Four Down; One to Go

Four little fishies have been "promoted to Glory," as my Salvation Army friends say.  I probably sound like a terrible person, but we are patiently awaiting the last one's demise so we can reclaim the kitchen counter space where they have lived in a HUGE mixing bowl for a week.  I love animals.  Really, I do!  I just didn't want these fish, in the same way that I didn't want the dog...and I have Nathan to thank for both.  Oh...and Nathan, if you are reading this...you will be interested to know that the children have paid NO attention to the fish, whatsoever.  I had to show them that they were dead!  So much for that!

Friday evening, we went to the Fun Festival at Robin's school.  Grandma Judy joined us.  All was going somewhat well until Ryan started acting up.  Meg pulled him aside on three occasions to warn him that he needed to straighten up, to no avail.  In short order, he was in a full-blown tantrum and had to be removed.  Poor Judy volunteered to take him home so Robin could finish with the festival.  (Grandpa Phil was probably quite surprised to see them BOTH show up on the doorstep at that hour!)  When we went to pick him up, things got worse and worse.  By the time we got home, he was totally and completely out of control...screaming, crying, saying nasty things, kicking, hitting...you get the picture.  He was immediately put to bed amid stressed out feelings on everyone's part.  The crying might have lasted a couple of  minutes...then silence.  He was pooped...as were we all...but he had already lost his parade privileges for today.

Oh yes, the parade!  Every year, Plainfield has Quaker Day.  (We have the Quaker Western Yearly Meeting House here.)  The Girl Scouts were marching.  We tried to discourage Robin, telling her that if she was marching in the parade, she wouldn't actually see it or be able to rake in the candy, as in other years, but she would not be deterred.  It was a 2.5 mile route.  Never mind!  Soooo...since I had already signed up to help line up the parade via amateur radio, I was elected to take Robin.  It was pretty chilly this morning.  I soon figured out that the little jacket we had taken wasn't going to be enough for her, but (luckily) her fleece sweatshirt was in her bookbag in the car.  That worked.  THEN,her name was drawn out of a lottery to wear one of the five Girl Scout cookie costumes for the occasion.  She just grinned and grinned!  She was the only Daisy Girl Scout that showed up, so I was very pleased that she got to have some distinction. 

After standing around for the 1 1/2 hours that it took to line everyone up, my back was bothering me.  I decided not to walk the parade route with Robin.  There were lots of other parents and she didn't seem to be bothered that I wouldn't be there...so after the parade got off, I got a folding chair out of my car (leftover from Ryan's soccer days) and walked around the school to sit where the parade would come back to the point of origin.  An hour later, here came the prettiest "cookie" in the parade!  Was I proud?  You betcha!

Meg and I had originally planned to go to the State Museum with the children today, after the parade.  I think we both figured out at the same time that we were overbooked.  After lunch, Ryan went down for a nap.  Robin and I escaped to do the craft fair at the Quaker Western Yearly Meeting House.  We bought some things, then went to get her some new shoes.  (The last "new shoes" didn't even make it through two months!)  When we got home, Grandma needed a nap.  Do you think I could fall asleep??  Nooo....

Robin wanted to go to the park.  Once we got Ryan up and everyone going in the same direction at the same time, we went to Swinford.  Well....that didn't work out.  Ryan wanted to play with Robin.  Robin didn't want to play with Ryan.  He kept chasing her and she kept running away from him.  He would collapse on the ground and throw grass at ME, telling me to "get away".  I told Ry not to chase his sister.  I told Robin not to run from her brother.  With all of that playground equipment and all of the children there, I figured we could work things out.  Silly me!  After thirty minutes, we left to get a Subway supper.  Things quieted down after that.

We decided that tonight would be movie night...along about 8:00.  I took the kids to Hollywood Video for their pre-selected choices.  We couldn't find them all  so came home with other entertaining movies.  True to form, eventually Ryan acted up.  Meg got upset.  The evening ended way late for them.  I would be nice if we could have one evening without trauma!  We don't have the children on the weekends often.  I actually like having them here IF we could do without the tantrums.  Ugh! 

We need a thermometer that will tell us what is going on in Ryan's brain from one minute to the next.  He can be the sweetest child on the planet one minute, and a horrific demon the next.  Meg and I are both working on understanding his behavior.  God save us from little boys!  Robin is such a joy.  They both have their quirks, but right now, the biggest quirks come from the master more than the miss.  God bless them both...and grant us mind-reading abilities!