Ho hum

I don't want to work.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...a fly?!?

Why is it, sitting here in my office, that every fly that comes in is roughly the size of a jumbo jet? I'm sitting here trying to do work, but every few minutes (or so it seems) a new fly comes in, crashing at my window, threatening to blow out the panes of glass. The only good thing is that they're really easy to target, even if you do need large game ammunition to bring them down. The back of my "Global Focus Minutes" binder is starting to look like it's got a disease with all the spots on it. I'm running out of kleenex after cleaning them up. Fortunately, they are not all wasted. After killing the last fly in an epic battle, I was able to use the kleenex twice. First for the fly, and then (no, not blowing my nose! Sorry to disappoint!) for the spider that was eyeing me maliciously from it's perch at the base of my chair. I think it was plotting a dash up my leg. Not sure which was bigger - the fly or the spider. Fortunately, what makes a huge fly is only a relatively small spider. Nothing compared to the ones I've seen in Mexico and Costa Rica, where they're big enough to see them licking their lips as they look at you.

Sigh. Maybe I should get back to work.

Footings

Went out to Terra's parent's place yesterday and helped pour footings for their house. Brought the kids with us so that they could see the cement truck and pump truck. They had a blast, and were so exhausted by the end of the day! We had a few memorable experiences:

Cayden somehow climbed down into the hole and left a nice handprint in the cement. Attaboy!

Avery climbed into grandpa's Bobcat and turned it on, even moved it a bit. Then he panicked. By the time I figured out what was going on and got over there in a big hurry, he was quite terrified. For him, though, that might be the only way he learns not to play with it.

Darrian decided to walk through the leftover cement cleaned out of the truck. His sandals and socks were absolutely covered, and there's no running water out there. Which leads me to ask the question: Why was he wearing sandals and socks in a construction zone? (I didn't get him ready.) Should probably have had rubber boots on like Avery.

Either way, it was a fun afternoon, and good to see some progress on their house. And now I can hardly lift or use my right arm for some reason. I have a desk job, people, and there's a reason for that!

Whaaaaat?

So Terra sat down with Darrian the other night and was looking at a book with him, and when she got to the end, there was a list of words. So she asked Darrian if he wanted to try to read them. So he promptly sounded out fifty words, and has been trying to read more and more words since then. So apparently he can essentially read now, although he still needs to practice a bunch, obviously. On one hand I saw that coming (he's known his letters and their sounds for ages), but in another sense, it was kind of a surprise.