G is for "Get Away, Grandpa!"

We've been keeping very busy lately, trying to cram in as much family time as we can before the kids are shipped off to jail school. Aside from our previously mentioned trip to the beach, and a trip to the hospital (ugh) with Bally's fractured arm, we visited the National Zoo in DC, and the Baltimore Aquarium!



I don't really have any family pictures to share, because during both visits Bally spent the majority of his time cuddled up in his stroller asleep. They're not very exciting photos. It rained during the entire zoo trip, and in several of the buildings, strollers weren't allowed. Plus, probably because of the rain, the animals were just lazing around as far from the fences as possible, and Bally's pretty sure he didn't see any animals all day.

He enjoyed the aquarium a bit more, though, especially when the really big fishies would swim towards the glass. Whhooooa! was the general consensus. He laughed out loud during the jumps at the dolphin show, and screamed bloody murder when the announcer would come on the loudspeaker to explain the next bit. We got shot with more than a couple of angry glances. We also got completely soaking wet, which also made Bally scream, because he didn't understand why he was suddenly being attacked by killer whales with wave launchers. On a side note, his sister really liked the seahorses, and both of them enjoyed the jelly fish invasion room.

(See the bottom left corner of the photograph to the right for exclusive footage of a man in a speedo bathing on his house tent-boat.)

When we were back from the aquarium and settled in at home, we got a visit from Uncle Bob. I brought Bally down to visit while Grandpa showed off some pictures and video he had taken throughout the day. During all of this, something went terribly wrong, and it was Grandpa's fault. I don't know whether it was over-stimulation from too many voices at once, or some scary fish picture, or the music in the background of the shark videos, or whether it was simply laundry time.... but Bally's sister came to us and said "Um, guys, I think you need to come see what Bally did."

And this is how we found him. Hiding in the dryer. Eating chocolate. Refusing to come out. And it was definitely Grandpa's fault.

Afterwards, he held a personal grudge against Grandpa for about a week. He said "Nononononono!" to going to visit Grandpa, and a few times ran to the gate and screamed "GET AWAY!"
It seems like he's starting to forget now, and I guess we'll never really know why they were feuding. It was guy stuff, I guess. Not my place to pry into the rules and hierarchy of man-world.

I'm going to change gears here and switch back to the subject of school and medical appointments and paperwork now, so let's have a brief intermission and make sure all our things are in line.

Okay, good. I'll continue.

I've been running into a lot of obstacles with school enrollment for both of the kids, because we rent without a lease. It seems so simple. 5 words. We. Rent. Without. A. Lease. Yet these words have cause utter CHAOS. I can say that it pretty much rendered useless all of the people who I was in contact with for Bally. Are we the only people who have ever done this?! The problem is, everyone is guilty-until-proven-innocent when it comes to residency: if I can't furnish property taxes or a lease with my name on it, it's because I definitely don't live in Montgomery County. I just want to drive all the way up here to troll these people.
Luckily, Bally's sister actually has a "home" school, and they were very helpful. Not only did they send out someone to verify that we have a house that looks very much lived in, but while they were there, they met Bally and filled out a set of papers for him, too! So his big sister is officially going to kindergarten this year, and his paperwork has been sent in to start the evaluation process and hopefully place him in a school sometime soon as well. And to be completely honest, it won't hurt my feelings a bit if he isn't placed for a few months, or even if he has to wait until next year. I know he needs to start some kind of therapy as soon as possible, but dealing with 2 entirely different bus schedules for 2 different schools is just not something that I'm excited about. He's doing just fine in his homeschooling with Grandma, where he's learned the write the whole alphabet in upper and lower case, he's learned the change his own diaper (??), give hugs on command, answer questions with relevant (however, usually untrue) responses about 33% of the time, and scream "I'M SORRYYY!!!!" at the top of his lungs, all the while looking not-so-very sorry.

And as we got all of this rolling, I realized something-- because it was an open-ended "whenever you guys have time", and there was no appointment set, I completely forgot about Bally's genetics testing. We really had just way too much thrown at us at once. But he doesn't need to see his pediatrician until after his birthday, and he doesn't have his ophthalmology appointment until October, so I think we'll just chillax for a week or so. All throughout this we've been trying to buy a house, which could warrant a blog of it's own, so I won't even get into it except to say that we just need a break! We're just about out of time to take any more trips before school starts, but we may hit the Montgomery County fair sometime this week.

In the meantime, try not to let this guy keep you up at night. I'm sure he's a really nice fellow.