Back to School

Where did the summer go?  I’m still in denial that the calendar has turned to September.  This year, A. is in third grade and E. is going to first grade.  They will both be out of the house all day every day.  So, many days it will be very quiet with just me and E-boy in the house.

Here are the girls all ready for their first day of school:

Due to a bus snafu, we didn’t get the traditional picture of the kids walking up to the school bus, so you’ll have to imagine that one.  Maybe one of these days I’ll take a picture of them getting on the bus to sort of reinvent the occasion…okay, probably not.

While my days are a little more quiet with the girls away at school, my afternoons have suddenly become filled with soccer practice and gymnastics lessons.  It’s taking a bit to get used to this new routine of fitting in dinner, homework and activities.  I think I’ll have to dust off the crock pot to help me out with dinners some nights!

I’m in Trouble.

Here’s what E-Boy managed to do the other day while I wasn’t looking.

He used a chair to reach the drawer in the kitchen where I keep pens and pencils, took out a blue highlighter, and decorated himself.  When I came into the kitchen, he looked up at me and said “me ba”.  I’m not sure if he was acknowledging what he did was bad, or telling me he needed a bath to wash off the blue.

A few weeks ago this same child got the better of me when it comes to punishment.  His sisters were each sitting in a corner for some infraction that I don’t recall, probably bickering with each other.  E-Boy sat down in a third corner for a self-imposed time out.  I explained to him that he didn’t need to sit in the corner because he wasn’t in trouble.  He got up, hit his sister, and asked me, “now me in trouble, mommy”.  Yes, sweet boy, now you’re in trouble.  What in the world am I going to do with you?

My Favorite Thing…

…about my boy right now is these train tracks he builds.

It’s his favorite thing to do right now, there’s a new one each day.  He just enjoys hooking the pieces togther, so he starts with one and then follows it around the room, making it longer and longer.  Sometimes the tracks come close to connecting, sometimes not.  It doesn’t bother him either way.  He will run the train baack and forth along his track, just turning around when he reaches the dead end.  The family has gotten used to stepping over the track any time they walk through the family room, and each evening I return the pieces to the basket where they’ll stay until the next morning, when E-Boy will get them out and set them up once again.

Some pictures from this week.

Really, I’ve been taking pictures this week and thinking I should blog them, but not getting around to it.  So, here they are, all together, just to catch up.  I have guilty blogger syndrome, since I keep meaning to post but have put it off.  Until now.

This is one of my favorite lunches!  Home-made soup and a grilled cheese-tomato-onion sandwich.  Yum!  The soup is simple, I slice some veggies (onion, garlic, celery, carrots) and saute them in a bit of butter.  When they’re tender, I sprinkle some flour over the veggies, then add in chicken stock, a can of chunk chicken meat, and a can of diced tomatoes.  If I add some pasta, even the kids will eat this soup.

I’m so glad the weather is warming up!  I got my little garden planted in the back yard, and have had plenty of help from the kids with keeping the little plants watered.  E. actually had brought home a little bean plant from school which seemed to flourish while kept on the kitchen counter, but didn’t handle the transplant to the garden patch as well.  I had to take out her poor withered plant, and allowed her to “adopt” one of mommy’s plants.  She chose the biggest one, but tonight she told me that she was thinking of switching for “this one with the bug on it”.  Given my poor track record with plants, I’m glad she is flexible in which plant she wants to care for.

And here’s my little guy.  He fell asleep on the couch one morning this week, apparently tuckered out from all his playing.  Do you see he’s wearing undies!  Yes, we are working on the potty-training bit here.  Maybe by the end of Summer, we’ll be through with diapers.  Here’s hoping…

Somebody’s Growing Up.

I guess that’s what kids do, whether we give them permission to do it or not. 

Last night, E, my middle child, lost her very first tooth.  It’s been wiggly for quite some time, but last night daddy (the official tooth-puller in our family) decided it was “ready”.  Of course, mommy (the official family photographer) had to properly document this rite of passage.

 

I guess I’ve been a good mommy this year.

Look what my family got me for Mother’s Day!

Either they love me, or they just like it when I make homemade bread.  I’m guessing they love me.  And I already tried her out on a batch of cookies this afternoon.  Yummy!

Daddy Time

The big girls didn’t miss us much when we were gone on vacation.  But the little guy sure did.  He is so glad to have mommy and daddy back home!  Here he is having daddy read to him:

 

I Spy…

What’s that I see?  It couldn’t be…?  Is it…?

How in the world…?  WHO in the world?!?!?

Who hid Easter eggs in the speaker!?!?  And HOW are we going to get them out!?!?

After interrogating the children one by one, the littlest one fessed up.  When Daddy asked, “Did you put Easter eggs in here?”  He answered, “Yeah!”  As if that were the cleverest hiding place in the house, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t put things there.

And, we did manage to get them out, enlisting the help of our middle child.  Her hands were small enough to reach in, and as soon as we realized to tell her to split the eggs open before trying to remove them, it wasn’t too much trouble.  Here’s a photo of the loot she removed from the speaker…maybe this has been a hiding place for longer than we originally thought, judging by the matchbox car.

On Being the Parent of a Second Grader.

Apparently, one of the prerequisites to being the parent of a second grader is a willingness to accurately count a collection of small objects.

This week marked the 100th day of school for A., and her assignment was to bring in a collection of 100 of something.  For that project, I took the easy way out, and she put 100 tiny stickers onto a piece of paper.  It wasn’t too bad, they came on a sheet in a nice little array, I counted ten over and ten up, cut out the right amount and handed it over for A. to put on her paper…done!

Not.  A. was also in charge of the classroom “estimation jar” this week.  She brought home this empty jar with a note inside explaining that we were to fill the jar with a quantity of items and return it to the school.  The children would then estimate how many items were in the jar.  Sounded like a fun project until I came to the little folded card stapled onto the paper which had a fill-in-the-blank line for me to write how many objects I put in the jar.  Uh-huh!  I had to count all those little candies (there are 519, in case you were wondering).  When I finished, and A. wrote the number on her paper, Hubby asked if I was sure.  Well, I’m pretty sure.  And I darn well am NOT going to count them again to check.  If I’m wrong, I guess the estimation jar won’t come back to my house any time soon.  And that’s okay with me.

Always Happy to Amuse People in the Grocery Store.

Somehow, when the kids and I go out, we bring a few smiles to the faces of the people around us.  You never know what kind of conversation will come up with kids.  Like tonight, when we were at the grocery store.  We were in the checkout lane, all ready to pay and be on the way home for dinner.  

A:  Mom, will you buy me some hand sanitizer?
Mom:  Hand sanitizer!?  What do you want hand sanitizer for? 
A:  I could take it to school.
Tired mom:  We’re in line, I’m not going back for hand sanitizer.
A:  There’s some right here.  (points at the display of stuff your kids try to talk you into buying as you leave the store)
Practical mom:  Do you have $2.99 to give me when we get home?
A:  I could save my money.
Exasperated mom:  When you have saved $2.99 I will bring you to the store to buy hand sanitizer.  Is that what you want to spend your money on?
A:  I hope that I get a gift card for my birthday so that I can buy hand sanitizer.

The cashier was kind enough to hide her laughter until after we left the store.  Maybe she’s a mom and she totally understands the logic of a seven-and-a-half-year-old girl.