Chez Chastain
Kristin invited Shane, Liv, and me over for dinner. We had actually spent some time with them at the park on Monday, which was when she learned that I was flying solo with the kids and suggested that I might want to bring the kids for dinner and a bit of break. It was a strange weather day, starting out nice and then quickly deteriorating to cold, windy and threatening rain. But when we got there around 3:30 we all played outside for a bit until the two younger kids got cold and hungry. Kristin and I headed inside with them while Shane and Nick stayed outside. Watching them out the back windows, it wasn't long before we see the two boys running over to Curt's shed. Nick makes the corner and completely disappears behind the shed. Shane, obviously not as experienced (thankfully), doesn't make the corner and starts to pull his pants down to his ankles -- as he does to pee. We can see clearly listening to the obscured Nick, who must have told him to come all the way around to the back of the shed. Shane pulls up his pants, and goes around to the back of the shed -- although we can still see him b/c of the angle on which the shed sits -- pull his pants down again, and pee on the back of the shed. A later conversation confirmed that this was how his mentor had instructed him.

At dinner, the three boys sat at the small table together, and given that it was three ACTIVE boys eating together, they were all very well behaved. At one point, without promting, Shane said to Kristin, "Thank you, Kristin, for making this pasta for me." We were all trying a new wild rice pasta that was actually very good. The adults had grilled cod rubbed with Old Bay -- yum! -- and the children had grilled chicken. Broccoli all around.

After dinner, Curt and I went down to the basement with the kids to check out his progress on finishing it. It is coming along great, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Curt. But while talking about the details, trials and tribulations, etc. of such a project the kids were all playing in the saw dust with no shoes on [I know, I know -- at least I held Liv up off the floor]. When it was time to go upstairs, I noticed that Shane was standing awkwardly -- one foot on top of the other. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was blood on the bottom of his right foot and immediately assumed that he had stepped on something. As the bleeding didn't seem too bad, I started to look for the object that he had stepped on, so that noone else would do the same. After finding a few candidates I noticed his left big toe -- the one he had been standing on. It had a good sized gash on it. I asked him what happened and he finally told me that he had been trying to carry "that board" -- a 2 foot by 3 foot laminated MDF shelf board -- when he dropped it on his toe. Given the size of the board and the size of the wound, Curt and I could not believe that he didn't cry or wimper or anything. In fact, the only time he cried at all was when we cleaned it out and put anti-bac cream on it.

Besides the injury, what a great way to break up my week! Thanks Curt and Kristin!