For Nate, it’s Go Fish. He loves it so much that he has started saying “Nope, Go Fish!” in response to every day questions. As in, “Nate, can you please bring me that book?” “Nope, go fish!” Also, even when we don’t have cards, the boys will play imaginary Go Fish, holding their hands up like they have the cards, asking each other for cards. We have a deck with letters, upper and lower case, so it goes “Nate, to do have an N for Narwhal?” “Nope, go fish! Alex, do you have a U for Umbrella Bird?” “Yes, here you go!” etc. They have all of the animals on the cards memorized, though the fake games also sometimes include “S for Seminoles” and “B for Bucs.”

But wait, there’s more. Between the rough week of separation last week and the colds the boys were fighting off, they had no desire to leave the house today. Instead, we played games. Guess Who? Chutes and Ladders. Go Fish. Concentration (the Leap Frog version). Wood Checkers. Tic Tac Toe. Good old fashioned Hang Man on a white board. Randomly spelling words on the Scrabble board. They just couldn’t get enough!

God, please help Mommy’s friend Miss Colleen. I don’t want her to die or be sick any more. I know that that is what happens in life sometimes. I hope you understand what I am trying to say. Please watch her more and more every day. Amen.

I was, you can imagine, just floored by his sensitivity and thoughtfulness. Then he turned to me and said “I really love you Mommy.”

They were great at the doctors’ office, though.  We had to wait half an hour, and every time the door opened, Nate would ask, “is it our turn?!?!”  We passed the time playing Rock-Paper-Scissor.  Alex kept trying to control the game:  Mommy, you play scissor, I promise I won’t do rock.  I refused, of course, and finally he got the hint, realized I would do paper in response to that, and did scissors himself.   Good job Alex!  They also drew admirable comments from all of the staff for their full cooperation on the scale.

Diagnosis?  Viral upper respiratory tract infections.  We got some Dicel (LOVE that stuff — yay for sudafed!) and some ointment for Nate’s nose.  Oh, and the boys were so excited to tell the doctor their new knock knock joke. Well, Nate got shy and couldn’t quite do it, so Alex did:

Alex:  Knock, knock.

Doc:  Who’s there?

Alex:  HIPAA.

Doc: HIPAA, who?

Alex:  I can’t tell you!

Oh, did she ever laugh! Funnier still was the ensuing conversation:

Doc: Where did you learn that joke?
Alex: Some other lawyers told Mommy and Mommy told me and Nate so we could tell Grandpa and Aunt Katie and Nani.

Hey, that was spot on!

Uncharacteristically but very necessarily, both boys took a long nap this afternoon. Afterward, we played Go Fish for a few rounds, ran some errands, grabbed dinner and got the boys hair cuts. All in all, a good day of recharging.

Tonight, was particularly bad, though there was a silver lining. Mike had a 5 pm hearing, and I didn’t know how I was going to tear away to pick up the kids. Luckily Mike understood my panic and quickly thought to arrange for our neighbors to do pick up (did I mention thank GOD we have neighbors whose two sons are in the same to programs as our sons, and that we like and get along with to boot?!?!?!). When he got home a little after 6:30, they ended up enjoying an impromptu dinner all together. That was the good part. The not so good part was that when the boys called me at 8:30 to say goodnight, Alex was a miserable, crying mess so bad that he couldn’t even talk to me. He was SO SAD that I was not home, yet again. It broke my heart. Nate, in the meantime, was pleasant enough on the phone, but acted out afterward by biting at Alex and generally making his bedtime miserable, so that Nate had to be separated from him and put in his own room for sleep.

I can’t wait for this craziness to be over. And there is no end in sight.

We had a lovely weekend with Olive the Otter. The picture to the right links to the group of five journal pages we made for Olive. I realized after the fact that we totally forgot the pictures of Olive at the library with us on Saturday (which were on Alex’s camera, and so poor quality). Oh well. Still, this little project gave Alex a lot of confidence this weekend to go in to this week of school as a Star Student. He has packed a picture of himself on his scooter as his show and tell picture, and Little Bunny Kung Fu as his show and tell object.

Alex kicked off football season this year by watching some ball with Daddy. Interestingly, he insisted on having his whiteboard on his lap, and this is what he drew.

Last weekend, despite Alex’s injury, we had a great time weeding and mowing together. In fact, Alex begged me to find him some garden gloves in his size, so during the week I found some dino gloves in toddler sizes, and this weekend we spent some more time weeding on the side of the house. The boys looked so cute that Mike ran in and grabbed the camera. I am glad he did!

It feels nice!

Before I taught him the word pedicure, Alex was calling this my “soap heel appointment.” This was totally their idea. They did it the other day for Mike, and I was told it was my turn tonight.

Now Alex is using his toy electric shaver to shave my legs. I can’t make this stuff up!

Dear Star Student,
Please take good care of Olive Otter over the weekend, and return him on Monday. [Him? I would have thought Olive to be a girl's name, but OK.] Have Mommy or Daddy help write about what you did with Olive while he was with you. You will get to share this with the class. Feel free to draw a picture or add a photo to show what you and Olive did together….Enjoy!

Love,
Mrs. E

Apparently, he gets to be the “Star Student” of the week, which means a few things.  First, he has to fill out a questionnaire about his likes, dislikes, etc., and gets to bring in some favorite pictures and an item for show and tell.  And second, we do the aforementioned journal entries for Olive the Otter.

 We had some neighbors over to join us for dinner, and the four boys had fun posing with Olive. We had originally been planning a pretty lame weekend at home catching up, but are now contemplating something more fun. After all, Phoebe included lots of pictures of her beach adventures.

In any event, I do hope that Alex’s excitement over being “Star Student” this week really inspires him to rise to the occasion! I’ll be sure to post our final journal entries!

* * *

For our family and friends outside of Florida, no worries — we have an escape route if Ike hits us hard, plenty of supplies if he hits us not too hard. I am expecting just outer bands. We’ll stay in touch!

Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Cow go.
Cow go Who?
Silly, cow go moo, not who!

What amazed me is that Nate came up with several variations on this joke, substituting various non-owls and their proper sounds for the punchline.

Chicken — cluck cluck cluck!
Pirate — ARggggggh!
Cat — Meow….

There were also Mommy and Daddy variations, and Alex:
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Alex go.
Alex go Who?
Silly, Alex no go who, Alex go blah blah blah blah blah.

Seriously, he said blah, blah, blah…. Alex was telling a lot of jokes too. We had such a fun drive!