I'm It!

I got tagged with an Alphabet meme by Jean at So Not Organized. I love reading her stuff because she tells it like it is, including the times that life is not picture-perfect. Loving life when it is not picture-perfect is such an important skill to have! Plus her boys are eight and 12 years old. I am taking mental notes for the future. :)

Here are my important thoughts:

Alphabet Meme

A. Attached or Single?

Attached. Married to my perfect counterpart (meaning we are opposites in a lot of ways, but we have the same overarching values).

B. Best Friend?

Still counting a small number of high school friends as my best friends forever. :)

C. Cake or pie?

Ice cream cake.

D. Day of choice?

Friday.

E. Essential Item?

Coffee, yes. 

F. Favorite color?

Don't have one. 

G. Gummy bears or worms?

Gummy anything, thank you.

H. Hometown?

I guess I consider Prior Lake, Minnesota, my hometown, but I grew up a little bit in Kentucky and Texas, too.

I. Favorite Indulgence?

Sour Patch Kids.

J. January or July?

Neither one. I'm feeling contrary today. March is a nice month. :)

K. Kids?

Two boys. Love them.

L. Life isn’t complete without?

Running. No, really it's family and friends who love you, but running adds something important to my life.

M. Marriage date?

August. It's been almost nine years!

N. Number of brothers/sisters?

One brother, one sister. Thank God for them.

O. Oranges or Apples.

Clementines, yes.

P. Phobias?

Cockroaches, water bugs. 

Q. Quotes?

I still really like this one from Woody Allen: "My relationship with death remains the same. I'm strongly against it." The one on the heading of this blog is important to me: "Day by day, what you do is who you become." And my always-favorite Bible verse is: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

R. Reasons to smile?

My husband and children. Positive people. Humor/comedy in good spirit.

S. Season of choice?

Fall.

T. Tag 5 People.

Decline. I'll tag Wee Irish Family, but feel free to ignore if you want. :)

U. Unknown fact about me?

I have visited or lived in eight countries.

V. Vegetable?

Any of them. I eat all my vegetables.

W. Worst habit?

Reading up on and scheduling out something that I don't make time to actually DO in real life. At least not as consistently as I read and think about it.

X. Xray or Ultrasound?

There are situations when each one is pretty necessary... Otherwise, I say avoid recreational use. ;)

Y. Your favorite food?

Cookies 'n cream ice cream, or tuna noodle casserole.

Z. Zodiac sign?

Pisces. I'm touchy.

Four Years Old!

I just looked back at a post from the beginning of April. Nick already looks SO MUCH OLDER. I look at my kids and nearly every day see their faces looking older than the previous day. Their skills improve. I have to say caring for them is getting easier. No diaper changing, a little less food preparation because they can make some things themselves, a little bit later wake-up time, usually good bedtime routines, logical reasoning (only sometimes with Nick, but always with Xander), and slightly easier car seats. No nap times to interfere with outings. Good behavior in the car, even for long drives. Pretty darn good public behavior.

Our children are old. Just kidding; they're still young children, but they are moving toward the older-young-children category. I anticipate some challenging issues as they grow older that we don't have to deal with now, but the really physically demanding phase of parenting seems to be receding into the past.

Now to the vital statistics:

Height:
40"

Weight:
Couldn't tell. Our scale wouldn't register more than zero pounds for him. :)

Sleeping:

Nick does not take a formal nap anymore. We have had some challenging times lately, including sickness in the family, when I have put on videos for him in the afternoon so he would at least get some rest and allow other people to do the same. If he feels the need, he will put himself into his bed and sleep for a nap. Every once in a while he passes out on the couch. But for the most part, there is no nap anymore.

He goes to bed between 8:30 and 9:00, just like Xander. They share a room and sleep in bunk beds. He usually gets up between 7:00 and 7:30. I wish he would sleep in just a little more. Probably the ability to sleep in will come with age, like it did with Xander.

I always tell him to first read a book when he gets up in the morning. When he's done with that, he wants to watch Imaginext videos. These are done by Fisher-Price and encourage kids to want more and more of their toys...They are the bane of my existence. Sometimes I let him, sometimes I don't, and my end goal is to eradicate them from our lives forever.

Eating:

He eats very often. As he always has. He can pack away quite a bit of food, but his more usual pattern is to eat a normal amount at a meal, then want another small meal in a few hours. Relatives have been surprised lately that he would eat brussels sprouts and lettuce. He will eat just about anything if we encourage him, but dinner is still his smallest meal of the day. Nick is adventurous with condiments. He will eat almost any food with almost any condiment without complaining. (Not that we care whether he eats condiments or not!)

