Solo Time

I thik this little guy has some mixed feelings about school starting. He was okay with them going the first day, excited even, with his own little backpack all ready.

The second day, when I woke him up and told him we needed to take the kids to school, his response was, "Again?!" I guess summer is an eternity when you are 3 and I'm sure he didn't remember

He's getting used to the new routine. We make the school runs, and then we make plans. Walking the dog, playdates with other kids his age, playing trains and indoor baseball or whatever else he comes up with, reading lots of books, and watching too much Curious George. Mornings have been rough, but who am I kidding, mornings have always been rough with this one and he's had a cold for the last 4 days, so that isn't helping.

He seems a little lost without his big brother and sister, but at the same time, there is a lot less screaming throughout the day. He doesn't have to fight for the toys, or for my attention. He gets to pick what we do, what we eat, where we go, and it really does make him more agreeable, which makes me enjoy him more than ever.

Another bonus to only having one buddy home with me all day--grocery shopping is delightful again. Bug complained to me at dinner last night, "One thing I don't like about school is that I don't get to go shopping with you anymore." I couldn't stop laughing. My single favorite thing about school has got to be getting to do the shopping without so much "help". We all see the world through our own lenses.

And So It Begins

First day of school. Exciting, but not exactly a day we've been looking forward to. When the sign up went out for the first day "drop in", I purposely picked the afternoon session knowing it would buy us one more morning of not rushing.

Instead, I had plenty of time to beg the kids to get ready. Bean had time to keep wandering between the piano and the guinea pig between each of my suggestions that she should get dressed. Bug had plenty of time to insist he couldn't brush his hair today, or "everyone will expect me to look like that every day." I did manage to get it looking a little tamer than his usual just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-I'm-actually-part-lion look. Hope his friends and teachers recognize him.

Peanut was beyond ready. As soon as he finished breakfast, he had his backpack on (with his snack in there), safari hat, sandals (with socks!), and gloves. He was cracking me up. We won't even mention the fact that he isn't going anywhere. Preschool doesn't start for a couple more weeks, and we're not sure that they will let him go if he's not potty trained. He may be hanging out with me for a little longer.

But we did make it to school. Bean is back with Mrs. M, and the same kids, except for two new girls who are taking the place of a couple kids who moved schools. The biggest change is that there wasn't room at the main campus for the 5th graders, and the permanent location is yet to be determined, so 5th grade is meeting in a church down the road from us. Commute is great, the location seems pretty good, with some nice outdoor space, and while the classrooms are smaller than last year, at least they have windows and can see the trees. But having kids at two different locations is going to be a pain. Hope they find the middle school location, and that it is right by the elementary, soon, so next year won't be as difficult.

Then, it was time to rush over to the main campus to get Bug settled. He's back at the same building for 2nd grade, but has new teachers and mostly new kids in his class. I think there are only 3 of them from his class last year, which had him feeling a little nervous, but he makes friends easily, so I'm sure it won't take long until he's right at home.

 And his teacher, Mrs. G, is amazing! I am so excited for this year. Bug had a good year last year, but we did have some concerns about whether he was being challenged or not and potential boredom in school if this continued. Corvian is excellent at meeting the needs of kids who struggle with school, but I think it can be difficult to find the teachers who believe that the other side of the spectrum deserves as much consideration. Before I even met with her, Mrs. G had spoken with his teachers from last year and started going through her books from when she taught older grades to find some good fit, age appropriate options for Bug to choose from. She explained how she handles math for these "high flyer" kids, and the entire school is starting a new, individually based word study program so no more spelling lists with "at" or "she" on them for him. More than anything, I'm excited that he has a teacher who really gets it and is so open to working with the parents to get what they know their kids need. Best part--we get her for the next two years. This is looping at its best!

Both kids came home happy after their short day with stories about everything that is new. I think it's going to be a good year, even if it did sneak up on us.

Of course, even good years will have their adjustment periods. Second day of school, and both kids were late. Mornings are going to have to start a little earlier, and we're going to have to save the story-telling for after school, or at least for the drive.

What I Learned on Summer Vacation

After a whole lot of togetherness, a little alone time is incredible.

Ice cream for breakfast isn't as fun as it sounds, although it does make the kids happy.

