Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Lisa writes: The boys (Tom & James, Tom's brother & his son) went camping over the weekend in the Shenandoahs. James (age 4) appears to have been the designated photographer and videographer. They built fires, cooked food outdoors, got rained on, and got really dirty. By all reports, it was a good time.

Lisa writes: For a while, James was all about catching lightning bugs / fireflies. I was down with that. They're cute and slow and they light up. His new hobby is taking pictures of crickets. Every night, he finds one of our phones and runs outside in the darkened carport to snap these glorious pics of the disgusting camelback crickets we have here in Virginia. There are about 200 pictures pretty much just like this one on Tom's phone.

Lisa writes: I asked James where he got this rubber spider. "Shucky Cheese."

Lisa writes: I'm typing this up long after the fact. I found an old list of things to do / things we did in my purse. (I tend to retroactively write extra, unscheduled stuff on the list just so I can check it off.) Stuff We Did Today Mowed lawn Edged until we ran out of edger cord Leafblew the driveway Caught mouse Went to Petco for mouse house, etc. Went to Miss Sandy's  Went to endocrinology appointment Met MFA friends Went to LabCorp Visiting taught Julie L. Looked at shoes at Marshall's Went to watch store to replace watch battery Ate lunch at ramen place Picked up boys Tried to pick up Tom's shoes from shoe repair place but it's closed until August (!?!) Washed out tent (which is what I was intending to do when we saw the mouse) Played with Play-doh with boys

Lisa writes: I was doing some yard work on Friday morning and saw a little brown mouse in the carport. James asked if we could catch it and keep it. I said probably not; mice are really fast. James took a step towards it and it ran into Tom's shoe. Long story short, say hello to Squeaky.

Lisa's brother Donny writes:  Ever since Austin was about 1 1/2 years old he has been balancing legos on my head when I take a nap on the couch in the living room. I take them off and put them on the couch when he walks away. (Not sure why he keeps doing that.) Today he put them on after I fell asleep and when I woke up they came crashing down on the wood floor. I hear "Yay Dada!" From the other room and his little feet rushing towards me around the corner couch. He gave me a look like, "Caught ya!" He was setting a booby trap so he would know when we can play again.

Lisa writes: The last thing James said tonight as he went to bed was, "In the morning, for dinner [he meant breakfast], I want ham. In a bowl. A LOT of ham."

Lisa writes: Saturday was a super, super busy day. On Friday, James was reporting that it "pinched" when he went pee pee so Saturday morning we tried to go to the pediatrician's office to check for a UTI. But it was surprisingly closed. So, instead, we went to Urgent Care in Springfield. Diagnosis: no infection; preschooler drama. While we were at that complex, we walked around the corner and went to Chipotle for lunch and then around the corner again to the optometrist for Tom and get a new prescription. While Tom was getting his eyes examined, James and Joseph and I went over to Whole Foods and tried out all the samples, squeeze some oranges for orange juice, ground some peanuts for peanut butter, and ate most of a package of organic blueberries. We came home to give Joseph a nap. James and I went to the library to turn in his summer reading program worksheet and collect his reward booklet. While we were there, I left him in the dinosaur section to go look ...

Lisa writes: James came to me this afternoon and very seriously announced, "We can get a hamster when Joseph is bigger ... like four years old ... and I can teach him how to pet it softly." I like that he's got this all figured out. Aww, Jimmy. Next time, we're definitely getting a cuter cage. With a different running wheel. This one squeaked. Did I tell you about the time Tom got frustrated with the squeaking in the middle of the night and got up and sprayed the wheel -- and Jimmy -- with Pam cooking spray? It worked, but we had a very greasy-looking hamster for a few days.