Days 33-36

Well, well. I've been rather lazy, and I'm sorry for that. Actually, It's not really lazy, we decided to take on a rather large home improvement project...we installed an automatic sprinkler/irrigation system on our own. that meant lots of digging, trenching, plumbing, electrical work, shovelling dirt back over trenches, re-seeding the yard, adding straw, etc. etc. etc. Mostly it meant lots and lots of mud and dirt tracked through the house for the past 3 weeks.

Anyway, on all my days with Zak, if we weren't doing something together, then I was out in the yard trying to do at least a little to help move the project along. Especially this last week in covering up the trenches. And it was HOT! Over 100 degrees with the heat index on many days...but I enjoyed it.

I must admit though that I didn't spend as much time as I should have with Zak on those days. I kept trying to convince him to play with his diggers and shovels and help me...but he wasn't so interested (who can blame him...he didn't even want to be outside in this heat!) I remember someone posted on facebook to me early on...be careful April, don't let one type of work slip into another type of work. So while I think it was ok for a few weeks, definitely I'm happy to have this project over so we can do more fun things again. I must admit, I struggle a bit with knowing how much I should expect us to do together that is productive (ie, cleaning up his toys, doing dishes, laundry, etc) vs fun stuff (ie King's Island, the pool, the park, the library). Yet another balance to get right :-)

Right now I DO feel like generally I've got my balance right. I'm energized for work, I'm energized at home. The only thing I still haven't managed to do is get my personal time figured out. I've got days for work, days for Zak, and days for the family...but I still only manage a couple hours a week for tennis or exercise. I'm hoping now that we've got that irrigation project done I can get back to it.

Even with the project, we did manage to have some fun! And Zak is just hilarious now. We now do time-outs on the stairs if he's doing something unacceptable. Last week he did something, I can't even remember what, and I asked, "Zak, why did you do that?" He said "Sorry Mommy, I go sit on the stairs." Ahh.

He also is very sweet to all animals...and bugs. We saw a worm the other day outside a restaurant. A long, 3 inch one. I stopped to show it to him. He said "Ahh, he's going home." And then he reached down and petted it. Then he wanted me to pet him. Ugh. He also found a lady bug in his room last week. He knows to pick them up and take them outside, but on his way, he brought it to me and said "Mommy, ladybug needs a kiss." Oh geez. So I pretended to kiss it and we put it outside.

We were coloring on Friday, a Thomas the Train book. I thought I was coloring Thomas, so I made it blue. It was mostly the front of him, so I couldn't see the clear number 1, which would have told me it was Thomas. Anyway, as I was coloring, Zak calmly told me this was Percy, but I could color him blue if I wanted. I read the story next to it, and sure enough, it was Percy. I have no idea how he can tell this stuff.

The last thing I'll share from these last two weeks, because I'm not sure how to think of it. While we were busy working in the yard one day...Zak kind of "adopted" 4 large rocks. They become his friends, and he would trike ike up and down the driveway with them. He'd pick them all up carefully, put them in the basket, get to the end of the driveway, take them each out...and talk to each of them. "Ok guys, now we're going to eat something" or "ok guys, time to go to work." It made me kind of sad, thinking of him being alone and needing to make up fake friends. I hope this is normal...I need to do some researh.

Oh! And we got some pictures made! It was really great. Since Zak and I had the day off, we scheduled the photographer to meet us down at P&G so that Kuba could come down and join us. They turned out great!
http://www.kencrites.com/People/Cielica/13012724_FdDRZ#942002712_HXKi8