this has been on cool (as in cold) summer! except for madelyn's birthday, of course, were it was around 100 degrees. but in a cruel twist of fate, it has gotten pretty hot the past two weeks. you know, now that the kids are back in school. sigh.
matt has had a few evenings where he wasn't able to be home this week so the kids and i have been hitting up the pool after school. and i am so glad because the kids have had a breakthrough in the swimming department! madelyn, who has by far been the most cautious in the pool, swims without her floaties all of the time (we even leave them at home now) and she dives under to swim without holding her nose. she has just turned into a little fish!
mason is getting braver too. he just started swimming with his face in the water and float on his back with feet up ("when you see my feet up, i am floating, mom!").
it was a really big day for mason. because not only was he swimming with his face in the water but he decided that he would ride his bike to the pool! this was such a super big deal! a few weeks after he got his bike, he took a nasty fall and has not been willing to get back on it - until this week. i ask him periodically, but he has just been too scared. i don't know what changed but for the past two days he has been riding his bike all of the time and has ridden to the pool twice. he still needs me to help hold the bike steady for his first two petal rotations while he gets going, but then he is fine. he can even stop without falling. i think he must have grown and inch or two since his birthday (i do know that he grew an inch in the first month) and it has made a huge difference. here he is in his triumphant return to riding.
he rode his bike on thursday and friday but matt wasn't home before bedtime either day. so this morning the first thing mason told matt about was swimming and riding his bike. he has been so excited to tell him and mason tried to stay up late enough last night to see daddy but he couldn't wait long enough.
we have been doing more than i can possibly post. matt took the kids putt-putting last weekend (no pictures) and daddy has been doing a lot with the big kids on the weekends. i am so thankful for this last little pop of warm weather before the pool closes for the winter this weekend.
when i asked the boys what they wanted to do before school started - a quick and unanimous "chuck e. cheese"! we have been having a very difficult time with the boys' behavior over the past week or so and i wasn't sure that we were going to be able to go, but they have turned things around dramatically this week and today was the day. madelyn was hysterical that we were going without her (i told mason not to tell her but he slipped up. it wasn't to be mean at all either). he came up with the resolution of using tickets to bring madelyn back a 'prize'.
we took madelyn to school and then ran a quick errand before heading over to chuck e. cheese. we were there a bit before they opened so we ate a few snacks and waited. we were the first ones in and probably had the place to ourselves for almost an hour! as an added bonus, an employee started telling us the 'tricks' to the chance games and we were able to use them a few times too. it was also a lot less stressful to be there with no one else; the music wasn't super loud and any kid sounds were from our three.
manning was in heaven and had to climb up on everything. he was too excited about everything to ever look at me during any pictures.
maddux apparently has a gift for games of chance. seriously, the kid is crazy lucky and hit a few 'jackpots'!
mason was able to hit a small 'jackpot' too. i think today was the best the kids have ever done for tickets!
when a second family finally arrived, chuck e. cheese came out and the boys had fun dancing and singing along.
manning started getting a little too excited about everything and wouldn't stay with us, so i strapped him in to this 'ride'. he wasn't really sure what he thought about it...
the boys loved playing air hockey together! and they were fairly evenly matched. i was 'crunching' tickets while they played (because i had so many in my pocket that they were falling out) so i didn't get to watch who won each game but i would check the score it was almost always tied (mason did have one that wasn't even close). they must have played 8 games before i suggested we do some other games.
manning could actually get the tickets into the machine! he wasn't fast and sometimes he would just push them hard to try and make them fit, but most of the time he could do it.
we left to go home and eat some lunch after playing for about an hour and a half (it surprised me that the kids had no problem with not eating there - they are always begging to eat in restaurants). it was so much fun with just the boys (and in a lot of ways easier). we picked out some prizes - they both got foam 'rocket launchers', maddux added a laffy taffy and mason added a giant, plastic gold coin. for madelyn, i picked out a rubbery pink bracelet. she was disappointed not to have two prizes. sigh. love.
manning likes salsa too! matt made a large batch of salsa and jarred it this weekend. it is fairly spicy. mason likes it, maddux will eat it and manning was shoveling it in! i was trying to get it a picture of him dipping his chips in the jar but he was just too fast.
see the big blob on the back of his hand?
not a problem.
