Friday, February 27, 2015

Friday Update #8 (2/27/15)

Grandpa found tight Superhero pants and a green shirt to pretend to be Robin while Ezra dressed up like Batman. Could a Grandpa be more fun?




The boys and I went to the zoo on Saturday. We had a great time exploring about half the zoo and then playing at a park in Pt. Defiance and going down to the beach too. They're fun kids to play with, for sure.





Each week that passes brings these boys closer together. It is so sweet to watch them become friends. I know they love each other, but sometimes they bother each other SO MUCH. Already, at a mere 3 years old and 1 year old they know how to push each other's buttons so effectively. But as Isaac gets older it's becoming easier and easier for them to play together. And they're realizing that it's fun to play together.


Most nights we eat dinner together around the table and afterwards Seth reads a Bible story, usually out of The Beginner's Bible. Daddy + Bible time is the best:


Friday, February 20, 2015

Friday Update #7 (2/20/15)

Seth will probably never be convinced to care about Valentine's Day or celebrating most holidays, for that matter (due to upbringing and scorn of commercialism, I guess), but I wanted to make a big deal out of it for the boys. Isaac's favorite shape is the heart and Ezra noticed all of the red/white/pink decorations all over and admired my sisters' bouquets, so he asked several times what we were doing for Valentine's Day too.

I was happy to oblige such a cute kid, so we spent several hours cutting out and gluing construction paper hearts, both the make Daddy cards and to make collages for the wall, and then had heart pizza and heart cake. 




I made a chore chart for Ezra that was a big hit. I think it's something we will continue to do for a while, because he really liked it and it was a great way to keep him motivated to do the things he's expected to do. It took a bit of pressure off of me too, because I could use the chore chart as "the heavy" (ie, "well, before we do ____, let's check the chore chart and see what we need to do first!").

Seth had a morning off work so he got to do school with us and then go to the Y with us. Ezra appreciated the audience and I appreciated the extra pair of hands.


Seth's been pretty focused on brushing up his basketball skills, so he's tried to get to the Y to practice as much as he can. I think he was a bit disappointed to find (during the high school basketball season) that his basketball abilities had diminished as much as they had since college. It's to be expected, of course, that if you don't play for seven years you at least won't be any better, but still frustrating.



Then boys came down with what we were initially worried was conjunctivitis, but turned out to simply be a weird sinus infection, so we had a pretty low key week. We skipped the Y and such for the rest of the week so as to be careful and not infect other people.

When Caleb was here he gave the boys an old baseball jersey he wore and Ezra has gotten a kick out of wearing it. He thinks he's so cool.



We had a busy weekend too. On Saturday I took the boys to the zoo and to the waterfront for the day. We had a lot of fun but my goodness did it wear me out! We definitely need days out and about, though. It's rejuvenating to explore, especially in the sunshine. And then on Sunday we had our monthly dinner with three other couples from church. This was actually our last (of four) dinners with this group and we hosted. Seth came up with the idea to make homemade pizza the morning of, so he took the boys to my parents and then did some last minute shopping while I did some cleaning and then we made pizza together. It wasn't meant to be a "date" but turned out to be pretty fun, despite the company. ;) And then we collapsed in front of the TV and watched a silly cooking show we used to watch and procrastinated on picking the kids up. We don't get much, if any, time without the boys to just relax. The babysitting we get always has a specific purpose, like to allow me to teach piano lessons, so this was quite the treat.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Friday Update #6 (2/13/15)

Caleb and Jim left Sunday morning, but we had a meeting after church and then our monthly dinner with three other couples from church, so it really wasn't until Sunday night that we collapsed into bed.

I spent a lot of time cleaning the house and washing sheets and so on Monday morning so the boys pretty much played by themselves, but we went outside for a little while and then packed up in the car for a drive down to Fredrickson for some piano lessons.

Tuesday began our second week of classes, this session, at the YMCA and then I dropped the boys off at my Dad's house and taught lessons for the rest of the day. I have a good group of kids this year, both in terms of their emotional maturity and their work ethic, but I love days when one of my students has obviously practiced so hard and we get so much accomplished in our lessons - but to have all six lessons go so well in one day? That's certainly more than I hope for every week.

The hardest part of Tuesday (which then affects the rest of the week) is that Isaac really struggles to nap when he sees Grandpa and knows that if he sleeps Grandpa and Ezra will still play. So then he hits a wall around 5pm ish and sometimes takes a nap... and then wakes up arond 6-7pm and wants to play for another 6-8 hours. My dad struggles to keep Isaac awake instead (so that Isaac falls asleep around 7pm, without a nap), which I of course understand. I don't like keeping Isaac up when he doesn't nap either. So that is a very huge kink in my Tuesday plan that I really need to figure out.


