Update of Happenings Over the Last Two Months

Oh, me. Oh, my. How time really flies. So much has happened in the last couple of months. A lot of it doesn't warrant it's own post but is still worth mentioning so here goes...

::At the end of September I completed the Prairie Pedal. It was a 43 mile bike ride around Decatur. It took me a long time, and I really wasn't sure how I could possibly finish the last 10 miles. My muscles felt fine, but I forgot to take Aleve before the ride and my arthritic knees were SCREAMING. I slowly rolled across the finish line, which kinda stunk, BUT I rolled across the finish line! That's right, I completed a 43 mile bike ride. That was my goal, and I did it! I went from NEVER riding my bike to riding 43 straight miles with only 11 weeks to prepare. I was the ONLY person on the 43 mile route with a bike from Toys 'R Us without a $5000.00 bike. I know this for a fact; I was passed by EVERYONE. Not an exaggeration. At one point I passed a couple with snow white hair. I must admit, it was a tremendous ego boost despite the fact they were probably in their 70s. However, they went flying by me about eight miles later. I said some pretty foul words in my head when that happened.You know, words that rhyme with "duck" and "fit." I thought there would be other "novices" on the 43 mile route. I was dead wrong. I mentioned this to my neighbor who bikes a fair amount. He looked at me like I was insane. Apparently novices don't do 43 miles. Well, now I know why. But...I'm pretty sure I'll do it again next year. :)

::We had Parents' Night at the boys' school. For an hour, your children give you lessons on all their favorite Montessori materials. I spent the first 30 minutes with Ian, then swapped with Cole and finished the night with Eli. I l-o-v-e, LOVE Montessori, and I adore the boys' school. The materials are so beautiful and sturdy and just wonderful. We also had parent/teacher conferences a couple of weeks later, and that went well, too. All in all, school is going very, very well, and everyone is very happy.-

::I turned 31. I am now officially "in" my 30s. I was sitting on the cusp for the last year, but now I'm definitely "in." It's total bullcorn.

::I stumbled, and I do mean stumbled, into a part time job. What?! Yep, that happened. So, my neighbor is a Swine Veterinarian, but also owns a company that creates educational, multi-media training for the pork industry. Did you know that career even existed? I love weird jobs nobody ever thinks about. Anyway, she got a contract for a new training series and needed some extra help getting the project organized. I started helping her out, and as it turns out, we work well together (she has three other full-time employees), so I now have a part-time job. Right now I'm mainly working on the big training video project, but I am learning other tasks as well. I'm enjoying working again, and since it's only while the boys are physically at school, it is a match made in heaven. I also have the flexibility to work from home when needed. Yahoo for a boss who is also a mother and gets that family comes first!

::After eight years together, it was time to say goodbye to my second Monte Carlo. She had 209,000 miles and about three days of life left in the transmission. It was a sad, sad day. I told Cole that I wanted to get tons of pictures with me and the car doing ridiculous stuff...tea parties, reading magazines, me spraying the car with a hose, then running the hose through the car window so the car could "spray" me (but it was 20-some degrees outside so that didn't happen), etc. Then I wanted to set the pictures up to cycle as Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" played in the background. Didn't happen. But we did get a picture of me looking pretty sad before we pulled the Monte Carlo out of the driveway one last time. Here's the new car...

It's a Sonata, and the color is "Sparkling Ruby" which is so perfect for me. I LOVE the color. It's not new, but it's new to us. We really like it...even though it looks like such a "mom car." The boys LOVE it. My two-door car was not cool, according to them. I have a feeling they'll change their views as they get older, but maybe not.

::We are getting ready for Eli's 4th birthday. (How is that possible?) This year we're having a Lumberjack party. The invites turned out well and were some of the easiest I've done. That's a win. Poppy (my dad) is even growing a beard for the occasion.

::Monday morning I had my FIFTH wisdom tooth removed. I had four removed in high school, and when I went for my last cleaning at the beginning of October...two more appeared in my x-rays. It was disgusting. So, Monday I had one removed. It was breaking the gums already. The sixth will be extracted later. I have never had teeth, other than my wisdom teeth, pulled, and I was completely unconscious the first time around. Listening to the cracking and feeling the tremendous pressure was HORRIFIC! I feel like I've been punched in the face...repeatedly, but I am glad it's over.