Main Interests:
Obsessed with Imaginext. I'm surprised at how long the Imaginext castle and accessories has been a favorite. He still plays with it for more than an hour every day. For his birthday, he is getting several more Imaginext figures and items from the Eagle Talon Castle and Batman sets.

He also really likes the library and Muppets movies.

Favorite Books:
Myths and Legends, Marvel Heroes Mix 'N Match, Xander's Lego books

Miscellaneous:

He knows more than I expect. I've been doing learning activities with him that I didn't judge him ready for a few months ago, and now he understands them in an instant.

When we went to the art museum with Grandma Lucy the other day, he surprised her (and me) by pointing to copies of statues and saying, "That's from Myths and Legends." Then he passed a relief on the wall topped with Greek writing and said, "That's Greek writing."

He likes doing activities on the computer. I've been letting him do Starfall.com every once in a while and he really likes the math sections, especially the multiplication songs and the fractions with pizza activity. It sounds like he is learning his 3x tables! Xander doesn't even know those!

His sight and hearing are slightly better than normal for his age; same with his vocabulary and other intellectual and social skills. We know this because he has been evaluated for speech therapy purposes. The only impairment he has (which we knew, but not in technical terms) is a voice impairment so that he always says "s" and similar sounds through his nose. He has done this since before he was one year old. The first time he ever said the "s" sound, I heard that nasality. So he is going to start speech therapy once a week next year. I'm impressed with his ability to go with the speech therapist and work with her for an hour without me there. She said he "worked hard" for her. I don't think I've dropped him off somewhere more than a dozen or so times, but he did great when I did just that for speech at the elementary school.

Rough Schedule:
7:30 up, book, maybe some videos
8:00 breakfast
8:30 sibling playtime
9:00 Morning Cards to get ready for the day; chores
10:00 learning activities
10:30 independent playtime
11:30 outside break or errands
12:00 lunch and clean-up
12:30 outside playtime
1:00 Sustained Silent Reading time
1:15 free playtime or video 
3:00 snack or tea time
4:00 free playtime or TV time (Wild Kratts, Electric Company)
5:00 a couple of pre-dinner chores, help me cook or clean up kitchen
6:00 family dinner
7:00 family activities or sibling playtime
7:30 start getting ready for bed
9:00 bedtime - lights out

And more pictures:

tired before the party

water balloon line

little boys playing Imaginext

she's doing the actual party activities

big boys playing with snails

tired after the party

A Couple of Learning Books

I stumbled upon another great learning resource at Goodwill the other day. It's Smithsonian Institute's Make Your Own President book. The presidents up through George W. Bush are pictured in this spiral-bound book. Each picture is divided in five strips, so you can mix and match parts of pictures to make a crazy-face. Always fun. The back of each strip has a quote from that particular president.

Three strange things: The presidential portraits are not placed in historical order, not all presidents are included, and the book only goes up to George W. Bush because it was published in 2006. But all the presidents (up to President Bush) are included, in order, in a graph in the back.

Three great things: It's fun enough that Xander asked me on his own if he could read the book, he will get a chance to familiarize himself with portraits of 24 "favorite" presidents, and, along the way, he will be exposed to famous presidential quotes.

While I was rhapsodizing about this book, Nick asked for another book we've borrowed from the library that I like very much: The Usborne Introduction to Art: Internet-Linked. I had been reading a couple pages a day to Xander because I liked the way it explained groups of paintings in terms of what theme or time period or method they shared. I should mention at this time that the kids, especially Nick, have also been watching episodes of Where On Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

Today, Nick said he wanted to look at the painting book. I figured he wanted to look at The Usborne Introduction to Art. He did, and he started paging through it. Then I heard him say, "Where is the one from Carmen Sandiego?"

I said, "You're looking for a painting that's in Carmen Sandiego? Okay, keep looking through, see if you find one."

Finally, he said, "Here it is!"

He was pointing to the Mona Lisa, which is indeed in an episode of Carmen Sandiego. He even knows its name. How cool is that?

Telling Stories

The boys are composing stories for each other. Even Nick knows to "read" by chapters and to end something that a character said with, "he cried."

When Xander was about four years old, I wrote down several of his stories. Maybe I can catch Nick in the middle of one of his:

"...so Sandy Crocodile said, 'What could I have for this time? I could do for this time is do something weird about the sound.'

