Daddy lets us play on the iTouch as much as we want!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Look Mom, I Passed!
Last day of Kindergarten
Posing with his certificate of completion...don't get me started on the #%#)$% Minnesota Vikings shirt Uncle Hutch and Aunt Susie sent him. It has since been "lost".
He passed!Summer So Far...
I have been severely neglecting blogging. The end of school is always very chaotic...fun, with lots of events, but very time consuming.
Then for a little end of the year gift, I got knocked on my rear with a horrible sinus and ear infection that landed me in bed and down for almost a week. I was nice enough to share this with the boys and so they were sick their first week out of school.:(
We have managed to really enjoy our pool as we once again embrace another hot Texas summer!
This week Evan has sports camp at Jesuit high school and it exhausts even him...not complaining.
Lukey has been in swim lessons and we just signed up for another session because he is absolutely loving it. He is swimming a little bit without any floaties and I am hoping we won't need them anymore after the next session.
Evan is still playing baseball and after a rough start, has moved up to 4th in the batting order and is hitting .750. His fielding is also getting much better. My timid little person has also developed a bit of an aggressive streak and he has really blossomed on the basketball court and soccer field.
Both boys have been very into the NBA playoffs and we are actually grateful that the Bulls are not playing the Mavs in the final....there may have been some hard feelings here;).
Jon and I are treading water keeping up with everyone...trying to enjoy all the moments and also perhaps occasionally sit down and breathe.
Then for a little end of the year gift, I got knocked on my rear with a horrible sinus and ear infection that landed me in bed and down for almost a week. I was nice enough to share this with the boys and so they were sick their first week out of school.:(
We have managed to really enjoy our pool as we once again embrace another hot Texas summer!
This week Evan has sports camp at Jesuit high school and it exhausts even him...not complaining.
Lukey has been in swim lessons and we just signed up for another session because he is absolutely loving it. He is swimming a little bit without any floaties and I am hoping we won't need them anymore after the next session.
Evan is still playing baseball and after a rough start, has moved up to 4th in the batting order and is hitting .750. His fielding is also getting much better. My timid little person has also developed a bit of an aggressive streak and he has really blossomed on the basketball court and soccer field.
Both boys have been very into the NBA playoffs and we are actually grateful that the Bulls are not playing the Mavs in the final....there may have been some hard feelings here;).
Jon and I are treading water keeping up with everyone...trying to enjoy all the moments and also perhaps occasionally sit down and breathe.
Family Pictures
We recently had some family pics taken by our favorite photographer...Ms. Chera:).
The boys were mostly well behaved, but I am always amazed she ever captures anything with 2 little boys goofing around....3 if you count Jon!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day
I know I have posted this before, but Anna Quindlen always seems to say it best when it comes to motherhood...I always love to revisit this on Mother's Day because I just love it!
All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there some thing wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, 'Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame.' The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pick up. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, 'What did you get wrong?'. (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking? But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get onto the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past. Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there some thing wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, 'Remember-When- Mom-Did Hall of Fame.' The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pick up. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, 'What did you get wrong?'. (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking? But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get onto the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Little H-O-R-S-E anyone?
Evan is really into shooting baskets right now and Luke has his own little basket so he does not get too frustrated.
The boys think it is mildly amusing that Jon and I frequently play late night H-O-R-S-E tourneys on the weekend after the kids go to bed. Now, it is Jon and I so there is always a little vino involved, so it gets amusing.The boys always ask us in the morning who won....I think we are dead even right now.
Jon always comes up with clever testosterone induced shots. One night there was a small piece of dog poop on the driveway, so he called one of his shots, "the dog poo bank shot".
So, now the kids know about this shot and they call for a "dog poo bank" whenever we play horse. Yet another moment in which the male fascination with bodily functions enters my very girly lifestyle;)!
The boys think it is mildly amusing that Jon and I frequently play late night H-O-R-S-E tourneys on the weekend after the kids go to bed. Now, it is Jon and I so there is always a little vino involved, so it gets amusing.The boys always ask us in the morning who won....I think we are dead even right now.
Jon always comes up with clever testosterone induced shots. One night there was a small piece of dog poop on the driveway, so he called one of his shots, "the dog poo bank shot".
So, now the kids know about this shot and they call for a "dog poo bank" whenever we play horse. Yet another moment in which the male fascination with bodily functions enters my very girly lifestyle;)!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Muffins With Mom
My sweet boy was feeling well enough to go to school today. This morning, we had Muffins With Mom before school and then went to Mass together. Isn't he handsome?:)
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