Sunday interviews are great for helping the kids feel involved in their scheduling and chores.

Too much of a good thing can be fun. It can also wear you out.

Canary melons are our favorites melons.

Trains are late.

Music in the park is a great family activity.

Gypsy tomatoes have the best yield, Cherry 100's taste the best.

Eventually, the mosquitos will come out.

I can run faster than I think.

The letter "n" is more important than you might realize.

Our kids live in their own time zone and there is no pulling them out of it.

I'm a sucker for a cute, baby animal.

The Final Count Down

 

Before we submit to packing lunches, crazy mornings, school-dictated schedules, homework, and early bedtimes, we had one last week to try to pack in the last few things from our Summer Fun List. (I'm telling you, lists are my friends.) We did pretty good this summer with a couple turning out impossible, one park the kids told me they didn't actually want to visit, and only a couple things that we haven't managed to fit in but I'm planning to still try in the upcoming weeks. But this week:

 

Tuesday was Rio 2 at the $1 movie & Free Night at the Schiele Museum.

Peanut was both entranced and slightly terrified of the "elephant" (AKA mastodon).

 

He actually channeled some new found bravery and kept running off and following random strangers around the museum. He hung out with this nice man for a few minutes, but he also ran off where I couldn't find him for a couple minutes. I'm all for confidence, but I wish he'd find slightly less open public places to try it out.

Followed by a short hike on their nature trail to see the grist mill.

 

And the stone age heritage site.

Kids had a great time revisiting favorite spots and I was pleasantly surprised at the small crowds.

 

Wednesday morning was less of a fun day, and more school focused. Bean got to check out her new classroom at the temporary location for the 5th graders (temporary is relative--she'll be there all this year, we're hoping not for 6th, but that is yet to be determined when the figure out where the actual middle school will be located) and then we went shoe shopping and picked up the last couple school supplies. But that afternoon, we got to spend a few hours at the pool with friends from swim team and the neighborhood. The pool closing is one of the saddest things for me as Labor Day approaches.

 

And Wednesday evening brought our newest family member home. Meet Tumtum:

 

 

After swearing that we weren't going to keep one, and even finding homes for three of the babies at the kids' school, the kids wore me down. He's sweet and cute and the kids really did a great job taking care of 3 cages, so I figured only having one would feel easy. And be less stinky.

 

Thursday was our stay at home day. Lazy morning, a little work done, and then an afternoon spent crafting. I think we were all ready for some down time and it was a great way to use up some of the craft kits the kids have received for birthdays.

   

We made "tie-dye" soap.

 

 

And then made a mess of the craft room scrapbooking and building dinosaur skeletons. I haven't figured out how to fit in "clean up the house" before everyone goes back to school. It's not as bad as most summers, but we have some messy build-up in a few less visible corners/rooms.

 

Then, we got to go to the "midnight" swim for swim team, again. This is the third one they have scheduled, with the first one being cut short when someone couldn't keep their dinner down (this is the problem with doing the swim right after the potluck dinner), and the second one was stormed out. But this one actually happened. Kids stayed up way too late, giving us only 4 nights to get back on track before the brutal 7 a.m. wake up calls begin. I hope Bean survives the transition.

 

This morning was more back-to-school stuff--conferences with both teachers while the kids played at a friends' house. More on all the school stuff later, but I'm very excited about this coming year!

  

And then a quick trip to The Last Word to cash in on the final week of their summer reading program (seriously such a great program--for every 10 books they read, they get a $5 credit to the store, and they can do it 4 times. $20 at the used book store goes a long way!)

 

And now, as we enter the final weekend before school, Daddy-o gets to take the kids to a birthday party and to play tomorrow while I'm heading off to cash in on my birthday present: a night away at a local hotel. Sleeping in, reading by the pool and only getting in if I want to, eating meals in peace. I'm kind of excited.  

Braving the Rain

Inspite of a chance of thunderstorms off and on all weekend, we decided to brave the weather and head up to the mountains for a little camping trip.  Daddy-o had to go up Friday night for the Bishop's night at the church Girl's Camp (for the 12-18 year olds, not to be confused with the day camp Bean did this week), so I'd been planning for our family to camp nearby so he could drop us off and then join us when he finished. When the weather forecast was predicting 80% chance of storms most of the weekend, I decided maybe we wouldn't go. Which meant, Friday morning, I checked the weather again, and it was down to only 50% chance of scattered storms, and I decided to go for it, meaning we had 5 hours to pack for a trip I'd only sort of planned.

