Sunday, May 31, 2009

Weekend Experience

I had all three boys this weekend. It was the first time that the 18-month-old stayed over Saturday night. His mom kept him Friday night. Friday evening the eight-year-old was getting restless. So I took him out and dropped some mail off at the post office. Then we went over to the pet store to look around a little bit. He was totally in love with the aquatic plants. He paid some attention to the fish that was way more interested in the tanks that only had plants. I was kind of perplexed by that at first. Finally, I decided that it was because of the flowing water between the tanks. I think that was what was so interesting to him.

The eight-year-old has had lots of problems with constipation lately. He seems to be over that now. He pooped his pants so many times that we had to go out and buy more underwear Saturday evening.

Sunday morning the eight-year-old woke up at 4 AM. He never went back to sleep. His noise woke the 18-month-old up about 6 AM. The day started a great deal earlier than I would've preferred. The 18-month-old was crabby a lot of the day.

The most distressing thing that happened all weekend was the eight-year-old climbing over the back fence. He's been dragging a chair around the yard for about a week so that he can reach branches to pull leaves off (pulling leaves off plants is his favorite activity right now). I've been worried that he would realize he could get out this way and now he has. I'm going to have to be much more vigilant when he is outside. I've been looking at various GPS locator systems. I may have to invest in one now.

It's fun to watch the 18-month-old expand his vocabulary. This weekend I heard him say "oh no" for the first time. He also said "uh-oh" and "uh-huh". I see him infrequently enough that those things stand out.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Many Changes

I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. One of the reasons is that I'm in the middle of getting divorced. When the ex-to-be said she wanted to separate it caught me by surprise, although on reflection it isn't so much of a surprise. I won't go into the details, that's not what I want to focus on.

I moved out about six weeks ago. I have all three boys every other weekend, the 11-year-old by himself on Monday nights, and on Wednesday nights I alternate between the eight-year-old and the 18-month-old. The adjustment has been tough for all of us. For me, this is my first time ever living alone. I've always at least had a roommate. The house is very quiet when it's just me. Sometimes that's nice, sometimes it's not, but it always feels weird. I assume that eventually I'll get used to it.

I had the eight-year-old this evening. He was really upset for a while when he got here, but once I got some food into him he calmed down. We outside and ate dinner. he was sitting in the rocking chair again. He does a better job of staying at the table and eating when he sits in the rocking chair. I may have to move it into the house come winter.

He engaged with me really well after dinner. He was dragging a chair around the yard, smiling and giggling. I took several pictures of him, but I didn't manage to catch the smile. We played "I'm going to get you" for a long time. We ran back and forth across the yard. He was looking back over his shoulder at me. I haven't managed to get that level of engagement for quite a while. I don't think it would happen if the 18-month-old had been here with us. It's hard to focus on the eight-year-old when the 18-month-old is around.