We've been busy for the last few days - Saturday was the church potluck, and Sunday we had church and then I had a lounge shift at work. Zachy is developing a cough again, probably catching what I've had lately, so I gave him a neb treatment to start warding off the bug.
He is struggling with pronoun/gender identity lately - he calls Laurie "Mr. Russell" which is really cute. "Hi, Mr. Russell!" he'll call out when he sees her. On Saturday Laurie's husband was at the potluck (the REAL Mr. Russell) and Zachy said, "Oh, hi, Sir." I pointed out that it was Mr. Russell. "No, " Zach answered. "That's not Mr. Russell. That's a MAN." With time, I'm sure it will come.
You know, Zach really is in his own little world. He keeps doing this thing where he goes potty but won't put his pants back on. I guess he figures, Hey, it doesn't bother ME, why should I? And, true to form, at the church Saturday night I was slurping down some soup when someone whispered from the next table, "Your son's coming down the hall, and he HAS NO PANTS ON." Honestly. I was just thankful he was still wearing underpants!
After the potluck on Saturday I got the boys into bed and straightened up around the house, then got myself to bed to rest and try to kick this headcold. (I also wanted to finish season 8 of ER, because I have had it forever but in every episode I end up crying, sure that one of the kids is going to die in a fatal accident. It got so bad I had to stop watching it for awhile.) So around eleven, I was laying in bed, Dr. Greene was about to die, and in troops John, with Jake and Katy right behind him. "Look at Jake!" John practically yells. "Huh?" I turned my tearstained face to the rest of my family, half asleep but fully embarrassed. I hadn't been excpecting the whole gang at this point in the evening. Unfortunately, Katy had just spent quite some time straightening Jake's hair and they all wanted me to check it out. Through the tears I could kind of tell there was something different, and I tried to cover up the fact that I had no idea what I was supposed to see. Needless to say, my under-enthusiasm was met with even less enthusiasm on everyone elses part. (Later I tried to explain to Jake, "If you were in bed and it was almost midnight and I came popping into your room asking for your opinion on my hair, you'd be a little speechless, too.")
Katy was home sick yesterday, but is back at school now. Jake has met with his EBC youth leaders twice now; they are really taking the extra time to help him debrief from his trip.
And the big projects for today are cleaning off the back porch to get ready for spring (done!) and sewing a curtain for the front door.
Tamara sent me pics from our trip, which is fun. We want to go back next spring, but with the whole family. I love her.