6/19/2010 Beach Party

Today we headed for the coast!

We were invited to a beach birthday party by one of Julian's kindergarten-mates, in a different class (same teacher as Gabriel had had actually). Julian and Jake play together a lot at recess, and before I was working I'd chat with his very very nice mother before school started, so we know each other. Jake also attends CDC on some afternoons, so Gabriel knows him too. Jake's mother knew that a beach party would be tough for attendance, so she made sure we were available before scheduling it. So we weren't going to miss this one!

Dave stayed home to wait for an electrician, but I decided to bring Katrina anyway, knowing this was risky. Me and all three at the beach...the boys would be fine, but Katrina's a big wildcard. Still, I knew she'd love the beach, and I don't think she's been to one yet. I should know this, but I'm pretty sure this was her first significant time on a beach!

We were the first to arrive, and Jake and the boys wasted no time messing around in the water together.


Nyah to the weatherman, who was predicting overcast and chilly -- and in the Santa Cruz area (this was in Aptos, just south), they're not messing around. It can be cold and foggy and nasty. But not today!

Jake and Julian wait for the perfect wave to jump.





To my surprise, Katrina got in on the action too. I wasn't expecting her to want to go near the waves, but she tried it. She tripped once and fell to her hands and knees with the water around her, while I was about 10 meters away rescuing Julian's shirt from the surf, and that was it for her and the ocean.

But my experience on California beaches is that most of their time is spent digging in the sand anyway, and that played out today.



The birthday boy is a really nice -- and very cute -- little boy.


When one set of Jake's grandparents arrived, they saw Jake playing with three children (we were the first to arrive) and asked me which were mine. Umm...all of them!


I had a terrific time myself, mostly chatting and hanging out with other parents. Other than one of Jake's grandmothers, I was the only single parent there. And I was the only one who brought more than two children, and of those that brought two, the second were babies.

This ball is almost as big as Katrina, but it kept her happy for quite a while!



Katrina was the only girl until Jake's 4-year-old cousin arrived, but that was it for the girls. The other parents and Jake's grandparents got much amusement (as most grownups do) from how Katrina handles herself around all these boys. I don't think much of it since that's just our life, but indeed, she's quite at home surrounded by older boys, and doesn't hesitate to make her opinion known -- loudly -- about their taking things from her, or her need to have something done for her. She didn't interact with the other girl at all.

Long after the rest of the kids had gathered for lunch, Gabriel and Julian were still hard at work attempting to fill a sandhole with water. They hauled countless buckets of water back to the sand, only to see it be absorbed in seconds. "It just won't fill up!" Gabriel exclaimed.



Several other kindergartners from Julian's school were there, and I recognized some of the parents. When I chatted with them, I got a lot of, "Oh, JULIAN is your son?! My son talks about him all the time!" and then I'd hear stories about our boys playing together. Meantime, I'd have no idea who the other kid was. Julian is quite the social butterfly it seems!

After lunch, the kids were back at the digging. With all those kids around, including friends from school, on this enormous beach, these brothers who share a room and spend so much time together, have to be in the same hole.


OMG. How cute. Jake telling Katrina a secret.

As a younger girl, I wished for an older brother so that I'd have a steady stream of cute guys in my house from his friends. In practice, it never worked that way -- my girlfriends' older brothers usually wanted nothing whatsoever to do with we underdeveloped little pipsqueaks. But maybe there is something to meeting your brothers' friends, especially when they're such cuties like this one.

Katrina didn't even make it out of the parking lot before she zonked. Julian wasn't far behind. Gabriel insisted he didn't need to sleep, right up until the point he succumbed.

When we got home, Julian got out of the car very purposefully, and without saying a word, headed straight upstairs, crawled into bed, wrapped a blanket around himself and slept away the rest of the afternoon. I too remember always being really tired after a day on the beach as a kid -- unfortunately my kids don't have a lot of experience with that yet. I'm so grateful to Jake and his family for turning that around for us today!

6/19/2010

6/17/2010 The Timeout

Yesterday Katrina had a massive fit that earned her a massive (and rare) timeout. I asked Dave to put her in another room because she was screaming so loudly.

