Miscellaneous happenings

The other night when Peter was supposed to be in bed, I walked in and found him NOT in bed. I was, however, kinda impressed with how he was spending his free time. It's not rocket science or anything, but I thought it was pretty neat for a 5 yr. old. You can watch the video if you want to see it, too.
Also, the other day, Peter asked me if I was lonely all day while they were at school and Dave was at work and I had no one to snuggle with. I told him that actually while they were at school, I was at work and then I went to the grocery store and then I picked him up at school so I didn't even have time to get lonely. He then said he felt sorry for our house being here all alone with no one in it while we were away. I asked him if he thought the house was alive and he said oh yes, definitely, and when we walk around in it, it tickles the house all the time.
One more thing about Peter: even though he's almost 6, he still has a lot of trouble with the whole linear time frame thing. Like when he says "yesterday" he could actually be talking about something that happened 3 years ago. Now that I think about it, when he says "tomorrow" he could actually be talking about something that happened 3 years ago. Sometimes there's even new words like "tomorrowday", but this week, he really made some progress as he was talking about the day before yesterday and said, "yesterday's yesterday". It took me a moment, but I understood what he meant!

Caleb got his first orthodontic appliance installation this week. I'm SOOOOO happy that it is cemented into his mouth and can't be removed/lost in the lunchroom at school! I experienced many years of orthodontia myself and am proud to say I never lost a retainer so I know it is possible to NOT lose one, I just don't count it as very likely. Anyway, he has tolerated it very well and speaks with a slight lisp now. It's very cute.
Sam is on his way to making a best friend. His name is Bernard and they were in the same class last year and sit by each other in the same class this year. He is a very nice, polite boy and he and Sam are also starting the gifted and talented program together tomorrow at school. We have had him over to play twice now and they get along very well. Most of their play consists of Pokemon on the GameBoy/Nintendo DS. Sam has the GameBoy and Bernard has the newer Nintendo DS. Sam really wants to get a DS now! Luckily he is not obsessed with it, though.
Yesterday, we invited Bernard and his little brother (who is 7) over to play. We had some water balloons already filled and ready to throw. (It was like 85 degrees; crazy hot for New Jersey in October, I'm told). Anyway, I thought it would be a really fun outdoor activity for the kids...unfortunately, these were deadly water balloons! Most of them wouldn't burst! The kids would throw them REALLY hard at each other and it would just smack them really hard as it bounced off their skin and then bounced along the ground! They were covered in red pelt marks and it turned into a screaming cry-fest in my backyard. Caleb was screaming at ME because the water balloons hurt so bad, as if I had manufactured them myself. Peter was crying because he wanted to throw water balloons at people but no one, apparently, was allowed to throw one at him. And Bernard's little brother was doubled over after taking a water balloon in the gut which knocked the wind out of him. Sam and Bernard seemed to be the only ones taking it in stride. It would've been funny except for the fact that they really did hurt, and not to mention I was a little worried about what Bernard's parents would think when they picked up their kids covered in mysterious bruises. These water balloons, by the way were filled and ready because we were going to use them during Caleb's birthday party weeks ago and never did. (We ran out of time). They've been sitting in our backyard ever since. Now I'm really glad we didn't use them during the party!!!