I just got a letter that says I made the Dean’s List for this past Spring Semester. Do you know that I haven’t done that since my Freshman year at ETSU? Go me, I’m slowly bringing my GPA back up to something that actually says something truthful about me and it feels good. I think I may frame my letter.

Patrick and I were anxiously awaiting the final Harry Potter book. We both read and watch movies for the same reason, a great escape, and have found over the years that we can easily get sucked into this fictional world. We had to know how it ended, but we were also afraid of what the end would mean. We joked all through the week that we were going to be so sucked into the reading that we wouldn’t be able to watch Brenden and so I mentioned this joke to my parents just to tell them how excited we were. And my Mom said, “ok, drop him off.” I hadn’t been hinting, but slowly it began to seem like a great idea.

Saturday morning I dropped Brenden off for his first ever night away from home without Mom and Dad. When I got home our 2 copies of the book(neither of us is patient enough to wait for one to read it first) had not arrived yet. We kept ourselves busy until they finally got to our house around 1:30 or 2:00. When we finally dove in, we only came up for meals and bathroom breaks. Patrick had somehow gotten about 15 pages ahead and at one point as many as 20, but then I caught him and remained 3 pages ahead of him until the last chapter. We had thought we might go to a movie while Brenden was gone, but we silently agreed at around 8 to keep reading. We could have gone to bed around 11 both of us about 400 pages in, but at that point I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep without knowing the end and it felt like a mission we had to complete. We hunckered down further and emerged in the wee hours of the morning on the other side of the book.

I think I was near tears and full of anxiety throughout most of the book. I, like a few others, felt that the whole “two major characters will die” thing was extremely misleading. The story got where I knew it had to end up, I just didn’t see how it was going to get there. There were a few things, especially regarding Snape, that I had predicted though. I loved the book. I can’t imagine too many things that I would have changed. Though there were a few bits that just seemed cruelly unnecessary! There are still questions left to answer, but overall, I’m very satisfied. I’m sad to have such a great series end, but I do feel the last line leaves room for the possibility of new adventures…

And Brenden had a great time at his grandparents by the way!

I just wanted to share that I think it is absolutely ridiculous that I take two Zyrtec D a day and I have still had such bad allergy problems that I’ve had a sinus headache for two days. I am blaming it on the Kaboom I used to clean our shower though.

Last night Patrick and I watched Idiocracy (2006) with Luke Wilson and written and directed by Mike Judge (office space). It made us both laugh so hard. The general plot of the movie is that Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph participate in an army experiment that is suppose to freeze them for a year, but they get forgotten and wind up frozen for 500 years. Americans in the future have become complete idiots making Luke and Maya’s characters the smartest people in the country. Ok, it sounds horrible, but it is hilarious. Really.

Ok, in all actuality, there were only two big days, but we packed a lot into those two days. Brenden and I went to Sherman on Wed. to go swimming with my niece and newphews who were staying with my parents for the week. Sherman, like many towns around, has turned their plain jane public pool into a splash park with lots of neat little play areas and slides. Brenden didn’t get much of a nap before going and was very tired once we got out in the heat, but I think he still had some fun. I let him walk around in the super shallow part until the second time he went under water. I had my hands on his back,so he was only under for a second both times, but it was enough to get both of our hearts racing! You’d think I didn’t spend every day of high school and the first year of college in the pool.

This morning, Brenden knocked his head on the coffee table, bruising just underneath his eye. Then, seconds after Patrick went off to shower, he choked. Really choked. Like turning red, couldn’t cough, needs the heimlich choke. I turned him on his stomach and patted. Still choking, and now some awful feeling in his stomach. Panic set in and I ran with him to the bathroom to get Patrick with my arm under his sternum and him and his face towards the ground. I got to Patrick and he looks at me and says, “He’s fine.” Turns out  he’d spit up the food just a second before and I didn’t know it. I was not good in that emergency and am so grateful it turned out ok. Brenden took a little longer to be greatful about it, but eventually did stop crying.

This afternoon we had a picnic for Hands Down at the Scottish Rite Hospital. Due to an illness in the family of the head of the group, I found myself planning activities for the kids. We found out we’d have access to basketballs and courts, bocci ball and frisbee golf so I thought it would be best to plan things for the smaller kids. I got a bubble machine, beach balls, and a set that included ring toss, lawn darts and horseshoes. They all turned out to be hits, especially the bubbles and beach balls. Most of the kids that came weren’t too far out of Brenden’s age range and I was excited at the idea of him getting to play, but for the most part he just wanted to walk around and look at things. He didn’t seem to care too much about the other kids! He was so red and hot and tired afterwards, but we weren’t done with our day yet.

We still had a Build a Bear party for the 5 year old son of some of our friends. It was an awesome party, though poor Brenden just wanted to sleep. Patrick did most of the bear stuff for Brenden and really got into it. He built a lovely little bear named Morrow, as in Brenden Morrow who is attired in a great Stars outfit!

Two of the pictures I’m posting are actually really cute group shots, but I don’t want to post other people’s children without their permission, so I’ve cropped them.

Brenden chasing bubbles at the picnic.

Brenden and Patrick resting at the picnic.

Patrick, Brenden and Morrow.

Brenden has absolutly been cracking me up lately. He has taken it upon himself to yell at the dogs every time they wrestle, which is pretty often with those two crazy pups. He sticks out his little pointer finger and shakes it at them while saying “ah ah ah.” It started off with him yelling at them when they were in trouble anyway, now it seems to have progressed to whenever he feels they need to be yelled at. And a lot of times he is shaking the finger and looking at me when he says it, like he is trying to let me know that I need to yell at them. He is also pointing at everything under the sun and saying “dat?”

He has also started waving goodbye to me and then going to the front door, standing on tip toes and reaching for the knob. If only he could reach that lock, I’m pretty sure he would be out the door and down the street. One day he went for the door so I put his shoes on and we went for a walk. He walked all the way around the block.

Instead of putting his food onto the spoon and then giving him the spoon to use himself, I’ve started just giving him a bowl or plate and a fork or a spoon and letting him do it all by himself. He doesn’t actually get a lot of food on the utensil, but he works so hard and long at it. And then when he gets hungry, digs in with his hands. He thinks that is especially fun with macaroni. He’s doing much better on eating with this set up and is actually finally eating 3 meals a day most days.

He is still obssessed with the phone as you’ll see in the picture below. Everything is a phone. He plays with the real phone, the fax machine phone, his toy phone, the cordless phone and the real phone my parents gave him to play with. Obssessed I say.

He is really into climbing things now. He is working on being able to climb up on the couches, but they are still a bit high so he just hangs there half on half off and grunts until we help him up. But he can get down by himself, and that is the part he loves. He thinks he is so big when he’s up there.

Ok, last funny thing. One day for some reason he became aware of the electric can opener. The next thing I knew he wanted to get up and look at it several times a day. This started when my Mom was watching him every day and I forgot to tell her about it so she’d know what he wanted. Turns out I didn’t need to worry because she figured it out when he stood pointing up at it and growling. And now he does that every time he wants to see it.