Then it was quiet. Dave checked on her and found she was gone. With the boys, usually this is an infuriating act of defiance, but Katrina has almost no timeout history. Most like whatever she was doing was probably pretty funny, hiding somewhere.

About 10 minutes later, Katrina appeared in the kitchen, wide-eyed and with a tear running down her face. In a tiny voice she said, "I was scared of the hummingbird!"

We quizzed her on where she'd been, and she said, "Outside on the bench." "What bench, the red bench on the porch?" (sometimes used for timeouts). "No," she said with some irritation, "the black bench with the diamonds!" Pause, slight sob, then, "The hummingbird scared me, Mommy!" I held her and comforted her.

This bench is a new one in our lovely new front yard. It's a nice spot with the stepping stones, shade, and a bubbler rock and blooming lily next to it. Unless there's a hummingbird scaring you away.


"I was outside on the bench with the diamonds and the hummingbird scared me!"

Hmm, I guess the lesson here is that if you're going to hide from a timeout, you'd better not be scared of hummingbirds!

6/17/2010

6/16/2010 The pout

Oh, Katrina. Huge fuss leaving school today (I dried her face with a paper towel that was not sufficiently dry), and the tantrum continued well past the time we were home. As usual, this amuses her brothers to no end.



Guess where I took this picture today. In our front yard! We have flowers!


Landscapers finished today yayyy! Photos later when I can get better ones.

6/16/2010

6/15/2010 The Procedure

Dave and I took off work today so I could have an endoscopy -- basically, a camera to the stomach. I've had so much stomach pain and weirdnesses in the past few months that I went to a gastroenterologist who called for the test. It's pretty straightforward but does involve sedation and not driving. Initial results were, as almost all are with me, "normal."

However, I can't really complain about a medical excuse to sleep all day! But reality resumes tomorrow.

6/15/2010

6/14/2010 Swim lessons times three

Despite extraordinary circumstances today, somehow, we managed to get all three kids to a 6:30pm swim lesson.

Even Gabriel, who insists he doesn't need them. He actually can swim a little, but this doesn't meet my standard for "can swim well enough not to need lessons."


Julian has a far better attitude than Gabriel, and was happy and enthusiastic. I wish they'd teach him to use his arms though. The boy is 6-1/2, he's ready!


Katrina really liked her lesson, until the end when she wanted a rainbow ribbon and was offered only a pink. Then she had a little tantrum, the ungrateful brat! Still, for her, every lesson is filled with new things, so this is really great for her. Even if she has no idea how to kick. Lah-de-dah...someone peel me a grape while I lounge around...


Maybe she'll even learn to jump in the water someday. For now, I'm happy to see this smile.



Extraordinary circumstances...this morning, Gabriel came to me and told me his head was itching, and that he'd pulled a bug out of his hair. I checked him immediately for lice, but didn't see anything. He had some bites on his back too, so figured it might be fleas or something, put anti-itch cream on his back, and that was it.

No it wasn't. Turns out, I didn't know what to look for -- but the trained daycare staff did. Lice. Just typing that makes my skin crawl.

I had a really important meeting at work today and had already arranged with Dave to do pickups in case it ran late. As it turns out, he had to leave work even earlier to pull Gabriel out of daycare and start dealing with the cleanup. That started with a $15 shaver, and giving Gabriel a buzz cut, then the lice treatment and nit combing, which was easy on his now-millimeters-long hair. Then he started on the rest of the bedding and stuffed animals.

Meantime, my meeting ran late, as I expected. And I expected rush-hour traffic, but I didn't expect a horrible accident that backed up traffic for miles. This set me very late to get home and zoom them all to swim lesson, first barking orders to Dave over the cellphone about where the swim stuff is, where their sandals are, whose goggles are whose. He had them mostly ready when I got home at 6:12, then we whisked them into the car, and got them to swim lesson just in time. Despite that stress, I'm glad we made it, I was happy to see them all swimming again. It's just too important.

As usual, the unpleasant part is the boys together; messing around in the locker room (Julian threw his trunks and I had to go into the men's room to fetch them from atop a shelf), or rough-housing on the pool deck (SO not allowed) while I'm in helping Katrina and everyone is glaring at them wondering where their delinquent mother is. They just can't be left alone together. I'm going to have to figure that out for next week.

