First Day of School...Second Grade and Fifth Grade....

Today was the day! Big boys are off! Jonathan and I have spent a blissful morning and afternoon at the playground, at Target, out to lunch, and visiting a friend! Now I am home enjoying a cup of coffee and some Facebook time while J plays. HOORAY! I can't wait to hear how the day went.

As usual, I anticipate Ben will come home pleasantly surprised. (he is always pessimistic on the first day)  Simon, who was fairly happy this morning will likely come home annoyed about having to sit and write all day. ;)

Ben? Are you smiling?

Second grader.... same age Ben was when he started at JES.

My big fifth grader.... ambivalent, at best, about school starting....

His annual Peanuts expression first day photo.... 

THe only thing that made me sad about today.... this is the last time they will head off on a first school day together until HIGH SCHOOL.




This was when Ben drew the line on the photos... "NO... just no." LOL. Simon was still a good sport....

Now You Are Four....

Dear Jonathan,

Today you are four!

Between the sleepless nights of 0-1, the "how many ways can I hurt myself?" phase of 1-2, the knock down, drag out tantrums of 2-3, and the "I will only drink from blue cups with lids and eat only pasta!" pickiness of 3-4,  sometimes it truly felt like this day would never come.

It's not that all those other ages didn't have their positives....because they did....and there are things I will miss about each of them, especially since you are our last baby. It's just that, it seemed like four was when your brothers,  particularly your oldest one, who was our toughest model until you came along, became much more rational human beings, capable of being reasoned with.

Oddly, last night at your birthday party, you sort of morphed into this weirdly polite little person who was nice to your cousins, said thank you for presents, and said hello and goodbye to everyone without whining, scowling or burying your head in the floor for no apparent reason. So I'm starting to think there is something to this magical age.

At any rate.... so.... FOUR.

In many ways, you are such an OLD four. Four going on seven... or ten. I hang my head in shame when you talk endlessly to other preschoolers about Minecraft and Clash of Clans. Most of them, especially the firstborns, look at you like you have a dozen heads and go back to building Lego towers or talking superheroes.  At the pool this summer, you hung out with Ben and Simon's friends when they would all go off to play Minecraft on their iPads. You fit right in and they never complained that you tagged along. They just adopted you as one of the big kids. One of your best friends at the pool is a little boy named Carter, who is Simon's age. Every day Carter would show up and say to me, "Where's Jonathan?" I'd point him in your direction and he'd run over and high five you and spend hours trying to teach you to swim or playing Minecraft with you under the awning. You would tell me "Carter's here! Carter loves me! He loves me because I'm CUTE."

In other ways, you are the youngest-seeming four I have ever had. First off, this August birthday makes you the youngest in your class. But there are other things too....you are dragging out this potty training thing as long as possible, for instance.  You aren't usually able to just "go play" with other kids your age, which makes playdates tough... you are also still unhappy about school and I'm interested/worried to see how this year's start goes. (I hope better than last year. It HAS to be better than last year.....)
I keep reminding myself you are almost half a year younger than Ben was when he started school every year. And, in many cases, you are even more significantly younger than some of your classmates. You have some natural social weaknesses anyway, so this age gap, as far as school is concerned, feels enormous at times.

You are my snuggle bug. During quiet afternoons when your brothers aren't around (and even sometimes when they are), you will announce that you need some quiet time "on the couch with binky and ducky". You'll curl up next to me and, if I'm really lucky, ask to read some books and we'll pick a whole pile to go through together all in one sitting. You LOVE your books... all kinds... but especially the Pigeon series, the How Do Dinosaurs series, and this blatant ripoff of the Hungry Caterpillar one that we have called Hungry Bunny.  You can read anything and everything, but you still prefer to be read to, which I love.

Somehow, you are simultaneously our most affectionate child and our meanest. You can go from hugs and kisses and "I love yous" to biting and hitting and kicking in the blink of an eye. There is NO in between with you. I do hope, now that you are this magical age, we start seeing more of nice Jonathan and less of vicious untrained puppy Jonathan.