:: Cole's getting ready to judge another LEGO robotics competition in a couple of weeks. He was asked to be a corporate mentor to a high school/junior high team last spring....I need to ask him whatever came of that....hmmm. Anyway, I'll probably take the chums for a little bit. Last year when we went I gave Ian some Chapstick, cherry of course, in the car because his lips were hurting. When we pulled in the parking lot, I cracked up. He looked like that old lady who puts her lipstick on during a turbulent flight. I'll remember "No Chapstick" this year.

::This weekend we will finally start decorating for Christmas. Ian has been dying to start, but I've stood firm with "not until after Thanksgiving." I'll definitely update with this year's decorations and new time capsule ornaments. Greatest tradition ever!

Seriously, What Century is This?

At the end of September, the boys came in after school one day and were too hot. Eli took off his shirt and I almost passed out. His left arm was covered in what looked like mosquito bites except they were almost green. I fuh-lipped out. As I got to checking him over, I realized they were also around his jawline and a couple were on his right arm. I called around to a few trusted mom friends and quickly decided we needed to head to convenient care. I got to convenient care, and right as I was walking through the door, got a phone call from another mommy friend/neighbor/nurse. She suggests...chicken pox. "I don't think so," I tell her. "He's been vaccinated." And she tells me, "Well, he can still get them."

The pictures are so poor. You can't really tell anything is going on.

I get into convenient care, metaphorical guns blazin', and insist that my kid needs immediate attention because he is having an allergic reaction to something. The registration nurse takes one look at him and says, "I think it's chicken pox. If it is, we have to quarantine you. Let me get another opinion."

Well, what do you know, the next nurse says, "Looks like it to me," and we are whisked away to an exam room. We're in the room 20 seconds and two other nurses come in, look at the little man, and agree...looks like The Pox.

So, after a while a doctor comes in, again says, "It's Chicken Pox," and sends us on our way. I then had to go home and notify the other parents at school that we have a confirmed case of The Pox and unfortunately have exposed everyone else. That's right. Eli was "Patient Zero."

Luckily, Eli only got about three dozen spots over the course of The Pox. Even calling his case "mild" seems exaggerated. But regardless of the severity, we were still confined to the house for five days. Plus, Cole has had Shingles TWICE so all of Eli's care (which wasn't that bad) was my responsibility because we didn't want Cole to possibly get Shingles for the third time at the ripe, old age of 29.

Anyway, it's done and over, and now we have a great "can you believe this?" story to tell.

What Century is This?

What do you do with a box of dot matrix printer painter in 2013?

Use it to make banners, of course! At least, that's what we do.

Ready to Get Our Learn On.

I have two kids in school! How did that happen?! I'm still trying to figure that out, but in the mean time the boys are learning a lot and having a great time.

Montessori houses don't have grades. They have age ranges of three years.

Eli is in his first year at a 3-6 house. 

Ian is in his second year at a 3-6 house.

Two brothers after a great first day of school.

I've Waited a Year!

Last winter I saw the most adorable knitting bag on the planet in a magazine's "things we love" section. Well, who could blame them? It's amazingly stupendous! I, of course, went home to buy this little beauty and...it was sold out. Grrrr.

I checked Yarn Pop at least weekly for ELEVEN MONTHS waiting for this bag to be in stock, and a couple of weeks ago, when Jupiter was in its seventh house (or something of equally great cosmic importance was happening) it was FINALLY available! I have never processed an online purchase so quickly in my life. I had waited eleven excrutiatingly long months to own this owl patterned, canvas goodness, and I was not letting it slip away.

I've put her to good use over the last couple of weeks. She's currently holding pieces of a sweater for Ian, a cowl for me and scrap yarn from a couple of pairs of socks I just finished for the boys, but pretty soon she'll be full of Christmas projects for the people I love most. (The yarn for some of those projects should be arriving tomorrow. Yay!)

It seems so silly to be so smitten with a knitting bag, but I waited for so long. I never gave up on her, and she was well worth the wait. :)

Thursday Night Chemistry Lessons

Kids love to ask tough questions, don't they? I know mine do. We haven't had any "where do babies come from" questions yet, but they can still ask things that are difficult to explain to little kids. However, Cole and I don't give bullcrap answers. Kids are smart. They want honest, scientific answers that are age appropriate.