Back at home, now we were looking at a late dinner and a much more complex bath process, because now Julian and Katrina needed to be treated too. We carefully inspected them both -- Dave now knew what to look for, as he'd seen it on Gabriel -- but saw nothing. Still, we did the treatment and combing, even Katrina, and didn't find anything.

How, where and when did he get lice?! And how awful that he told me about it this morning and that I didn't detect it! Eeps, the whole thing makes me skin crawl....or is that....uugggh, I'm outta here, I have to go wash my hair with a special "creme rinse!"

6/14/2010

6/13/2010 Workaday

I got one of the most odious tasks around here done today, or at least started. Some paint-touch up was needed, like where the house didn't get painted green where a gate used to be, and various other little things.

Unfortunately I didn't get started until after 3pm. I'm just so darned tired all the time during the week, that it's hard to get myself going on the weekends. This morning, thanks to the generosity and extraordinary donation of patience resources of my husband (dealing with kids and a very obstinate Gabriel), I was able to sleep late and then have a nice long swim. Then thought I was ready to deal with kids and housechores, but just couldn't get moving. I had to take a nap, during which I slept soundly and dreamt, and then I was ready to go. By then it was pretty late.

Since I've started working, I get to work gradually earlier and earlier, and leave a little later too. Despite countless bits of advice that I'll adjust, of course that's not true, and I haven't. Instead, I build a sleep deficit all week and then completely collapse on weekends. By Sunday night, I've recovered and am feeling normal again, just in time for the week to start all over and drag me down all over again. I just don't know how to be me when I'm not bursting with energy.

The obvious answer is advancing age, but that's by no means the whole picture. Even in college I took naps in the afternoon, and could sleep whenever I needed to. Now, I can't sleep when I need to at all, except on weekends, and if you accept the advancing age argument, then I need to more now than ever. Perhaps this is why people pushing the golden years shouldn't have toddlers, but it's the combination of work and child-raising that keeps me from my Z's. For some of us, timing is everything -- it's not how much sleep I get, it's when I get it. Quality over quantity.

At least I've learned the value of the bare minimum, and know how to set goals. I did get this painting done, and while there's more to do and while I did a pretty lousy job of what I did do, at least I met that minimal goal.

Now, next weekend, will I have the energy to finally put up some window film?

Three children was hardly rewarding for Dave today, but thanks to his efforts (did I mention Gabriel was obstinate -- remember that that combination of words does not indicate a simple affair) I did have some very nice moments with Julian helping me with the painting (fetching things, keeping me company, helping Katrina when she needed it). Though our yards are still not all our own yet, we're starting to take back over and actually enjoy being at home outside.

6/13/2010
6/13/2010

6/12/2010 Triple Play

One activity per kid today! No wonder I never felt like getting anything else done.

First, Gabriel's (resumed) skating lessons. We missed 4 straight weeks, 3 due to compressor problems at the ice rink, and 1 due to ... well, Mom needing to decompress when Dad was out of town and there were two other T-ball events the same day and the other 2 kids to deal with. I just couldn't do it last week.

I didn't even see Gabriel's lesson; I dropped him off, ran an errand, and missed the whole thing. Just as well: it was hot today, and who wants to hang around an ice rink in shorts?

Later Gabriel told me it was the worst lesson he'd had; apparently he'd had a bad fall, hurt his knee and couldn't skate for about 5 minutes. Typical Gabriel, this was little more than a passing comment.

Immediately after skating, we zoomed to closing ceremonies for Little League. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I get very choked up at these things. All the pomp and circumstance...I'm a total sucker for it. I guess it's just the great sense of belonging that gets me.

As with the opening ceremonies, after introductions and high-fives with the older teams, the T-ball teams sat in the infield. I noticed that there were more T-ball teams (8) than in any other division (Farm, Pioneer, Minor and Major). No wonder they want to encourage the T-ball so much. It's really is the future of the league.


Julian's team, together for the last time.


So proud of my boy, even though his own enthusiasm for the whole thing is fairly reserved. I get the sense he still doesn't know what to make of it.