how funny that he started dipping his chips into the big blob of salsa he picked up while dipping his hand in the jar?! crazy kid.
matt has mixed feelings about the boys liking salsa so much. while it is nice that the boys have something else in common with him, he now has a lot more competition when the salsa comes out! (madelyn won't touch it and it isn't my favorite, but matt's is really good and i do eat it.) love.
there are many things i use when i desperately need time by myself - like to shower, take a meeting, fill out forms, make phone calls, just take a break from a really busy/stressful day. my primary fall back is t.v.. now i am not a "no t.v. ever" kind of mom, but we do try to limit it as much as possible. so anyway, to my tip...
don't assume that t.v. is easier.
even though i 'discover' this over and over, i still let t.v. viewing creep back up when we have a lot (or nothing) going on. when the kids don't watch t.v. their behavior is better and they play independently more. t.v. does almost 100% guarantee me some down time and i will continue to use it when i have a business meeting, but that doesn't always make it truly 'easier'.
it might just be my kids, but since i keep discovering this truth over and over and over, i thought i might share.
do you have some truth/observation about your kids that you keep learning over and over again?
i don't do this nearly enough, but the boys helped me with cleaning the bathrooms today. one of the benefits of a chemical free cleaner is that i can just let them loose with the spray bottles. they had a lot of fun cleaning the tub in our bathroom and wiping all of the baseboards.
and then when madelyn got home, i let the three of them clean their bathroom(s) on their own while i made dinner. they did a very good job! it sure made the chore more fun for me - even if it did take a little longer. love.
we took to the soccer fields for our first double-header saturday. we lucked out with back to back games so that we wouldn't have to choose who to watch. i had to take pictures in the parking lot because you could almost feel the excitement mason and madelyn had about playing today. mason especially. he has really been waiting and waiting to play. although today was just a practice for him.
we set up under a shade tree while we waited for madelyn's game to start. matt took the big kids in for a bathroom break and to buy mason a jersey.
and now they were both ready to hit the fields!
while madelyn was starting to warm-up, the big boys went to test out mason's new ball (and then i noticed that they were all three wearing blue).
and manning was just keeping busy by tossing the contents of our bags onto the field and sideline.
madelyn was chosen to kick the ball for the start of the game (i am not a soccer player so terminology is not my strength). she kicked it in, ran, kicked it again and then got drilled in the arm by the other team. seriously, not even 30 seconds into the first game of the season madelyn is crying, injured and leaving the game.
her coaches were awesome about it! the one on the field allowed her to leave the game. he was sending her to the 'bench' where the rest of the team and her other coach was but she found me and ran over. the coach on the sideline came over and asked if she got hit in the arm. when she said yes and showed him where, he said, "wow, that must have hurt a lot. when you feel well enough to play come over and see me." what impressed me was that he never addressed me. and it wasn't rude it was just that this was about madelyn. i loved that he acknowledged that it was okay to say that it hurt and that she would be able to go right back in. and she did! she played the entire rest of the game too.
i stood up for just a second and manning scrambled up into my chair. and then his task of the day was decided, climbing in and out of the folding chairs. i never got to sit down again.
this year madelyn is on a bigger field with bigger goals and a longer period - 10 minutes each. she asked to be on defense when she decided that she didn't like running so much. but she was still very much engaged in the game - for a while. i had to call her name a few times when she turned her back to the play and was chatting with the goalie. when i spoke with her about it later today, i explained that she can't turn her back on the ball. to which she explained, "it hurts a lot less to get hit in the back of the head than in the front." yep. i guess it does.
i like how madelyn is giving instruction at the start of this video. it is just a little random section of their game.
in the last quarter she even got to take a turn as goalie. i am not sure that this is a great fit for her...
here she is waving at me as the ball is coming her way.
and this is where ball was a lot for her team - that is her getting it out of the net.
and here she is just kicking the ground. sigh. it takes everything i have not to try and coach her from the sidelines. but her coaches are really great and she was happy to be there the entire time.
at halftime the score was 0-4 so her team got to add another player to the field as a 'mercy' rule. madelyn told me that the final score was 1-4 but i think it was more like 1-10. the other team was a lot better. but we were so proud of madelyn recovering from her early injury and giving it her all through the whole game.
