5 Miles

The last two days we had James’ brother and his family staying with us. They have 3 kids, the youngest is 2 months old. Both boys were fascinated by the baby– Will, especially, and they had lots of questions for Shari.  Will was amazed that the baby pooped EVERY DAY, and said ”I hope we have a girl baby because they don’t poop as much as boys!”  (We didn’t tell him that all babies poop the same…and by that above sentence I guess I’ve revealed he’s not that regular.) He also thought it was funny and interesting they have yellow poop. 

Alex was happy to find out that babies don’t fuss as loud as big kids do and they don’t fuss ALL the time, just when they wake up and are hungry.

Last night, Alex asked, “Is Aunt Shari leaving the baby here? He’s on Daddy’s lap.” (I guess he thought since Daddy was holding the baby, he was going to keep him.  I told him she was taking the baby, we’d have our own baby like that soon enough.

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This morning it was a cool 62 and cloudy. Will kept telling me how it was FREEZING. He had on a turtle neck and jeans, but no shoes or socks so when he went out and told me how cold it was, I told him he should add those. He said “Mommy, the 62 degrees goes right through my shirt! And my face and hands will be cold, I’ll need my winter mittens!”

Typical views of this summer–the boys playing in the water, making a damn/digging in the dirt.

Silly kids–so much for getting pictures of them playing.

So they went on the swings…

It’s hard to catch a picture of Alex making his “pouty lips” face, so I had to include a picture of it. (It makes me laugh at times when he does it.)

And, a typical view of Alex these days…He’s going to get a hair cut soon, I promise. And there was a bath right after this.

Thursday we made our annual trek to the State Fair.  We had a great time, but it was rather warm.  I know it was cooler then most days this week, but when you’re out in the sun, it felt HOT…to James and I, at least.  We chose to go right after lunch, so we’d be home in time for early bed times (since Will had school the next morning).  I’d rather we’d be able to go in the evening when it gets cooler, but this is the joy of having a kids in school now. At least he had the day off so we could go after lunch, and not have to wait until 3!

Here are the pictures  I put on Facebook (so if you already saw them there, nothing new. Sorry, I didn’t want to do two picture posts in a row…it just takes too long!)

They boys enjoyed playing the mini-golf again, and eating. We explored a few new areas…one area included a “Little Hands” exhibit where the kids could pretend to feed animals, gather eggs, groom a sheep, milk a cow and driving small tractors.  Then they got to trade in their harvest for money, and then buy one item at the store (they got to pick between orange juice, milk, cereal, granola bars or small fruit cups–both boys picked granola bars).  After we’d had supper, Will REALLY wanted to ride a ride on the Midway (he remembered our promise last year that “next year” he could ride).  So we let him pick out one. (Pictures of that are at the link above).  When we were eating our ice cream and talking about the day, he said “Mommy, the roller coaster knocked out the golf for my favorite thing”. We got a laugh over that. 

While it was a warm afternoon, we did have fun–but it really wore me out!  Sadly, it didn’t wear the kids out as much, and Will had another rough night falling asleep. We’re hoping as school becomes more normal he won’t be laying awake the night before.  We’ll see, the week ahead is a more normal week (until family arives at the end of it to visit us & we celebrate Will’s birthday a few days early…hmmm, not so normal after all!).

So today was Will’s first day of kindergarten!  

He was SO excited to ride the bus. I don’t know how much thought he put into the rest of the day. 

We waited out front for awhile for the bus, both he and Alex enjoyed waving to the cars going by.  Alex really wanted to go see the bus, and I wanted to let the driver know that Will only was going to ride Monday/Wednesday/Friday (the bus had stopped in front of the house yesterday).  So when the bus came we went up to visit/talk to the driver, and then waved good-bye as they left (yes, I did get a bit teary-eyed at that point). 

As soon as we walked into the house, Alex said “I miss Will”.  Watching Curious George and a promise to go to the library helped cure that. After the library we had a quick trip to Dunkin’ Donuts where we drowned our sorrows in a donut each. We ate outside and talked about the US flag, and how many stars and stripes are on it. Then we practiced counting to 50. After he was done with his sprinkles donut (which was good “even if it doesn’t have chocolate on it”), we came home and did some jobs, I did some Pilate’s, and then got out Alex’s car city out for him. He played nicely for about 20 minutes and then started asking about lunch (it was 11:45).  He did mention missing Will another time, but for the most part did rather well on his own.

