This sounds excellent

I've been looking at guide dog programs for Acer so this caught my eye USA Today. We'll be ordering copies of all six books as soon as we can. I love the idea that it also helps pay for more dog assistants for veterans, a double blessing.

Unfortunately I don't think Acer will be able to get a guide dog before he's 16. As he gets closer though to that age, I'll make sure he's on the waiting list, if he wants to be, I know more blind people without dogs than with though. so who knows which way he'll go.


BTW
We asked Acer if school were good or bad yesterday and he replied that school was good. Yeah!

First Day of School!

And what a day it was. Bill took off a half day from work to be there and since it's Grandparents week at the school, Mum stopped in too. Bill's Boss, Matt, gave us an official first day of school sign to hold for the pictures we took, he's always done it for his two boys and it seems like a good tradition to follow. Thanks Matt!.

We started with time with the Occupational Therapist, Miss Diane. In her classroom, Acer played in a ball pit, bounced on a GIANT ball, played with a few toys and, to his great dismay, learned that there are rules in school. His first rule, which we had to enforce later, was that if you go up the stairs to the slide, you have to slide down the slide. Acer just wanted to play on the stairs, not make the whole trip. He has to learn this for school because there may be other children behind him wanting to come down. It makes sense to us, but when he went up the stairs to a slide in a different room, he didn't like the enforcing of this rule. Major meltdown.
We went from Miss Diane's room to Miss Cathy's room, she'll be working on different aspects that Miss Diane won't and she's also the visually impaired students' teacher. She gave me some good literature that I'll be reading as soon as I can. We also signed paperwork requesting an orientation and mobility specialist, someone to teach him canework. PTL! I can't wait, it will be great because he won't have such a bruised forehead that I worry people will think I'm beating him!
Well, had to post quickly, need to head off to work. Bill will add pix later
Heather

Bill added the following also:

Acer, Now A Schoolboy

Today Acer was enrolled in a Pre-Preschool though our local SN school district. He'll attend about an hour at a time, twice a week. We met with various people and signed lots of papers. One gentleman had visited us in the home, and there were three woman, therapists and teachers of different sorts, who helped us set up goals. The school district only has tis program through age three, so in June he'll be switched to our local district for preschool and he'll stay there 'til he graduates high-school. If he were less able, the SN school district would perhaps have him for longer or perhaps take over his schooling again when he's older.

One of the best things was that the physical therapist said she didn't see any needs for her services, but mentioned getting in a mobility specialist to teach him cane work. other than that I think we're mainly concentrating on gettng Acer to respond correctly to requests ie, put this here or can you find the two similiar items out of this pile) Some goals had to be re-set because they were too easy, like learning up and down. Currently I'm teaching him incline & decline as we walk the sidewalk. Acer has an incredible grasp of the slightest change in ground elevation, often he'll tell me we're going up or down before I've noticed it myself. I think it's the built in altimeter we noticed the first few weeks we had him when he would notice we were sitting down, even if he were asleep.

So, tomorrow at 2:30 Acer will head off to school, with me, for our mutual first day of pre-school.

Also, I experimented with the hair goop. I think I used too much and that his hair is too long, it just looked weird.

Maybe tomorrow instead of spiked, I'll try for a simple part & see how that works. I really need to get this down so that when the time comes, I can teach him how to do it himself. I've never really cared that much about my own hair. Curls like mine do what they want unless I put a lot more effort into it than I really want to. I just don't want Acer to suffer for my hair knowledge lack. Oh well, at least I'll have some years to practice. I should have it down by the time he reaches kindergarten!

Our First Date!

Okay, so we're married, we've obviously had more than one date. This was our first just the two of us event since 5/13/2007, which was when Acer was placed in our arms. We've had James or Mum watch him while one was at work and he other had to be somewhere, a whopping two times total, but other than that Acer has always been with one of us.

