Friesencold

The following post is somewhat emotionally heavy and very text-heavy. I thought I’d lighten it up with some fun pictures from our recent stay at North Myrtle Beach when we were home visiting my family last week. The pictures have nothing to do with this post, but enjoy them as you read, read, read.

Cash HATED the sand!

I have been having some major second thoughts about homeschooling lately. If you would have asked me a few months ago, I think I would have said I was 99% sure that is the route I wanted to go, but over these past few weeks, something has started stirring in me and I can tell my heart and mind are changing.

It started just a tiny bit when I visited my friend Shannon in Florida back in June. She and I were talking about homeschooling and one thing she mentioned was what a great public school experience she had and how some of her teachers had really impacted her and influenced her life in big ways. I didn’t really have that experience in my school years, but the way Shannon talked about it sounded really nice. She wasn’t trying to convince me not to homeschool….if anything, it was probably more the other way around. I wasn’t trying to convince her, but I was feeling so sure of this being the route I wanted to go just a few months back, that I’m sure I spoke pretty strongly in favor of schooling at home. In fact, after the time spent with me, plus some other factors to be sure, Shannon decided to take her son out of the preschool she had him all signed up for this fall and keep him at home with her another year. So I guess we influenced one another more than we realized. I didn’t leave Florida thinking at all that I wouldn’t homeschool, but it did just give me a different perspective on sending Bauer to school, which I guess you could say was a seed that since then has started to grow further in other ways.

Even Bauer wasn't peachy-keen on it. He did enjoy the waves though!

We just bought a house in Naperville which is a big step for us because up till now, I think we haven’t really felt settled, and when you are not sure where you will be living when your kids get to school age, it is quite comforting to think you don’t even have to worry about the place or the school district since you plan to homeschool anyway.  Well, I am convinced that when we least expected the blessing of a home, God gave us a little present and said, “Here, I have something for you and I’m not gonna make you work for it or anything. You can just have it because I love you. If you had gotten that other house – the short sale one in Aurora that you tried so hard for 4 months to get – it wouldn’t have been the end of the world and I would have still loved you and good things would have still happened in your life living there, but this is so much better for you because I know what you like and that you want to walk places and still be near downtown and you need some more room for the boys to run around and grow, so here is the house I was holding just for you. Even if it doesn’t have a 47 in the address, I hope you like it!”

We do!!!!!! That deserved a lot of exclamation points! We are so thankful and happy to be moving to a new (and bigger) house in just a couple weeks. It’s not a new house, as in just-built (it was built in 1960-something, making it approximately 47 years old) but it is new to us, and it has been remodeled on the inside, and the outside has just been painted, and it has a new roof, and is about to have a new driveway and new windows! Whew!

And it is 0.3 miles from Trader Joe’s which will be just fabulous. Enough said about that.

Cash was a lot happier when we got back to the pool area of our hotel.

And now back to the homeschool debate in my head: Well, our new house is just around the corner from the neighborhood elementary school. I don’t know if the close proximity is the thing or what, but now that we are feeling a lot more settled in Naperville after buying a house (even though we haven’t even moved in yet), I am thinking how great it’s gonna be to get to walk Bauer to school every day.  No drop off or pick up lines, and I could practically see him at recess if I walked to the corner of our street and looked. Side note: when TJ was in elementary school, he got to come home from school every day at lunch because his house was right across the street from the school, and he would eat 1 or 2 peanut butter and jam (not jelly) sandwiches, a huge plastic cup of cows milk (ewww!) and some cookies. That is a story I’ve heard probably more times than any other from his childhood and I just like hearing it for some reason.

Bauer had never seen a Lazy River before, but he jumped right in.

You know I visited my friend Gretchen in Texas back in April so I could observe her as she homeschooled her two boys, and I just loved seeing her in their home classroom doing school. She was a big inspiration to me, especially because I feel like our personalities are similar in that we like having some structure and a rhythm to our days and it was great to see how that could look played out in the homeschool arena. I also thought it was so cool that one afternoon after lunch, we headed to one of Gretchen’s friend’s homes who also homeschools her kids and could spend time with others and let the kids play together when normally they would have been tied up at school.

He couldn't get enough of the waterslide!

