I came home this evening to find Lucas’s toenails all colored blue/purple with marker pen. He did it himself. When dad wasn’t looking.

Just packed Lucas off to grandma’s house for the day so I can work. Totally swamped with projects right now and feeling exhausted, even though I just had a weekend. I worked both Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, Lucas and Ian went to the zoo for a few hours. Apparently, Lucas spent more time chugging around the zoo than looking at the animals. Whatever. They got out together for a while. I’m happy when they can do special things together. Ian gets too little time with him. Later on Saturday, even I got out of the house for a while to go to the park to picnic with friends. Foseelovechild and Grlfury, Kimkimkaree and AndrewRed, Thaemos and Pirategirl, Dakini_grl, Zindalo and us all ate together and played on the playground. Thaemos really has a way with kids. He carried Lucas around on his shoulders and together they built some pretty awesome sand castles. Well—Thaemos built them and Lucas stomped them down to dust.

Those three hours outside and away from my house were very therapeutic for me. Sometimes I really feel trapped here because I live and work in the same place. My work is always calling to me because it’s never done and I never get away from it. I’m considering getting a laptop so I can work elsewhere once in a while. Maybe I’ll even set up a work station at Dad’s office just to get out of the house sometimes.

Sunday we went to church at the UUSS. Glen decided to join us, which I must say was rather weird. The UUs are an extremely liberal group of people and he’s definitely what they call a neo-con. Naturally, the sermon was on the very controversial issue of peace and pacifism. We were all made uncomfortable by the inadequate mix of Glen’s oil with UU (and our) water.

Afterward, we were able to present Kelly with the Mother’s Day present we had for her. Perhaps I mentioned that we took Ambrosia to get her portraits taken at Penny’s a few weeks ago? Well, they turned out beautifully, and we gave them to Kelly as a late Mom’s Day present. I had been a little nervous about how this gift would be received. I thought maybe it was a little psycho to borrow someone else’s kid and take her for pictures, but Kelly loved the gift. So, yay!

Later on Sunday, NoNo and MrPlanet4 joined us for lunch. We barbequed chicken and enjoyed the humid, hot and rainy weather outside.

Lucas went to his second dentist appointment with uncle Terry Jones, dentist extraordinaire. Lucas was great! No fear, very patient and cooperative with Karen the hygienist. She had a really great manner too. She showed him all the tools and let him use them before she put them anywhere near his mouth. She named the water tool and the suction tool (Mr. Thirsty) and the polishing too, and explained to him that you have to brush and clean your teeth really good to get the sugar bugs off your teeth. He just sat quietly, enjoyed making Mr. Thirsty drink from a cup of water.