One of the things I want to figure out soon is a good phonics curriculum for Ezra. He is almost constantly asking me about letters and their sounds and I do not remember anything I learned in phonics!! I'm not entirely sure if we'll try to follow a program consistently at this point in time (probably wait another month or so) but I need to hurry and learn my vowel sounds, especially!


We had a rough morning, Wednesday, partially because I let Ezra watch a show in the morning so I could get a few things done (which I knew was a bad idea...) and partially just because he was having a bad attitude anyway. The drive to BSF was full of tears, but thankfully Ezra went to class obediently and then, as an "extra boost" of encouragement for me, Isaac practically ran into his class.

Isaac cried for a few minutes at the beginning of his class for the first few months of class. He was just starting to get acclimated and not cry in December, but then of course we took a break for Christmas. So the first class or two in January he also cried, but for about the last four classes he's been excited to go! Ezra's class is downstairs, as is mine, so we usually drop Ezra off first and then I take Isaac up and drop him off (and then go back downstairs to my class). It helps for Isaac to see his big brother go into class and then we get to talk about "Isaac's class" the whole walk up the stairs to his class. Two weeks ago when we dropped Ezra off, Isaac said "my class now? my class now?" before I had a chance to say anything! I thought it was a fluke, but he kept talking about it and the closer we got to his classroom the more he was visibly excited. Then last week he reached out for his teacher and said "bye Mommy" and this week he hardly even looked back at me. I'm so very happy he loves his class and is thriving in it. His teachers say he is super cheerful and participates well, which seems to be the case every time I go to check in on him. But... there is also the part of me that is a bit sad that he is growing up and becoming more independent. I know, I know - that's my entire job as a parent, to to help him learn to become independent. But my baby is growing up and it does make me weepy now and then.


The plan for Thursday was to go to the zoo but Seth had the day off, unexpectedly, and went to the Y with us to swim a bit (which was mostly a flop because the water in the main pool was sooo cold and we didn't have much time anyway before gymnastics) and then shoot hoops. We stayed longer than we'd planned and all needed naps so we just came home and played and did chores (yeah right on those naps).


Friday morning Ezra woke up with his eyes crusted shut with what we thought might be pink eye, so we had to cancel all our fun plans for the day (play date and curriculum planning!). His eyes weren't ever red, just swollen and crusty so we didn't take him to the doctor. And then he woke up Saturday morning with completely clear eyes, so we're not exactly sure what the problem was/is. Still, we're keeping him quarantined for few days just in case. We did go outside and cleaned up our flowerbeds and planted some primroses, though!

Friday, February 6, 2015

Friday Update #5 (2/6/15) **needs photos

There were some tears after the Superbowl, for sure. It was a pretty rough game that will take a long time to recover from. Unrelated to the Superbowl, though, there were some really hard parts to this week. Some hard but good conversations and a lot of disobedience (on the kid's part, primarily) and frustration (on my part, primarily). I got pretty exasperated pretty quickly all week and had to do a lot of apologizing, as well as a lot of disciplining. It's cyclical, I suppose, and most likely because I start to slack off a bit on consistent discipline and prayer and then this week I let it escalate before I finally caught myself and spent a whole day praying before I said or did anything!

I'm actually pretty pleased with where we are, discipline wise, right now. We have some good things going on. Now to just keep it up!

The original plan was for Seth's brother, Caleb, to fly in for a visit and attend the Superbowl parade. Since that *didn't happen* he was just here for a visit, from Tuesday through Sunday, and then Seth's dad, Jim, drove over Thursday night and left Sunday morning.

We definitely did a lot of just hanging out at our house, but Seth and Caleb went bowling  and maybe even to a movie? and we all went to the YMCA for the boys' classes and plenty of hoops, lots of TBS basketball (two regular season games and an elimination round to determine playoff seeding) and the LeMay Car Museum. The museum was actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be. The website said they had 350 cars on display but it sure seemed like more! I was probably more critical than necessary of the curating, because as a non-car person, I felt pretty lost through most of the museum. The signage was pretty inadequate, with the exception of a small exhibit on British invasion cars that actually presented a coherent and thorough narrative. If someone already knows a lot about cars, however, they would probably enjoy it quite a bit. If anything, perhaps it was good for me to walk through the museum and force myself to pay attention and try to enjoy it because that's more likely the experience that most people have going into most museums (or at least history museums).

Ezra is in this phase where he says rude things in an attempt to be funny. I'm 95% sure he's not trying to be mean, but the things he says when he's trying to joke actually are mean. It's pretty hard to deal with, actually, because he doesn't understand why we're chastising him. We definitely need wisdom for this phase!

It was fun to hang out with Caleb, since we don't get to see him often. Seth and he talk on the phone pretty consistently, and play fantasy sports together, but I almost never talk to him. He always asks about the boys and I while he and Seth are talking, but I need to be better about asking after him when Seth gets off the phone. And texting him. We want to go visit him as our next trip (after visiting Seth's grandma in the LA area), perhaps this winter or next spring.

{photos to come}