How did I get from that excellent visit in April, where I first learned about Tikki-Tikki-Tembo No-Sa-Rembo Chari-Bari-Ruchi Pip-Peri-Pembo and have loved him ever since, to where I am today thinking I am most likely not going to homeschool? I think the main thing that has happened to me, or for me, is that I’ve started to realize that the most important thing to me is that I treat Bauer with love and kindness and respect. I don’t want to just do this occasionally but I want to fight like h-e-double-hockey-sticks to DEPEND AND NOT DEMAND, to ACCEPT AND NOT ASSERT, in other words to give up feeling like I always have to be in control of things, which I think is the underlying cause of my general frustration and passive-aggressiveness (which ends up looking a lot like anger) with the kids. I want to give Bauer a safe place to land, and while I had been thinking that meant for me to homeschool as a way to have the quality time with him at home (and also to protect him in some ways from whatever I may fear is out there at school), I think what it actually might mean is that I use the time and energy that I would have put toward planning and implementing school with Bauer to just letting go of trying to control him and instead just accept him and enjoy him and let him enjoy me.

I know that all might sound a little vague, like isn’t homeschooling something i can actually DO to work on a relationship with Bauer and look how great all the alphabet activities this summer have turned out, and how exactly are you gonna use your time and energy to let go of control, like that’s something you just decide to do and it’s done? Well, I can’t quite answer that yet, but my overall feeling is that choosing to homeschool Bauer would be setting myself up for failure. And I don’t mean I would fail at figuring out what to do with Bauer….in fact that is something I think I would enjoy and be good at and will actually sort of miss by not homeschooling him. The kind of failure I’m talking about is failing Bauer emotionally and relationally. And I feel like that’s the fast track I’m on if I just keep going like I am, trying to control, placing demands and expectations on the people around me, holding myself to an unattainable level of perfection and then taking out my frustration with my imperfections on my kids. I think Bauer needs the space and freedom from me and I need it from him if we are to bloom and grow well. I could see it getting ugly if I try to homeschool and Bauer nor myself lives up to my notions of what it should look like and how each of us should perform in those roles. And let’s be realistic, Bauer is 4 and I act 4 a lot of times, so really it’s just not gonna be perfect. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

And so help me God, somehow I’m gonna spend my time and my energy and my strength making peace with the reality of that, which really means making peace with myself and with Bauer.

Cash was very happy to sit in the chair and watch for Bauer.

I think this is going to serve Bauer in the best way possible, that he can go to school each day knowing that I love him and can’t wait to see him in the afternoon when I pick him up and then we can talk about his day, instead of me trying to do a couple hours of activities or lessons with him to get it done and finding myself impatient and frustrated and taking that out on him, unfortunately, and then being glad when it’s over so he and Cash can get out of my hair and go play while I try to recover from what just happened. If you think I’m being a bit dramatic or exaggeratory, well I probably am, but I also bet if you asked Bauer if I’m hard to please and he actually understood your question, he would probably say yes. Let me stop right here and remind myself, though, as my wise friend Ellen who raised two boys herself reminded me recently, that I’ve certainly tempered the bad with lots of good, and that counts for something. It counts for a lot in fact! I don’t want to live like I just described above (caring more about the task of homeschooling than the relationship I have with Bauer in the process) because that isn’t life and what isn’t life can’t bring life to others. The way that Todd Cartmell, who wrote Respectful Kids, talked about parenting styles is either being a demolition expert or a gardener. I know I have been hanging out on the demolition expert side of the fence too much when what I really want to be is a gardener, a good gardener. I think for me that not homeschooling Bauer is a step toward the gardening side and I’ll gladly take that.

And maybe I’m beating a dead horse, but lastly, it sort of solidified the schooling debate for me when I thought of the fact that it would feel like I was punishing Bauer to keep him home with me. I think what Bauer wants is ME and the best way I can give him the best me there is at this point in my life is to give up in so many ways and let someone else teach him reading, writing, and arithmetic and I’ll teach him what unconditional love and patience and respect look like. I have come to the conclusion that the GOOD MOM he will hopefully get by me not homeschooling him will be better than if he got me as the GOOD TEACHER AND SIMULTANEOUS BAD MOM if I did homeschool him. I think in the back of my mind I was thinking if I homeschooled Bauer it would make up for the deficit that exists from the fact that I haven’t been there for him emotionally or relationally so much of the time. But really I don’t think it would make up for it at all…I think it would potentially make matters worse. I know I act crazy sometimes, but why would I do that?

The hippo baby slide was a thrill for Cash once I showed him how a few times.