But I really loved being a part of this, and wish so much I could have actually contributed. I suppose it's more important to contribute to the school, if I had time to give at all, but my interest and desire is far stronger for "extra" things like this. Even though I was never involved in team sports myself (high school gymnastics isn't the same thing, they're still all individual performances) -- or perhaps because of that. The whole team/community thing just didn't exist in my upbringing, and it barely exists here in upscale overworked Silicon Valley. It makes me want to move to a small town where your neighbors are also your classmates, teammates and best friends.

Back at the "ranch" in Sunnyvale, it was time for -- of all things -- yardwork! The landscapers are days away from being done, and we were disappointed they weren't done on Friday. Just a few little things left to do, then allll their equipment can go away, the port-a-potty can be removed, and we can do a final cleanup and call the place our own again.

But Mother Nature has no respect for such formalities, and the grass grows regardless. Today Dave mowed our new lawns for the first time, and the kids all helped rake.


In the end, we have some very neat and manicured grounds....it's almost weird. What?! Shouldn't I be elated, after all we've been through?! Our place is like a park now! But....I'm not a neat and manicured person. I like sort of wild, scrubby and just slightly out-of-control, like this wonderful Native garden we saw in April.

No lawn or tanbark there!

It's funny, I was raised with lawn and the idea that it's the gold standard for yards is hard to uproot. But more and more I see it as out-of-place, unnatural, almost ostentatious -- even as my eye continues to be drawn to it.

At 3:30 this afternoon, I finally decided that we could try 5:00pm Saturday swim lessons for Katrina. I don't think we'll do this for long, just until August, but she keeps asking for swim lessons (without really knowing what that means). After her recent near-drownings, she needs to learn some basic water mobility, and not from me.

So she's in "novice" lessons at our same old nearby swimschool, twice a week through July. The school warned me that brand-new "novices" often cry and if so, the teacher will ask parents to leave the pool deck. They were very surprised to hear me say "sure, at the first sign of a whimper, I'm outta there!" Katrina of all kids will do far, far better in any sort of lesson when Dave or I aren't around to take a stance against and exercise her twisted sense of principle.


She was very excited about the lesson, dressed immediately in her "two-pee" (two-piece), and eagerly went through getting ready. And she did great, even when I was in sight. No crying, even though she was clearly uncomfortable and taken aback by all this, but she went along with it, cooperated, and even appeared to enjoy the playtime.

A stunning difference between her and her one classmate though: he jumped boldly and happily into the water, clearing at least 3 feet first. She doesn't even know how to jump into the water. His mother told me he's 4-1/2 and that he's had lessons before, and both of those facts show. Still, Katrina's non-athleticism also really shows -- but I must emphasize that my saying this doesn't mean it bothers me at all. That's just the way she is.

In many ways, she's just like me: I'm not a natural in many things I eventually got decent at. Most kids intuitively know how not to drown in chest-deep water; Katrina needs to learn it, and that's fine. (Ironically one of the few things that was natural to me was swimming, but I was older.)

While athletics don't come to her easily, other things do. Much of her interest in spelling and basic arithmetic is stimulated by her brothers -- she always has other kids to answer questions and to get her started -- but it's clear she's interested. Her idea of fun computer time is spelling out "7 + 1 = 8" and other problems she's memorized (it's clear from quizzing her she doesn't actually do the math yet, but the foundation is building).

I predict that Katrina's biggest obstacles will be confidence and resisting things on principle. She often won't answer a question about how to sound something out, or what time it is on a digital clock, instead insisting someone else do it for her, even though we know she can do it. And for things like swimming, she is hesitant and reserved at first. And many things she resists just for the heck of it.

Overall, boys don't face such steep emotional barriers, the world is a simpler place for them. I struggle too with confidence, selling myself short, and having to know something to a much greater depth than my male peers before claiming expertise. I sure wish I had the first idea in how to guide my daughter. Or not.

It should be another beautiful day in a beautiful place tomorrow, with so many wonderful things to do around here, but frankly, I just want to stay at home.

6/12/2010

6/10/2010 Last Day of School!!

It's hard to call the last day of school "school" when all the 2nd grade does is have a big water-balloon fight. Kindergarten had a "poetry reading" though, which I just couldn't miss. I still haven't gotten over the guilt of being late to Gabriel's last-day-of-kindergarten open house, so I sure as heck wasn't going to miss Julian's poetry reading.