We had a lovely day at our friends', Curtis and Teresa, wedding. It was at a beautiful old banquet hall in a lovely park on a perfect weather day. The bride was especially beautiful, she's beautiful to begin with, and the groom was handsome and looked appropriately stunned/in love as Teresa walked down the aisle. Curtis has family and friends who've adopted, so I asked him if he'd started his dossier yet ( instead of the standard when are you going to start a family). He also has a good friend in his best man whose son had the best small asian boy hair we've seen. I buttonholed him to ask what the product they used was called and believe I bought the right stuff today. Thanks for the tip, here's hoping that after years of not ever having to do much with my hair I'll be able to do something decent with Acer's.

Six and a half hours after we left, we were back home and James was free to escape off to church for the evening service. Acer didn't even do the happy boy dance when we came home so I guess it was no big deal for him to be left with Uncle James. Of course Uncle James, Bill and Acer spend several evenings a week together to go grocery shopping for both houses.

Acer has started calling my Mommy sometimes, it's more English, but it's a bit of a shocker because somehow it feels like it's part of his growing up. He's also started calling me Acer's Mama, that makes me feel good, his staking a claim on me so to speak.

The dogs are both getting better, but Lobelia shaved off sections of both front paws, so she's still moving very slowly. Rugby's mainly back to normal except he seems to be having loud dreams more frequently than before. Today he woke Lobelia up with his closed mouth howl while he slept. She just lifted up her head up and looked at me like "what the heck is he doing?"

Snoozin through the ages

FFFF#48 Snoozing

Heather loves to take pictures of the little man sleeping. Here is an excerpt of them, sorted by date, that shows the progression. This is our first FFFF, but it was a natural for us as we already had so many of these pictures.



See http://lovinglydia.typepad.com/ For more Snoozers

So very sore

The dogs are still recuperating, slowly. They think long and hard before they decide to change floors, heck they think hard about changing position on the floor. Bill had to go out and help Lobelia back into the house last night, I think she would have stayed outside all night otherwise.

Rugby is actually getting better faster than Lobelia and he's six years older. Well, another day another aspirin and more rest should see a marked improvement when I come home tonight.

I'm so excited

Bill has put our travel group gallery up and 3 other people have put their pictures in. This is cool because frequently we would be in a shot of theirs or they might have a different angle on something that I like better than ours. So, I've been pulling off pictures, from two different albums, & putting them in a folder on my desktop. Today I moved them to iPhoto (yes I am a Mac person, we have a mixed marriage). When I put them in a folder with existing pictures, I was able to simply arrange them by time. Now they all mesh and I have an incredibly complete picture of this portion of the trip. Yeah!

Bill knows I like to organize things, may not keep them that way but I like to organize, and the fact that our photos were not in chronological order bothered me. Hence my excitement at being able to select a function and have them all nice, Neat & in order, just how I think it should be.

Doctor, I've been Shot!

Oh, no, that should be Dr, why are you giving me shots. Acer had three of them yesterday, and although I'd prepared him as best I could beforehand by telling him he was going to the Dr's, he was going to get shots and that it would hurt (but only for a little while) He was really pretty good. It only took two of us, instead of the four it took last time, to hold him still. He immediately tore off the bandaids but at least he's caught up for a little while. I guess we go back in Nov. for some more. by then he should have even more words and will be better able to understand.

I did put him on the scale there & he's holding steady at thirty one and a half pounds. He's a healthy weight, but he's only gained a pound since we became a family. I guess I keep expecting a growth spurt or something. I guess this really means he was well taken care of, if I couldn't figure that out before this just confirms it. They fed him well and really kept him developmentally on track, which can be hard to do with a blind child. I'm thankful.

Dogs On the Run !

Well, let's just say it involved; a two and a half year old, three bags of groceries, and a squirrel across the street. They were off & running thru the subdivision without a backwards glance. By the time I was able to get in the beater & chase after them, with Acer yelling "Lobelia Car" helpfully from the back seat, they were gone. I couldn't even hear any neighborhood dogs barking at an invasion in their territory to try to locate them that way. This was at 10:30 in the morning, by the time we left at 3:20 there was still no sign of them. I left all the water bowls full, the gate open and the back door open enough for them to slip in. Rugby's collar has my cell phone on it, so I made sure Bill had it in case they were found, he could respond.