After lunch he was ready to rest. James came home and I ran to the Dr. for my monthly check up.  Baby is doing well, all my tests/blood pressure/etc. were good, so I was in and out in a short time.

Will got home at 2:45. He shared that a friend from school, in his class, rides the bus and they sat across the aisle. Later he told James and I he found a seat with a little boy and sat with him to school. He sat next to another little who looked A LOT like that boy from the morning on the way home. He THINKS it might be the same one.   James asked him if he talked with the boy or asked him his name…he said “no”, and we had a laugh over a typical boy.

Highlights of the day he shared:

• They got to go to music class, but heard a story there about music. He was puzzled by why they didn’t play any of the instruments in the room but didn’t ask the teacher.
• He got to go to Spanish class and they had a story about a little girl who spoke Spanish and English.
• I didn’t need to put his lunch money in his folder, they didn’t make him pay for lunch today. (Yeah, right. I did, he didn’t know the teacher keeps track of it.)
• He bought his lunch and enjoyed it but wasn’t that hungry so he didn’t eat all of everything.  (Lunch is at 10:30 for him, I understand not being THAT hungry at that time.  They do get a 2:00 snack.)
• His best thing that happened today was riding on the bus (”Mom, did you know on the bus it looks like you’re going to hit the curb but you don’t?”)
• His not-so good thing that happened today was he didn’t get to go to gym. They’ll do that on Friday. (If that’s the worse thing, I’d say that’s a good day!)
• One of the girls from his class rides the bus.
• He was glad to be home, school “tired him out”. Part of that is becase he didn’t fall asleep until about 9:30 and his brother woke him up at 3 am (along with James and I).  Needless to say we were all tired today.  He was rather tired this afternoon and needed some time alone to rest while Alex played outside. Then they got to play together.

So, we survived Day One! Now it feels like it’s down hill from here!

“Mommy, will I grow bigger?”

“Yes, you’ll get bigger each year.”

“And soon, I’ll be as big as a grown up!”

“Yes, you’ll be a grown up”

“And I’ll get to stay up as late as you guys do! And I won’t wake you guys up at night!”

“Yes, because you’ll be in your own house so you can go to bed when you want and not wake us up!” (Someday!)

I have a series of thoughts–some that were status updates on Facebook, and others that I would have put on there if I’d had a chance, or I thought were funny but needed a bit more space to expand.  Thought I’d share them here for our own records.

James stepped on a bee outside this afternoon.  He was wincing and putting ice on it, and went into the living room to put his food up. Will said to him “We don’t want your cryin’ in here!”  Wow, is he full of compassion!  And really, he should be the most compassionate, he’s been stung by 2 this summer alone!  And now we’re 3-4…told Alex it’s only a matter of time for him.

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I made the mistake of letting the boys watch Wipeout (the show where people try to jump across the giant red balls or other crazy things).  They thought it was SO funny, but the rest of the day has been them doing their own version of the game. Be it jumping around the living room or out back, there has been lots of jumping and yelling and getting messy.

* * *

Today I got 2 dozen tomatoes frozen, 6 cups of zucchini shredded and frozen, chicken salad made (using several cucumbers and some chicken that needed to be used up) and dessert made for a gathering we’re going to tomorrow.  It’s nice to have the counter-tops mostly clear again without the veggies going bad!

* * *

This evening the boys needed to clean up Legos from the floor of their room. I had one more zucchini to shred. They were both at the “Fussing at the drop of a hat” point of the night, so I challenged them to a race–see who’d be done first.  They won (of course, once I got the zucchini done I was bagging it, there was no way I was going to try to beat them at this race!) and I asked what they thought they should get as their prize…they wanted to play Wipeout a few more times in the living room.  <sigh>  They’re allowed to jump on our old couch because I don’t care about it–they already know they can’t do that on the new couch or other people’s couches.  They’re really going to miss this old couch!

In a last little adventure before school starts, we went to the Children’s Museum today.  James took the day off work so we could have a fun family day.

First we saw a new exhibit about modern-day Egypt.  The exhibit started with getting in an airplane and pretending to fly to Egypt. It was really cool, they had the windows of the plane show videos to make it look like we were looking out the window and flying over the Nile and by the pyramids, and the landing was bumpy and felt like a real landing.  The boys enjoyed it.

This is the boys pretending to drive a tut-tut.  

