The Here and Now

I just went upstairs to get something and saw Jacob sitting up in bed, asleep. How can I not love this life when each day the two boys I share it with provide me with many, many opportunities to laugh at them? Come to think of it, most of the funny stuff happens during the sleeping hours. Man, I would be missing some serious comedy if I wasn't a chronic insomniac.

Sunday we forced ourselves out of the house and took a little hike/walk (I guess one's level of fitness would determine the hike-to-walk ratio) with the dogs on a nature trail that runs through the woods behind the college. After that we brought the dogs into the college and headed to the weight room to work out. Something funny must have happened then because I remember noting to myself that I wanted to write about it. But now it's simply morphed into a boring account of 'how we spent our weekend'. Blah.

Monday we went to story hour at the library where we made a craft.
Tuesday we went to a playgroup where we made a craft.
Wednesday we went to the children's museum for a new class my mom signed us up for. We made a craft. Jacob finally likes making crafts, but I never complained when he didn't because I have trouble deciding what to do with crafts that Jacob makes, aka, 'masterpieces'. I can't just throw them out, but I can't keep them all forever. My two methods for getting rid of them are giving them away to grandparents and 'forgetting' to pick them up when they fall on the floor, where Mango will find them and eat them.

Mango is something else altogether lately. All day long she sits by the back door just staring out into the backyard. Eventually she'll see The Squirrel and go nuts. If Zach lets her out he'll say, "Go get 'em, Mango! Catch that squirrel!" And if I let her out, I call out a warning to the squirrel first and then as Mango is chasing it, I yell for the squirrel to run. That squirrel runs so fast up the tree, Mango doesn't even have a chance. In the past few days though, she barks to go out at odd times when I don't even see any rodents. I'll open the door and she goes tearing out in the direction of the tree that is the safe haven of all tree-climbing animals but there's nothing racing up it. I think she's depressed about never catching it and has started to play a game in her head where she actually walks away with the prize in hand - or clenched in her jaw.

Also this week Zach is getting over a really bad case of the flu. I was really scared I was going to get it because he had the same thing last year and then I got it. And I wasn't particularly sympathetic to Zach this time around because I was just coming off of my own illness and no one took care of me then.

Anyway, everytime Zach coughs, Jacob looks at him in horror and prepares to run away. This is because last week when Zach was first getting sick, he had come home from work early because he puked in the bathroom. At the dinner table that night I told Jacob Daddy had thrown up at work. Jacob just thought this was the funniest thing, and I thought it was funny too because I was picturing the bathroom closest to his new office (which is now in a building where they have classes) and the vent in the bottom of the door, wondering if the students walking by could actually hear him puking the bathroom. We laughed a little bit too long to be really sympathetic, and now Jacob just keeps waiting for him to puke again. "Are you gonna frow up?!" he asks. I think he wants to see Zach puke. I kind of want Zach to toss his cookies just to see Jacob's reaction - even though that means I'll have to clean it up.

Which brings me to the highlight of today: I clipped the rabbits' nails, and while I was doing that, I noticed that Nutmeg needed his 'glands' cleaned out. So I did that too. And if you don't know what that means, believe me, you're better off.