Sheep Guarding Llama

Originally the whole family was going to take today to go into Manhattan to spend the day there.  We’ve not been to the city for years and the girls have never gotten to go there.  Liesl has been wanting to see it.  Luciana’s fever was pretty bad today, though, and not getting better like we had hoped so we had to give up on that.

We all drove down to the playground by the water front around ten this morning.  Unfortunately a bunch of older kids got to the playground right as we did.  Normally Liesl and Luciana get the place to themselves.

This evening we had dinner at the Westchester Diner since we were nearby.  It has been a while since we went there.  Dinner was good.  Luciana had mac and cheese.  Liesl had pancakes.

Did not get home from dinner until pretty late.  Just watched a little Wizards of Waverly Place and were off to bed at a reasonable time.

Luciana sneaked into our room at four this morning and snuggled with me until I got up at five thirty. She still had a pretty serious fever. When I left for the office I got her her morning’s chocolate milk and she went back to bed in her own bed, going right back to sleep.

I got into the office before eight again, even with it raining the whole way in.

While doing homeschool this morning, Liesl asked Dominica why there is still fighting in the Middle East today over the land – they had been learning about the fertile crescent in Liesl’s history lessons and she had remembered about the fighting going on there now and put it all together and remembered from her lessons! This school stuff is really working for her.

It continued to rain all morning in Connecticut.

I am off work again tomorrow.  Luciana’s fever is a bit worse tonight.  She is definitely not feeling well at all.  We can’t find anything wrong with her.  We are guessing that it is just a viral infection and she just has to work through it.  She is a trooper, though, and acts way better than her temperature would suggest.  She is sleepy but does not really complain about being sick or any aches or pains.

Got into work before eight this morning. Quite early for me. I’ve been slowly getting myself in earlier and earlier.

Dominica emailed to say that Ciana is feeling under the weather today and might be a bit on the warm side. She took a nap this afternoon while everyone was at the library again. Today was storytime at the Peekskill Library and Liesl got the “W” mat (I am not sure what that means) and sat front and center, really engrossed in the story and asked questions and everything. That is so perfect for the girls. Luciana sat with her mommy and fell asleep in her arms, though. Something is up with her for sure.

I was at work until well after seven not getting home until eight thirty. When I got there Luciana was sleeping against Dominica on the couch. I felt her and it was obvious that she really had a fever. I held her for a while, we got her some medicine and she was right off to bed. She could barely tell that I was home. Poor little girl.

Once Ciana was all set in bed I played an hour or more of Wind Waker for Liesl who was very insistent that I play more tonight. I got through one more, small part of the game and did some general exploring. Liesl had fun.

Did a little work tonight and got off to bed.

Got to work before eight this morning. That’s pretty early for me. We are hearing a rumour that we might have flash flooding tomorrow which is pretty hard to believe considering that it is bright and clear today. So I might leave a little early tomorrow to avoid the flooding if the storms hit early.

Mostly uneventful day. As are most days. I worked a little late but not bad tonight. Got home around seven thirty. No playground tonight. Dominica had a long day trying to get Liesl back into her school mindset. So they were not very happy with each other. Dominica and I talked for a while and we are both thinking that we want to move into Manhattan, potentially. I was pretty surprised because for the past decade she has not wanted to live there but now she thinks that she would like it. Our trip to Europe and spending time in so many large cities really changed her perspective on city life. That would make me much happier. Living “almost” in New York City but getting none of the benefits while paying the price in money and commuting overhead really sucks. Moving into the city would mean no need for cars, public or semi-public transport to the office, access to all of the great aspects of NY life. I am not a suburban person. Give me an estate in the country or an apartment downtown. Nothing in between.

Liesl and Luciana were both very insistent that we play Wind Waker tonight. Dominica was not up for it but I agreed to play it for a while to make them happy. And that kept us from watching any television tonight so that was good, in reality. The girls are really into the game and pay unbelievably close attention. It is very good for them. Liesl really has good memory and problem solving. And sometimes she even takes the controls from me and navigates something for me because I can’t remember where things are and she has a complete map of everything in the game in her head. It is really quite amazing.

We played for an hour and a half at least. Luciana ended up falling asleep on the couch. So I carried her up to bed.

I have to be in the office early again tomorrow so we were off to bed a little after eleven as soon as we were able to get Liesl to go to bed too.

Luciana got up at seven thirty and climbed into bed but only for half an hour.  Then she wanted her chocolate milk, mommy to come home and to watch Go Diego, Go in the living room.  Liesl got up a few minutes later.  Liesl, surprisingly, agreed to the choice of morning shows.

The Scotts ended up not being able to find a hotel room south of Albany yesterday so no luck on having breakfast with them this morning.

By eight thirty both girls decided that they wanted a bath.  I drew them a bath, they both opted for a blue one today.  One of their favourite things over the last several months are these bath colouring pellets from Sesame Street that Dominica found for them.  They love putting the colouring into the water and picking different combinations.  The one that is weird is the pure yellow pellets as they make it look like they are taking a bath in urine.  The blue ones work really well and are perfect for pretending that the tub is the high seas – which works out well as they have a pirate bath toy set for making stories using form pieces that stick to the walls.

They talked me into some more Wind Waker today and, with the extra focus that the morning brings, I finally made it past the really hard part and am able to keep playing.  So we played that for much of the morning and I was finally able to make some real progress and put some distance between Dominica’s game and mine.  Quite a bit of space, actually.  Today was a much better gaming day.

Dominica got home mid-afternoon.  We mostly just caught up and all hung out watching 30 Rock and Wizards of Waverly Place.