I am very excited about the possibilities of the future. This year I will have Bauer at home with me since he misses the cut off for Kindergarten by 15 days, and I can’t wait to do our Library Day each Monday while Cash is at Parents Day Out. I really think we are gonna have fun doing that together. I also may do a few of the lessons in the book I have already purchased called The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading as a way to test the waters and see if he seems ready and eager to learn to read or not. I don’t want him to know everything for starting Kindergarten a year from now, but I do think it will be nice to at least begin teaching him to read, or if nothing else, to read aloud to him a lot this coming year before he goes to school. I’m excited that I’ll get to have some time with just Cash when Bauer goes to school, assuming we don’t have another baby by then, which I sort of hope we do. But even then, Cash will get a totally different experience of me than if I was homeschooling Bauer and I really think it will be better for Cash in that way too. I am excited that Bauer can be released of the burden I was about to place on myself and him, and so thankful that I’ve walked this road I have in order to be at the place I am today saying that I truly 100% considered homeschooling as a viable option, and I still totally admire and respect all my amazing friends who do it, but I won’t be joining the ranks for now. I don’t know what I’ll be thinking a month or six months from now, but this is where I am today and I thank you for listening.

And just in case you missed it on the MealBaby blog, I wanted to make sure you see what I saw in NC. Two sides of the same sign in front of a roadside produce stand….

Love it!

I could maybe forgive them this mistake.

But this?!

Then I started thinking this last one was perhaps a subtle attempt to remind people not to text and drive, or take pictures and drive!

For the letter W, Bauer colored Waldo….and used White-Out to fix the letter U in his name.

He colored and cut out Weather cards and used White-Out for the snow.

We read a couple W books, and did you know The Funny Little Woman is by the same author as that fabulous book Tikki Tikki Tembo?

I also got Bauer a special W DVD from our library, which of course, he loved!

And here’s a fun Wax art project we did.

First you grate the wax crayons.

Then you trace circles onto wax paper and cut them out.

You sprinkle the wax onto the waxy side of the wax paper circles.

You smile as you go.

Then you place another wax circle waxy side down on top of the first circle and iron them together on a low heat setting. Repeat 11 times to get this.

Then tape them onto a window and let the light shine through to see how pretty they all look.

That was really a fun project. I had only planned to make a couple wax circles but Bauer wanted to keep going and going.

Bauer also enjoyed getting to weigh objects that start with the letter W. I had fun looking around the house for W objects and putting them in a brown paper bag for Bauer to reach into with his eyes closed and pick one thing at a time to weigh on the kitchen scale. He also got some practice writing numbers, and he was wearing his patch to help strengthen his eye.

Speaking of patches, check out Xavier the pirate Bauer made for the letter X.

Here’s his Xylophone…

and his X-ray (maybe White-Out wasn’t such a good idea in this case).

I wasn’t sure The Lorax was such a good idea either when I realized how long it is, but Bauer has fallen in love with the story and we’ve read it often during the course of X.

It’s official, I do believe, that Bauer has given up his afternoon naps. Now I feel like I need to be taking them instead, mainly because I’m having to get myself used to not having a protected chunk of time in the afternoon during which I knew both kids would be asleep. That makes me tired just thinking about it.

However, I’ve made a decision in the last few days to go to bed early, which for me is between 10 and 10:30, so I can get up a half hour before the kids and have some protected time then. I am spending the early morning time reading and journaling and praying for help for myself and others. What I’m reading is The Message Bible, just the New Testament right now, but I’m going from start to finish like it’s a book. I do enjoy books, so I thought that reading the Bible in a different translation like it’s a book would give me a fresh perspective. It was Frederick Buechner who inspired me to try this out by something he wrote in the June 15 reading from his book Listening to Your Life.

Buechner is giving some practical suggestions on reading the Bible and numbers 3, 4, and 5 really stood out to me.

3. If you have even as much as a nodding acquaintance with a foreign language, try reading the Bible in that. Then you stand a chance of hearing what the Bible is actually saying instead of what you assume it must be saying because it is the Bible…..

4. If you don’t know a foreign language, try some English version that you’ve never tried before – the New English Bible, Goodspeed’s translation, J. B. Phillips’s New Testament, or any other you can lay your hands on. The more far-out the better. Nothing could be farther out than the Bible itself….

