This is just a funny picture of Grant. He doesn't have a big head, but it happened to get stuck earlier this week and being the good mom that I am, instead of extricating him, I took a picture. Oh, and our picture links work now so if you click to see stuff in our side bar, you can actually get right into the albums without signing in.
Anyway, I have got to do a better job of making a little note each day to remind me of what goes on during the week. My brain has become porous and the first thing that falls out is anything I’m supposed to remember, like that I need to buy toilet paper or that James has Cub Scouts, and most definitely whatever it is we did just five days ago.
But here we go again….
Sunday was stake conference, which I think I mentioned last week. Other than that, Grant lost his mind that night and could not/would not go to sleep! Screaming and crying and carrying on! I have no idea how people with colicky babies deal with that for months on end because I would for sure lose my mind.
Monday was James’s first day of rock climbing. I dropped him off and he waved, then didn’t look back. Kenny said when he went to pick him up that he was climbing like a pro and clearly excelled in the class. He asked me twice this week when he gets to go again, which is a pretty big deal for James because he never shows that kind of enthusiasm for extracurricular stuff so we were pretty excited about that. It also happened that it was the first night of homework.
Sigh.
Homework is not James’s favorite. After years of fighting and crying and pulling teeth to get it done, things started getting a little better last year. This year we started with a game plan where he can earn beans for good things he does academically and lose them for stuff that he doesn’t do as he should. The first night wasn’t a stellar start. No beans and he was up until 10:30 working. Well, no, that’s not the right way to say it. He stared at his homework and then wrote something down every few minutes. It was an hour’s worth of work. James’s special super power of warping and expanding time turned it into closer to four. The rest of the week improved until Thursday, when he actually earned two beans! The beans can be traded in for different bean value rewards. Ten beans can earn a “get ravioli for dinner instead of whatever we’re eating” or an hour staying up late on the weekend. 25 beans can earn a new Lego set or a trip with a friend to Chuck E. Cheese. We’ll see how it goes….
Tuesday, James had swimming. He’s now decided he really likes it. Grant sits in his stroller and watches. I was finishing a book called The Friday Night Knitting Club for our ward book club and I cried at the end. Like a big baby. Right there at the pool. I felt like an idiot. I was hoping anyone who noticed assumed the chlorine fumes were stinging my eyes.
After that, I went to our quarterly enrichment meeting. I made a huge gumbo on Monday (they’re better the second day, after they sit) and a creamy chicken chowder on Tuesday from a friend’s recipe. It was really yummy. I ate waaaay too much soup and paid the price on the scale the rest of the week. Sad. After enrichment I had my second weekly tennis class and it was fun. I didn’t look quite as dorky as last week so that’s definite improvement. Right?
Wednesday is the only day we don’t have eight thousand million things going on at night so we just hung out and took it easy. Well, not Kenny, because he had to work late from home. It’s pretty rare, luckily. Thursday was James’s early dismissal day at school, which is part of why homework finally got done. He had a grand time at swimming again. The rest of the evening was a pretty chill evening. Friday was craziness again. The morning started with the longest PTA meeting ever. EVER. Then, during the day, Grant and I ran errands at South Coast Plaza and Grant and I had a lovely lunch together at the Nordstrom Café. He slurped happily on his bottle and I enjoyed a panini. We had a Cub Scout field trip to Central Park after school, which the Cubs seemed to enjoy. We no sooner got home from that then it was time to turn around and head out to an Eagle court of honor for a young man in our ward. I had never been to one before, but it was pretty cool. Being the huge dork that I am, I cried during the Pledge of Allegiance. I am a patriotic fool. Even though I usually vote Democrat. It can work that way….
Saturday, James and Kenny went to a Cub Scout fun day to work on passing off skills and stuff. They cooked churros on an outdoor grill and James was so excited to give me mine when I got home. He had wrapped it carefully in a plastic glove to keep it warm for me. While they were gone, Grant and I went for a walk, then ran to Costco to do our part to support the economy. Kenny and James spent the afternoon getting the stair banister ready to reinstall. It’s been in the garage since his bachelor days but Grant’s new favorite trick this week is climbing the stairs and stairs over and over again. He expects to be cheered for every time he gets to the top of a landing and then he turns around and gives you a big, pleased, two-tooth grin when you clap. It’s hilarious. But we need the rail so his cuteness doesn’t go tumbling over the side on accident. That would not be so funny.
Saturday night was date night where Kenny and I started the evening by undoing the hard weight loss work we did all week in one fell swoop at the Lazy Dog Café. Oops. It’s the first time we’ve eaten out since the cruise because we’ve been trying so hard to eat right. I’m thinking we need to not go out to eat again for at least another month! We went to go see Ghost Town but it was pretty much sold out so we did a last minute change of plans and played miniature golf instead, which turned out to be totally fun. That was followed by a visit to Yo Yum Yum and then finally home to say good night to James and then watch Saturday Night Live.
Today we were back to a regular church schedule followed by a meeting about our ward’s Scouting fundraiser, then in the afternoon, a Cub Scout planning meeting, and then finally! dinner at Skip and Joan’s where James insisted that he be in charge of Grant at the dinner table. It worked out pretty well and Grant gorged on fruit. And now our boys are sleeping and Kenny and I are watching the Emmys, trying to rest up for another crazy week.