And the cuteness was all you'd expect from 5- and 6-year olds reciting nursery rhymes, though of course this is strictly parent and grandparent grade video.


Then kindergarten "graduation" certificates were handed out.


As of today, my first-grader!!


There was no pomp and circumstance at all for 2nd grade ending. Parents huddled behind the famous "blue line" waiting for class dismissal as usual, but I did stop by Gabriel's classroom to apologetically thank Gabriel's teachers again. We've had an ongoing and intensifying dialogue with them about Gabriel's behavior, concluding with a conference just a few weeks ago asking if we really were looking at a problem for 3rd grade. The teacher felt long-term he'll be fine, but he needs a very very structured teacher to deal with his famously discipline-resistant personality.

The teacher we've not dealt with as much, who's had the most trouble, seemed relieved it was over and thanked us again for our support. No gushing about what a delight he was to have in class, like from Julian's teacher!

Later I took the boys to get some new playground balls. They're so into "2-square" that the one ball they've had has become a major point of contention, and the outside soccer part completely disintegrated and fell off. Gabriel's hands and wrists are constantly black with dirt, and bloody and scraped up from knocking the rapidly deteriorating ball. These will be much kinder to his skin.

We have a longstanding theme around here of Gabriel green, Julian blue.


Katrina got a red one too.


I feel like a major page has turned in my life, even though really, it hasn't. They're the ones who finished school after all. Still, summer can truly begin for us all now, yay!

6/10/2010

6/8/2010 Election Day

We don't have a polling place for primary elections this year, but we can walk half a block to a church to drop off our mail-in ballots.

Gabriel had a lot of questions about what an election is and what we were voting about, so I tried to demonstrate the concept of voting with ice cream.

"Who votes for chocolate?" (Gabriel and Katrina raise their hands)
"Who votes for vanilla?" (no hands)
"Who votes for strawberry?" (Julian raises his hand)

Chocolate 2, vanilla 0, strawberry 1. "Chocolate wins!"

Of course, propositions about public funding of elections is much harder to describe in kid-speak, but they did like the idea of being able to vote down vanilla. With Gabriel, I explained it a little better: "You know how you pay sales tax when you buy a toy? One thing you might vote for is if you'd pay more of that tax in order to build more train tracks."

It was a fun short walk, but someday I hope they put it together that Mom and Dad always (well, usually always) voted.


Gabriel carried my ballot and put it in the ballot box too. Our discussion about it was pretty trivial this time, but we're laying the groundwork.

6/8/2010

6/7/2009 Landscape languishing

It's tough wrapping up the last bits of this project; the landscaper has new jobs and nothing we have left to do is any fun anymore.

Still, we have to let the kids out there -- it is our yard still! One way or another, they'll find a place to dig. I think the way Katrina stakes her space and surrounds herself and digs in is absolutely adorable. She'll also play like this on her own for hours, with no intervention at all (except for me to remove a pestering brother or two).


We don't exactly have an area designated for digging, but it's sort of pointless too. Anything diggable will be dug anyway.

Dave and I are going to have to be on the landscapers every day this week -- finish UP! You might not be done, but we are!

6/7/2009

6/6/2010 The book

This doesn't happen often, but a friend had sent email to a small group suggesting a last-minute informal playdate this weekend. I wasn't sure we'd pull it off, but I called her today and we alllll went over there. She's a single mom with one son, so it was very gracious of her to let us descend!

The kids all needed the change of scenery, though I was frustrated the boys were mostly interested in their host's great selection of electronic and battery-powered toys. Katrina had a great time with sidewalk chalk though.

On the drive home, the kids asked about our sidewalk chalk. "Where is it?" Not wanting to reveal the location of one of my few trump cards, nor have them rummaging around, I said, "In a closet." "Where's the closet?" they asked. I put them off: "In a room."

This led to a conversation much like this, with each successive question making the boys laugh harder and harder.

