Weekly Review August 1 '09

This week went by fast. Sunday Scott and Frank went home teaching. I got Seth down for a nap, got rolls going in the breadmaker, and decided to take a short nap while they mixed. Two hours later…! I was very surprised that I slept that long! I expected Frank & Scott to get home around 3:15 to wake me up, but they didn’t get home until 4:30. (The husband of the second family they visited was leaving for Japan this Thursday and he will be gone for 2 years—so they were talking for a long time. He’s in the military.) Needless to say, dinner was late. On an impulse, we invited the Becks over for dinner—they came and we had a great time.

Monday morning Tanner and Seth had doctor appointments. Tanner’s was a follow up on his medicine / stomach problems, and Seth’s was his 2 year old check up. Tanner hasn’t been taking his medicine much and we kept forgetting to keep a record of what he’s been eating, so there wasn’t a lot to “follow up” on. I actually had intended to postpone his appointment, but I kept forgetting to call and do it. The doctor had some good advice about getting him back on a more regular schedule before school starts, though, so it wasn’t a total bust. We also found out he’s grown ¼” since he was there a month ago! Seth is 37” tall and he weighs 33 pounds. He’s in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. His doctor and the nurse both commented that they can’t believe it’s been 2 years already. It’s funny to hear them say that—we’ve never stayed anywhere long enough for any of my other kids to stay with the same doctor from birth to 2 years! Seth is healthy and doing great. He really enjoyed the 3 lollipops he got!

I had book chat on Tuesday. We discussed The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which I finished reading a long time ago. I was surprised that most people didn’t like the book; I enjoyed it. I made a few unenthusiastic comments about The Zookeeper’s Wife, the book we had planned to read next, so they decided to read something else! We are going to read Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver instead. We all really liked The Poisonwood Bible, which she also wrote. I started The Two Towers last week and I’m liking it, but I haven’t had much time to read the last few weeks.

The stake Primary president came to see me on Wednesday afternoon. She brought me a binder full of stuff—a lot of it I already have, so I’ll be tossing out some duplicates. I saw a lot of really useful things in there also, though. It was nice to meet with her. None of the boys had scout activities Wednesday night. Frank and I ended up going on a dinner date. I’d planned to make macaroni & cheese (the boxed kind) for dinner—the boys wanted it—but it didn’t sound very appealing to either Frank or I, so I said “Let’s go out!” and Frank agreed. We enjoyed the time together, and the food (Olive Garden) was, of course, far superior to mac & cheese!

I was awakened at 5:15 on Thursday by the sound of rummaging under my bed. Guess who forgot to shut the door to Snickers’s crate the night before? I gave him a treat (he found the puppy pad and used it before coming upstairs), put him back in his crate, and went back to bed. But I didn’t go back to sleep, so I got an early start that day. My friend Marci invited me over to go swimming. Actually, she invited all of us, but the older boys had all been invited to go to Cunningham Falls with our neighbor Joey again, so just Seth and I went to Marci’s. Actually, Tanner woke up not feeling well, so he stayed home, and Snickers came with us to Marci’s also. Seth liked the pool although he enjoyed climbing up and down the ladder more than actually swimming! I loved having the time to get caught up with Marci. Snickers had fun romping and getting re-aquainted with his “mom & dad”. All three of the dogs tried the pool, too! Snickers had never been in deep water before, but like all dogs he just instinctively swam when we put him in the water. (That’s why they call it “doggie paddling” I guess.) He didn’t like it much, though—swam immediately to the side of the pool! We had a great time, but got home late (near dinner time). Seth fell asleep on the way home, of course. I didn’t relax all day, though—I did a bunch of weeding in the front flower beds that morning and got a lot accomplished. Tanner reported that he had thrown up while I was gone, but he was able to eat a little that evening and didn’t have any trouble after that. Scott and Jared arrived home the same time I did. They had fun, but neither of them put on sunscreen (in spite of my admonitions) so they have both been pretty red and sore; Scott especially. Crazy kids! Maybe someday they will learn to listen to me!

The boys and I had dentist appointments Friday morning. Only Scott has a cavity, and it’s a small one. He was the last one to be checked, though, so I was starting to hope we were going to make it through that visit cavity free! Oh, well—it could have been much worse, of course. (Frank still needs to get 2 crowns done.) After we got back from the dentist, Scott and Tanner only had a little bit of time before they needed to get ready to go to the church—they were meeting there to go on a temple baptism trip. They got home later than I expected (about 8:30) but they really enjoyed it. That was Tanner’s first temple trip. Meanwhile, Frank was home part of the day doing work from here and gone most of the afternoon working at a location here in Frederick, but after dinner he had to go back to help install a phone system. They ran into lots of problems, so he didn’t get home until after midnight. I waited up for him until about 11:30—why did I do that?! I was forgetting I have a 2 year old who is usually up around 6:00.

There’s not a lot to say about today—for once, we weren’t insanely busy! In the morning, Tanner mowed the lawn and all the boys exercised and did scout stuff. In the afternoon the older boys went to play with their friend Joey; Frank and I took Seth to Costco for some shopping and (of course!) frozen yogurt. Then Frank went in to work for about an hour while I tried to take a nap (Seth was napping, also.) I’ve had a bad headache since last night, but thankfully it seems to be going away this evening.

Frank was really busy with work all week, actually; I don’t feel like I saw him much. We have continued to have hotter, more humid weather, as well as some rain—Wednesday it rained off and on all day. Friday we had torrential rain for a while, and apparently there was a tornado nearby. Scott & Tanner said the rain hit down south right after they walked into the lobby at the temple—nice that they didn’t get soaked on the way in (although I guess they did get soaked inside)!

Seth is still keeping me busy cleaning up messes, although I think he did a little better this week. He has learned most of his colors now—he usually gets red, blue, orange, green, and white correct. I think he knows yellow also, but it’s harder to say, so he usually says “blue” instead. He loves books so we read a lot. In one book, we were looking at a picture of a bakery window with two cakes in it—one had a candle in the middle and the other didn’t. He called the one with the candle a “birthday cake” and the one without “the other cake.” He is getting into the stubborn “I want to do it myself” stage. He won’t let me help brush his teeth, which probably isn’t so good for his dental health. He is also in a stage where he doesn’t want anyone to do anything for him but me, which can be exhausting. Frank tried to change his diaper today, and Seth said “No! Mommy’s turn!” Yeah, Mommy gets a lot of those turns.

Next week at this time we will be in Boston, so I’m not sure I’ll get a weekly review posted. We’ve been getting ideas for what we might want to do while we are there—there’s enough to do around there to keep us busy for months! Of course, we are excited to see Hans and Griffin! That will be the best part of our trip.

Sorry, no photos this week! Hopefully next time we'll have lots of good photos of our Boston trip, though.