You are still our fearless one. Our recent trip to Dutch Wonderland confirmed that. You are solidly in the "the higher and faster, the better!" camp. I am both terrified and excited to see what you will do in life without fear to hold you back.  If I had to pick one of my three children who was most likely to jump from an airplane or hang-glide off a cliff? There is zero question. It's you.

No doubt about it. You are challenging in many ways, my little friend. You keep us on our toes and things are rarely easy as far as you are concerned. You are certainly our ball of fire.... but with that, you bring so much light, life and energy to our family. You drive us all completely crazy sometimes, but I know I speak for daddy and big brothers too when I say we love you to pieces and wouldn't change you for anything.

Happy 4th Birthday, J, Jonathan, Jellybean...

Love,
Mommy

Peek at Your Seat 2014

Today was open house for the new school year. Armed with our backpacks of supplies and donations of tissues and plastic baggies, we headed off to see their classrooms and meet their teachers.

We started at Ben's class, like we did last year, since he can unpack himself and then I can take care of getting Simon where he needs to be. The fifth grade teachers were having the kids do a scavenger hunt to figure out their schedules. They had to go from classroom to classroom the check the lists and figure out where they are for each period of the day. As it turns out, Ben's homeroom teacher is only his homeroom teacher, just like last year. Then he has three other teachers the rest of the day, including the brand new teacher. I'm know nothing about any of them and for probably the first year ever, I'm pretty indifferent about all of them right now and haven't heard much from other parents.  (unlike all the other grades where there was always scuttlebutt about who was good to have and who was good at this or that... nice... not nice.... strict....etc....) Unless something goes horribly bad, I probably won't hear a whole lot from them this year.  It's getting to the point where I'll know Ben's teachers less and less and be less involved.... and they seem to foster that atmosphere in 5th grade, which is good preparation for middle school, I suppose. For me, it's kind of sad because I enjoy getting to know the teachers.... but, c'est la vie....

After I got Ben settled doing his thing, I walked Simon down to the second grade hallway. His teacher was very warm and welcoming. She reminds me a lot of his teacher last year, which is truly what I wanted for him.  There was long checklist to take care of and Simon had a worksheet of "What I did this summer" to do. I busied myself putting supplies away and working my list while he did that.

Simon was in his quiet, expressionless mode, but he did say hello to his teacher, so that was good. She had a backdrop set up with props and took silly pictures of all of them before they left. We got a few extra... ;)

Hoping for awesome years for both of them. :) Ready or not, here we go!

Keeping Them Busy.....

Today we went to Home Depot (exciting!), but struck out on cold weather veggies for our garden, so we went up the street to Valley View and picked up some broccoli, kale, and a lettuce mix. Apparently all should do well until the frost and it said the lettuce can even survive a few frosts!

We spent a TON of time checking out the pond part of the store... the koi had just been fed and were acually coming OUT of the water to slurp up the food pellets left on the rocks. It was crazy! The boys got the biggest kick out of it!

After that, we went for italian ices. Came home and cleaned off the sticky by playing outside in the hose and now they are having a little screen time. I downloaded the new Muppet Movie to the TiVo for later since it looks like it's going to storm.

Five more days of summer!! ;)

Feeding the Goats....

Simon and Jonathan got the biggest kick out of this. Ben, you can hear in the background, was totally disgusted. "Ew. Wash your hands!"  ;)

What We've Been Up To....

I have been trying to keep the boys busy and out of the house as much as possible lately.  Otherwise, the day usually ends up something like this.

 The pool hasn't really been an option because it has been chillier than normal, although we might try today if it's as warm as it was yesterday....

So what have we been up to?

Well, for starters, we have done a tour of Baltimore and Harford County Playgrounds. We have discovered we prefer the ones with swings, although in a pinch, any playground with do, including the ones at the boys' schools.

We rode bikes on the NCR trail... more accurately, the boys rode bikes. I pushed/pulled Jonathan and chased the older boys. 

 We ate lunch out... a LOT.

We roasted hotdogs and s'mores at Grandmom and Poppy's....

We painted some pottery.... two dragons and a "Lego Holder"/goblet. ;) They will be ready on Friday. The boys are super excited to pick them up and see how they turned out!

