Tristen called around and planned to go into work late today. She scheduled an appointment to have Griffin’s clavicle looked at to see what we needed to do. She was planning on going into work later if she needed to, but she ended up just switching time around.

It worked out well for me that she did. The boys were a bit of a handful this morning and one of my favorite clients had a big issue that took a good bit of detective work to figure out. I’m not sure when I would have been able to tackle it if she hadn’t been here.

The appointment wasn’t until something like 2:50. She planned to leave here at 2:20 but neither of us realized what time it was until four minutes after she planned to leave. She still got there on time, but there was a bit of a flurry getting out the door.

Tristen’s mom bikes with the daughter of a retired orthopedic surgeon and sent the x-rays Griffin had taken on Saturday to him. His opinion was that it would heal on its own and that Griffin’s own pain reactions would keep him from misusing his arm. That opinion was backed up by the doctor Tristen visited today. No surgery, no sling of any kind. They said we could just keep wrapping up his arm the way we’re doing. All good news. He’ll go back in two weeks to make sure he’s healing properly.

Yesterday, Tristen took Griffin with her to her mom’s house to try to rad the CD the x-rays were on as we couldn’t seem to get them going here. It was also just to get him out of the house a bit. While they did that, I took Fawkes and Phoenix to a nearby park. They played on the playground for a while then went to the swings for just a few minutes. While at the swings a lady asked me if I had a brother named Adam, which I of course do. The women had gone to school with him and said I looked like Adam. I told her that was the first time anyone had told me that (Adam and Tristen both echoed that sentiment when I told them of the encounter). She was there with her two daughters and husband. We chatted for a little before Fawkes and Phoenix decided to go play on the bridge.

I’d say they spent a plurality of their time there on the bridge, primarily occupied with the task of throwing pine straw into the creek below and asking about the turtles that were absent today. We did see fish though.

So that’s kind of the stuff going on today. Now I’m going to talk about other random stuff going on.

Update on the Kids

Over the last couple weeks, Fawkes has started putting more words and phrases together. He’ll say “Thank you, Daddy/Mommy,” when you give him something. “Don’t like it (doe i ih)” has been a big one, and Phoenix has started using it, too.

Just tonight Tristen was asking Fawkes if he was a donkey because he was saying “Hee-haw.” I don’t know if he was trying to make donkey sounds, which I can’t really remember going over with him, or if he was saying “Yee-haw,” which he picked up from Jessie on Toy Story, but he was saying, “No I’m not a donkey, I’m a Fawksey.” That’s a translation, of course. “Fawksey” comes out as “Dawsey.”

“Where’s ___,” and “There s/he is.” “Peek-a-boo” they’ve said for a while, but it’s gotten more clear lately. Other stuff here or there, but I can’t remember other examples at the moment.

For both of the twins, “Milly” has shifted from “Nih-nih” to something that sounds more like “Nonny,” but is somehow slightly different. I can tell the difference, anyway.

Fawkes is definitely the better talker right now, being a bit more clear in his speech and putting more words together. Phoenix is coming along though. I think he’s a bit more apt to sing.

They both like building with Duplo blocks. Phoenix also tends to put these shape blocks we have together on the dining room able in very interesting patterns.

Griffin’s saying a little more and showing a lot more comprehension, but I feel like his speech is behind where the twins were at around 19 months. He doesn’t go in for a lot of animal noises or anything like that. He does make consistent noises though and the kid loves to dance. There’s a video I took of him last night of him saying “BAA BAA BAA” (not like a sheep; more like a declaration) and dancing that Fawkes and Phoenix find hilarious. It’s followed by a video of him telling Fawkes “No” repeatedly for being on the other side of the baby gate. They think that’s funny too.

Fakes and Phoenix are really into watching what they call “Mouse Christmas,” which is two movies on Disney+ that are collections of Christmas cartoons: Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas and Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas. There were into the newer animated Grinch for a bit, but Netflix removed it for some reason or another. They’ve watched the Jim Carey version a bit though. And they still watch regular stuff from time to time. I really am doing a decent job of not just sitting them down in front of the TV all the time though, I promise.

I’m trying to work on numbers with them more, and they’ll kind of do 1-10 with me. Need to start working on the ABC song. They used to love it when I’d sing that to them.

Griffin’s doing very well with his broken collarbone, by the way. He’s trying to do too much for my liking and I hovered around him a lot this evening after dinner. Fawkes and Phoenix were getting pretty rambunctious and I didn’t want him to get knocked over or anything.

Despite his delicate state he was a stinker at times, pulling Fawkes’s hair on more than one occasion and getting sent to the corner for it once.

The toughest things to do are to pick him up when he’s lying facedown and to put a shirt on him. Since you can’t pick him up under the armpits like usual, I try to create a seat for him with my hand and carry him with his back to my chest. I wondered if I’ll get into the habit of that and forget I can pick him up regularly when he heals.

Milly’s doing fine in school, although a few assignments she says she misunderstood have her a little lower in health class than the others. She’s doing really well in math which is great because she’s in the advanced math, but she wasn’t supposed to be. With all the hecticness going on with getting schools ready for the split COVID schedule, they put her in AIG math since she was in AIG ELA (English), and she’s actually doing better in the math.

Phone Upgrade

I finally upgraded my phone on Friday. I went from an iPhone 7 Plus to an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I liked my 7 just fine and never really saw the need to upgrade to some of the intermediate models. I decided I did want the 12 though, since it would have the much faster 5G internet capabilities. I was planning on upgrading as soon as I could once it came out, but I had to replace the screen on my 7 a little while back so I felt bad trading it in after having just spent money on it.

Then another issue came up. Starting last weekend, whenever someone called me or I called them, the phone would just sound dead on my end. I tried fiddling with every setting I could, turned off Bluethooth in case it was somehow sending the audio there, all kinds of things, but I couldn’t get it to work. I had to take all my calls talking through my Apple Watch, which isn’t a terrible thing, but sometimes if I had to unlock the watch it wouldn’t pick up an incoming call. I looked into it and I think maybe a soldered wire came loose or something.

And so it was time. I spent a little time Friday evening ordering it and was able to pick it up from the store that very night.

I really like it. I expected it to be a noticeably larger than my 7 Plus, and it is slightly larger, but you can’t really tell. The battery life is really good and the camera is really nice.

I had planned to make my first picture a really good one of Tristen. I have this weird thing where I like to make my first use of something a good one. I knew we were going to be going to Airlie the night after I got it and figured with the low light and all the moving around the kids would be doing that I wouldn’t get a good first picture there. But with everything that was going on Saturday I decided to take a picture of Griffin before Tristen took him off to get x-rayed.