Weekly Review 96

Hello and welcome to another edition of my Weekly Review! This week was fun. There was lots of playtime, a few jumpscares when waking up, and after reviewing my notes for the week, way too many popsicles! Read along for this and much more! As always, it started on Monday…

I woke up earlier than I normally do on Monday. I wasn’t sure what to do with my free time, since I rarely have it these days. I’m not complaining! I love spending time with my family, but occasionally when I am given time to myself, I don’t really know what to do with it anymore. I decided to continue my read of Stoner and enjoy a quiet morning. I was lucky enough to get at least 30 minutes of reading time before I heard a door creak open upstairs, followed by little footsteps sneaking around to see if anyone else was awake. Then, at the top of the stairs, I heard him call, “Dada?”. He’s so cute. 

When Mr. O came downstairs he had the biggest smile on his face. We played for a while and then I had to go to work. When I came out of my office for one my breaks, Mr. O had informed me he wanted to have a popsicle with me. I told him, “It’s 9 AM it’s too early right now, but I will have one with you after work!”. He did not like that answer, but he agreed to it. “I don’t want to have one without you”, he whined. Lea said he was waiting all day and talking about having a popsicle with me all day. He’s so sweet (and a little crazy! Lol). When the clock struck 5 PM and he heard me walk out of my office, he immediately ran to me. To get to my office in our house you have to walk through the kitchen, so this was a convenient route for him to take because he grabbed my hand and walked me to the freezer. I opened his orange popsicle and grabbed myself a purple one. We don’t change our routines much when it comes to popsicles. We each have a flavor we enjoy and we stick to it. 

With Lea out of the house for a few hours this evening, it was boys night. Once we finished our treats, Mr. O and I were on the hunt for a fly that had gotten inside our house. We eventually caught it. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. When I did this a week ago with Winston the Cat, it took forever! Maybe Mr. O is a better partner than Winston? This seems to be the case, but let’s not start a bunch of drama around here. I need my readers to promise me you won’t tell Winston the Cat what I have said. Repeat after me, “I, as a reader of The Region Life, promise to not tell Winston the Cat that Peter said Mr. O was a better fly hunting partner than he is. And if I do, I promise to apologize to Peter in his comment sections for the rest of my life.” 

Once the fly was dead (or asleep like I told Mr. O), I brought out my telescope for us to mess with. Mr. O loves playing with it. I haven’t figured out how to focus it correctly yet, so it’s a work in progress. When we gave up toying with the telescope, we played with two of Mr. O’s Buzz Lightyear toys. Then he wanted to wrestle so I spent a few minutes getting beat up by a 3 year old. He doesn’t understand pretending when it comes to hitting me. He will punch and kick me and he thinks it’s hilarious. Thankfully, he doesn’t have this problem with other kids, and I’m glad he is comfortable enough with me to actually hit me, but it freakin hurts! I will say, he has been better about pretending to hit, rather than actually hitting lately. So he is learning, which is always a good thing. 

After I waved the white flag, Mr. O was suddenly a dentist. He was opening my mouth and checking my teeth. After pretending to count them, he told me I am missing one of my teeth and the rest are loose. Tell me, why was I actually nervous for a second? Did a little part of me actually believe what he was saying? Why was I seriously asking him, “Where? Which tooth is missing?”, like he was a real dentist? I question my sanity sometimes. 

Later in the evening we calmed playtime down and turned on the movie Lightyear while building his wooden train tracks. Then it was time to take a bath and put him to bed. What a great start to the week!

On Tuesday morning I woke up to find Mr. O sleeping next to me in my bed. I’m not sure when he came into our room or how I didn’t feel him climb in our bed, but there he was. About an hour later I woke him up and had him ready to go. Lea was taking him to daycare this time (he was not thrilled at the idea initially, but he came around to it). The work day came and went, as it tends to do, and before I knew it my little family was home. As soon as they walked through our garage door, Mr. O asked me to have a popsicle with him. We sat on the couch eating our popsicles and watching Lightyear again. I don’t know how he never gets tired of that movie. Lately, he’s been asking to change it about halfway through, but most of the time we watch the whole thing. It’s nonstop, “Lightyear this, Lightyear that. I want to watch Lightyear”. Lol. 

While Mr. O and I were watching that and playing, Lea was making us dinner. Afterwards, I put Mr. O to bed, worked on my latest Exploring the Region post, and did some reading before going to bed. 

When I woke up Wednesday I had a bit of a jumpscare. Mr. O was laying next to me, only a few inches from my face. He was awake and smiling at me, as if he was patiently waiting there for me to wake up. I’m glad he was courteous enough to not wake me, but honestly, he scared the crap out of me! He had a cute smile on his face, though, so the fear quickly went away. After work Mr. O and I went into the backyard and grilled a few pork chops. I mixed some olive oil, oregano and lemon juice together, and after seasoning the chops with salt and pepper, I lathered my mixture on them and let them marinate for a few minutes while I prepped the grill. Is it even “marinating” if it’s only for a few minutes? I think so, but I always assumed when something is marinating it meant, “sits and soaks in it for hours”. Just a thought, I guess I could Google it. 