"Where's the room?"
"In the house."
"Where's the house?"
"On the street."
"Where's the street?"
"In the neighborhood."
"Where's the neighborhood?"
"In the city."
"Where's the city?"
"In the county."
"Where's the county?"
"In the state."
"Where's the state?"
(by now they were nearly incoherent with laughter)
"In the country."
"Where's the country?"
"On the continent."
"Where's the continent?"
"In the hemisphere."
"Where's the hemisphere?"
"On the planet!"
"Where's the planet?"
"In the solar system."
"Where's the solar system?"
(at this point my astronomy fails me)
"In the galaxy."
"Where's the galaxy?"
"In the universe!"
"Where's the universe?"
"In....er, space!"
"Where's space?"
"IN THE CLOSET!!!"

As this conversation was progressing it occurred to me that this could be a very cute children's book, properly illustrated. Maybe the initial object being sought is a ball, and in the end, the universe is inside the ball or something.

I can picture the illustrations so well in my head, with a child peering from one location into the vastness of the next. But pictures in my head are forever held prisoner, isolated on a mental island with no bridge to my hand. There simply is no way for the clear, elaborate, distinct images in my head to find their way to paper, my brain just doesn't work that way. (My brain can have wild ideas like collaborating with an illustrator though.)

This sort of story has been written many times, if not this exact one though. I can't imagine how children's book writers can write without kids around though -- this was a natural organic conversation that sprung up out of nowhere, and was spurred on by their laughter.

Well, perhaps I best leave my first children's book to remain in this blog post.

6/6/2010

6/4/2010 In hot water

We've been having trouble with our boiler lately. Dave is pretty sure he knows what's wrong, and has ordered a new part, but until it arrives, we have to reset the boiler sometimes twice a day. This isn't hard, but it does entail going into the basement, not exactly a convenient operation. And, he's out of town this weekend.

Tonight I had a lot of trouble with the boys before dinner. Julian had most of his dinner alone in the dining room (bad manners gets him kicked out), and I had to take Gabriel's favorite ball away to get him to finally relent after a minor conflict escalated. A sound spanking for shockingly rude retorts to me had less effect than storming outside with his favorite ball to throw it into the garbage can, it turned out.

After dinner, they were peaches and cream, partly because they were fascinated talking about the horrible oil spill in the Gulf. We talked about what oil is used for, how it gets from the ocean into our cars, and what effect it has on all the fish and plants and animals. There was a photo of an oil-drenched bird on the front page of the newspaper, and they were both riveted.

I hated having to cut this conversation short, but Katrina was already upstairs ready for her bath. Julian had a little more to finish up, so, incredibly, Gabriel volunteered to give Katrina her bath. He even said, "I've done this before Mom!"

And so Gabriel went upstairs, persuaded Katrina to get undressed, took her ponytail out, got the bathwater started, and got her into the bath. That's when he discovered, as I had about 10 minutes earlier, that our boiler was off again. I wasn't worried that he'd put the water on too hot for her anyway though. He did come down to tell me the boiler needed to be reset, which I'd just done, then went back up to continue tending to her.

When I got upstairs, Gabriel had just finished washing her hair, and was combing it. "I just have to brush her teeth, then she's done Mom!" he exclaimed proudly.

By then our hot water was coming back, though it was pretty toasty outside tonight and the water being a little colder wasn't a problem. What a change from before dinner though. I love this nurturing side of him, he's so tender to his sister.

But I sure am looking forward to Dave and the boiler part arriving!

6/4/2010

6/3/2010 T-ball night

I have mixed feelings about T-ball almost being over. It makes for hectic evenings, but so fun!

Julian doesn't stand out on his team as being particularly good or bad, he's pretty average at everything. Well, except paying attention, he's on the low end of that. But, he did great batting today!



The first-baseman (basegirl) on the other team was one of the two best T-ball players we've seen yet, the other standout being the boy who caught two pop flies in one game. What makes both these excellent players excellent is not just their skill in all areas, but how they're so attentive. The coaches spend 2/3 of their effort getting kids to look and pay attention.

The video above wasn't a great example of a play she made (lousy throw to her), but you can see she's really on the ball (hah hah). Within a group of 6- and 7-year-olds, that's saying a lot!

Two more games, one party, one afternoon of closing ceremonies. Whew.

