August 7

Today was just... a day in the life, I guess." Hey Mom! Check out my egg!"
We thought it would be fun to build a catapult. Well, actually, Trev went looking for the drill, as he had the urge to vvvvvvvvvv! something. I thought of a catapult, as he was launching things. What it actually was (grin) was a log with a board over it, but it produced (pre screws) a couple hours of fun of balancing and launching things -things that would not break anything, such as pinecones.

Of course Maddie had to be included (the drill did not have the battery attached at this time, as you can see, for your worriers).

When our catapult/see-saw didn't work out so hot we turned it into an Oh So High balance beam. The children enjoyed that for a long time. Especially Maddie. "Yay, Uhn did it!" She'd shout proudly. Every single time. After a while (ten trips or so) her reliance on my arm for balance got less and less. It's funny how both of my children are so adventurous... to another it seems as though impending doom is imminent (such as Grammy visiting today and near swooning when Trev hung upside down from the top of the swingset), but really they're so cautious until they trust themselves, and when they finally do, they just live adventurously. They've not been taught "NO, you'll fall!", but to trust themselves. And they do.
Trev wanted a story tonight, my darling sister sent a bucketful of books back with Grammy from Maine, and we sat down to read "A Drop Around The World".

After enjoying that story we started on Dinotopia.

When we came across the dinosaur that the man described as a "hog-parrot", I said something like "he thinks it looks like a hog parrot!" and Trev said "Wait, Mom!, it's in one of my books..." and he dashed off.

He came back a few seconds later (goodness knows how he found the book in All That Mess) and said "I know it's here somewhere...." while flipping through pages...

At first I thought "there are only 27 dinosaur books in this house - if not more - he could have the wrong one." Psh. I really do know better.

"Here it is! It's this one!"

Sure enough, a baby funky-looking protoceratops.

So we had stories and a snuggle while Maddie took a midnight (well, it was 8pm and she hadn't been down very long) nap.

But not to fear... it's 11:22 and she's fast asleep. Bless her.

Everyone's fast asleep but me.

So... goodnight.