5. It may sound like fortune-telling, but don’t let that worry you. Let the Bible fall open in your lap and start there. If you don’t find something that speaks to you, let it fall open to something else. Read it as though it were as exotic as the I Ching or the Tarot deck. Because it is.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, that’s the feeling I get almost every morning when I read what Buechner has to say in Listening to Your Life. I think getting up early and starting my day with Buechner, God, and myself is really going to help me listen to my life. And hopefully it will give me more time for writing in the afternoons. That’s my plan anyway. We’ll be launching a MealBaby blog very soon so I’m working on some posts for that as well.

Yesterday afternoon, when Bauer wasn’t napping, he helped me prepare a Peach-Blueberry-Cherry Crisp that we could have for dessert later that evening. I didn’t take a picture before we dug in, but here’s what was left last night.

While the crisp was cooking, we took a family outing to Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things we needed, including some vanilla soy ice cream to go with the crisp. I thought I could buy just the vanilla kind, but realized I would have had to buy a mango-vanilla combo to get vanilla and I wasn’t in the mood to dig around the container to try and scoop out just vanilla for everyone. So I ended up buying this instead.

It’s like what you get at Red Mango. The pleasantly tart taste of plain vanilla yogurt with live cultures, and even though our family doesn’t consume cow’s-milk based products very often at all, I’ll have to say this yogurt was a good treat for all of us. Bauer just kept saying it tasted like yogurt (and he meant the non-frozen kind that he loves but rarely gets to eat).

Unfortunately our trip to Trader Joe’s led to the discovery that they no longer have the miniature shopping carts in the stores for the kids. Now that’s a fairly large bummer, and I’m a huge fan of Trader Joe’s to begin with. When we asked at customer service, they said a lot of people had complained about getting run into by kids with carts. I can see that, I guess, but they already took away the balloons and now the tiny carts, too? The cashier did give Bauer a row of stickers that was as tall as him, probably 47, and that was fun for the car ride home at least. But he’ll sure miss the carts and helping me shop that way.

At the moment (2:34 pm) Cash isn’t napping but he isn’t upset either. He’s been back in his crib entertaining himself and making all kinds of noise for an hour and a half (with a poopy break in the middle of that). He was so rubbing his eyes just after lunch so I figured he’d go right to sleep. I think I may have missed his tired window today. At least he’s happy back there, and Bauer is happy now too, as he’s just turned on the Woody Woodpecker DVD that I got him from the library for the Letter W. He finished his Quiet Reading Time a few minutes ago and is now enjoying some TV time while I finish this blog. If Cashie isn’t up by 3pm, I guess we’ll call it a day for naps and go on to something else.

Now for the something else you’ve been waiting for: The Letter V and all the fun we had with that.

Bauer used his body to make the letter V.

Then he used some craft supplies we bought at Michael’s to decorate the blue Visor he picked out.

Here you can see his finished Visor and the Vitamin Water he chose at Meijer in honor of the Letter V.

For an art project, Bauer cut out pictures of Vegetables from some old issues of Everyday Food Magazine.

Then for dinner a couple nights ago, I cut up a ton of Vegetables (I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I tried to start stirring these around in my big Wok)…

And we had Vegetable Ratatouille for dinner.

We read some good V books and Bauer LOVED Violet the Pilot.

He also loved making this little Volcano erupt using baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.

I got this Volcano from the inside of a cereal box when I was a little girl. I’ve saved it all these years because I thought it was so cool, and I even knew where it was when I finally had a use for it!

For another art project, I helped Bauer make a Valentine for TJ. I’m still not sure why he put an extra A on the end of Dad, but he didn’t want help with spelling that word.

Bauer decided to make a Valentine monster on the back of the card, and after writing the letters EEKK, he asked me what it spelled, and so we named his monster “Eek!”

We finished off the Letter V with the V verse that Bauer learned last year when we were doing a verse for each letter of the alphabet. Usually I just write out the verse for the letter we are working on, and leave some letters or words out and have Bauer fill in the blanks with my help. But this time I decided to have Bauer illustrate the verse since it seemed pretty easy to do. He was quite hesitant to begin drawing, even after I’d written out each phrase and drawn the four blank boxes. So then I sat with him and we talked about what was happening in each phrase of the verse and how he could draw it. I was quite impressed. And just so you know, the solitary place where Jesus went to pray was the jungle.

And also just so you know, it’s 3pm and that little booger still isn’t asleep! Two hours and no nap! Oh well….I better go get him up, so I’m out of here.

