We got Eve’s teacher assignment today! She has the same kindergarden teacher Lex had. I’m happy, though she seems rather indifferent about it (and school in general). The buddy she was hoping would be in her class is not, but when I mentioned it Eve just shrugged her shoulders. I have no doubt she’ll make friends!
Parenting is all about transitions. That initial transition that makes you a parent in the first place, the transition from one child to two, the transitions off the breast, out of diapers, out of the cribs and strollers. The transitions when the children first start going to school. It was harder when Lex started school, as the first, but I’ll admit I cried for several days when Eve started preschool even though the hours were very short. This summer feels like a big transition to me as well. The obvious reason, of course, is that they will both be in school full time in 18 days, but that’s not really it.
For seven years now I have been saying “I have young children.” This summer it hit home that I do not have two young children, just two children. A subtle difference, in text, but so huge in my heart. I know they will need me for years and I don’t mean to be a whiner here, but it’s hitting me hard. Their needs for me are changing. They no longer need me to diaper them or dress them or bathe them. They are fully capable of making the four dishes they eat for all of their meals. (I realize they do need me to teach them about eating a balanced diet, but I seem to be failing in that department!) They went to camp together this summer, happily. They put their own bathing suits on, navigated the locker room and sunscreen applications. They do solitary playdates now. They play outside on their own. They are just so darn independent!
Yesterday was a nice cool day and I thought it would be a good day to make a big batch of blueberry jam. A process they have, in the past, eagerly and happily helped me with. Instead they played a super elaborate game together all morning! That’s great, right? It is. Really. But I did miss them in the kitchen. I was lonely. Is that pathetic?! Eve has been asking to make blueberry cake and when I invited her into the kitchen to bake with me she said, “No thanks, I’m busy.” Sigh.
I am entering a new season in parenting and apparently I’m not sure how to prepare for it. I feel like I rocked the baby stage, but now I’m not sure what comes next. I need to find the next guidebook. “What to Expect When They Grow Up,” perhaps?
I’m slacking a bit with my blog posting here, I know. Lots going on, I guess, and at the same time nothing that moves me to blog. Sorry. Here are a few pictures anyway to tide you over. I have a good post I’m formulating in my head, lots of words and few pictures… though maybe “good post” is a matter of preference. :) Here’s what we’ve been up to this week!
Blueberry picking again. This time we made blueberry jam!
A new (to us) playground with a huge slide. Too bad it was SUPER hot so no one could use it.
A neat tire and wood car for the kids to drive.
This thing is always fun!
Slip-n-sliden’
Eve’s turn.
Drink break!
I love sunny close-ups!
Eve got mad at me for misunderstanding her dinner order one night and decided to make her own sandwich, including cutting the bread by herself! (don’t worry, I supervised) Of course she ate this AND the mini-bagel I had already made for her. We’re a carb crew in this house!
Doesn’t everyone eat breakfast with 3D glasses on?
Today we went to the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium.
It consisted mostly of stuffed animals in glass boxes.
They also had lots of spiral staircases. I learned today that Eve is quite nervous on spiral staircases.
While waiting for the planetarium to open, Lex impressed the silent crowd by reading the captions on the video out-loud to Eve and I (and everyone else!) I started reading quietly to the kids, but apparently his eye sight is much better than mine and he took over when I wasn’t reading fast enough! (he’s reading over my shoulder right now, as I do this blog post!)
We got home from the museum earlier than I had expected today. It wasn’t exactly a big place! It rained off and on the whole way home. It’s a weird, muggy, stormy day. Eve insisted on quiet time, despite just coming off a long car ride, so we all went our separate ways for awhile. Time to re-engage.
There is nothing better than coming across an awesome project on a blog and doing it that day. Even better is when it’s a project that doesn’t require me turning my computer back on and following the directions. A one-two easy-peasy project that I can pull out at a moment’s notice. A project that I can even whip up more parts when a neighbor comes over to play unexpectedly. Good times. Thanks Becky @ Rub Some Dirt On It!
Read her site for directions and beautiful photos. Stay here for the usual pics of my kids. :)
Plastic cup, cut off the bottom. Balloon, tie one end, cut the other. Stretch balloon over cup, add tape (we add tape to everything, like salt). Pull on balloon “tail” to launch things. She recommends pom-poms, but we have a lack of those in our house so we tried cotton balls (too light), random pieces of plastic (too risky), and Legos (perfect).
We set up a series of targets. We had some pricing stickers lying around that I though we could use for points. Somehow we used them for actual money and I ended up paying Lex $1.75!
Setting the stage.
Things got a little tricky when our neighbor stopped by. I whipped up a Lego Launcher for him in less than a minute, but the game held his attention for only about that long anyway. The problem was he drew Eve away from the game, thereby ending the nice family time we were having. Sigh.
