Manic Monday: Warm

I'm late today with my Manic Monday meme because I was out for a lot of the day enjoying the continued warm weather with my kids, but that's not what today's post is about. Yesterday, we did the smartest thing we could do when the temperature bypasses warm and jumps straight to summertime-hot: we went to the children's theater!

Gus has been showing a great deal of interest lately in plays, drama, the theater, and especially comedy. He had passed by a sign about a week ago for a production of Robin Hood and got very excited. So, a hot day is a good day to be in an air-conditioned auditorium, I always say!

This play was a little longer than the last production we went to see, but both kids did reasonably well. The only real 'incident' (if you can even call it that) was at the very end of the play. The cast exited the stage into the audience. As one character proceeded up the aisle, Gus shouted, "Take off that ridiculous costume!" He shouted a comment to another actor - something about wearing laundry detergent on his head. He was trying to be funny, not mean, but we had to have a talk about heckling and how he wouldn't like it if someone did that to him if he was doing a comedy show. Not sure if he really got it.

All in all, a good, cool day.

Happy Monday and hope you're not feeling too warm!

Hot Soccer

Yesterday I got to take Gus to his soccer game! It was awesome, in large part because we had an almost 90 degree day yesterday, so in the morning, the temperature was perfect for hanging out watching a game. I saw some of his teammates from the fall season and a couple of additions. And apparently there is now a special needs cheering squad! Way to go girls! They were too cute!

Gus had to take several water breaks, but he did very well during his field time. They did a drill that involved zig-zagging through some cones and then dribbling in the same pattern. I'm not sure I could have done it without hitting any. But he did it and later made 3 goals.

Gus taking a little break on the field.

In the afternoon, we thought we'd go for a hike up the Appalachian trail and then maybe spend some time at the playground. First, 90+ degrees is only good hiking weather during the actual summer (not this prank summer we're currently experiencing) after the trees have bloomed completely. We figured the trail is normally nice and shady. We're normally on the trail in July, not April. So the hike was quite short. We lasted longer at the nearby playground because the kids found some nice shady spots to hang out in. What did they care that we had to share a 2 foot by 8 inch patch of shade between the two of us?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the heat. If it decided to stay this warm through the end of the summer, I'd be a happy woman! Gus on the other hand...heat and the resulting eczema are not really his friends. He was up in the middle of the night, which I suspect was also related to the heat, but he insists he was doing research on Pokemon steel types. Makes perfect sense to do that kind of research at night - they might have melted in the intense daytime heat, right?

It was a lovely, laid back Saturday, and if I can get my act together, tomorrow I'll post about how we managed to beat the intense warm weather for Manic Monday!

Manic Monday: Plant

Prompt by Mo at Manic Monday

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Gus and I had gone to Lowe's to buy some gardening supplies. We planted an indoor garden of arugula, tomatoes, basil, parsley and some mixed flowers. It took a while for the tomato plant to sprout, but finally, we saw a little seedling about an inch long. I put in a wood stake for it. We were all very excited because we had started to think that we would have to start over. Well, someone got a little too excited.

Yesterday, I was upstairs putting away laundry when I heard Gus saying something like, "It will grow back," to MM. I felt a pang of panic go through me, but there was no screaming or crying, so I kept at my task. Less than a minute later, MM trudged up the stairs with something in her hand.

"Mommy?"

"Ugh," was the first thought my brain was able to form, followed by, "What now?"

"Well..."

Here is the "what now"

Inside the red circle is what remains of our tomato seedling. Gus plucked off the top half of it because he, "wanted to see if it would magically grow." Damn that Jack and the Beanstalk. One of these days I will learn to anticipate what my little Aspie's brain is going to come up with next. In the meantime, only supervised visits to the garden area.

We're hoping the plant is tough enough to recover. Gus still insists it will grow back. We'll see. I've given the plant some Reiki, and I think that will help. If anyone has tomato or gardening expertise, any advice would be greatly appreciated. To be continued...

Manic Monday: Wet

prompt by Mo of Manic Monday - check it out!

So yesterday, we (meaning I) started painting the downstairs. Gus had asked if he could help, which I was happy to oblige. So he got to put some of the primer on a small section of the wall. He wasn't all that pleased when he got some wet paint from the roller on his hands. The project went pretty well. Here's three colors: the old color on the left, white primer in the middle, and the new color on the right.


It took pretty much all day to do the dining area, even with MM's help (Gus gave up after the primer). So after all that work, I'm a little...territorial about the walls, especially since the rest of the downstairs isn't finished yet. I certainly don't want nicks in the walls one day later. So maybe I should have put up some 'wet paint' tape across the area or something. It probably wasn't a wise decision to let Gus over there, especially during a homework semi-meltdown. And possibly, the metal chairs with the sharp corners will have to go. Yup; nice little nick in the wall already.


The trim, by the way is chocolate brown, not black. It looks warmer in person. It even looks sort of nice over there. The irony here is that I'm pushing myself to get the place painted and looking nice before his birthday because I thought it would be nice to invite a couple of his school friends over for a mini-party. I know he didn't mean any harm and probably didn't even notice the chair scraping the wall. I know he probably has no concept of what it is taking for me to get this painting done, or why it has to be done, or even that there's any connection between the painting and his 'party'. And yet, intellectually knowing all this, something as small as an almost imperceptible nick in a new paint job really got under my skin. Big things I can cope with. Why are the little things such destroyers of my sanity?