Excitement next door

A recent hail storm means everyone in the neighborhood is getting a new roof (including us). The crew showed up at the neighbors house this morning to drop of a dumpster and the boys flocked to the window to see the commotion. I couldn’t even pull them away with promises of donuts and pop-tarts. I can only imagine how geeked they will be when a crew starts working on our house. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a new job and no vacation days just yet I probably would have taken the day off to let them watch the shingles fly from our roof. Maybe Mike can do it instead.

 

Spoiled rotten

It’s easy to see that Ben is our last baby. There was a time when I thought I spoiled Zander because he was little, and cute, and so dang lovey. Then Ben came along. And he’s littler, just as cute, and so dang lovey. And he’s got Mike (and me) wrapped around those chubby little baby fingers.

It started when I had to work a lot of nights because of school board meetings. Mike would get the older two to bed and then just let Ben cuddle on the couch with him until he fell asleep. Then he’d let him lay there until I got home. And I would think it was so sweet. And I would want to have that same cuddly time with him the next night (though Ben regularly ditches me for Mike when it comes to bedtime – I think it’s because I sometimes actually take him to bed). So I would let him stay up late and fall asleep on me. Next thing you know we’ve been doing it for a month and Ben really doesn’t like falling asleep in his own bed anymore. He will, but not without a little fight. So we gave in and let him keep falling asleep on the couch.

I figure we will end this about the same time we take away the pacifier and stop letting him come into our bed if he wakes up anytime after 4 in the morning. Until then, I’m going to keep spoiling him rotten. It’s kind of hard not to when he is this stinking cute.

A little rain never hurt

However, a torrential downpour. That can sting. It’s been raining a lot here. I don’t know the last time we saw the sun, but it’s been awhile. And it’s been cold. Not a great way to start the summer. Tonight was one of the worst rains. The weatherman called for flash floods and for once he was right.

This is the end of our street. It’s now a small lake.

Like any good parents we put our kids to bed at a normal time (they did have to get up the next morning). But then Mike got worried about his truck either floating away or impeding the flow of water so he decided to go move it. This is just up the street from us. And yes, those are waves. The curbs were completely covered by this point in time.

The river that regularly runs between our house and our neighbors’ was in full flow mode.

And there’s the truck.

Mike braved the water (he went awfully slow because he was worried about losing one of his shoes in the current)

Eventually he made it. Thankfully the truck started (it has a tendency not to when the weather gets too wet and I think this would definitely qualify).

By this time the boys had heard the commotion outside and wanted to see what kind of fun was being had while they were supposed to be sleeping. I was tempted to tell them to go back inside, but the rain had slowed just enough that I guessed it wouldn’t actually injure them if they got pelted. So out they came. Mike grabbed the umbrella even though he was already thoroughly wet and took the boys to the end of the street to let them play in the current. My only rule was they had to hold on to someone. Nothing like forcing them to get along.

 

Now I’m trying to decide if this makes me the best mom in the world or the worst. I  guess it just depends on who you asked. The boys repeatedly told me how much fun they had and how nice I was for letting them come out to play. I take what I can get because those words seem to be few and far between around these parts lately.

Bustin’ boards and takin’ names

Nick wrapped up his first session of taekwondo with a promotion (white belt with one stripe – even though he doesn’t have a belt yet) and the chance to finally get to break some boards. A friend told me that most dojos (we are just at the Y) don’t let students break boards until they are black belts, but not this one. And Nick was stoked.

The class started off the night practicing on these pre-broken boards. Nick had two and handled it with no trouble.

Then they moved on to the real thing. Kids could choose from different sizes. Nick took the second smallest (there were two larger ones) and assumed the position.

With one swift ke-hop the board was busted in two and the grin on my boy’s face was irreplaceable.

Unfortunately they were only able to break one board because they had to save some for the older kids who were coming in later. Nick was kind of sad as he really wanted to try his hand as something a little more difficult. And he got the chance. The instructor let all the kids attempt to break a board using a front punch (a very difficult task for little people).

Nick and the rest of the kiddos gave it their best shot but were unable to complete the task. Instead, they all sat around rubbing their knuckles and comparing their red spots.

Then the kids were recognized for their hard work this session. Nick earned his black stripe.

And a badge for his hard work. The instructor told him his kicks were much improved from the first day of class and that he was impressed with the work Nick put in to make them better.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t give Nick the patch because we never bought a uniform. However, if I do buy one (I wanted to make sure he was actually going to do it more than one time before I spent the $45) Nick will get the patch right away and not have to earn it again. Of course Nick came to me right after class to tell me he wanted to do the summer session even though just last week he said he wanted to be able to play and didn’t want to do taekwondo until the fall. We are still on the fence about what we will actually do.

Rain, rain go away

We are tired of being stuck indoors. It's Memorial Day weekend and we can't even play outside. The kids are wearing pants and I've got on a sweatshirt. Where is summer? Since it was too wet and yucky to play outside we headed to the library instead. They've got lots of great new toys (and some of the old favorites).




I love this picture. That smile is so Ben. And he loves to be wherever his older brothers are even if they don't want him.




Nick is outgrowing the play part of the library. He grabbed his books (Poppleton) and sat down to read, even though he had just complained about reading to me 20 minutes earlier. I did force him to read to me a little later and he fought me at every word. I'm really considering calling the tutor we had last year. He's reading at grade level, but this summer could be really detrimental to his progress if we don't keep pushing him. It's hard to push when we are so busy and he fights it every time we sit down to read. I don't want him to hate reading but that appears to be the path we are headed down.




When we couldn't find anything more to do at the library we headed to Scheels. It's been open for a few months now but I had yet to be out there. I really don't like shopping with the whole family (the boys touch everything they see and won't listen at all) but like I said, we were bored. So we walked around Scheels for awhile, got Nick a new baseball bat, glove and pants. We looked for cleats but decided against them for the cost.



When we had everything we needed and the boys had managed to completely drive me crazy we left. And as we were leaving Zander jumped up on the stump in front of the moose and asked me to take his picture. Of all the boys he is most intuitive as to when I am about to blow. He doesn't always, but quite often, he will do something or say something extra sweet in an attempt to bring me back down. This was that attempt. It worked. Thankfully, when I asked all the boys to pile up there with him he didn't mind and, miracle of miracles, they all looked at me and smiled. Twice. I had to get a picture in front of the bear, too.
 




After all of this we headed out to grab a quick lunch and then back home to hunker down in the house for the rest of the afternoon. We could all use a little sunshine, or even just a break in the rain, right about now.

A quiet moment

I have been waiting for this for years. Nick has to read at least 15 minutes every night for school. Sometimes, the book he brings home to read takes him 15 minutes or more. Sometimes it doesn't. When I am busy, and he has finished his book fast enough, I let him read quietly to himself to round out the minutes. Tonight, he read to Zander instead. Not all the words were right, but this mama certainly wasn't going to correct him. For starters, the boys were sitting quietly while I finished cleaning up after dinner. But, more importantly, they were getting along and anymore, that doesn't happen very much in our house. I cherish these rare moments and can only hope they continue as the boys grow older. 

Still hiding out

Zander favorite place to be is still his "hiding corner." I shudder to think what will happen when he finally outgrows this little nook. But, for now, he is content to wake up (at 5 a.m. all too often), grab the iPad and watch Netflix in the corner until the rest of the house wakes up.



When I let him he even eats breakfast or his snacks back there. Unfortunately, it's also turned into a bit of a hoarding corner (it must be the age because Nick was the same way) and we've had to put the kibosh on how much and what he gets to have back there.