but now it was time to race over to mason's field. madelyn's field was running behind schedule so we were late to watch mason. matt and mason had already headed over so that they would be on time. madelyn's field was so much later that i had to ask a parent we knew to watch the littles while i ran the team snack over to matt, who is coaching, because i was afraid i wasn't going to make it before they were done.
mason has been excited about soccer since spring and he was looking pretty good, when he was listening anyway. matt has his hands full this season. there are a lot of 'high energy' boys on the team. they were trying to destroy the goal at more than one point. mason was just playing in his own world cup and not listening to any of matt's instruction. but i will saw that he was the fastest one out there. we are very interested to see how mason does in his first game in a few weeks.
here is a dribbling drill...
and then they got to practice kicking goals. i was holding the goal in place after the last episode of destruction.
we only have two games all season where they will play at the same time. i had not really considered that we might have to deal with the fields running at different speeds and the game length difference. i don't know what we will do when/if there are ever four at once!
we are excited for what should be a fun season! love.
last friday matt took just mason to a baseball game and they stayed for fireworks too. they got home around 10:30. last night he took mason and maddux to a game and they didn't get home until just before midnight! i guess the game went into extra innings and then they stayed for the fireworks.
i couldn't believe the boys made it! maddux had taken a nap yesterday but mason wouldn't. they had both had a poor night's sleep (mason got up around four times and maddux came in and slept on our floor at some point). apparently they were great and had a very fun night out with dad.
madelyn and i stayed home with manning. we put on our jammies early, but manning down and snuggled up to read, watch movies and talk. but then after she went to bed, she came back because she had pulled out another tooth! i think this is number 9. i really should ask her...
the boys and i drove madelyn to school today and then hit the stores to mason some soccer gear for his first practice tomorrow. (madelyn has a game but the little ones have practice the first two 'games'.) we picked up shin guards, cleats, socks, shorts and a new ball (we just have the pink one madelyn picked out).
mason is SO excited to go to soccer. here he is testing out his new ball and shin guards in the basement when we got home.
we played some more outside while waiting for madelyn to get off the bus.
manning loves getting up and down, in and out and opening and closing. seriously, he is hysterical. so tonight's adventure was on and off the bench. it makes me a little nervous because the bench can tip over and is very heavy so i can't turn away for a second. and there is no distracting him once he has picked his challenge. watching him it is a little like he is trying to always beat his personal best time. he tries different techniques, gets frustrated the second it doesn't go his way and once he completes the task he scrambles back to try again.
it is probably going to be good that i will have some alone time with him for constant supervision while the others are at school. love.
we got some new neighbors over the summer with a second grader so instead of the bus stop being our actual house, it is now the corner which happens to at the end of our driveway. this works out just fine for us because we just played in the driveway while waiting for the bus and enjoyed the beautiful morning. (i asked madelyn if she wanted to ride the bus because i had a friend coming over to walk the trail with us. she was actually excited about riding the bus in the morning too.)
manning is just learning to walk with shoes on and he was pretty excited to be walking around outside where all the action was. he was calling out to everyone walking and driving by and waving his little heart out.
just another angle of manning that i don't often photograph.
madelyn and mason digging for rolly-pollies.
manning was going to town poking at the mulch with a very thin stick he found - it's the blur in this picture.
after madelyn was on the bus, we chatted with some other neighbors and then i took manning for a stroll down our sidewalk. (we don't have neighbors on either side so the kids don't have to worry about going 'too far'. the sidewalk just ends.) and i haven't really taken video of him walking so here you go. you can also hear how chatty he is. love.
i don't think that madelyn could have planned a more perfect school day. she saw lots of friends she knew throughout the day, she did math (which is what she was hoping for) and her 'special' was art (her other favorite subject).
we met her at the bus after school and she was all smiles. i think her excitement about the day has been building as she has retold her stories to me, grandma, nana and daddy over the course of the evening. she keeps saying that her teacher is a really nice lady and madelyn thinks that she is really going to like her.
the boys don't start school until after labor day so it is just me and my boys for about two more weeks. we are going to try and go do things after dropping madelyn off at school. today we ran by the store (for some nighttime pullups since maddux has been wetting the bed like crazy this month - i am tired of the extra laundry!) and then headed to the park. it was a great day to be outside and mason and maddux loved climbing and sliding!