Ribfest is one of the many things we enjoyed over July 4th weekend, my mom being the main attraction. As always she was a tremendous help with the boys and Bauer loved having Gigi here to share in all the adventures of the weekend.

On Thursday night we went to hear the Naperville Municipal Band give their 4th of July themed concert. There were so many people there that we had to sit way around on the side where we couldn’t even see the band. But we could hear it just fine. Happy Birthday wishes went out to a 108-year old member of the audience. That was cooler than the music to me!

On Friday morning we went to Bauer’s last swim lesson (more on that later) and then took the Naperville Trolley Tour. We had done this tour one time before when TJ’s parents were in town, but I wanted my mom to experience it, not to mention I was looking forward to a refresher course on some of the history of Naperville. We invited some friends along, which made it even more special for Bauer.

Friday afternoon/evening, we attended a BBQ at the house of some friends of ours. Because I knew the kids would be fully occupied by the excitement of playing with other kids and because I know my mom loves to visit Anderson’s bookstore when she’s in town, I suggested to her that she take a break and enjoy downtown Naperville, just walking around and visiting stores and having dinner at her leisure. She loved the idea and had a great time doing that, while we were talkin’ and eatin’ and chillin’ with friends. The best part for the kids was the improptu game of Bumper Cars they came up with toward the end. You should have seen all the Cozy Coupes and similar vehicles in action on the driveway! Or maybe you did if you saw TJ’s Mobile Upload to Facebook that afternoon.

Saturday was the BIG DAY as we went to both Toy Story 3 and Ribfest. My mom joined us for the movie because she was wanting to see it too. That was fun to be there all together and know Cash could be as loud as he wanted at home with our great babysitter. My mom brought a Toy Story 3 art pack to Bauer this trip and he enjoyed spending lots of time over the weekend coloring with Gigi and working on the cover page of his Toy Story booklet.

On Saturday afternoon, my mom offered to watch Cash for us so we could go to Ribfest with just Bauer (and Jaime and Branton again!). It was pretty hot that day so I was glad Cash didn’t have to be out in the heat and fussing cause he’d want to do everything Bauer was doing but wasn’t quite big enough to do. You’re probably thinking Cash got a bum deal on Saturday but my mom said the two of them had a blast and Cash was perfectly content to be home with her, running around and doing all his funny antics that he does.

The first thing we did at Ribfest was the free kids area, with tons of inflatables.

Then it was time for ribs! TJ and I both got the pulled pork sandwich plates from Desperado’s and TJ also ordered a “teaser” of 3 ribs from there. The food was delicious! My once-a-year splurge on the worst meat ever (but it sure did taste good, not to mention the energy I had the next morning for swimming laps!).

Branton and Bauer (and Tucker) are good little buddies.

After we ate, it was ferris wheel time. Not part of the free rides, but definitely a fun, new experience for Bauer.

After the rides, we let the boys do one game each, the one where you pick a rubber duckie from a pool of water and the duck either has an S or an L on the bottom for Small or Large prize. Both of them got S’s but it’s good they did, because I know the Silly Bands (a small prize) were what they both wanted more than any of the other prizes.

As we were walking home after Ribfest, Bauer asked if we could stop and get ice cream like we did last year. He remembers going to the gelati place in downtown Naperville with the friends who we went to Ribfest with last year (different friends than this year). It was crazy that Bauer brought this up after a year had gone by, but he was right! So we thought it would be fun to continue the tradition.

Here is last year’s picture:

And here is this year’s picture:

I actually put this year’s picture in the R section of Bauer’s alphabet book and called it “Rice” Cream since that is how Bauer says ice cream. I had to explain to him why I was putting it in as an R picture so as not to confuse him since I had previously explained to him that ice cream starts with I.

Also for R, we read a couple good books:

and made a couple cute robots:

For S, we read 3 terrific books, all highly recommended if you are looking for good children’s books in general. Swimmy is one of those that just lights up yours and your kid’s face the first time you read it.

We also planted Sunflower Seeds in a fold-your-own paper pot that came with a Wal-Mart gift card I bought ages ago. I hope they will grow! It takes 6-8 weeks, which Bauer really has no concept of, but he enjoyed digging up some dirt from our garden to put in the little pot.

Another fun S thing we did was build a Sandcastle from a mixture of sand, cornstarch, and alum. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested. It was kind of like making something out of Playdough. After a week the sandcastle will be completely dry and hardened so we can keep it for a good while (but not forever, as Bauer would hope).

