Tuesday
I got woken up early by Marshall, who wanted me to remove the tick from his bed. At first I didn’t think it was a tick, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Once I picked the thing up and had a good look at it, I was really unhappy to see those eight creepy legs. It was a dog tick. It was also a very dead tick, which was good, I guess.
How are so many of them getting inside, though? The indoor tick tally is now up to 6 (two live, four dead) for just the month of May. It’s troubling. I hope they all died without taking a bite out of any of us. The outdoor tick tally is only 2 (both nymphal deer ticks, the most dangerous kind). If we hadn’t been avoiding the yard, I bet the number would be much higher. In any event, it is already the tickiest year we’ve ever seen, and it’s still early.
My husband left me with the kids all day so that he could take care of some business. Livia insisted on accompanying me and Marshall to the bus stop. While we were waiting, the kids kept getting close to the grass on the side of the driveway and I kept yelling at them to get away. My full-blown tick paranoia says that no grass is safe grass. That is probably true, but I feel bad for trying to stop them from doing things that are perfectly normal.
There was a caterpillar hanging on a web string over the driveway. They asked me to get it, which I did. We put the caterpillar on a stick and Livia enjoyed carrying it around with her. I got some great pictures of her with it. She didn’t want to let it go. I found an old plastic container to put the caterpillar in (and a nice leaf for it). We kept it overnight and let it go the next morning.
After dinner we played in the tent. I wanted to rest a little, and the kids decided (all on their own) that I needed Crocky (my stuffed crocodile) and a couple of blankets. They fetched the things for me. Of course, once we were all in the tent, Livia stole Crocky for herself. 🙂
Lying in the tent was the most relaxing thing I had done all day, even with kids moving around like wormy squirmies (that’s a reference to a “Wild Kratts” episode that is currently Marshall’s favorite thing to watch). Then they hid their stuffed animals under their shirts. They enjoyed running into each other, impacting on their cushioned bellies like silly sumo wrestlers.
Later that evening the air was fresh and cool and there was a light rain. I let the kids dance barefoot in the rain, even after they got thoroughly soaked. They were just enjoying themselves so much. But it was bedtime, and eventually I had to yell at them to get them back into the house, which is too bad. Then they wanted a shower, so I let them take a shower in their bathroom. It took more yelling to get them out of the shower. Their behavior was so unruly that neither one of them got a book before bed. That’s life with kids, though: morning, yelling, fun, yelling, fun, yelling, bedtime.
Wednesday
I played my piano today. Marshall and I even spent some time making music together, he with the glockenspiel, me with the piano. We did homework at night instead of in the morning. We had a discussion about some words that can be spelled with the letters HEART (the subjects of our homework), and I drew a basic TREE on the back of the homework. Marshall surprised me by not only coloring the tree beautifully (as an apple tree) but by also drawing and coloring a bunch of other trees around it. What a lovely picture!
Thursday
I was reminded of a quote from Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking With Einstein.
Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it.
I was so thoroughly bored with my routine that I decided to take a long weekend, starting that afternoon. I had a dentist appointment. Afterward, instead of returning home to boredom, I went to Target. While browsing I heard a little kid, and I thought, “Wow, that sounds like my niece.” I looked up, and it was my niece. She was with my sister-in-law. Running into them, which was such an unlikely event (given that neither of us live in that town), increased my sense of novelty.
We strolled around the store together, chatting about this and that, until saying good-bye by the greeting cards, where I started my shopping in earnest. June will be a busy month for my family. We’ve got two anniversary parties, a birthday party, a bridal shower, and of course, Father’s Day coming up. It felt good to get all the cards taken care of. I also bought the kids some cheap bug containers and magic wands.
I stopped at the library on my way home. Most of the books I got were for work-related research, but I got a landscaping book and Tina Fey’s Bossypants for me. I also borrowed some movies, including Tron (because my husband mocked me for never having seen it), and Downton Abbey.
When I got home, I was happy to see that the wedding present I ordered on-line had arrived. But it was huge! I had ordered the shower gifts at the same time, which of course I wanted shipped to me. And I’m so used to bringing gifts with me to the wedding that it never even occurred to me to have it shipped to the happy couple directly. But I doubt the newlyweds would appreciate having to find room for the thing in their car at the end of their long wedding day, so I guess I’ll have to pack the thing back up and pay to ship it to them. Oops. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let the kids play with all the bubble wrap 🙂
And speaking of playing, Livia put her new magic wand to good use. She said, “Abra To-Dabra!” I was immediately transformed into a frog.
Ribbit!