Saturday was a great day to be outside, the weather has been incredibly atypical for middle of July here. We took full advantage of the pleasant temps by having a picnic at a local park. Jason took Clara and Lucas to the Civil War Camp Day at Fort Ward (a preserved Union fort), which is a day each year where the reenactment society gives demonstrations (artillery firing, cooking, tactical skirmishes, etc.). Then to finish off the day... Jason camped out in the backyard with Clara and Lucas. This was their first ever experience camping. Clara has been wanting to camp out ever since we bought her a sleeping bag and tent last summer. They LOVED it! Upon waking, Clara proclaimed that she wanted to camp out "for real" next time. I do have to say that seeing Eli in the mix while they were setting things up and how happy he was, gives me some courage that maybe camping with him might not be as bad as I've been envisioning it.
I've also included some other noteworthy miscellany that's been going on recently.
Eli's vocabulary has grown exponentially this past month. Some of the words I hear daily include these listed here, but there are so many more. It's interesting that I can actually carry on a conversation with him on occasion.
- sandals, shoes, socks (all of which he says as he's bringing them to me so that he can go outside, which he calls "side")
- bite, seat, milk
- beep-beep (which means car, train, bus, truck, etc.)
- teeth, hands (both only when referring to brushing teeth and washing hands)
While I'm on the topic of Eli... let me just record here that his volume is out of control! He is so loud, which I know comes from having to be heard over his siblings, but he has taken to screaming just to get his way, which does NOT work, yet he hasn't given up trying. It can be incredibly embarrassing when he does that while we are out (like today in Wal-Mart)!
Lucas has taken to sleeping with his head at the foot of the bed. It is actually quite funny the routine. He still gets his story read on the pillows at the head of the bed, but as soon as it's lights-out time, he jumps pillow-less to the foot of the bed. There have been a couple of nights when I actually turned him around in the middle of the night (before I went to bed) only to find him back at the foot of the bed in the morning... silly boy! I guess this is better than that night I found him sleeping on the floor.
The latest thing though is that I've taken the computer away from them. It was just getting so out of hand, if we were home for more than two minutes, they would be asking to play on the computer. With all these toys and this beautiful weather, they do not need to be on the computer. So it started as just an afternoon and blossomed into a week. I had planned to gradually let them play on it a little bit each day, but realized that wasn't very practical. So Clara asked me if we could make a deal. Her deal was that they would stay off the computer for ten days and then get to play on it for one day. I loved her deal!! I did counteroffer though and we agreed that they wouldn't play on the computer at all during the week and they would have some time on the weekends to play on the computer. My intention there is that we will be doing other fun things on the weekends and they will get to the point where they don't even miss it at all. It is just so easy for the computer time to become all the time! I have to say though... I really liked Clara's initial offer.I have been reading this book about Asperger's Syndrome (written by someone with the disorder) and am amazed at all the similarities, explanations, and just pure insights I've found hidden in it's pages. My plan is to re-read it and actually create a list of all the points of interest... maybe I'll even post my list.