S is also for Swim Lessons, which Bauer really enjoyed. I know I already posted a few pictures in an earlier post, but TJ took a few more great ones on Bauer’s last day.

Gotta buckle my life-vest.

I love my goggles!

Gettin’ in the water.

Working on floating and kicking.

High-fiving the teacher.

Bauer’s group joined up with another group for some kind of circle game in the water. First Bauer watches:

Then he takes a turn in the middle:

He’s a brave boy.

And he loves going under.

The lessons are all done now and Bauer gets a lift out of the water.

Treats await the kids.

And Bauer gets his Starfish Swimming School Achievement Book.

And now back to my mom’s visit since I never quite finished telling what we did. On Sunday morning we went to Centennial Beach right when it opened at 11 and were there for a couple hours. Cash got sunscreen in his eyes near the beginning so that was a bit traumatic for him, but we survived. Once I stuck him in the shower to clean him off, put his clothes back on him, and got him distracted by Bauer’s Silly Bands, he was all set to hang on the blanket with Gigi.

Bauer had a great time in the water jumping off TJ’s shoulders.

And then I taught Bauer that game called Categories. I picked the category, like Colors or Fruit, and then he had to guess what I was thinking. Each time he guessed wrong, I dunked him under and when he got it right, I flipped him over backwards. He loved it!

I like this picture of the three of us in a row.

As you can see, the beach was a popular place to be on the 4th!

We wrapped up the day (and Gigi’s visit) with the fireworks display in downtown Naperville, but I don’t have any pictures to show of that. I’m sure you saw your own fireworks and felt the same feelings of wonder and joy that we did. Hope you didn’t get as many mosquito bites as we did though!

I had a great time in Tampa this past weekend visiting my friend Shannon, who I was roommates with in college. She and her family moved to Tampa just after we moved away from Orlando three years ago, so we hadn’t gotten to see each other in a really long time (at least 5 years!).

We talked and talked. We sat in her backyard and talked, took a walk and talked, went to the pool and talked, ate at Tijuana Flats and talked, ate slices of Publix cake and talked, stayed up late one night and talked, and went to bed early another night and read. We also spent lots of time just hanging out at Shannon’s house with her two cuties, Chase and Siena. Because Shannon has little kids, like I do, it felt sort of like being at home. It made me miss my kids for sure. But I didn’t have to wash any dishes, brush any kids’ teeth, or break up any fussing. That was nice.

I also had the time while I was away to read an entire book, Anne Lamott’s Imperfect Birds. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it because it’s her fiction work, which I haven’t been crazy about in the past. But this time, I loved the fiction because so much of what you could hear Anne Lamott saying in her non-fiction books like Traveling Mercies and Grace (Eventually) came through in the dialogue among the characters in Imperfect Birds. It was also the first book I’ve read in an online format and I enjoyed that a lot more than I expected to, too. I will definitely read another book on the iPad. I loved being able to bookmark quotes I liked as I went along, although now I have to figure out how to print them….or maybe I’ll just take my sweet time and copy them all down in my Goody Book where I write out all my favorite quotes from writers such as Anne Lamott, Elizabeth Berg, Marisa de los Santos, and of course Alexander McCall Smith.

TJ took great care of the kids while I was gone over the weekend. They went to Bauer’s swim lesson on Friday morning. The lessons take place at Centennial Beach, shown below, which is an old rock quarry.

See Bauer? He’s wearing blue goggles and floating on his back.

Bauer is in a class with only 3 other kids which is great, and usually at least one of the other children doesn’t show up, so it’s even smaller. Unlike Bauer’s bladder! If only he can make it through his 30-minute lesson without having to take a break to go potty, I’d be a happy camper. I made him go pee two times this morning before his lesson and he still only made it till 10:26. I didn’t even give him a smoothie this morning, but uh-oh, it must have been all the cantaloupe he ate! At least he doesn’t go in the water.

TJ took the kids for more water fun on Saturday afternoon at a friend’s house. Their mom, my friend Jaime, was out of town as well, so the dads got together and let the kids play outside in the sprinklers.

On Sunday, TJ helped Bauer make quicksand for the letter Q. There were great step-by-step instructions in the back of Tomie DePaola’s The Quicksand Book. Bauer made a brick sink!

Totally unrelated to the letter Q, they also made a Boogle House in the backyard. This was inspired by the book Why I Built the Boogle House by Helen Palmer.

