We have had a pretty calm summer so far. This is the first summer I've had that I thought staying home with the children is just as hard as teaching school during the year. Prior to this summer, I've always considered the summertime as a break for me. It's not that Birdie herself is a particular challenge, but just that there are four children who can all be challenges in their own ways from time to time.
The twins have been taking swimming lessons, which gives us something to do each day, but sometimes wipes me out for the rest of the day. Jimmy is teaching summer school Mon.-Thurs., and his absence around the house sometimes leaves me feeling wiped out. Sometimes the energy level needed and my own current energy level are so drastically different that I'm left feeling unmotivated and ready to turn on PBS Kids for awhile.
Today Lou Lou and I went to see the new American Girl movie. This was the first movie we have been to see since Curious George was on the bigscreen. It was a great movie, and we had fun together. I had to whisper to her throughout to explain what "foreclosure" meant, which was the real crook, and how Kit figured it out. She knows how I am with movies, and kept asking me, "Are you crying?". She is a very sensitive child, but doesn't cry at movies (not yet anyway). However, once when she was three, she did cry during a movie. We borrowed Dumbo from the public library. When we got to the part where Dumbo was separated from his mother through the jail cell bars, I looked over at Lou Lou and her eyes were filled with water. I asked her if she wanted to stop watching it and she said yes. When I got the video out of the VCR, she grabbed it and said very seriously to me, "I want you to throw this tape in the trashcan." She felt so strongly about this movie that she never wanted to see it again. Lou Lou craves time alone with me, but I've figured out that sometimes the more she gets, the more she wants. I try to sneak in some quiet time for us as often as possible during each day.
Bear had a Perfect Attendance certificate for Logan's so we took Birdie along with us. He enjoyed our time together I think. Time alone with Bear involves answering lots and lots of questions about all kinds of things, which is fine but sometimes a bit exhausting. I try to keep my "answering" endurance up. Here is a sampling of tonight's questions...How big is a tarantula? Is a tarantula as big as a dinner plate (an idea from a book we read)? Which plate is a dinner plate? Do spiders only live in bushes and plants? Is that man drinking beer or root beer? How do you make beer? How do you make honey mustard? Can Birdie eat peanuts yet? Are there people in this world who don't believe in God? Why don't they believe in God? The questions and conversation continued, following no particular path except the trail he was following in his head, bouncing from one idea to the next. When we got home, the rest of our crew had taken off to get something "different" to eat. Lou Lou had said that she was tired of eating the same old mess. Since everyone else was gone, Bear, Birdie, and I went on a walk. Birdie rode in the double jogging stroller while Bear rode along on his bike. It was a good night with the Brother Bear!
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