Hectic morning, a simplified camp, and an extra tarp to hide things under in case of rain, but we made it to Orchard Lake Campground in Saluda Friday afternoon. Our campsite (47, for my own future reference) was right on the little fishing lake/pond, and down a little hill from most of the other campers. The only other site right by it was empty, so it felt like a very secluded location which was great for protecting the other campers from our whining and crying. It wouldn't be a family trip without plenty of that.

After we set up camp, the kids and I went exploring. This campground offered a little bit of everything. An area with a slide, rock climbing wall, rope ladder, shuffle board, and a pretty decent sized zipline. 

The kids loved it.

And while the big kids zipped, this little guy slid. Over and over.

Then, we found the "big" lake. It can't really be considered a big lake, but it's bigger than the smaller fishing pond, and has a lot more to do. A couple slides, and a couple docks filled with canoes and kayaks for anyone to use.

Bean and Bug were across the lake in no time.

Which left Peanut feeling a little left out. They didn't have any small life preservers and his was in our car with Daddy-o. Plus, I was stuck on shore with our water-phobic dog, so Peanut had to make do with playing in all the boats that were grounded. Sometimes it's hard being the little guy. But he got his chance for boating the next morning.

I was finally able to drag the kids away from the water and we made a quick stop by the recreation room to check out the pool tables, foosball, and ping pong, on our way back to camp for dinner. I was a little worried about how long it might take to get food in these guys, and hungry kids are never a good thing. But amazingly, we had a fire going and hotdogs cooked in 30 minutes.

And then of course there were the s'mores. I love s'mores and never pass up a chance to make them. Even Peanut got to cheat a little and try his first s'more (he'd already had a hot dog bun, too, and I totally paid for that, and all the other things with gluten he ate, when it came out the other end.) S'mores, he loved. Roasting marshmellows, he loved. Getting told to be careful and not touch the fire, he did not love.

The rest of the evening went quickly and it was almost 9 p.m. when I got everyone in bed. Since that is well past bedtime for the boys, and we'd been running around most of the day, I assumed everyone would crash once they were in the tent. I was ready to crash by then. But that was a very silly assumption. For the next hour, Peanut would not quit talking and the other two wouldn't quit laughing. I'm sure they'd all passed the point of tired. I finally had to threaten Peanut with never, ever camping again, which made him cry, and then he was asleep within a couple minutes. Probably not my best parenting, but I'm pretty much done being a parent by 8 p.m. and I knew they'd be up with the sun and totally cranky on only a few hours of sleep.

Speaking of only a few hours of sleep, the one drawback to a camp site on the water was how loud the frogs were! They made a really weird sound and kept it going all night long. Add in a couple rain showers (but we seriously got so lucky on the rain front--barely any the whole time we were there), and Daddy-o and I didn't sleep all that well. I'm starting to wonder if that's just how sleep is for adults camping. As a kid, I felt like I slept great, but there are too many noises and I miss my fan.

So, the next day, we made pancakes (gluten item #3 for Peanut because I was too rushed to get together two types of pancake mix before we left), realized how many little things I'd forgotten to bring (like hot pads and paper towels), and played in the lake for a couple hours with the threat of rain and thunder storms looming above. With the forecast looking much worse for  Saturday night, we decided not to chance it, so we packed up after lunch and headed to the one stop we didn't want to miss before we came home.

We are usually at Sky Top much later in the season (and I still hope we can make it back up for our fall trip because there are a lot more apple varieties available then), but since we were within minutes, we didn't want to miss a chance to visit.

Mainly because of these (Gluten item #4--serious overload for our poor, tummy-sensitive kid). We love their fresh apple cider donuts. It is, without question, the highlight of every trip there.

But the old farm equipment is also fun.

And the animals.

This is what everyone was looking at. Turkeys are really not pretty birds.

And there is the bamboo forest. Also fun.

