Ane not going out to babysit every Friday means that she’s home to babysit her brothers.  Which means that Friday evening is date night for me and the Webmaster.

I mean, it’s not like WE can actually go sit down anywhere and eat.  We’ve been getting takeout from whichever of our favorite local restaurants are open, and then usually going home to eat.  But today, we sat in the backyard in our lawn chairs, near the blooming lilacs, and had dinner al fresco.

The kids stayed inside and had their dinner, and were waving to us from the window.  But that was all.  We had a lovely hour outside before the bugs really started coming out.

Date night has definitely been one of the better things to come out of this pandemic.

I’ve tried, but Tad’s heart belongs to marine biology.  There is no way I can get him deeply interested in history – especially drier, abstract concepts like the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833 under President Andrew Jackson.  But that’s what he’s doing right now in history.

So, he’s drawing a comic strip.

He is learning a little something, and gets to draw for his assignment.  It’s a win-win!

And yes, that’s how he sits at the table ALL THE TIME.  I can’t explain it.

Every day, there are just a few more signs that spring is here.

My lilac tree (it has moved from “bush” to “tree” over the last few years) in the backyard is tall and heavy with blooms right now.  They smell just wonderful.

This time is not going to last forever.

Thumper has a lot of work to do on his handwriting.  His fine motor skills overall are on the weak side, and his hand grip is very loose for a lot of things.

His school OT pointed me to an app that he liked using at school, Writing Wizard for Kids.  So we bought it and installed it on our iPad.

Now, Thumper isn’t always good about using the stylus to write with (sometimes he just straight up cheats and uses his right thumb, which is weird for a lefty), and you can see in the picture that his grip is a loose “tri” hold – not the ideal writing grip.  We have some work to do.

We just have to get him to focus on writing with the app, instead of playing with it….