October 7 with the Kids

Tuesday:  Well, after coming off a weekend of severe Vertigo, I toned down my cleaning goal and decided I would have to stick to the main floor of the Pahman dwelling today and not concern myself with the basement or the upstairs bathroom. My balance is still off and the nausea comes and goes ... SO ... I did accomplish making a difference in the main floor just by picking up toys, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, etc. OH! Their much longed-for dishwasher was finally installed and it is VERY nice. YAY! It's not like there isn't anything that needs hand washing anymore, though--but it sure is nice to have a dishwasher when you have a family of six. My dishwasher has been broken for years now--but there is only one of me to wash up after, so I don't mind one single bit. 

I got all the cleaning I intended to do finished with 10 minutes to spare before the school bus pulled up. Three little people got off, crossed the street, and came to me. THREE little people. All three with very unique personalities! And I surely love them. Dear Brendan has had cross-country meets for the last few Tuesdays, so I haven't gotten to see very much of him at all. 😒

I took a bunch of pictures today! I got some snacks ready for the kids -- their usual two pieces of buttered cinnamon toast. I did have some cookies with me today too; so they each got two of those as well.

THEN, it was time to draw names to see which order the screen time would go today. Gregory got the first turn, so he ran off downstairs.

Aidan, Erin, and I played two games of JENGA--but they were kind of quick games ... they fell quite quickly today! Last week when Aidan and I played (just the 2 of us), we had some very long games and a few really HIGH towers! But after our second game ended quickly, these two decided they would just build with the blocks instead ...

... and away they went!

Aidan looked up during his building project and noticed I was snapping pictures with my phone, so he quickly photo-bombed my picture by ducking out of it completely. I told him he could keep doing that--fine and dandy--BUT when he was ten years old, the picture book I would give him for his birthday would be VERY empty. See his expression below?

"Picture book!? What are you talking about?" Aidan asked. I told him (and this is the truth!) that I make a photo book for each grandchild as they turn TEN. I didn't start doing this actually until Brendan turned 10. I had make other photo books for my older grandchildren at various ages of their lives; but I had never done it for my five younger grands. When Brendan's 10th birthday was approaching, I made him a book of photos of things he and I had done together. And then a few months later, I made one for Kaity's 10th birthday too. SO ... Aidan is next ... a year-and-a-half from now! Aidan was very interested to hear this and from that point on, he didn't duck out of the picture. Thank you, dearest Aidan!

Look how carefully and how patiently these kiddos build. I love to watch how their brains work. We were going to play a game of TETRA TOWER, but the kiddos decided to combine the blocks and make buildings instead. Cool.

Gregory was in the basement having his 30-minute screen time while this was going on upstairs. Look how intense these kiddos are with building--isn't it so great?

At one point, Aidan got frustrated with his first building and started on this other "design". He asked me what it reminded me of and I told him it looked like a federal prison, which cracked him up. Ah. What a trigger that was for me ... the remembering of his uncle at this age ... so bright-minded, so engaging and ready to laugh with me, full of life ... so precious to me. 

Aidan tried for one more level ... but it all came tumbling down. He then built a low-level building that reminded me of a Frank Lloyd-Wright house here in Grand Rapids; so we got on the internet and I showed it to him. He was very interested to see what else Lloyd-Wright had designed, so we spent a little time looking that up and had instant information and photos to go with it--man! The information we have available to us nowadays is almost unbelievable.

Erin got the idea to make a house with furniture, etc. She worked very hard on her design.

Meanwhile, young Einstein over here designed his own DNA molecule ...

... Aidan's hands are SO steady and he is SO patient when he builds. Perhaps he will be a surgeon one day.

Erin was busy adding windows to her house. At one point, she went in the basement and constructed a few pieces of furniture out of LEGOS for her kitchen.

Aidan kept making his DNA molecule taller ... 23 blocks at this point.

Look how pleased Erin is at her building project! I just love her so much.

Gregory came flying up the stairs soon after and decided to build something too.

PS  I was getting ready to leave when both Erin and Gregory grabbed for the same little squishy toy, each claiming it as their own. Gregory was NOT having any of this and began crying, when suddenly Erin remembered that it was NOT her toy, but was indeed Gregory's. So I stepped over and told them that "accidents happen" sometimes and this time Erin accidentally mis-identified a toy! No problem. And then Erin said: "Everybody makes mistakes, Cal! Even GOD makes mistakes!" So ... I had to interject that absolutely NEVER EVER has God EVER made a mistake about one single thing. Erin looked quite skeptical about that, and asked about Jesus. So I told her Jesus never made any mistakes either. Aidan walked by overhearing the conversation, and said "but there weren't any math tests back then for Jesus to take ..." I told Aidan that if there WERE any math tests to be taken back then, Jesus would have aced them all because Jesus is God, and God is PERFECT ... but I suppose this is very difficult to understand for little children. However, I had to say it anyway. I had to. !!!