5... (halfway there)

Dear Jesse,

The halfway point! Five days done, five to go.

The boys were home for Ascension Day. Just about everything was closed and quiet for the holiday. It poured with rain off and on all morning then the sun came out in the afternoon.

During the dark and wet hours, we played multiple games of Yahtzee and made an enormous fort. The fort had separate rooms and a hallway. (For some reason including a hallway was very very important.)

During the sunny and dry hours, the boys decided to go bug catching in the yard. They were quite successful. After calling them in for dinner, I turned to put plates on the table and found that Josiah had removed the center tiny pot of roses (they're what remain of the lovely bouquet you bought before leaving!) and replaced it with their insect habitat. A perfect centerpiece with elements to suit all three diners at the table, no?

I'm told—and I wrote this down—that the jar houses:

2 small spiders

1 ladybug

7-10 ants

5-7 roly poly bugs

3 beetles

3 slugs (or snails without shells, there was disagreement on this point)

+ 1 empty snail shell, some dirt, several sticks, grass, and leaves

After dinner and showers and jammies, they cuddled up on a chair and asked me to wrap them in a blanket. They spent the next 10 minutes observing their little habitat, keenly looking for hiding behaviors, impending fights, and so forth.

The jar was more engrossing than a movie! I left them to it, only intervening when William took off the lid.