Owen arrived at about 7:00 a.m. The first thing we did was bake two loaves of zucchini bread. The last time we watched him for the day, we had made eight small loaves of zucchini bread, so when we asked him what he wanted to do today, he said, "Make some zucchini bread." OK. Easy enough. Owen really is a good little baker. He chopped all of the walnuts in an old-fashioned crank nut chopper. When he finished chopping the first 1/2 cup, we decided to do a second 1/2 cup. I put more nuts into the hopper, and he started cranking it again. He said his hand was starting to get tired, but before I could offer to take over for him, he simply turned the chopper around and started to crank/ chop the nuts with his left hand. Oh, yeah. I forgot. Owen is ambidextrous. Using his left hand is almost as natural to him as using his right hand.
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| Nothing is better than a little butter melting into warm, freshly-baked zucchini bread. Yum! |
After the bread, we played games. Owen rolled TWO Yahtzees while playing. I definitely need to take him to the casino soon. He is super lucky when he rolls dice. We did a bunch of art crafts, played more games, completed some puzzles on the iPad, got some exercise with a big ball, and took time out to check on the plumbers who were installing our new water heater in the basement.
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| Owen puts a puzzle piece into place on the iPad. Puzzles help children learn visual organization which helps with reading skills. |
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| Owen and Rick complete some art projects. |
After lunch and after the plumbers left, we went to his house so I could make a big pot of chicken noodle soup. He helped a little with the soup but was more interested in games and in completing some more art projects.
When Christopher returned from his first day of inservice for his school district, we returned home. This is when the rule breaking started.
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| Our new tankless water heater takes up just a little space on the basement wall. |
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| We hope that we can get 15 years of service out of this new water heater. |
We went to the basement to view the new water heater since we had not had time to really look closely at it while Owen was here. Then I returned to the kitchen to start dinner. I should have made sure that Rick followed me upstairs, but he did not.
With dinner about half-way cooked in the oven, I heard Rick stomping up the stairs, swearing and saying that he was stupid. I knew then that he had broken the "no work today" rule. I also knew from what he was saying, he had hurt himself and had also broken the "no blood" rule.
"I think I need stitches," he said as he reached the top of the stairs. OK. I turned the oven off, scooped the dinner out of the oven and threw it into the refrigerator, and grabbed the car keys. On the way to the Urgent Care facility, Rick told me that he had been re-piping the water softener with PVC and had cut the tip of his thumb with the PVC pipe cutter.
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| The water softener now has solid PVC piping rather than the old flexible hose that came disconnected in the middle of the night! |
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| Ouch! |
Since the deep cut was very near the nail on Rick's thumb, the doctor actually glued the flesh back together rather than trying to put in a stitch. Apparently glue works well; however, the doctor warned him that if he were to do anything too active, he could split it open again. Ha! IF he uses it? Who is that doctor kidding? Tomorrow I am sure that Rick will be back in the garage cutting slots in the shelves, inserting the edging, and trimming the edging to fit.
So much for rules. I will continue to try to enforce them, but I realize that until this project is complete, the best I can do is to help him where and when I can and to be ready to get the sliver puller or the bandages out when necessary.
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