Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me! Thirty nine. That’s a big number. It was a lovely day. Rainy and cold, but that’s ok. I spent the morning in preschool, thankful for this great job. Then I met a friend for lunch and she happened to see on FB that it was my birthday and insisted on treating. Delicious food, great company, no cost! After school the kids had friends over and they all played happily while I drank tea and read the newspaper. Then we all had evening meetings. Alan had an energy thing, Lex had his Lego League, and I went to the PTO meeting. Eve joined me and played with all the other kids there. Then home for bed, wine, Colbert, and cozy new sweats from Rosy! Life is good.

Boys and girls

The kids both have friends over right now. The boys are in the living room, in the dark (at 4pm because winter, ugh!), playing Minecraft. The girls are upstairs, blasting music, singing their hearts out, and doing artwork (at least last time I checked on them). Gender stereotypes abound, but everyone is happy. :)

Lego League

Without Facebook I’m feeling at a loss for where to post my random thoughts to the world.  Tonight I’m going to settle for broadcasting to the three people who read my blog.

We are on the final week of Lego League and having so much fun.  I’m coordinating the project this year so I am much more involved than I was last year.  It’s a lot of work and I’ll be happy when it’s over, but I also really enjoy going to the practices and hanging out with the coaches and kids.  They are a funny bunch of kids, but all so nice with one another.  I love seeing the 8th graders asking Lex for help and seeing him totally relaxed and happy with this tribe of geeks.   I had a big headache this afternoon and was not looking forward to yet another practice this evening, but we went and had fun and I came home feeling great. 

I’m a shy (anxious?) extravert, which makes for stressful times.  I feed on those social situations, but dread them as well.  It’s silly.

Wish us luck on Sunday!  It will be a big day for the “Reduce, Reuse, Robotics” team!

That’s way too long for a Facebook post anyway. :D

A parenting win

I am typing this blog post on a brandy new laptop that Alan got me for my birthday! Yay!! This one even has a delete key and a caps lock, unlike my other laptop. :)

We are in the final week before Lex’s First Lego League presentation on Sunday. During the final week there are always extra optional practices that the kids can attend to finish up missions and projects. Lex has been excited for FLL this year, but in a somewhat different way than last year. He has been spending most of the practices working on the project, which is good, but I’ve started questioning why he isn’t working on the missions. I thought maybe he was focused on the project because I volunteered to run the project this year and he obviously hears a lot about it at home. :) Tonight he said he wanted to go to the practice, but at the last minute he backed out. We ended up in a discussion about why he had to go (the coach was waiting for him!) and why he didn’t want to go. He started with excuses about being too tired and just not wanting to, but eventually he said that the missions were just too hard this year and he didn’t know how to do them and he was bored at the practices. He was upset that the competition is less than a week away and he doesn’t have a mission and it’s too late to start one and they are all too hard anyway.

This is EXACTLY what we are working on with him and his anxiety these days! He is so smart and things generally come easily to him, so when they don’t he doesn’t really know what to do. We are working on strategies to help him in those situations because his current strategy is to shut-down, avoid, and cry. Exactly what he was doing tonight!

I was debating about letting him skip the practice (it’s optional anyway), but when the real problem came out I knew we couldn’t skip it! He followed me to the car, angrily, and sulked on the drive there. I asked him to think about some of the strategies he has been learning about lately and he grumpily did. When we got there he was in a slightly better frame of mind. I chatted with the coach a bit, explained the situation (and Lex’s anxiety) and the coach, of course, is great! He had a mission in mind that one of the other students was struggling with and he got Lex right involved. I hung around for a little while, then checked in with Lex before leaving. He was working on a mission, happily, and decided he wanted to stay until the end. When he got home he was really happy with the progress he had made and eager to go back tomorrow to keep working on it. Score!!

Sometimes it’s hard to know what is the right thing to do, when to push and when to back off, but tonight I got lucky and made all the right choices. Anxiety faced and overcome! He was and proud. So was I!

Swimming in November

Eve had an assignment to take a picture of herself at her favorite spots in town for a social studies project. She chose the river. It was a beautiful afternoon and the kids had a half day of school, so we decided it would be a good day to take a trip to the river. Despite my protests and reminders that is November, she insisted on bring her bathing suit and googles with every intention of swimming. She was even upset that she couldn’t find her snorkel. She’s a wild one, that girl!

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Eve at her favorite place in town.

Then this happened. Of course.

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It’s November, in Vermont, but hey, let’s go swimming!

As it turns out, the water as pretty cold. Surprise! A few weeks ago she and a friend had noticed something in the water and they thought it was a net that their class had left behind when they went to the river to study crayfish. Ever since then Eve has been committed to getting that net back. I think that was a big part of her motivation to go swimming today. That and, of course, she loves swimming!

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Despite the cold, she persevered.

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I sat on the shore and had fun taking pictures. :)

At one point she calls to me, “You’re lucky you’re not in this cold water, mom!” I called back, “Luck has nothing to do with it! I KNOW what river water feels like in November!” She was actually talking to me the entire way out and back. She likes narrate her world. I wonder who she got that from. :)

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Yeah, this is what the river in November feels like!

She did it though! As she made her way out she began to realize her goal wasn’t actually a net at all, but a Black & Decker Weed Whacker! It was out deep enough that she had to push it back in with her foot and the stick a bit before she could pick it up. She consider just reaching down and getting her whole arm, upper body, and probably face wet, but opted to push/pull it along with the stick instead. :) As she got closer to the shore she was able to pick it up.

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When she sets her mind to it, this girl can do anything! I love her commitment and passion.

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Success!!!

Her skin was red and frigid when she got out! I toweled her off and wrapped her up as quick as possible. She loved it. :)

We weren’t sure what to do with the weed whacker though. It had been in there for many weeks and it was wet and stinky like river water. Yuck! I did not want it in my car. We brought it up to the marking lot and left it leaning against a railing. Hopefully someone will stop by and do something with it.

Eve is planning to write the story as a book and read it to her class next week. I hope she does! I’ll be sure to share here as well. It’s always an adventure when Eve is around. <3