We started the day with a surprize: We were going to have company a day earlier than planned. Johnny's sister, mom, & nephew were coming two spend 2 weeks with us, but because Ben's team didn't do very well at the tournament they would be coming sooner. Which is good because I thought their trip out here was already too short for all their is to see. The more we see, the more we have to share. So, while we are cleaning camping gear, we are also doing laundry and cleaning our rooms and the bathroom that Juliet & Jaymark use will also be the guest bathroom. So Jmk helped clean the toilet & floor and Jlt did the sink & bathtub (what a ring it had around it from our busy, dusty, outside summer life ! Then we folded laundry and the kids went off to play on the stairs. However, J & J's voices get louder & louder. He has been throwing a ball down the stairs (no problem with that, and they are laughing, but it seems she said something to make Jmk mad. He went running to his bed and hid in it. Upside down. He won't talk to me. No one will talk to me. Juliet goes down to the living room and plays by herself. I ask her what is making him mad. She won't talk. I say, " I am sure you said or did something to make Jmk mad and that makes me sad, because I had told him it was ok to throw that ball down the stairs. So I don't know if you took it from him, or said something that made him mad, but you don't need to make your brother mad." After about half an hour, I go get Jmk and bring him downstairs. It is easier to clean with them out of the way, but I don't wan them to be mad all day, we have somewhere to go today. I went to tell Jmk that I was sure that Juliet mad him mad, but that he didn't have to hide from me. I carried him downstairs even though he didn't like it at all, I wasn't worried that he tried to bite me and kick me. I put him on the couch and gave him some legoes, and he started building. He was fine in a few minutes, and I was able to continue dusting and getting lunch ready. The day went on as if nothing happened. I didn't find out what Jlt did to make him mad, but later on in the evening, she told me she teased him and that made him mad. he had gotten tired of it. This would happen quite a few more times before they went home. Later on in the month, they were better at telling me what happened earlier in the day when there had been a problem. During evening prayers, if they had to, they would apologize. They would have a lot of laughs, and loved joking & teasing with each other until all of a sudden...one would get mad. As much as possible, we tried to have one of us sit in the back seat of the Honda with them because most of the teasing was done in the car.
We got as much as we could done this morning, and after lunch, off we went to Parties R Us to go jump on the jumpy things. We had plenty of adult supervision, so I could sneak off to get my allergy shot for 20 minutes and upon returning, we found that most of the kids were playing other games and eating popcorn and not as much interested in the jumpy things. Then they would chase each other and tease and hide and play basketball, and run back to the "ding-ding-ding" games and go back to the jumpy slides, but to me it seemed they were having lots of fun. That Popcorn sure was a hit ! AS they got tired, they were snippy with each other, and adults had more work to do to keep them satisfied.
We grabbed a few things at Walmart on the way home, mostly fruit, and I put Jmk in the cart. Jlt pushed it. As I told them what was on my list, she found it on the shelf, and Jmk meticulously stacked it in the cart. Really cool. He was always so particular. She was just the opposite while with us. I wished then we had $ 40,000 in the bank so we could adopt them it would be nice to have this help all the time. When we got home and put away the groceries, I was trying to decide if we had time to go for a quick swim when at 5:00, in walks Johnny's family. We visited, but the sad thing was, it would be Juliet's last chance to swim, only we wouldn't know that for 2 days. When Jny came home, he helps them with biking as Juliet has got it, but Jaymark still needs help with balance & brakes. He never gives up. Tonight, Johnny came home with training wheels, and so Jaymark goes too fast for his new freedom, falls and gets a bad scrape on his knee. I never liked the idea of training wheels, because at his age & size, I thought it would be better to learn to balance. His other problem is that he doesn't use the brakes, or he presses on them when he is going forward, and it makes him come to a halt too fast, or he can't get going. He will get it though !
Since Jny's nephew plays soccor, we thought that would be popular with Jmk, but it wasn't as much as I thought it would be. They did play some, but there was a new distraction: A little white dog called " Lotus" that would add lots of action to the house. Jmk would chase him and often be found in the guest room with Lotus. Then Lotus would terrorize our cat and eat her food, so we had to put that up high, but finally the cat got some of it's own treatment as she terrorizes our Mazie dog. It was a zoo, but so funny to watch. Jmk would run around calling "Lor-des" and it took us over a week to realize he was calling the little white dog. We thought he was using a tagalogue word for dog or something like that ! I guess it was just his cute accent ! Jmk just really enjoyed the smaller new dog and after that, he forgot to help feed Mazie as he had done every day, unless I reminded him, and he'd go, "oh, yeh !" After a few days, I didn't remind him any more. He had to be with "Lordes" every moment ! What a laugh !