Also, the pork chops were delicious! It’s by no means an original recipe or seasoning or anything, Lol. I am not an experienced cook, so it was a new thing for me to try. After dinner Mr. O and I hooked up my old Nintendo 64 and played Super Mario for a bit. Then I did some cleaning upstairs. Every other Wednesday is our “cleaning day”. Lea handled the downstairs and I took care of the upstairs. I vacuumed and cleaned our bathrooms. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Once I finished I took Mr. O upstairs and tried to put him to bed. He does not like his room for some reason. “It’s just not great for me”, he said. His room is fine. We’re not sure what the problem is. Lea took him into the guest room with her and he fell asleep shortly after. He loves cuddling her and watching a movie in that room. He also does NOT like me there. He kicks me out, Lol. 

Thursday was basically a copy-and-paste of Tuesday. I woke up Mr. O, got him ready for daycare, and Lea dropped him off. Since I had some time before work started, I watched a couple episodes of Home Improvement. I’m almost done with the series! I have to finish it before the end of July because it’s leaving Netflix. After work Mr. O and I had popsicles again. I really need to stop giving in to his requests. When we finished those, I baked my barbecue chicken in the oven. I did not feel like grilling since it was so hot out and the wildfire smoke made it unbearable outside. After we played for a bit, I did the dishes and then gave Mr. O a bath and put him to bed. 

I know it sounds like I do a lot, but since these posts are from my lens/point of view, I typically leave out almost everything Lea does around here, Lol. She does a lot, and she also does bedtime and bath time. Mr. O does prefer me to do bedtime, though, so that is why I typically do it. That, and because Lea is with him all day, almost every day. 

Once he finally fell asleep (around 10 PM), I went downstairs and worked on my Exploring the Region post again. It’s a good one! It won’t be done for a while, though. I’m not rushing it. I want it to be a quality article and that means lots of research. I also don’t enjoy writing when I’m super tired or can only write for a few minutes. I feel too rushed. It will be published when I feel it is ready! 

On Friday morning, Mr. O slept in again. I spent some time coloring this Superman coloring book before work. I forgot how much fun coloring is. Lea bought me a box of colored pencils recently (at my request) and I have been using them to color this book. I’ve only colored a couple of pages for now, but they look nice! In the evening, it was just me and Mr. O again. I made us dinner and then we played upstairs and ran around. Then, when I finally convinced him to chill out before bed, we lazily sat on the couch and watched some of his shows. Later on, we attempted to have another sleepover in our living room. I blew up the air mattress, Mr. O happily bounced around on it, and we turned on a movie. The night did not go well. 

Mr. O did not want to sleep on the air mattress, he only wanted to jump and run on it. Then he wanted to sleep on the couch, then he wasn’t tired. By the time Lea came home he wanted to go upstairs and sleep with her. So we deflated the mattress and went our separate ways. It’s okay. No hard feelings (anymore). 

On Saturday morning we all went into the basement to start cleaning it out. My father-in-law is going to finish our basement for us, and he will be starting in a few weeks, so we had to clear it out for him. We made a trash pile and a pile of things we are keeping. Everything we are keeping was taken upstairs and is currently in our dining room (it’s a mess), while everything we are throwing away is sitting in the basement until we rent a big dumpster to toss it in. After a few hours the first half of our basement was cleared out. Then my friend Toby came over to help and we emptied out the other half pretty quickly. 

As a reward, and a thank you to our friend, Lea went out and bought Culvers for lunch. Toby, Mr. O and I ate on the floor while playing Super Mario on the Nintendo for a while. Then Toby eventually left and our little family relaxed after a tiring day. In the evening, I cleaned myself up and went over to Toby’s to hang out. We ordered Chinese takeout and watched a baseball game. Then we spent the rest of the night playing video games. He beat me in almost every single one. It was a fun, yet frustrating night! 

We all slept in on Sunday morning. It felt great, but also tiring since we did a lot of manual labor the day before. My body is definitely sore. Mr. O and I spent the morning playing and running around, while Lea was getting ready for a bridal shower. 

Mini Me and I then played downstairs with his toy cars, then we kicked a ball back and forth, and currently, as I write this, we are having “quiet time” since he doesn’t want to nap. He is lying on the couch and we are watching train videos on YouTube. 

As for the rest of the day, we’re going to watch the World Cup final, clean up as much as we can around the house (kind of hard when all our things are stuffed in the dining room!), and of course, play. It was a great week here in the region, and I hope all of you had a great one too. 

A Moment I’m Still Thinking About

The moment that stuck with me the most this week is Mr. O saying he doesn’t want to have a popsicle without me. It was so sweet and he is obsessed with me (which I love). As you know, I enjoy spending time with my boy and doing things with him and it makes my heart happy that he feels the same way, even for the little things. 

Thanks for reading this edition of my Weekly Review! If you enjoyed it, subscribe!

Peter

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