All night at work, I kept waiting for him to call, but he never did. So I drove home & opened up the car door et viola! there was Rugby, but no Lobelia in sight. I actually wasn't worried about Rugby, I knew he would come back, but Lobelia, I wasn't quite as sure about her. So Bill came downstairs and as we were celebrating Rugby's return and questioning Lobelia's continuing absense, in she walked through the open back door.

Yeah! us, we were back up to our normal number of dogs, except one stunk and was covered with burs. Poor Lobelia, you could tell she just wanted to lie there and recuperate after the obvious stresses of her day, but no, she gets tossed in the tub, shampooed and combed. Here she thought she smelt just fine, but her people are dousing her with watermelon scented shampoo.

So this morning they are laying around like they have the hangovers from #### and Rugby is having a hard time moving fast enough to get out of Acer's way. Lobelia has a cut on one of her from pads and is barely moving at all. I asked Rugby what he was thinking of, the last time he pulled something like this he was sore for days and that was four years ago, then he did more than 10 miles in two hours. 11 Hours on the road, evading animal control and running through the parks and sub divisions, who knows how far they went yesterday. For Rugby it was too far; he's 10 now and for a big dog, that's pretty dern old. Looks like they'll both be getting an aspirin a day for a little while, just to help them cope.

Suspiciously quiet

Today, while I was waiting and waiting for Acer to come downstairs for our daily walk, I had happy visions of Acer playing quietly with the toys in his bedroom. My happy visions were broken as the small one walked towards me with a piece of toilet tissue in one hand and a Hansel and Gretel trail of tiny shreds of toilet paper behind him. I shouuld know better, if he sounds too quiet and well behaved, he probably isn't well behaved in the slightest. Acer got his first lesson in whisk broom/dust pan work and I got a much smaller roll of toilet paper than I had just a few minutes before.

As soon as I figure out how to get the picture off my camera phone, I'll post them.

A lot of chatter to cover the real activity

So I guess Acer learned from his earlier run with the toilet paper. This time he managed to get into trouble while talking all the time. He usually self narrates, tells you what he's doing, but not this time. After lying on the bed wiggling talking, singing, kicking, all the normal fun stuff to stop himself from going to sleep; Acer managed to find the tube of lotion I'd used to rub on him at the begining of naptime. Mum had come over at 2, to watch him while I worked on my latest school assignment. Acer had been resisting sleep for about an hour at that point, so I settled Mum into the lower level with a good book & I went back upstairs to wait out the little man. I went in to check on him again about 2:45 and he had squeezed out the lotion all over himself. It was on his face, dripping down his neck, on his body. just as I got there he was inserting the tip of the tube into his mouth and getting ready to squeeze. Forestalling lotion in mouth movement, I called Mum to see what her youngest grandchild was up to and went to get my camera phone. I then spent many minutes rubbing the huge excess of lotion into the small man. If his skin wasn't smooth before....

Again, I'll post the picture soon.

Things don't really change

I was just checking last year's blog entries for September, and re-read a bit about how adults usually hold Acer's hand when he walks because he likes to throw things. Well, we don't hold his hand too much when he walks (except for parking lots and streets of course) because he likes to follow us and run & explore as we go, but what hasn't changed is his love of throwing things. Not only does he still love to throw things, but if he can throw them down the stairs, that's just and added bonus of joy!
Now, thinking way towards the future, what kind of job would let him throw things like this? They say you're happiest in your job when you're doing a job related to something you liked to do between ages 3-5. I'm very happy in my job as a horticulturist and I used to love to be outside with flowers. Thankfully, he's not yet three, so maybe another favorite pasttime will present itself.

Arr! 'tis talk like a pirate day!

