N had the day off today. Huzzah! I woke up late and we ended up skipping any read aloud stuff. Instead, I gave the boys a bunch of bookwork while I fed and dressed the little kids. Then we went outside; there is dead wood scattered around our oak trees, and we were looking for the stuff that was low enough for N to cut it out. We also cut back some branches that were low enough to interfere when we mowed. Then N took down a dying cedar tree while I nervously hovered and kept the kids away from the fall zone.
We had a nice lunch outside and then N took the boys in to French; M went along with him. By this time, the house was a mess. I had tried to slice up a watermelon to go with lunch, but apparently it was not good, and exploded a little all over my counter when I cut into it. It was really gross and smelled terrible. Ugh. But before I could deal with that, A needed to be put down for a nap, and of course once he was asleep, I decided to write a rambly blog post that has been rattling around in the back of my mind. Turned out to be a good decision, though, because before long, R was saying "My tummy, my tummy," and then throwing up. If I had been off in the kitchen, no way would I have caught as much of it as I did. Of course, I might have been able to bring in a plastic container to catch it, instead of a folded receiving blanket. And since I hadn't yet cleaned up the kitchen, there was no empty sink to dump it in. Urgh. Life is so gross.
I managed to tuck R in on the armchair with a movie and get a couple of pans cleaned before A woke up, and then I had to sit with him for a while so he could wake up fully and move past the cranky-whiny-clingy phase of waking. I did eventually manage to clean up the kitchen, though. In spite of R following me around, clinging to my leg, and asking for a carry hug to the couch. So I would pick him up and carry him to the couch, and then go back to the kitchen. Five minutes later, he's back in the kitchen, asking to be carried to a different couch. By the time I managed to finish in the kitchen, he was pretty cranky, so I sat down beside him, and he fell asleep in a few minutes.
I put up another pole bean tent and planted some sorrel seeds -- I read recently that although they are a perennial, the quality declines after a few years so you should sow new ones. N spent some time helping M learn to ride her bike, and then we had dinner outside and a fire to try and work through some of the branches that fell last year. And our Christmas tree. We followed that up with some marshmallow roasting. M is a very talented marshmallow roaster. What D lacks in skill, he makes up for in quantity.
We saw some neat bugs today. I spotted a little bright green beetle thing with black wings. We saw something that looks like pictures I've seen of ladybug larvae, except almost all black and bigger than an adult ladybug. We saw a couple of little beetle things on our picnic table which looked like they were meant to blend in very well with bark, and of course a couple of spiders. Oh, and a lovely bright blue damselfly.
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