It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's...an antelope!

Today was another day when we didn't have to set any alarms! There was no early morning swim practice because the oldest age group had their county competition today. Benjamin has his tomorrow afternoon. Zoë and Alex have theirs on Sunday. 

In addition to some small things like laundry and dishes and I meeting with my academic advisor and whatever else, I also finished cleaning out the chest freezer in the garage and listed it on the Buy Nothing Group. And I sent out the Hancock Hummer. And I finished writing (and submitted) my application essay for the Certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. And we went to the lawyer's office to sign a POA (power of attorney) for welling our house.

And I still have a million things on my list of things to do!

I also took a nap because we are trying to manage our stress levels. I'm doing okay so far. I can tell because I haven't even developed a twitch in my eye yet. Andrew, however, was silently thinking he was going blind for the past two weeks (but didn't want to talk about it because talking about it would make it real...so he went to the doctor while I had all the kids at the waterpark and the doctor suggested he go to the eye doctor...so he went to the eye doctor yesterday and they did all sorts of tests and determined that he has beautiful 20/20 vision, but might need reading glasses, and also that he's probably pretty stressed out so use eye drops and try to sleep more).

Here he is with his wacky eyes coming off of whatever dilation medication they used on him (apparently more solution went into one eye than the other so they de-dilated at different rates, which was pretty freaky looking):

Grandpa and Darla recently were told where their apartment will be in Abu Dhabi. Grandpa sent and email to us about how long it would take to drive from their apartment to Doha (6 hours and 40 minutes) versus flying there (1 hour and 5 minutes) and concluded that any visits would be by plane. 

Miriam wanted to know how far away it was, so Andrew measured on the map and it was about 180 miles away. 

"As the crow flies, or..." he said, sounding rather proud of himself. "As the oryx flies."

"Oryxes...don't...fly..." Miriam said, unimpressed.

"Sure they do!" Andrew argued. "They're the logo for Qatar Airways! They're painted on all the planes, with their long pointy horns and...wait a minute..."

"He's going to get there..." I said to Miriam. 

"Oryxes...aren't birds...are they?"

"Bingo."

"What are they?"

"They are...kind of like an antelope...I think. Four legs, hooves, horns...most definitely mammals, have never been observed to fly."

*****

Later that same day (and it's important to me that you understand this was the very same day) we were helping Phoebe put on some sunscreen and she thought she might roll up her swimsuit sleeves to put some sunscreen on her arms as well. 

"Just wherever you have bare skin is fine," Andrew instructed. 

"I don't have bear skin," Phoebe replied. "I am not a bear."

"Rooooar," I said, curving my hands into scary bear paws/claws. 

"Just...wherever you have naked skin," Andrew said. "Can't make an animal joke out of that!"

"Meh, meh, me-e-e-eh!" I said. "I'm a baby goat and I don't want to do that! Me-e-e-e-eh!"

"I see your nay-kid and raise you nude," Andrew said. "Can't make an animal joke out of that!"

"Well, I could, but it would be a stretch..." I said. 

"I was thinking of a gnu," Andrew said. 

"Me, too!" I gasped. "But...how...?"

"Like, if a gnu was flying through the sky and it pooped on you. Haha—you just got gnu'd!"

"Umm...okay... So gnus...aren't birds."

"What?! What are they?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"Why? What are they?!"

"They're actually...ummm...antelopes..." I said as gently as I could.

"No way!" Andrew wailed. "Twice in one day?!"

"Yeah. You know Nelly Gnu from Llama Llama? She's like, a big ol' wildebeest, so..."

"Not a bird?"

"Not a bird, no. But I was trying to figure out a gnu joke, so...good on ya!"

"What was I thinking of though? Isn't there a bird that sounds like gnu?"

"Maybe an emu?" I suggested. "But...they don't really fly...so..."

"Huh...the joke still wouldn't work," Andrew said, a little deflated.

"Not really. But, I mean, this whole situation is pretty funny..."

So that's how Andrew mistook antelopes for birds twice in one day. 

Also, you should know that one morning this week while he was sitting at at a poolside table waiting for swimming practice to be over, a bird flew overhead and, uh, gnu'd him all over his shirt and arm. He wasn't very happy about it and so I think perhaps he simply has had birds on the brain.

But we will continue to work on his antelope recognition skills, just in case...