Avast me mateys, 'tis the day to prop that parrot up on your shoulder and sing some sea chanteys for 'tis Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Putting your trust in the Lord

We truly believe that God led us to Acer and that he was meant to be our child. However, because we found him on the waiting child list, it moved up our time table by more than a year from what it would have been if we'd gone through the matching process. I'd planned on working full time for another year. Not a huge issue, just put our finances in a little bit tighter than we'd like; enough that I had put off buying new, and expensive, shoes for work and was trying to figure out boots for Acer for winter.
So instead of worrying and fretting, I spent more time praying and trusting. Bill and I are trying to be better stewards of the many blessings, including each other, that God has given us. So what does God do, he put my shoes on sale and the last day of the sale, Bill gets paid for helping a friend with their computer and it was just enough to cover the shoes. So yesterday BIll and I went on a quest for an belt for Acer, figuring it was cheaper to buy the belt than replace many of his pairs of pants. We also looked at boots and bought a shirt on 80% clearance. It was money we spent very carefully, debating needs over wants and how much use it things would be. Today in the mail, we got a card from Mum's cousin with just enough money in it to cover the cost of the belt, shirt and new boots for winter!
Trust in the Lord with all your might!

Evenings with the little man

Most evenings are Bill's territory, With tag team parenting, I'm currently working a lot of evenings and Bill feeds Acer and puts him to bed. There is however, one special time each night I call my own. It's the time whe I watch my big burly husband carefully pick up the tiny boy, make shusshing sweet nothings at him to ease him and then set a still asleep Acer on the potty. Acer barely stays straight & Bill takes such care to quitely & efficiently pull down the PJs and make sure everything's okay. He take such care and shows such tenderness and love to a tiny boy who's not even awake enough to grab on to Bill & stabilize himself. Acer is just a totally zonked out sleepy limp little bundle. I must admit that it just makes my heart melt.

I wish you could see it, it's just way too dern cute, but I'm just way too cautious to try to take a picture and wake Acer.

Mornings with the little man

There are certain times of the day with Acer that are my favorite. Morning is one of them. Acer wakes up about 7:15 but then wants to wiggle around on the bed, roll over Mama, and pet the dogs for about 15 minutes before his feet actually hit the floor. He sings snippets of sings, kicks his legs in glee and flips the blanket on and off. This is good for me because I really wake up about 8:30 or 9:00, So a slow wake up when I don't have to be anywhere is good.
We have a leisurely breakfast (brekafist in Acer speak) and then we'll head out on our walk up and down the block. We generally get dressed and head out about 8:30-9:00 in the morning. We go slowly, Acer isn't into speed at this point except in short bursts. Exploration is key, finding sticks a joy, and listening to the sounds of the morning a must. Most sounds are imitated vocally and he attaches names to the ones he knows, like cicadas.
After we come back home Acer loves to sit with me in the rocking chair and listen to his beloved music. Sometimes he almost falls asleep and others he bounces up and down, standing on my legs while my arms circle around him, just in case. I love this time, the cheek to cheek, the songs that might be bellowed into my face on a whim, the little arms around my neck. These are the moments I tuck into my memory book, the visuals of the small man in his tidy whities snuggled with his face in my neck or the look of glee as he bounces are the pages I need to keep stored in my brain. I'll open these pages and read them again and again over the years.

Oh, the wild life we lead

Or not.
We have seen a lot of wildlife this week though. We had a small (8) flock of goldfinch in two large perennials outside our front room windows. These two plants, Herbstonne Rudbeckia and Lemon Queen Heliopsis are both well above 5' tall. They give me beauty I can see from the window with their flowers and butterfly, bee and bird viewings too. If we can find the charger for our camera, from wherever we safely put it, I'll post pictures.
We also had a Sparrow hawk land on a visitor's car right in front of the house. He was worried it would scratch the paint & chased it off. Oh well, I just wished I could have taken pictures.
We saw a teeny woodpecker on a tree kitty corner across the street from our house. He didn't seem to be doing much just hopping around & giving the occassional peck. I was hoping that he'd give some really good woodpecker sounds for Acer to listen to.
Mum has some tapes of birds that I think Acer will like, Bill can copy them to MP3's & then we can play them on itunes. I think if he can put names to the different sounds he hears outside, he'll be even more interested than he already is to spend time out there. I know some bird songs, but under a dozen probably, so I think I'll enjoy learning them too.