Alex, pretending to shop at a market. He loved picked picking out vegetables he liked and weighing them.

Here the boys are on the back of the back of a crocodile along side of a cool painting of the Nile River.

 Will serving us “coffee” at a coffee shop.

Will & James…Will kept wanting to leave to go to other areas (but then would find things he found interesting).

Alex really enjoyed making coffee.

So we had fun exploring the new exhibit, and then we went down to see the trains. While there I realized we could get free tickets for a show at the Planetirum.  We’ve never done it before because I didn’t think the kids were old enough to enjoy it…but I realized they might be old enough to enjoy it now. So we got tickets for the show after lunch.

The flash was a bit bright in the dark. The boys really enjoyed the “movie” even though they really didn’t understand parts of it. 

After that we went up to do some “old favorites”…

…the marry-go-round (the first time Alex has gone on a horse that goes “up and down”), the play houses, and the science center. By that point the place was getting REALLY crazy, really crowded and we (James and I) were  ready to go. The boys wanted to go to more places…but there was the promise of another trip.

Thursday night James and I went to a Parent’s Meeting at Will’s school and got all our questions answers.

Will will be going all-day Monday, Wednesday and half-days Friday.   His class only has 15 kids in it, they’re the only ones not going full time (all-day, every-day).  This is the first time in several years the school has been able to have an alternating day class, in the past, they’ve been  bussing the kids to another school. They were still tentative on Monday if they’d be able to do it, we were told if they had any more kids enroll, he’d be bussed, so I was thankful to hear he gets to stay at the school we’ve visited, is near home and the one he’ll be going to the next 6 years.

His teacher had been hired the night before!!! She’s worked in the district as a reading instructional aide for the last two years and is thrilled to have her own classroom. (So, first year teacher vs. smaller class size…since I remember what it was like to be a first year teacher, I’m glad for her the class size is small! It’ll help!) 

He will ride the bus, the bus picks him up at 8 (school starts at 8:10, so he appears to be a last stop). He’s excited about that.

I need to call Alex’s preschool and make sure they left a M/W/F opening for him. If they did, both boys will be gone those mornings (though Friday the bus will pick up Will at 8, I drop Alex off at 9, I pick up Will at 10:50 and Alex at 12). Going to be tricky to get the grocery shopping done during that time (shopping may move to Monday).

So, Monday we’ll go to an ice cream social and Will will get to meet his teacher and see the classroom. Then Wednesday is Will’s first day.  Alex won’t start preschool until September, so I’m doing some planning of things to do with him while he gets used to Will being gone all day (every other day).

The road in front of our house has been closed at a major intersection since March. Once school let out, traffic was VERY slow in front of our house–which was quite nice.  The road was closed because they were taking out a light and raising our road/lowering the main road so those on the main road go right under and don’t have to stop, and those on our road go on two small round-abouts and keep going, no light, not stopping, QUITE nice.  This is the 3 out of 6 major intersections they’re working on in our town.    All this to tell you…today was the ribbon cutting/grand (almost) opening of the road.   We went to it. Mainly because they were offering an Abuelo’s taco bar afterwards, and we’re suckers for free food!

We got there right at 12, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the hottest/muggiest day we’ve had in a long time–much more noticeable on the black-top of the road.   The official ceremony was running late, but the boys were quite excited for their one time to run around in the middle of the road. It was also fun to stand on the bridge and watch all the traffic go under us and look at the police motorcycles.  Finally they started and we stood through several boring speeches (but did learn the interesting tidbits that the road was done UNDER budget and the Principal of the High School (which is right on this intersection) lost a $5 bet that the road would not be done before school starts).   Then it was time to cut the ribbon.  The boys had noticed there was no ribbon and were a bit concerned.  When the time came, they unrolled it and had 2 people hold it.  Then everyone who was anyone (politicians, head of the construction company, local business owners) got to get some scissors to cut it. It was quite an assortment of scissors, one guy had a GIANT pair that the boys found quite funny. They cut the ribbon and then we got to get the food.  The boys enjoyed the dessert quite a bit more then the soft taco with beans they asked for, but James and I quite enjoyed our chicken and steak fajita meat in the flour tortilla, along with really good guacamole and chips/salsa.    They were out of water by the time we go to the line, and Alex was quite excited to get a “fuzzy drink”, or Dr. Pepper.  That’s all he could talk about, how much he enjoyed his DR. Pepper (emphasis on the “Doctor” everytime he said it).