Oh, and the apples. Sometimes they are almost an after thought. We didn't pick any ourselves. It was starting to drizzle a little and the kids don't seem to care about the actual picking. I bought a bag from their store for about the same price and called it good.

 The orchard is so beautiful. So are these dirty, goofy-smiled, refusing to look at the camera children. At least they were all holding still.

The play area is pretty fun, too.

Those smiles are more like it!

Visiting in August is so different. There was hardly anyone there, it was warm (and I'm sure is usually a lot hotter), and they hadn't mowed recently so there was lots of long, green grass. It was great not fighting crowds of people to take pictures. And even with how few people we saw, we ran into friends from Bug's preschool days.

Even though the trip was only 30 hours, it felt a lot longer. We were tired enough and brought home enough dirt for a longer trip.

Exploring Nature

A couple months ago, I approached the leaders of Bean's Activity Days program (8-11 year old girls church program where they meet twice a month to work on goal setting and various fun activities.) I thought that since the cub scout program involves a day camp each summer, we really should have something similar for these girls, and I knew they would all love getting together for a few days of learning and fun. Most of them do not go to the same schools, so they really only see each other on Sundays and this would be a good chance for them to build some better friendships outside of church.

Lucikly, the leaders were totally on board and excited to plan out 4 mornings of fun. We started with the goal setting from Tuesday, and also have a cooking class and swim and game party planned for the end of the week.

Wednesday was my day to help out with the Activity Days Camp. My friend, S, has been certifying as a naturalist this last year and teaches nature classes at a local charter school, so she was the perfect person to come take these girls on a hike and help them appreciate all the beautiful things around us.

They started off learning a little about the area and what a naturalist does.

Then, there were a couple hands-on projects--weaving on looms made from branches, and using various flowers and plants in the design was first up.

The girls really had fun with this.

Then, they made nature notebooks out of recycled materials and began gathering, sketching, and labeling some of the things they were learning to identify.  Bean and her friend, K, got really into it and have pretty detailed info from our hike.

When we headed off on the Beechwood Trail, S challenged the girls to take a paint sample card and identify things along the way that matched their card.  It was amazing how many colors really are out there in the woods.

We found mushrooms in many different shades.

Big and small, alone and in massive clusters.  They were beautiful.

And because we were all looking so closely for colors, we also spotted some tiny wildlife that I know I normally miss because I'm hiking too fast.

There were a few of these little northern spring peeper frogs along the way. 

I think the girls had a great time. I know I did! It's so fun to be able to share something I love with them and let them really explore and learn about the amazing resources we have in our community.

My First Born

Sometimes, I look at this first born child of mine and wonder how she is suddenly 10 years old. Creeping up towards 5 feet tall. Wearing size 5 shoes. Going into her last year of elementary school. Spending more and more time without me, doing her own thing.

This week, she is spending the mornings at a day camp for Activity Days girls (8-12 year old girls' group at church). The first day, they talked about the theme of the camp, "Bee Yourself" and making goals, and then made 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year goals that they wrote up and illustrated on a poster board to bring home. I was curious to see what Bean had written (especially after overhearing the conversation in the back seat on the way home between her and a friend who plans to be married in 10 years (Bean's response, "Aren't you going to be a little young?"  Thank goodness!)

When I saw my sweet daughter's goals, I got all choked up. I think like the parent of most firstborn children, I'm too hard on her at times. I expect too much, and forget how little she still is, and how much she still has to learn (and how much I still have to learn, too.) I get hung up on the things I wish she'd change, and forget how absolutely amazing my daughter really is, right now. 

This girl is going places.  Her heart is in the right place and she has big (specific) plans for herself. She's completely aware of the things she needs to work on and what she is capable of doing. We've always known, from the time she was in my belly, pushing against her Daddy-o's hand with such force that I ended up bruised, that she is strong and determined and isn't going to let anyone push her around.

And seriously, these goals--make her mama proud. She's my little list-making, science-loving (even if she still can't quite spell it), book-writing, animal-collecting, world-exploring firecracker. Love this girl and all her dreams. (And I'll be more than happy to come visit her in San Diego, or San Francisco, or where ever she ends up.) Love this girl! I'm so glad I get to have her call me Mama.