Thursday 9/6 I had another class, this time on conifer problems. It was interesting, there was a plant physiologist there & I learned quite a lot from him. I'd never heard a plant physiologist's view of the effect of different issues on the growth of the plant. The other speaker was a gentleman I'd heard several times before so it mostly a refresher of the information he provided.

Friday night 9/7 we met with my Mandarin class at a Chinese restaurant. We dressed Acer up in his Chinese outfit to start, but brought everyday clothes for him to eat in. The place was very loud, but Acer behaved very well. It was nice to meet the spouses of my other students and professor. I wish I could have spent more time talking with them, they all seemed very interesting.

Sunday 9/9 was Mum's Birthday, Happy 71st Mum! We'll meet you this Friday at Erma's for custard to celebrate.

Monday 9/10 We hade two representatives from the county intermediate school district out, the special needs district. Acer, of course, failed the visual/motor (hand/eye) test as expected, but did reasonably well for a blind child. They were impressed by him, his brains and his personality and said he will be fun in class. It'll be a few weeks to hear from them & know where & when to show up for class. I guess I get to go to class too, going by something they said in passing.

Wednesday, 9/12 I gave Acer the requested toidy privacy whilst he SAID he was going #2. After a suspiciously long quiet time, Acer is always talking, I went in & saw a pile of unrolled toilet paper as tall as the toilet! Now mind you he couldn't simply pull it down off the roll & pile it up directly under the roll, no he had to pull it across his body and pile it up on the other side of the toidy. He was concentrating so hard that he jumped when he heard me sternly say 'Acer' (I went for shock value, not yelling). Little guy's buns must've been numb by the time he got off the seat because I made him stay there & help me roll it back up. On the plus side, he was able to pull up his own pants afterwards, a step in the right direction!

Mum had another eye check up & we ferried her to & fro. She learned something very important there, that tears/tear ducts are to keep the eyes lubricated & clean. Her eyes were red because she wasn't putting wetting drops and her tear ducts weren't producing enough tears. So now she (and you) know. Afterwards we went to the Grand Traverse Pie company. Mum & Acer had never been and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. Acer behaved very well, though the ladies sitting next to us chuckled when I told him he couldn't get down from his chair because it was a "Rule" I used the same term when we went to lunch with Mindy and he stayed in the booth, so far it seems to be working. We'll see how long it lasts, I just don't think it fair to other people to let him run around them while they eat, even if he is the cutest kid in the world ;) (A title shared by many)

The temperature is just getting into the brisk fall stage here & I'm putting Acer into long pants & long sleeves. My problem is that his pants don't stay up. He ends up dragging them around on his hips like some trendy teenager. Overalls work, but are a pain to get off when it's time for the toidy. I need a little tiny webbing belt for a two year old, not one of those wierd braided ones that are ineffectual because they stretch too much & don't end up doing their job. Yesterday I put Acer in some ugly sweatpants we'd been given. Despite their unfortunate color, they were the best fitting, least fall dawn, easy toidy access pants. I may need to ignore the color & just dress him in them fairly regularly. Another bonus is that he can pull them up himself after visiting the toidy! Oh well, I guess he can't be a sharp dressed man all the time. Bill bought a belt the other day, but it doesn't actually fit in any pants except the ones he was wearing that day, it's too wide. Oh well, it should fit him by the time he reaches kindergarten.

Best way to the 2008 Bejing Olympics

My favorite Chinese actor of all time has been Jackie Chan. The people who are going to be having to travel during the 08 Beijing Olympics might not have to do all that he is, but they take Visa!