the fling their heads around bouncing on this thing. i am surprised that they have only knocked heads once before.
manning is not crazy about the swing, but i forgot to grab him some shoes so this was the only park action he was going to get outside of the stroller. he never really smiles or enjoys the swing but he tolerates it and was happy to be out of the stroller.
maddux, on the other hand, loves swinging! so do mason and madelyn.
maddux put his arms out and i told him he looked like the airplane on his shirt which he thought was pretty funny.
mason was on the 'big kid' swings but came over to give pushing manning a try. manning was a big fan and even cracked a smile for mason.
seeing the fun, maddux wanted out of his swing so that he could push manning too.
and then they started to fight over pushing manning.
after some crying and self-isolation to calm down. mason asked me to take a few more pictures of him climbing and sliding.
he and maddux must have played on this climbing/fire pole structure for at least 30 minutes straight and then came back and did it again for at least 20 minutes before maddux noticed an ankle that he skinned when we first got there and couldn't move past it until we left to get a bandaid (i had left my bag in the car).
so home for lunch. it should be a fun couple of weeks, the boys have a lot of ideas about what we should do before school starts. love.
today's the day - the first day of first grade! madelyn was up around 4:30am. she did fall back asleep in our bed which was nice since my alarm was set for 5:30 and i didn't want her up quite so early.
madelyn had several requests for the morning. she wanted me to make banana chocolate chip muffins with orange, strawberry, banana juice for breakfast, she wanted to help make her lunch and she wanted me to curl her hair. plus, i was hoping for a shower so i had to get an early start.
she wore the outfit that we found during our shopping trip on saturday and was very excited about it (because it had black, her latest favorite color).
and i was going to have an 8x10 of her kindergarten first day picture for her to hold for the first day of first grade picture but i forgot to get it this week (i did remember but forgot to place the order). oh well. i guess our tradition is now a family picture on the couch for the first day. the better picture was blurry for some reason.
so we loaded everyone up and headed to take madelyn to school. she was still all excitement and i was pretty excited for her too. it was really nice that matt could work his schedule to get to be with us. school doesn't start until 9am and he then has like a half hour drive to work, it made for a really late start for him.
we were at the school before they started letting students in so we were able to get a picture of madelyn with the school sign (i have edited it to hide the school name).
and here is the one from the first day of kindergarten for comparison. she has grown a lot in the past year! (some of the change is the slope of the ground and the angle though.)
we had to wait in a loose line for entrance to the school and i was glad that we were toward the front. when the bell rang they started letting kids into the school. with each step we took, madelyn got closer and closer to me. first she was just touching my dress, then she had a handful of my dress, then she had an arm around my leg, then she was leaning on my arm and then trying to put her head under my arm. parents were only allowed into the front lobby to say their good-byes. after a few kids went in and parents left, the school secretary came running up and said that "just for today" parents were going to be allowed to walk the kids to their classrooms! we had gotten voicemail and email yesterday saying that we would not be allowed in so this was a last second change just before it was our turn to say good-bye. i literally burst into tears. i did keep it together so that madelyn wouldn't notice but i was so relieved to get a chance to at least see her teacher that a lost it. i hadn't even realized that i was holding that much anxiety this morning because i wasn't feeling stressed at all.
we walked down the hall she was in before and found her new classroom, but i had to do a double-take because her kindergarten teacher was inside the room! kindergarten doesn't start until next week so i guess the teachers help with the transition to first grade. we couldn't believe our luck to have her teacher in her new class (there are only like five kids from her k class in this one). God was sure answering our prayers this morning!
since parents coming in was a last minute change, i don't think the teachers knew. we were the first parents into madelyn's room and her teacher seemed a bit frazzled trying to give the kids instructions, showing them where their seats were and trying to greet us all at the same time, plus it was the first day. so we didn't take any pictures and said a quick good-bye after an introduction with her teacher.
my relief was so overwhelming that i kept tearing up. it was such a better start to today than i could have even hoped for! i can't wait to hear all about it when she gets off the bus this afternoon. (she is riding home since manning will be napping.) school gets out at 4 and i am guessing that her bus will come about 20 minutes later. the bus was about 20 minutes late this morning so who knows what time she will actually get home.
i sure i will post an update on her first day a little later tonight. love.