Nothing distracted this guy though! He kept asking the other two to come back and play, but they wouldn’t, so he kept on alone. He loved the game!
After our favorite lake beach was closed due to Hurricane Irene we were forced to find a new swimming place this summer. We did! A real “treasure of an island.” :)
Lake Fairlee
Little fishes
The beach
Elizabeth and Alistair on the floating platform there (totally blanking on the proper word!) Eve and I swam out once too.
We finally got to put our snorkels to good use!
We did a little exploring on the little island nearby.
We found a horse shoe pit. Lex was the only one to …. get one. No idea what the proper wording for that is!
Silly kids on a stump.
Tired, sandy kids.
We have a new science experiment on our table. We’ve been monitoring it for several days now and enjoying the changing colors.
We started with four bowls of water and two empty bowls (gotta keep things evenly divisible by two when you have two kids :) ) Each kid got to chose two colors and put a few drops of food coloring into two bowls of water. Then the rolled up paper towels and made bridges between the cups of colored water and the empty cups.
The theory was that the water would wick up the paper towels and back down the other side, filling the empty bowls. Each empty bowl had two paper towel bridges coming in to it, so there would also be some coloring mixing as a beautiful side effect.
We watched it closely while we had afternoon snack. Within an hour or so the color was making good progress. For some reason we don’t understand the yellow wicked much faster than the other two colors.
By the end of dinner the yellows had started dripping into the empty bowls, and creeping up the dry end of the other paper towel bridges!
The next morning all of the colors had made it over their bridges and were dripping into the middle bowls, creating lovely shades of orange and green.
Lex filled each of the water bowls up evenly, but somewhere along the way between the sink and the table some water spilled out of one of them (the yellow bowl across from the blue). As the water levels tried to level out, some of the green water started working it’s way up the yellow bridge!
Saturday evening, about 24hrs after we started the project, it looked like this.
This afternoon, nearing 48hrs since we started the experiment, the green hasn’t yet made it to the yellow. The wicking action is slowing down. I wonder if the paper towels get saturated? I’m just guessing at the science behind all of this because I’m too lazy to look it up (ok, I did a quick Wikipedia search for the basics). Maybe we’ll leave it for another day or so. Eventually things have to get cleaned up around here.
For now I’m just enjoying the beautiful experiment/table decoration. Especially considering the rest of my table decorations consist of two candles we haven’t used in ages, two vases of dead flowers (which will be freshed up at our trip to the farm tomorrow) and an empty yogurt cup with a dead flower and a (likely also dead) little worm Eve brought home yesterday.
Hooray for colorful science!
Lex wanted to make this post himself, but I’m tired of waiting for him so I’m going to do it. He likes to talk about blogging, but so far he shows very little interest anything that involves much typing. I’m thinking about teaching him to touch-type. Do they still teach that in school? I was taught in high school, but I know kids these days are learning computer skills much earlier… but I digress…
Last week when my sewing machine was out and on the table, Lex started wondering if it would be possible to make a real working Lego sewing machine. We decided probably yes, but it would be hard. He decided he wanted to make a Lego model sewing machine instead, non-working. The next day, completely unprompted (great minds think alike!) Anna sent me a link to a Lego sewing machine tutorial. How timely! Lex was thrilled!
A day or two later Lex got to it on his mental to-do list and off he went. He made a few modifications, some he explained to me, others he didn’t. He was very proud of his final product and his personal touches. I was very proud of him and his excitement for even the littlest things in life!
A proud Lego builder!
The red disks off the end is a spool of thread. The other colored things in front are extra spools of thread. He thought it would be good to keep a few extras on the machine.
The tutorial says to use a “tiny hammer or a pick axe from a mini-figure” to make the foot. Lex was so excited to find an axe, but when he started building he said, “Oh, this is from a regular figure, not a mini-figure.” The axe was too tall. Never fear though, he just made the sewing machine taller to compensate! Nothing stops him!
The yellow squares are lights. His addition.
The whole time Lex was working on this, Eve and I were also playing with Legos. Eve had a continuing narrative that she and Lex were workers in the Lego Genius factory and I was trying to be a worker. I worked hard on a building (I’m not real creative with Legos!) to prove to her that I am also a Lego genius and should be allowed to work in the factory. I eventually convinced her and we all worked happily in the Lego Genius factory for awhile… until I got bored!
I don’t think I really qualify as a Lego Genius. I get bored too quickly. :)
Meet our new friend, Alpha Rex.
I’m tired and Alan is waiting patiently for me to go to bed, so I’m going to leave you with this for now. I’ll tell you more about Alpha Rex another day.