Overview of the past week, detailed posts below from 8/28-9/6, Including new pictures & a new video

This week Acer has learned what a Blue Jay sounds like (and he imitates it vocally) what cicadas (cadas to him) sound like and is mastering using a glass (or would that be a plastic?) . We've been learning nature sounds as we do our Follow Mama walk in the morning or evening. See Tuesday 9/4 for some pictures of a typical walk. Notice there's not much distance between shots. He tends to go in bits and spurts, definitely more of the hare personality than the tortoise. He also puts so much energy into his running that he gets tired quickly. I'm trying to teach him to use big steps because he goes much faster using big steps than when he's actually running.
Acer also conquered taking off his shirt. We had a hard time explaining this to him in or getting a method he has the fine motor skills to reproduce. We tried two or three different methods because Bill & I use different methods to take off our shirts. We actually had to sit and brain storm about this. What finally worked was for him to hold one sleeve & then pull his arm through then he can pull it over his head and off. He actually came up with this method on his own, our idea was to have him pull both arms through, but he found that he didn't need to. Now I'm just never sure how much clothing will be actually on the boy when he wakes up from his nap.
We've tried turning Acer aound on the potty so that we can just climb up on a stool and go potty himself. In theory, this would stop his climbing up onto the seat of the toilet and balancing there. In reality, this just means that if he scoots himself far enough back, he can dip his butte into the water, which he does again and again if not stopped.

He now climbs up onto the stool and pulls his pants down, but turns himself around so he's facing the toilet tank again and then turns himself back around. This is not a smooth process and any parent would be driven to hiccups by the many times during the process that he could take a header. So we're back to the old method until I can figure out something else. Anyone with boys have any suggestions?

Bill - Also note that some of the new posts are re-dated, so they appear in the correct date/time order, so there are new posts going back to 8/28. Just so you all know...... B

Dogs on the run & Lunch meeting

Acer and I were prepped to go and walk down the street when my next door neighbor showed up at the door to thank us for collecting her mail while she was camping. We're really blessed to have Linda for a neighbor, she and her daughter Leeanna are great. Anyway Linda accompanied us as we marched off. I had just finished commenting to Linda that you could hear the dogs complaining because we had left them behind when we see the two of them barrelling down the street, shoulder to shoulder towards us. I managed to grab Rugby's collar and Linda stayed close to Acer gently guiding him back towards the house. I kept calling "Lobelia. Car!" but it seemed she didn't believe me and disappeared around the corner. Rugby is always happy to get into the car, Linda offered to come & be another set of eyes, so I put Acer in the car seat & away we prepared to go. Just as I went to put it in reverse, there appeared Lobelia at my window. I guess she figured that we really were going for the coveted car ride & she didn't want to miss out. She hopped in, over my lap and away we went around the block. We got back home and I made sure the gate was securely latched so they couldn't push it open even with a lot of effort. It's funny, Rugby is better behaved on the whole than Lobelia is but he hates to get out of the car. Lobelia hopped right out & into the yard & Rugby just sat there. I finally got him out of the van, but he switched seats several times before he actually left the car.

At 11 Acer and I headed off to meet my good friend Mindy for lunch. Acer decided on the fish children's meal and even ordered it from the waitress himself. The only problem was that he's used to Bill's ordering fast food on Sundays and so he didn't know it would take a long time for them to cook the meal. It was a huge piece, larger than the plate, and Acer ate almost the whole thing. I was amazed. Acer stayed in the booth the whole time and only dropped his fork at the very end, after he was done eating. It was good to see Mindy, because of schedule differences we haven't been able to get together for a long time.

After lunch, when Acer was lying in bed chattering and not napping, One of Acer's seeming Non-sequiturs was explained. Acer has been saying "Rugby shirt" and I would reply, "no, Rugby doesn't wear a shirt" thinking it was a joke he'd made up. I mean 'Lobelia is Nanjing dialect' is a joke to him so why not Rugby Shirt? Acer also says, Rugby whining, Rugby groaning and Rugby barking. When he was lying there, he was saying Rugby Panting, and then panting in imitation. Then he said Rugby shirt and I finally understood. If Acer has pants and shirts, and Rugby pants then, Rugby must have pants and shirts too!