"Okay, the next chapter of Sandy Crocodile.

"'What could I do to play this thing now? Hmmmm. Play Imaginext,' Sandy Alligator said.

"I only have two chapters in this book.

"Okay. I'll read Myths and Legends. [pronounced Miffs and Wegends]

"Once upon a time, Sandy was a myths and legends book. Xander, Sandy's in the Myths and Legends book. Once upon a time, Sandy was going to swim and um he said, "Excuse me," Sandy said. Now the guinea pig has a [interruption by Xander]...not your time tomorrow.

The End"

Circumstances are not as ideal to catch Nick's stories as they were when Xander was his age. When Xander was his age, Nick was a baby who had about two naps a day. I sometimes sat with Xander all by himself to do learning activities or listen to him play. I do learning activities with Nick, and spend time listening to him play, but there is usually an older brother around to put in his two cents at some point. Or maybe I am just busier and not ready to drop everything to type up a transcript of Nick. But I wanted to catch something today to show that Nick has the same tendencies as Xander to tell stories with large vocabulary.

Right now, he is reciting "The Adventures of Imaginext Sandy," who is looking at a cake on a table and who is getting an Imaginext battering ram for his birthday.

Mad Libs

We have reached the point in time when Xander has discovered Mad Libs...and loves them! I'm picturing all the practice he'll get with parts of speech and the writing in small spaces and the reading... I'm in heaven!

Story time at the library yesterday was an Elephant & Piggie party. One of the activities was a group Mad Libs story about Gerald and Piggie. Xander very badly wanted to do it at home, so I found a Pinterest link with all kinds of Elephant & Piggie activities, including the Mad Lib story that we did at the library. Follow that link above to see for yourself.

Xander filled it out, asking Nick and me for nouns and verbs. He explained to Nick that a verb is an action word, something you do. And Nick was able to give him a verb, on the first try! Xander wrote the words in the small spaces, occasionally asking me for help with spelling. He read the Mad Lib back to us. That's four subject areas in one fun activity that was entirely Xander's idea! Woo hoo! Nobody tell him how much learning he did in those few minutes. ;)

I am going to find some of their favorite short picture books and use excerpts to make our own Mad Libs pages. Milking this for all it's worth.

On a related note, I must have left my vinegar-and-water spray bottle out, because both kids have asked to use it. I told them they must do it on a glass surface, like our back doors, and they must wipe the glass surface clean. And now I have two people cleaning the glass in our house. Good times.

Working Hard at Having Fun

waiting at Hickory Street Grille for Grandpa Mike and Grandma Lesley

captivated (again) by the pond at Great-Granddad and Great-Grandma Janet's house, this time with 2nd cousins

at Book People

We did sooooooooooooooo much in the last week. My granddad turned 90, so the whole family on my dad's side came to town. All of Granddad's children were there and half of their children. Jeff and Rieko stayed with us (yay!). We met Dad and Lesley early at Hickory Street for lunch. On Saturday, we met up in New Braunfels with EVERYBODY. It was awesome. Three second cousins for the kids, plus some of Janet's grandkids and the kids next door. I got to meet my cousin Sarah's and cousin Meagan's kids for the first time. We stayed in the guest house on Saturday night so we could hang out even more with a few of my aunts and uncles and Dad and Lesley and of course Granddad and Janet and my cousins. It was just epic.

Sunday, instead of going straight home, we went downtown. Got some food truck eats and went to the epitome of local independent book stores.

Monday, we went to a preserve nearby and saw a waterfall and natural pool which happened to be very high in bacteria, so no swimming. Tons of wildflowers. I will never get tired of looking at them. We passed right over a cottonmouth...yikes. The kids did great walking and climbing on the rocky trail, but we did have a couple small casualties. Nothing having to do with the cottonmouth. Phew! We picnicked, then came home for naps and cooking. Then we watched the kids' last soccer games of the season and went to Sonic for treats. Then home for more treats and a couple rounds of Pandemic for the adults, after the kids went to bed.

And this morning, the airport. :(

Back to the workweek.

If I Had to Predict a Career For Them...

If I had to predict what career our sons would choose today, I would say...

Xander:

Fun prediction: Executive Director of National Resources Defense Council or a veterinarian
Boring prediction: Biologist with a private company

Nick:

Fun prediction: Soils researcher or farmer
Boring prediction: Teacher

Anyone else who knows them want to chime in?