We took a hike with cousins and climbed rocks and played in a creek near a waterfall.... 

We took a trip to Washington to see the American History museum. Turned out all the best stuff was closed for refurbishment. Had some lunch and took a quick run through Air and Space. Jonathan had had enough by that point.  We were reminded how hot D.C. can be even during a cool summer.... no one wanted to walk around and see any monuments. We just happened to walk by the Washington Monument....

Monday, we hit yet another playground, had yet another lunch out and went to the farm store to get some veggies to add to the sauce I want to make from the tomatoes in our garden. 

Yesterday, we dropped by the school library to help out with a quick project, then headed out for an errand that put us near Aunt Sarah and UNcle Taylor's house. Texted and they were around so we stopped in to play outside for a bit, then went to ANOTHER lunch and to another playground.

I am running out of playgrounds and running out of ideas..... seven more days until school starts!!! ;)

And five more days until someone's biiiiiiiiirthday! :) :) :) (which is why I had to get my blog caught up!!! Birthday post coming soon! :)

Dutch Wonderland 2014

Ben has been asking to go back to Dutch Wonderland since we went LAST year, so we promised before the end of the summer. Well, summer weekends are quickly dwindling.... so we took advantage of beautiful weather yesterday to go.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea because it was WAY more crowded than last time we went. Still not ridiculous though.

As we worked our way through the rides, an amusing pattern emerged.

Simon was pretty good about riding everything, but not without complaining and worrying he would throw up or the ride would be too fast or scary.  At the Turtle Whirl, he actually tried to climb the fence to get out of line before we got on. (you may also remember he got us kicked off of Splash Mountain last time we went to Disney because he screamed so much getting into the boat.....)

Ben sat out the majority of rides for fear of various and assorted random things including "sparks" on the bumper cars, drops, spinning, speed, and "lameness" (translate: I'm scared but don't want to say so, so I'll say it's too lame).  He is my child through and through. Tom was getting SO ticked at him. People seriously HATE going to amusement parks with me because I always just want to sit out while everyone else rides the scary stuff. (on the positive side, I will happily watch your stuff while you ride!) Anyway, Ben was having fun in his own way..... so all good. I always encourage him though that if *I* tell him a ride isn't scary, he shouldn't worry about getting on it. We're working on it....

Jonathan, on the other hand....the kid got on EVERYTHING. And I mean.... EVERYTHING. It started with the slides where he declared it was like Tower or Terror and "SO AWESOME!". Then Tom took him on the log flume -- "Let's do that again!" We passed up the Kite Flight on the first go-round because it seemed a bit much for a not-quite-four-year-old. But on the way back through, he wanted to go.... so..... he did.  I could barely watch.  I asked Tom (who had to ride with him) what he was saying and Tom said he was just yelling "Wheeeeeeee!!! This is so fun!!"  OMG.



I was in line with him for the Frog Hopper but there was a huge kid in line in front of us who took the adult seat in the middle. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to wait until the next round or go by himself. You can see which one he chose.




We did get Ben AND Simon on the cars.... Ben sadly, was two inches off the height requirement even though he would have been totally fine driving this thing himself. He was rightfully irritated. I had a flash forward as I sat in the passenger seat....



We got everyone on the Merry Go Round.... though not entirely without angst.

Everyone handled the pretzel picture okay....

And after Tom threatened to make Ben pay him back for his ticket if he didn't ride SOMETHING that wasn't a ridiculous tiny-kid ride, Ben acquiesced and rode the hopper with Jonathan. Then he loved it so much he rode it two more times immediately after. (Again, so me.... when I finally rode Test Track at DW, I rode it six more times that day until I could keep my eyes open during the "barrier test")

We also spent some time in the water park, which was absolute and total craziness, but the kids had a blast there too. No pictures because I was chasing Jonathan in a Where's Waldo scenario the entire time. 

All in all, a totally successful and great day. We left the house at 9 and didn't get home until six, which is HUGE! We are finally to the point where we don't have to leave places for naps. :) It's a hard-earned milestone, for sure!

Camp Gymtastic!

Last day of Camp Gym-tastic. My kids love this little camp! :)  Only one of the summer for us!