All weekend, TJ was texting me little videos and pictures of what was going on with the boys. That was a fun and easy way to see them while I was away.

And now I’m going away from the computer.

Here is what Cash got into tonight while I was fixing dinner:

Bauer has learned to swing all by himself and he makes us watch him 5 times a day at least!

On Father’s Day, we went to the zoo with some friends. Bauer had to hold on to Tucker while he looked at the bears.

Not sure what these faces are all about.

These faces, however….

For dinner, we dined at Ted’s Montana Grill per TJ’s request. Cash is really into using a fork these days and loved his bison meatloaf. Unfortunately we didn’t consider the fact that meatloaf would have eggs in it, so we unknowingly subjected Bauer to an allergic reaction. Thankfully his tongue started hurting him right away (after only about 2 bites) so it was a pretty minor reaction. He had some hives around his mouth and was coughing into the evening, but Benadryl relieved all symptoms and now we know not to order the meatloaf for him again.

After taking a week off from alphabet activities during Bauer’s week of VBS, we spent some time over the weekend on the Letter P. I had no idea about Harold and the Purple Crayon, but now I’ve checked out a bunch of the other Crockett Johnson books and we are enjoying those this week, even though we’ve moved beyond P.

Bauer had been asking for a hanging plant for our front porch ever since he discovered the hooks on the porch ceiling and wanted to know what they were for. I bought him a Purple Petunia at Meijer last week.

So many things start with P….Pinecones, Picnic Table….He’s even wearing his Pacific shirt (unplanned).

Pasta on a Preserve Plate….

Pink Play-dough….

And more Play-dough for the P verse.

We also made a Pink and Purple Pinwheel and a Panda Puppet (not Pictured).

We’re enjoying Q this week, including a Q-Tip craft this morning, Queen Anne’s Lace being dyed with food coloring overnight, and Quinoa Muffins we will make in the morning. Also on the agenda is making our very own Quicksand, after reading Tomie de Paola’s The Quicksand Book.

Off to get some ZZZ’s.

It started on Friday when I went for the second round of color on my tattoo. I went primarily to have some work done on the greens throughout, but my tattoo artist is a major perfectionist so he went to work on everything, adding depth to the colors, touching up in places, and finishing off the color around the words at the bottom. That was another 3 hours of work, bringing the total to 11 hours! Look at the difference between the two.

This is before Friday….

And this is after….

On Saturday morning, we went to the Farmer’s Market, where I picked up the market basket I won from the previous week’s raffle that a local business called Monogram Madness sponsored to get the word out about their new store.

Later that day, we did some major cleaning out in the garage, but the funny thing is, it was mostly empty boxes weighing us down with clutter! TJ has an empty box fetish that he’s working on overcoming. It’s pretty cool, though, when you go to sell something on ebay to be able to say that you have the original packaging.

On Sunday, TJ took Bauer to a Kids Fishing Derby…

and Bauer caught his first fish, a 5 1/2″ blue gill. That was one happy boy (and one happy daddy).

We wrapped up the Letter O over the weekend, and the only picture I have to show are the O books we read. But here’s a funny story for O: I printed out a coloring page from Enchanted Learning’s website about President Obama and was teaching Bauer who he is and just telling him a few basic facts. Later in the day, we were reviewing who our President is, and Bauer said Barack Opossum.

And last, we are having a blast lately grilling out in our backyard. We got a grill for an early Father’s Day present so that we would have it on Memorial Day when friends came over for a cookout. It’s been great having lots of grilled veggies and eating outside at our picnic table.

It’s been really rainy here the past few days so we didn’t actually get to grill out over the weekend, but we’ll be starting back up this week. We decided to invite some friends over each Wednesday to grill out and hang out in the backyard. I’m looking forward to some fun (and crazy with the kids) Wednesday evenings this summer.

The same-old, same-old is that Bauer and Cash are eating snacks and being goofy in their carseats.

They were eating Nectarines recently as we are now on the Letter N.

Bauer also made this Noodle Necklace.

Then today we were on our way home from a picnic, and the kids said they were hungry – why don’t they eat at picnics instead of just play?? I told them they could eat the leftover veggies that I had taken, and soon after I turned around to see this.

I won’t even tell you what my hair looked like today after the picnic, during which it rained almost the entire time and it was so windy TJ got a plate of baked beans blown onto his shirt from across the table.

