I Used to Like Jigsaw Puzzles...

…Until this weekend. Zachary got a 24-piece Diego puzzle for his birthday. We just opened it yesterday because he wanted to put it together after we got home from church. I like to think I am pretty patient when it comes to our kids, but there is one thing that really about sends me over the edge. Zachary is smart, and he knows how to follow instructions, but sometimes it is like he is just clueless. This was his first jigsaw puzzle (that I’m aware of – they may have done them at school, but we had never done one at home). The puzzle had an orange border around the outside. So we tried explaining to him that the orange always goes on the outside. So what does he do? He’s trying to put pieces with orange edges all over the inside. I tried to be patient, but when it had been 45 minutes and he was still working on the puzzle, I was beside myself. I never actually lost it, but I was screaming silently inside my head. So then later in the afternoon, he wanted to take the puzzle apart and do it again. It only took about 20 minutes that time, but he still kept trying to put those orange border pieces in the middle. I think we will find another activity for him from now on.

After dinner we had the TV on – Josh was watching the PGA Championship. Well, anyone who’s ever watched golf on TV knows that the commercials are geared towards a different audience than the commercials they show during, say, Oprah. A commercial for Cialis came on (basically a different kind of Viagra). So this commercial is on and describing what this drug can do for men, when all of a sudden Zachary says, “I’m in the mood for a hot dog party!” This is a quote from Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, but it was perfect timing. Yeah, I know – we probably need to get our heads out of the gutter, but it was funny. Then of course because we were laughing, Zachary kept saying it. He had no idea why we thought it was funny – he just figured we thought he was just being funny.

Liam has become very grabby lately. He wants to grab anything & everything in his sight. And of course if he grabs something it goes straight into his mouth. I must have pulled our black fleece throw blanket out of his mouth about 8 times over the weekend. Guess that needs to go in the wash now…If he sees a bottle, he will lunge toward it. When we warm it up, we’ll carry him over to the couch to sit & feed him. We usually have him in one hand and the bottle in the other. He will nearly leap out of your arms to try & grab that bottle. The other day there was an empty bottle on the coffee table from a feeding. Liam had taken a little power nap, and when he woke up, he saw the empty bottle and got really excited for a second (he was almost flapping his arms up & down out of sheer excitement). Till he realized it wasn’t time to eat again yet…

Next door lawn update – mowing resumed on Saturday, and then again yesterday, but sadly, the entire lawn is STILL not mowed. It’s not even like the lots are that big – maybe ¼ acre max. So I don’t know what his deal is. There is a square in the back corner of his backyard and about a 12-inch wide strip of un-mowed grass running the entire length between our house & his. I told Josh that maybe he was thinking he’d leave that part alone and try to grow a natural grass fence between our houses. I think Josh will be contacting the HOA today…

And finally – it looks like this school year will begin Gavin-free! I was dropping Zachary off this morning, and I always have to drop him off in the next class up from his because his teacher isn’t there yet. As I left, I was glancing at the cubbies in that class – lots of kids from his class have moved into that class, and Gavin has a cubby in that class now. I’m not sure how long this will last (as long as they decide to keep Zachary in the class he’s currently in). They may run into each other on the playground or something, but hopefully we will not have to deal with Gavin’s shenanigans for a few months anyway.