Evening Excursion

After being home all afternoon, I decided we would take a trip to the mailbox and garbage dump around 6:00 tonight. I was still collecting the recycling in the kitchen when I realized Kaia had opened the front door and let Asher out. I ran out the door to catch up with the kids and the sight I saw told me this would be no ordinary trip to the dump. I ran back in to get my camera and I’m so glad I did. This was one of the most entertaining excursions I've had in a while!

Asher, helpful kid that he is, was taking out the massive bag of dirty diapers all by himself. And each of the kids was carrying a dishtowel. Not sure why?? Asher was insistent that he also get to carry an envelope - these days he has to do anything he sees Kaia doing. Recently Kaia - on her own initiative - wrote out "invitations to the ball." A couple lucky people will now be getting those in the mail in a few days.

As an aside, what has in the recent past seemed like cute assertions of Asher’s independence is quickly turning into frighteningly fierce demands that his will be met. If he wants something I'm saying no to, he points his arm as straight as he can get with his index finger extended towards the item he wants and says the name of the item in an increasingly loud voice, as if I'm just not hearing what he's saying. Yeah, right.

Anyway, I tried to help Asher with the bag of diapers but he was very mad about this. I finally got him to share the responsibility so we were carrying the bag together. We finally made it outside and I found out what the dishtowels were for - they double as a shawl! Who knew?

These days I like to pretend we have a backyard and live in a real neighborhood. I stood in the middle of the parking lot holding Asher and watching the dogs across the street playing, until another man walked by with his dog and one of the dogs from the house across the street literally attacked his dog – ferociously. That was fun, and oh so appropriate for our area! Kaia had been watching from a cement ledge that extends from the building and told me her stomach hurt when she saw the dog do that. Here is the cement ledge that the kids played on for several minutes:

Here's our "backyard." Nothing like a couple tubs of paint, some broken glass, and a bunch of rocks to throw for kids to really learn to be kids.


Kaia did some breakdancing on the way back to the house.

As we walk down the last hall to our place, Kaia and Asher like to play red light/green light. Basically this involves me standing still as they run down the hall to look for hiding places. Here's a picture of when Asher found Kaia. She's not crying or upset or anything - I guess she thought she was still hiding as she got an "Asher hug:"