6/3/2010

6/2/2010 Counting the days

It seems sillier than ever now to insist Gabriel do his homework, but there is one last week of homework! Next week though, boy, he's in for a lot of fun. Monday, field day (P.E. activities). Tuesday, camp day -- s'mores, can you believe it? Wednesday, field trip to a park on Caltrain. Thursday, last day of school, water balloon activity -- bring balloons and a change of clothes. Whew! But I CAN'T WAIT!

Big meeting with the landscaper this morning. We're "down" to a punchlist, but it's a long, long punchlist. Half of it is things that were missed (a drip line here, a tree misplaced there, a wobbly arbor). Plants that were missed or missing or misplaced. Then additional items -- could your young strong guys move that huge pile of pavers we're keeping on the .00001% chance we might ever need one of them again. Still, I'm starting to feel like this property will be ours soon again! Just in time for summer!

6/2/2010

6/1/2010 The Demand

One very very rude little boy had a toy confiscated until he complied with the most basic of rules: when we get home, put your lunch away, hang up your knapsack, and go wash the first layer of muck from your hands before smearing your fingers all over the walls.

That rude little boy knew Mom was getting very fed up with the ongoing nasty responses and defiant comments ("if you take something away from me then I can take away things from YOU!" "I don't WANT to!" "arrgggh, can't you see I'm PLAYING?!").

So I locked myself in my room. Meanwhile, he wrote this note:

Dear mommy,
Give back the toys by midnight!!
And I mean now!!!
Love, Julian

He apparently taped it to my door, then thought better of it when he heard me growling at the activity, and moved the tape to the walls. Tape and smudgy dirty fingerprints on my still freshly-painted walls.

I love how he embellished the note with "I love you" and stars and hearts, then crossed them all out. A retracted habit, or an attempt at an extra bite?

We got past it, but the toy is still locked in my room.

6/1/2010

5/30/2010 Swim time!

Summer suddenly appeared in Northern California!

And with it came a kind invitation from longtime friends to join them swimming at a pool club they belong to. This was a great way to shake out bathing suits, goggles, and swimming skill. Does anyone remember how to swim?

Also, last summer when the kids' cousins visited, Katrina refused to go in the water. What would a year bring?

For starters, they were all very very excited and happy about going -- especially Katrina. She even smiled for a group shot!


And, to my amazement, she got right into the water. No hesitation, no fear -- all smiles and happiness. I was so glad to see it, it was instant fun for her. This pool was better set up for her than any I've ever seen, with a large shallow area just 2 feet deep. She could easily walk around in chest-deep water. She didn't argue against goggles (I wouldn't have insisted), she jumped up and down, she splashed, played with toys, and had a great time.

The sobering moments came in the pool when for some reason, she tried to "swim," or somehow lifted her feet or got knocked off-balance. Even though she was in water that she could easily stand in, she didn't know enough to put her feet back down. I fished her out 3 times, from a horizontal position in which she was struggling and clearly unable to get back up. She was coughing and startled and gasping for breath each time.

I was right with her, but it was nerve-wracking at first knowing that if I turned my head for a moment to chat, I could turn back and find her half-drowning. This is where baby/toddler swim lessons made a huge difference -- the boys at her age were much safer splashing around in shallow water. They wouldn't drown from just picking their feet up. That said, I don't think it'll take more than a few lessons for her to get the basics of water mobility. But this is where her natural non-athleticism is an extra liability. At least now she has the enthusiasm!

My mother will get amusement from this: Katrina's lips were blue and she was shivering when I told her it was time to go home. "NO!" she retorted. She DID NOT want to get out, no matter how cold she was. She threw a tantrum that lasted 20 minutes past when we got home, in fact.

I didn't even bother trying to get pictures, as I needed to be right there with her at all times, and I was enjoying chatting with Betsy, and had to keep an eye on the boys too. Not so much for their safety, but for others' safety. Gabriel got several time-outs for pushing on Julian's head, something I'd warned him sternly about before he got in.

Still, I'm glad to be getting our swim bag at the ready again -- it's that time of year!

5/30/2010

Pinnacles Flowers

A sampling of some of the beautiful wildflowers we came across at Pinnacles.
(See the accompanying post about our trip: Pinnacles Camping.)