his first basket ball game (and hey, they were free tickets, why not?!?).  Forget bed times!  We can be more strict with those once we have school to get up for! We loaded up the kids, and drove downtown. 

We would have made better time, but yesterday was the day (in Indy at least) we had the large rally for immigration reform. Downtown. During the dinner hour. An estimated 20,000 people were heading home as we were heading down there.  So that made us get there a little later. Will kept asking “Where’s the basketball game?  Where’s the game? Basketball–they run and turn around!”

We had a fun time watching the Pacers beat the NY Knicks.  Both Will and Alex seemed to enjoy the game.

Will has a poop issue. (Those are not the wise words.) I’ll just say he tends to hold it in.  This leads to him whining, saying “It hurts!”  I told him today, “Will, it hurts because you need to poop. The only thing that will make it feel better is when you go poop.”

Will said, “No Mommy, Jesus can make it feel better!”

James had to mow the lawn today. We now know it is spring!

Other random things…Will’s new favorite book is (in his words) “He Still Hungry Patapiller”. He likes for us to take turns reading it. I read it, then he “reads” it back.

We are taking the first steps for our first big change in our house. We are going to knock out the windows in the dining room and put in a double door, and (later this summer) put in a patio or deck.  We got the door Friday night, and “our guy” is picking it up tomorrow. Next step will be to schedule time (when it’s a bit warmer) to cut out that part of the wall and put the door in.  It will be nice to not have to go through the garage to get outside. AND, when we have the deck/patio in, it’ll be nice to be able to put sit outside in a lawn chair without it sinking in the mud.  (Our yard is a bit muddy after all the rains in the last two weeks.)  We’ll have you over for a cook out when it’s done!

We were making cookies yesterday.  Will assumed we were making them for a Birthday. First, he asked if it was for Daddy’s birthday (since we celebrated it two times in March, that is fresh on the brain). Then he asked if they were for Uncle Doug (who was coming over for the evening).

I said, “No, Uncle Doug’s birthday is in August, close to your birthday.�

“My birthday is in the closet?� (Kid needs his ears cleaned out!)
 

On Saturday, when we were going to the airport to pick up James, we saw an airplane coming in to land fly right over us. Will said “LOOK!!! It’s Daddy!�

This makes me feel better about not having the cleanest house:

From www.bloggingbaby.com “An article on CNN.com reports that germs that many parents disinfect might help build children’s immunity and fight allergies and asthma later. Some experts are beginning to believe that too much cleanliness might be a contributing factor to the increase of allergies in the past 15 years and studies of of babies in households with pets or in day care have found that they have fewer allergies later.

Some parents like Michelle and Mark Sukenik let their 14 month-old daughter Madison crawl around the house, restaurants, doctor’s office and even eat food right off the floor. Madison didn’t get her first cold until she was 13 months old. Others like Kara Sherry wipe down the edges of shopping carts with antibacterial wipes and sanitize toothbrushes. Her kids are rarely sick.

I used to be a clean freak too when Sean and Will were little babies and they were sick all the time. But now that I don’t vacuum clean the house every day or iron my children’s clothes to kill germs and just stick to a consistent hand-washing routine, I notice that the boys are a lot less sick. Still, I could never let them eat something that had fallen on the floor.” 

And I have no problem with food on floor, playing in the mud, crawling on the floor, etc. Of course, I keep thinking “They’re boys, they’re supposed to be dirty!” And as far as the author said, vacuuming EVERY DAY?!?  Wow.

I mentioned my drive up to Marion. James went out of town for a conference for Thursday-Friday, and wasn’t going to get home until Saturday. After doing the single-parenting gig all weekend while the office moved (and he worked) I was up for some fun.  My ideas of what I wanted to do were a bit challenged when I realized I had two kids in toe. (I had memories of quick, spontaneous trips to Chicago made in the past. I really wanted to go up and see my friend Jill, who I haven’t seen in a year. But I knew that’d be real hard to do solo, with the boys. And not fair to her, when we would be there during the working week.)  I wrote my friend Krisha to see if she was going to be around for a day visit.  She offered to let me spend the night and stay TWO days! And that was nice, since we didn’t even get up there until after lunch on Thursday.  We were blessed with WONDERFUL weather, so we too the kids to the playground. 

After that, we had dinner and just crashed after the kids went to bed.  We were hoping to get lots of scrapbooking done, but we just were not up to it.  The next day the kids had fun playing, and I enjoyed having someone else to hold Alex. We scrapbooked a bit after lunch, then took the kids out to play again.  Suddenly, before I realized it, it was time for us to head home. I felt bad we didn’t make plans to see any other friends up there. The time just went so fast, and with the two boys, it gets trickier. But, it’s a good excuse to go back up there!

The hard part was driving there and back with Alex, who does not like his car seat. I tried to time it during nap times, but that didn’t really help. Coming home, he fell asleep right as we left Marion. Will feel asleep just south of Marion.  I stopped in Elwood for gas, and Alex woke up and screamed the rest of the way home (45 minute or so). All I could do was pray for patience, which God did provide me with.  The trip up there had bouts of screaming as well.  I’m wondering how wise a drive up to Chicago for Easter will be, especially since we planned on leaving Friday afternoon, after work.  Alex is most awake in the evening.

    Wednesday, March 22                  Friday, March 31