King Solomon

Lots of stories to tell today...

First, I picked Cynthia up from her 4-H trip this morning. She has 2 cameras filled with photos, but I have to get them developed before I can post them.

Second, since Jaba was off today, I asked him yesterday if he wanted to do something with the kids. When I got back with Cynthia, I was going to lay down for another hour because I had to pick her up at 8:45am and that's really early for me. Well, Jab decided that we should go ahead and get up and take the kids to the Alexandria Zoo. So about 45 minutes later we are all loaded up in the van and off. Kurt and Shelby enjoyed walking and running to each animal habitat. Kurt would quickly repeat the names of the animals, but I had to work with Shelby a bit. (As an aside...I've been reading a little bit about speech development and have been wondering if maybe Shelby has a case of developmental verbal apraxia. She may not, but I'm paying close attention as I try to teach her to say new words over the next month. If I find that her speech doesn't improve tremendously over the next month, then I'm going to contact a professional speech therapist.) Our zoo has a wonderful Louisiana Habitat exhibit that was completed in 1998. The last picture at the bottom of that page is a picture of the zoo train that is always the finale of our zoo tripa. The train ride at our zoo is not at all good for seeing animal exhibits, it's purely for the enjoyment of riding a train with your children.

Third, after hearing Mary-Jo and Kurt talk about cats pretty much the entire time we were at the zoo, Jab decided to take a detour and headed to PetSmart to look at the adopt-a-pet kittens. Since our house has been a mess for about 3 weeks now and neither Jab nor I put it in that condition, Jab told Mary-Jo if she & Cynthia cleaned the house that we'd get them a kitten.

Fourth, we stopped a Chinese place to eat. Jab picked up a newspaper while we were there (this is a significant part of our day for a later event). After we ate we returned home and Jaba put the twins to bed while I took Cynthia and Mary-Jo to my Mom's house to pick over the vegetable garden. We now have an abundance of zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and okra. Mary-Jo was excited to see her cousin, Macy (she's a year younger) while we were there. Mindy, Macy's mom & my youngest sister, is taking care of Mama's house while they are away on a 2+ weeks vacation.

Fifth, the kids and I returned home to clean. I was flabbergasted! I have NEVER experienced a day in my life when Mary-Jo cleaned without griping that she was tired or sleepy. She cleaned more than Cynthia, even. As soon as she finished a job she was back to find out what to do next. Not once during the 2 1/2 hours of cleaning the house did a negative word escape her lips.

Sixth, we decided to go out to eat supper so we didn't have to make a supper mess.

Seventh, after we returned home, Jaba took Mary-Jo with him to go to the store. This is where the newspaper becomes significant--they went to the store, but the main purpose fo the trip, unbeknownst to me, was to return with kitty litter, kitten food and King Solomon. He looks a lot like the kitten on the right side of this calendar. However I dubbed him "Solo" (pronouced like the musical term). Kurt quickly learned the kitten's new name and both he and Shelby petted her very gently. Solo seems to be very tamed because for a kitten he has not scratched any of the kids. He certainly had a chance when Kurt picked him up and held him just a little too tight, but he just meowed and I quickly removed him from Kurt's hands.

Today was a day all about the kids and it was a great day for Jab and me, too. However, right now, I'm missing my son, Alex.