February 28 Games, games, games!

Friday:  I looked forward to today all week! When I picked little Cal up today, he was all smiles and so happy to see me! That's good for my grandma-heart, for sure.

We came over here--but on our drive over, Cal told me he wasn't feeling well. I asked him what the matter was, but he couldn't seem to define it: no headache, no stomach ache ... what could it be? As soon as we walked into my house, Cal requested we watch a movie together. I put that off for the time being--because I don't usually resort to electronics or movies until I am exhausted from playing and want to clean up. 

I had set up a bunch of play areas--our usual--with magnets and Playmobile toys and animals, etc. But nothing at all was appealing to our Cal! This is very rare. Usually, I can't even get him to eat lunch because he is playing so happily. Finally, Cal announced that he was hungry, hinting that if he ate a good lunch, THEN we could watch a movie; so I grabbed onto that, and heated up our Mac 'n cheese and made us each a hotdog. Cal requested catsup AND mustard on his "dog" today, so that's what I served him. He did eat pretty well. We did a lot of visiting while we ate. As soon as he finished his lunch he announced that it was movie time. He specifically requested a MINION movie--so that is what I found for him to watch. I'm not big on modern cartoons ... they just seem to be so full of anger and vindication! Even the minions! BUT ... he did have a flushed little face and wasn't really behaving in his natural way, so I put it on for him to watch and he did right up to the finish--all 90 minutes of its nonsense. I tried to watch it with him, but I came in and out of the room while doing various other activities that needed accomplishing.

Here are just a few pictures of little Cal today:

Watching the Minion movie ...

I built this Magnatile car ramp while the movie was playing:

After the movie ended, Cal decided to try the ramp and add on to it as well.

Cal is a very good builder!

I love to watch you build, Cal. God has given you a very mechanical mind, and a lot of creativity.

After we played for about an hour, it was time to drive back to Cal's in time to unlock the door for Brendan coming home from school. This DOOR has been trouble for me from the get go! For weeks and weeks, I could NOT get it to unlock with the key--it would only turn LEFT and that was the wrong way to trip the lock. Dylan showed me that it needs to turn RIGHT and then it will open, which it did for me several weeks in a row--no problem. But last week as well as this week was ... very annoying. LAST week, the locked tripped but the door STILL would not open. I had to use a lot of force with my entire body against the door in order for it to open, and then I went flying inside, nearly breaking my neck, with Cal laughing himself silly watching my body fly around (I think I was also screaming). But today, Cal was soundly sleeping in my car, so I went to the door alone and did my usual. For the first 3 tries, the key would NOT turn to the right at all. Nada! So I took the key out of the lock and prayed. I put it back in, and with a LOT of effort, the key finally engaged the lock and it was clearly UNLOCKED--but do you think the door would open? No way. By the time I had spent 3-4 chilly moments pressing the door and shoving on the door, I finally got pretty angry with it and just pushed with all of my 143 pounds, while groaning, and ... oh my! This time the door FLEW open, I tripped over the entry-way, my body flying about 90 mph and did a complete crash landing full force on my right knee with my ankle twisting underneath my leg. Ouch.

Sigh.

At least I didn't land on my face and knock out any teeth. But OUCH. My entire leg hurts, especially at the back of my knee. Pooh. I had such a good week walking and biking (over at the park recreation building) and I was on my way to building up my physical fitness AS WELL AS doing my hip exercises at home so that I can be in shape when I go down to Florida at the end of April. 

Are you crying yet?

I finally picked myself up off the floor and limped back to the car to get a bunch of stuff that I had planned to do with the bigger kids once they got home from school. Everything turned out okay, except I was sore. I brought over my new checker board:

Aidan and I played ONE game of regular checkers. THEN we played TWO games of fox and geese. I also played a game of fox and geese with Brendan. I was the geese every time and I lost all three games! Those poor geese do not stand a chance with that tricky fox!

Erin looked at all the pretty stones and worked on making a necklace for herself. We ran into a few problems, though, with the string fraying apart and making it tedious to get it to fit through the holes in the little gems. I'm going to have to work on a solution for that before next week.

We had a lot of fun today. Erin and I also played a few games of my fancy new tic-tac-toe game and just visited together about her day at school. Erin is very sociable and vocal--she is six going on thirty sometimes, and she is as cute as a bug. Sometimes a stinker--always cuddly and chummy though. Thankful for these grandchildren.

When Dylan and Kelly returned home, I left soon after. My right knee/leg was aching from my stupid fall and I needed to go home and take care of it. I missed visiting with them today. Hopefully, I can get my leg to settle down with a little bit of rest, elevation and Ibuprofen.