Once we were done eating, it was time for James to get back to work and time for us to head home.  Kind of a fun, different activity for a mundane Wednesday. Oh, and all three local news stations were there so we may be on the news (maybe Ch. 6 if  they show footage of the food line) tonight.

I was hesitant to blog much during the end of last week. James was gone the whole time, and I knew that’d come up, so I figured it was better to just wait. Though our giant mean dog that I never mention, but guards our house, kept us safe.  

Wednesday night James had praise team practice.  He got a call from our renters of our old house that they had a really high water bill last month. It’d been high the month before and he tried to fix the problem (a running toilet) but it was still high. So he had a plumber go in and look at it…the plumber told him all the innards of both toilets needed to be changed. James knew he could do that so he went up Thursday night to fix those (the plumber was really nice, he didn’t charge us for the inspection–even after James told him he wasn’t going to use him for the repairs and he offered to pay him for the service call.)  James got home about mid-night Thursday night. Then Friday night and all day Saturday he had a staff meeting for those working with the High School Youth group (it was a staff stay-treat, instead of a retreat).  Sunday morning he had to be at church early to do sound check for praise team. So there was lots of him being gone.  And we made it through it! Whew!  While he did all that, what did the boys and I do?

• Wednesday was our final bible study for the summer. We had a lunch/play date with some friends afterwards.
• Thursday was clean the house/do laundry day. Alex kept asking who was coming over. The goal was to work on the rooms that normally don’t get seen when people come over.    We got some done, but there still is a ways to go.
• Friday was shopping day. We did grocery shopping all morning…knowing James would be gone for supper I bought some frozen dinners (the kids were THRILLED to pick out their supper).   That morning James notice the local Laz-y-boy was having a Christmas in July sale. I’d been eyeing a sleeper sofa from there, and this seemed to be the time to buy. (When baby comes, the guest room will become the nursery and so the fouton will be removed. We needed to get a sleeper sofa for those guests who come to visit).  With all craziness of the rest of the weekend, Friday evening was our only shopping time. I think the sales person was a bit thrown to have someone come in knowing just what they want fro researching online.  For those who care, this is the sofa we got–only it will be in chocolate brown:

  We’ll be getting it in 6 weeks.  The boys thought it was quite funny to see Christmas trees and pictures of Santa–though Alex wanted to know where the candy canes were and if Santa was real (NOT a conversation I wanted to have in the middle of a furniture store).

• After that crazy time, I was very happy to give the boys their frozen dinners and not have to cook. James went off to his meetings.
• Saturday the boys and I went to the farmers market, the post office, and then McDonalds to let them play in the play area. I brought a book and tried to let them play as long as they wanted, with no timeline. I couldn’t last longer then a hour and a half! I had to leave the place.  But they had a fun time.
• Saturday evening, the families were invited to join the staff for a cook out. We met up with everyone and had a great time. Our Praise Team leader was in a national competition with the Gospel Music Association.  He reached the finals with a solo song, plus his band (all from church) made the finals, and the finals were being broadcast live on-line. So at 8 we turned on the computer and got to watch the band go first! It was so much fun to watch them all as a group….so much that we didn’t want to leave until we saw Jake’s solo performance. Sadly, that was MUCH later (though at the time we didn’t know how much).  The kids were playing so well, we ended up staying until about 9:45 to see the solo. Then we rushed home, put the kids in bed and turned on our own computers to see who won. Jake’s solo got first runner up, the band was 1st for the band (who-hoo) and then Jake one a special price that I don’t know much about because I couldn’t hear well. We do know he gets to go to Disneyworld and preform there.  We were so proud of them!
• Today was a beautiful, cool day.  We enjoyed going to church and were hoping the kids would take good naps in the afternoon. Will never napped and Alex took a short one.  So we went for a family walk and enjoyed some ice cream at our half-way point.

And now, I’m looking ahead to our final week of freedom for school starts for Will. While he’ll only be going alternating days, having to have him ready/there by 8, which lunch packed, is going to be a new experience!

One final, funny thing I just remembered. At some point on Saturday Alex said, “Mommy, Daddy is still watching the the kids being potty trained, isn’t he?” I realized when I told him he was going to Training for the Youth Group, he slightly misunderstood. Boy, did I get a laugh out of that one.