Chalk Lines

I've been working on some quiet books to take to church to keep the boys occupied. I found a couple CD Roms that have different topics for toddlers to learn: things like the Creation, Animals, Our Bodies, Jesus Loves Me, et cetera. I just print them out, color and cut, and tomorrow I'll take them to get laminated and put them into booklet form. I'm pretty excited about them.

I ran into a tiny problem in the coloring phase of my project, though. I have a little art set with oil pastels and paints and colored pencils, but it doesn't contain all the primary colors; it has random colors like peach, which is helpful for faces; it has five different blues; it has no true red or green; the orange and yellow pencils turn out to be the same color on paper. It does contain a really good giraffe-y tan, though. So the boys and I made a run to the store today to get some "regular" colored pencils. Amongst all the wonderful Crayola products (I would love to own one of every product they make; art supplies are so fun), Drew noticed a little tub of sidewalk chalk, pointed to it and said, "Peeaase!" How could I resist that? So we bought the chalk, too.

The boys were pretty jazzed about getting to color on the sidewalk without getting scolded. I showed them how to trace their hands and feet (kind of tricky with those fat pieces of chalk). Owen didn't really understand what I was doing; he started coloring on his feet instead of around them. I had Drew lay down on the sidewalk and I traced all around him. It looked like a crime scene, so I improved it by drawing hair, a face and some clothes. I thought it was hilarious; Drew was indifferent. Owen knelt on the sidewalk and tried to trace his little knees and legs.

The fun didn't last as long as I'd hoped (though we did get about 20 minutes before they got bored); Drew grabbed a piece of chalk and ran for the car, finding it a more interesting canvas than the cement. When I told him "No!" he ran into the neighbor's yard. I was afraid he would try to color their sidewalk (or even their car) and that they wouldn't appreciate it, so I had to grab him and make him go inside--that's the standard punishment for leaving our yard. The problem with it is that he can reach the door handle now and let himself out. So we just bagged the whole project and hung out in the back yard for the rest of the evening. It was pretty fun, too, and the boys can just run and do whatever they want and I don't have to worry about them getting hurt or vandalizing the neighbor's stuff.

On a totally unrelated topic: I'm wondering about this nesting phase of pregnancy. I've heard about the big burst of energy women get the last couple months, and I feel like I've either been misled or I misunderstood, or I'm just weird (well, I am weird, but anyway...). I was under the impression that the energy was somewhat on-going til the end. Mine comes in little one- or two-day spurts, and then goes away for weeks.

I had lots of energy last Friday and Saturday, did all kinds of cleaning and stuff. Then I had my day of rest on Sunday, making all kinds of plans in my head about what I would accomplish Monday. Well, Monday came and went, as did Tuesday, and here's what I got done: I got dressed and put on some makeup, went to my OB appointment, bought some colored pencils and sidewalk chalk. That was done Tuesday. As in, I did absolutely nothing on Monday. So I'm hoping Wednesday will be better, because I have 2+ days of dishes stacked up, waiting to go into the dishwasher, which is full of dishes that got washed on Sunday.

Seeing as how it's midnight, I think I'd better get to bed or I will almost certainly not have any energy to do anything. The problem with that is I'm not sleepy, just tired. And Baby is definitely not sleepy; she's her most active at this time of night. I'll do the best I can... Goodnight!