But before we left for the picnic, I had TJ take a few pictures of my new (different) haircut, which I got last Wednesday. I was going for something a little more edgy, which is why I also had some highlights done.

And here’s the tattoo in full force. The color has been on for almost a month now, but I’m actually going back again this week to get the green pepper and Swiss chard darkened to be more true-to-life-green-veggie-green. Nonetheless, isn’t it a great design?

This morning, I finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave and it ranks right up there with The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (both by Khaled Hosseini). I loved the story of Little Bee so incredibly much. I loved it from beginning to end. My life stopped so I could read, read, read it. The book ended and I have been a bit out of sorts all day. I am really looking forward to reading Chris Cleave’s earlier book called Incendiary.

One reason I got to read so much over the last few days was that my mom came into town for a quick visit. It was a lot of fun and I always wish she could stay longer. At dinner tonight, which was after we had just taken Gigi back to the airport, Bauer and I talked about all the things we did with Gigi and I asked him what his favorite was.

Here’s what Bauer and I named that he got to do with Gigi while she was here:
-Went to Target
-Walked to downtown Naperville for dinner at Lou Malnati’s
-Went to Barnes and Noble
-Played in the backyard a lot
-Had numerous picnics in the backyard (at least 4 in 3 days)
-Played with cars
-Read books
-Played and jumped on the air mattress

Bauer said his favorite thing was going to Lou Malnati’s with Gigi (and the rest of us) to have pizza.

That picture is on TJ’s phone, but I have some others to share. We have been on the letter L for the past couple of days, which was perfect for Lou Malnati’s pizza on Friday night.

Here are the L books,

and here’s Gigi reading them to Bauer over breakfast one morning.

Another big hit for the letter L was the Lite Brite I recently bought for five bucks at a homeschool curriculum resale. I was unsure of what exactly I would be getting inside the taped-up box, but I figured for such a small price, it was worth the chance. Everything works, and there are plenty of the unused Lite Brite punch-through black pages for Bauer to do. A nice surprise!

Of course, his first pick was the train!

This is a great activity for eye-patching, too.

Before L was I, J, and K.

For I, we looked at igloos on Google Images and then made an igloo on construction paper.

Next Bauer made an igloo out of letter blocks.

Then we went to a nearby park and saw that the tiered climbing wall looked like an igloo.

If You Want to Read Some I Books….

Or you could play I Spy Bingo (fun times).

I had trouble deciding on J books. I had first gotten the Jellyfish one and a couple of books by Jan Brett to be our J books. But then I realized I really wanted to use the Jan Brett ones for N (Noah’s Ark) and T (Trouble with Trolls, which also includes a dog named Tuffi). So we went with these two shown below, and then on the last day of the letter J, Bauer was looking through the books on his bookshelf and pulled out A Big Bed for Jed and said that should have been a J book too. Oh well…

We went all around downtown Naperville looking for places starting with J to take pictures of. Our first stop was Jamba Juice, and Bauer (and Cash) got a smoothie from there for our J snack.

Ezra Jack Keats was featured for the letter K. We had checked out all of Keats’ books one time a while back from the library, so this time, I knew just which ones I wanted to get for Bauer. A Letter to Amy is the one he liked best.

We made a koala mask, which Bauer really enjoyed putting on and showing to Cash first, and then to TJ when he got home from work that day. I found the pattern on EnchantedLearning.com.

And last is our K snack: a kiwi shared by Bauer and Cash, who shared a dislike for the fruit as well (this picture was before Bauer had tasted it).

Oh, I just realized we’ll start M on Monday and Gigi bought Bauer some little packets of M&Ms for him to have on Memorial Day. That’s sweet!

I couldn’t think of an H snack, so we’ll call this Having Smoothies!

Cash is super Happy the minute he gets his smoothie in the morning.

H is for Kevin Henkes, one of our favorite children’s authors. Bauer loves A Weekend with Wendell and Chester’s Way. Of course I’m partial to Birds and My Garden.

H is also for Hula Hoop.

I had planned to look online for some hula hoop games, but ended up making up a game instead when one recent afternoon (before I had a chance to look online for ideas) we were out in the backyard and I realized we needed a structured activity to keep things fun for a few more minutes. Bauer enjoyed racing against the timer on my phone as he went from one side of our yard to the other while only stepping inside the hula hoops, which meant he had to keep moving the hoops from behind him to in front of him.