The annual pumpkin trip and other tales

This weekend was both fun and productive, and earned Susan some hazard pay. Saturday afternoon we had over a friend of Sam's from school named Ariana. Her mother is a dentist from central America. (For the longest time they had a nanny and we were under the impression the nanny was really Ariana's mother.) This was the first time Sam and Ariana got together for a play date, and there were a couple of surprises. First, when they arrived Arian's mom just ushered Ariana to the door, poked her head in, and said she was going to go work out and would see us in a couple of hours! OH! One of THOSE play dates! Susan expects she will reciprocate, but it was still a surprise. Second, we learned that Ariana is FULL OF EXPLOSIVE ENERGY! She made Sam look like Sam Waterson in a PBS movie about the Library of Congress. For quite some time Susan couldn't leave them alone for fear that bones would be broken. Fortunately once she had a Playmobil(tm) castle to focus on she calmed down a little.

A good time was had by Sam and Ariana, and I got to take out a glass shower door and install a new overhead light. Woohoo!

Also this weekend:

• A trip to Shutt's Apple Farm to get pumpkins. In the new house we are now just ten minutes away. It's always fun to visit there, and we came away with not just pumpkins, but fresh donuts, a "home-made" cherry pie, and dried soup. Yum!
• A trip to Bounce-It-Out to (1) reward him for elimination successes, despite the danger of recidivism (sorry for all the potty talk); (2) wear him out; (3) expose him to BOTH the seasonal flu AND H1N1. Three birds with one stone!
  
• A complete viewing of Disney's retelling of Exodus, Prince of Egypt. His request. More than once he said a scene was scary but he still wanted to watch it. The crossing of the Red Sea and the Passover were the scariest. Once we finished that we cleansed his mind with some Max & Ruby (a world where life is simple and the worst worries are about Ruby's finishing her BunnyScout craft project in time).
  
• May seem minor, but Sam and I watched a local home improvement tv show together. This is an important milestone--not only did he sit and watch something *I* wanted to watch, but he ended up enjoying it! Didn't hurt, I am sure, that I kept ooing and ahhing over the log cabin they were working on.
• Many games of Hisss, a simple card game where the players build snakes. Mark Geary introduced it to us, and it's perfect for his age. And I learned this morning it's straightforward to palm cards onto his pile to orchestrate the flow of the game if it's 8:15 a.m. and you need to leave for school. (Not that I am not usually content to let him lose when he loses.)
  

That's our news. A pleasantly quiet week lies ahead... I hope. Oh--the second photo shows Sam with his friend Ian. Ian is wearing Sam's Hallowe'en costume, which Sam picked out but now doesn't want to put on. Don't ask.

p.s.: anyone have any flu vaccine we could bogart?