Oddly enough, I would have said that Lobelia would have been Acer's best buddy, I mean she's much younger and always wants someone to play with her, but generally she leaves Acer alone to do whatever Lobelia things she wants to. She also steals his food off the table, including bottles or other milk containing devices (we're down at least 4, I think she buries them), but other than a food source, she doesn't pay a lot of attention to him. Rugby on the other hand is 10 years old and is slowing down, but he's Acer's buddy. Where Acer is, Rugby is. I don't know if it's Rugby's herding instincts coming out or what. Rugby has even stood there while Acer climbed up and sat on his back. That's why you'll see Rugby in pix with Acer but far more rarely, Lobelia.

Busy Tuesday, more help from our neighbor

We took our normal morning Follow Mama walk,

I met another neighbor from three houses down across the street who has a larger family I think 4 or five children, but am not sure because I haven't seen them all together at one time. Not sure why I didn't ask, except it was morning and I'm never at my sharpest. Continuing down the road we met the gentleman we'd spoken to before. He flagged us down, not that we were moving quickly, and dashed into the house to come back out with some brochures, books and a toy/device to help learn Braille. He'd spoken to his wife & she directed him to the places she'd stored stuff from their days of being active in the National Federation for the Blind. I've been reading and practicing with the toy, So far I'm only up to 'd' but I'm hoping to gain proficiency in time to help Acer in school.
Vicki came over to watch Acer while I wrote my monthly article for MI gardener and finished my assignment for the class I'm taking through Hadley School for the Blind. I was grateful for the Hour and a half of her time, knowing the little man is staying out of trouble frees up my mind to compose logical sentences with correct grammar.
After Acer's nap we went to the Social Security Office, I didn't realize that they closed at 4. We'd lollygagged a little because I was going to leave right from there to go to work & didn't want Acer to have too long of a stretch of time where he couldn't let loose & have fun. I thought I'd just drop something off & sign something else, but it took longer and was more complicated than that, isn't that just the story of paperwork though? The gentleman behind the counter was very patient and thorough, even having me re-sign something on a clearer copy so that they could fax it. He also set up a phone call interview on Monday, I thought I'd have to go into the office for that, but I guess not. After we were done it was off to work!

Long Weekend

Saturday 9/1 was a gorgeous day and we were very busy at work. Fall is the best time to plant, and we're running sales so people were taking cart loads of plants home. Bill and Acer stayed home and did various Dad & son activities. Since I worked in the morning I was home by six and we had a good family evening at home.

Sunday 9/2 Bill and Acer headed off to church and I to work. Acer has started commenting on the sermons, during the sermons, causing minor embarassment to Bill and giving chuckles to those around. This week they met me for lunch, but Wendy's goofed and Acer got neither his toddler toy nor his orange slices. Bill had to make a stop at the grocery store on the way home to procure orange slices for the little man since he sounded so bereft during lunch. We didn't game Sunday night, so we had a record three family nights in a row together.

Monday 9/3 Labor Day. We headed over to Bill's parents for yet another wonderfully tasty get together. Mum & James were invited so we went in two cars, split by sex. Mum & I showed up first & then The guyfolk arrived soon after. Acer enjoyed the food, and his two older boy cousins, Oliver 4 1/2 and Logan 5 1/2 were both trying really hard to be good with Acer. It was endearing to see. Both boys have grown physically over the summer, it was good to see them growing emotionally too. Acer enjoyed swimming in the pool, I don't think he's been in a pool with so much splashing going on as there were 5 grandchildren and three grownups in the pool at different times.

Even not yet a year old Christian was enjoying himself splashing around as Grandpa held him. Bill wasn't feeling the best, so he was a bit subdued and didn't even get in the pool. I had been hoping that either David or Joe, Bill's brothers who play the drums, would be able to play the cymbal for Acer. One of Acer's current favorite phrases is " Cymbals, wshhh" which is his approximation of the cymbal noise. Unfortunately there were no cymbals at the house. so Acer did not get to experience them in real life.

The park

Well, I keep being amazed by Acer's abilities. This is just another in a long list.

Heather's note, in another, later video featuring our friends daughter, Acer can be seen in the background going round & round on this same playground toy. He mastered it pretty quickly.