Papa in Mexico, Day Seven

When Bastian saw Grandma Cat, the first thing he asked was where Grandpa Jim was. Well, okay, not in so many words. It was more like, "Dim???" so I knew. He also proceeded to call Grandma Cat "Jim" the whole time she was here, though I got him to be able to say something like Grandma Cat. Of course it didn't stick. That would too much resemble the children listening to anything I say at all.

Aleks got up way way too early. I tried to sleep in a bit while Grandma was forced to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks (which is horrible, by the way) then gave the boys a bath. She made a pig and lion puppet talk while they bathed, which meant that she had to carry them around all day long, constantly being forced to re-wake the puppets. They especially liked her doing the pig.

While I got myself together (and shipped that package, I talked about yesterday, woot), the boys and Grandma played outside with the nerf guns Papa bought (not my idea) and the water guns sans water.Bastian sat in the flowers. Mom wanted to take this oak tree home. I'll have to dig it up for her for Bastian's birthday.
Bastian swinging on the porch swing while Aleks and I look for the entrance to the home of the carpenter bees that were flying all over. We usually have one during the summer months, but there were consistently three flying around. We'll need to find their home and seal it up, lest we get stung.
Grandma Cat took us to Tommy's for lunch. We washed our hands in the bathroom while she went to the bank. Bastian was particularly fascinated by the hand dryer and the whole concept of wind velocity, heat, electronics...lots to learn there.
Then we sat and waited. Tommy's has crayons and coloring sheets. Aleks spent time coloring while I tried to keep them both in their seats and take pictures.
Bastian was distracted momentarily by an Eric Carle book. I love Eric Carle books. His art is so rich. Sometimes I want to make some like it. Maybe one day I will. When I have the time and inclination...
This is Bastian's pouting face he's taken to doing lately. He'll be fine, then one second decide that he's grumpy, so he makes this face. It's usually the "fake" grumpy, where he's not really too upset, but wants me to think he is so he can get what he wants. Oftentimes, he doesn't even really want anything. He just wants me to think he's dissatisfied so that I can change whatever minuscule thing he wants changed, even if he doesn't know what that is. In the background there is our waitress, Claire. Aleks wondered why I knew her name. I told him I knew her socially.
After lunch, we walked home, did some more pig and lion on the couch, then got ready to head to the post office. Aleks ran off to play with neighbor kids once too, which I was very displeased about. He had agreed to stay right in front of our house, but when I went out I had to go hunt him down. I just don't know what to do about it.

At the post office, Grandma Cat went in to mail her stuff while the boys and I sat in the car listening to Harry and the Potters. Aleks started squealing (right when I was in the middle of a sentence of Everything is Illuminated) about a bug flying in. He said it was a bee. I looked in the back seat, but didn't see anything. He was pointing to the window where I still didn't see any bees or bugs or anything. Then I saw down between the rubber strip by the window which was folded down weird and the window was this weird furry beetle-looking thing. We got it out with a Lego light saber. It was really strange looking. It looked like part beetle and part moth.
I took some video even to show how weird it was before it flew out and scared me.


While waiting for Grandma, Bastian finally checked out his Charlie and Lola sticker book we got several weeks ago. Then he threw it out the window and I had to retrieve it before we left. He kept saying, "book," which I couldn't understand, as I had not seen it go out the window. I started backing up the car and had to stop and open the door to grab the sticker book before it got run over.
Aleks sifted through Attison's Lego to pass the time. Attison's mom gives us toys every time we leave her house.
After the post office, we headed to the dreaded Big Park.
Aleks loves it there, if I hadn't mentioned it. Luckily, my mom was with me, so I didn't have to keep track of both children up the giant hill and behind all the million nooks and crannies by myself.
The slide there is about three stories high. Or maybe only two-and-a-half. It's a lot.
Grandma Cat played too.
Bastian's favorite feature is this tire dragon. Three kids who knew each other came over and kind of forced him out for awhile, so he sat on a bench watching for an opportunity to get back on.
He was particularly cute today, especially in this plaid shirt with little spiders on it that I thrifted for him.
Bastian finally abandoned the dragon to ride on this big tire bouncy swing thing that Grandma was pushing Aleks on.



After the park, we returned home to make a dinner of broccoli quiche and chocolate cake.
Ana called while we were cooking to ask if I could give her a ride to pick up her car. I told my mom that everything was in the cupboard before I left. When I got back, Grandma informed me that the cocoa in the cocoa tin was weird and that the icing thus tasted weird. I tried it and could not figure out what the flavor was. The icing was also a tan color. I looked in the tin and whatever was in there was red. I'm guessing that it was a blend of some sort of Indian spices, or maybe chili powder. At any rate, I had to go back out to get new cocoa and powdered sugar for more icing. We ate quite late. Ana and Barbara joined us.

Aleks was really impatient for the cake. Because it was so late, I think he was really hungry and had lost his ability to reason at all (as opposed to his usual ability to reason rarely). He refused to eat dinner first, though I offered him all sorts of things other than quiche (for the record, I wasn't trying to force him to eat dinner first, he just was very upset and difficult to talk to, which was our fault for not feeding him sooner). Then he had a butter knife (though it was serrated on one side) which he was going to cut the cake with, but ended up holding up threateningly to us. It was very, very hard. After I took him to calm down in another room, he agreed to eating hummus, carrot sticks, and pita chips in the place of quiche. Then, because the cake was whole wheat, he only ate the icing!

After our guests left, Aleks, Grandma and I tried to watch The Golden Compass (which is also horrible), but Aleks fell asleep right away. We all went to bed early (only early-ish for me though), as Grandma had to leave before the rest of us got up the next morning.