My number one example is thunder. Our boys are terrified of loud thunder so we always have the same conversation when there are storms. We don't do the whole "oh, that's just God bowling" baloney. A kid knows that's not true. We tell them, lightning is electricity running through the sky to the ground. When the electricity discharges, it does so with such force that it moves the air around it incredibly fast. Thunder is the sound of the air moving outward from the lightning strike and sound alone can not hurt you.

Don't even get me started on parents' aversion to anatomy questions. If you freak out over every little question and use all sorts weird of euphemisms, you're going to give your child a complex. Call a penis a penis, testicles testicles, explain those testicles will someday release chemicals into their bodies which will make their muscles get bigger, hair grow on their faces and chests, and voice go deeper, and move on. (End rant.)

Last night Ian asked me how water is made. I told him that water isn't made by man, it's a naturally occurring molecule on Earth which is what makes Earth so unique. Then we got into more how, what, and why questions so I decided to bust out the molecular modeling kit.

First, I built a couple of water molecules and explained to him each molecule is made of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. He recognized the words hydrogen and oxygen and said, "Hydrogen! Like hydrogen and helium in the sun! And oxygen's what we breathe!" Yes. I was quite pleased with that little noodle of his, thinking hard.

Molecules from the boys' first chemistry lesson

But then Ian had other questions, and I was glad that he really thought about what he was looking at and had questions. A molecular model is a great tool, but it's still hard to imagine something so small.

Q. Why is water blue or clear if oxygen is red?

A. Oxygen isn't actually red. These "atoms" are different colors so you can tell what is in your molecule.

Q. How can water slosh around if it's shaped like that? These aren't smooth.

A. Molecules are so tiny you can't see them, even with the best microscope. Their bent shape doesn't matter since they are so teeny tiny.

Q. How do the molecules stay together to make lots of water?

A. Each molecule has a dipole moment which means that it has a slight charge like a magnet. That makes molecules attracted to each other.

We then started talking about Buckminsterfullerene. The boys thought this was the funniest word they had ever heard. My modeling kit doesn't have enough atoms of the correct shape to make a true bucky-ball, but we did the best we could. The boys thought this was amazing. A 3-D molecule! Those actually exist?! Oh, yes boys. And this little gem is only the beginning of the crazy stuff that makes up our world at the molecular level.

3 of our "bucky-balls"

Ian then tried his hand at molecular modeling. He thought that perhaps this structure would be found in the metal that makes up ships. I liked that not only did he build something, he then considered where it could be found.

  

  

Eventually, Eli got a little bored with the whole experience and decided he'd just rest on the table. Whatever. Chemistry isn't every three-year-old's cup of tea...or chocolate milk.

I wonder where our next journey into chemistry will take us.

Writing...The Time Has Finally Come

*I am no expert when it comes to Montessori education, so my explanations may not be very good. However, I am 110% in love with Montessori education and believe in it more than I can ever express.

Writing. Coloring. Drawing. They all seem like normal childhood activities, but they never have been around our home. Ian has always said that it's "too boring." If Ian's body isn't moving, he isn't interested. This hasn't been an issue in school since the boys go to a Montessori house. The Montessori philosophy is "follow the child." What does that mean? It means that a child is driven by something internal to learn something new. A child won't learn to write if they do not feel the internal drive to write but feel the drive to build with wooden blocks instead. So, if the child wants to build with wooden blocks, they are allowed to do so because they are absolutely learning since they are engaged with the material.

Montessori teaches that there are sensitive periods where a child is most likely to be engaged in learning and mastering a new skill. For writing, the sensitive period is from age 3-4. This has come and gone for Ian. I have been fretting over it. I knew that eventually Ian would learn to write, but it just seemed like it would never happen. Within the last month his desire start writing and drawing has exploded! I have felt so relieved and soooooo excited. I have been doing everything I can to facilitate this new endeavor, and it's been going really well. Kind of.

The boys wanted to paint peg people the other day. They painted and painted and painted. Then the entire jar of purple paint got dumped on the dining room rug. While I was cleaning it up, Eli dumped the jar of white paint on the rug, at which point I had to shut the painting operation down. They were getting way too careless.

But it started out with such good intentions. Ian truly wanted to work with writing utensils so I said, "Yes, yes, yes, you can paint!" He's been carrying composition books around, sketching when the mood strikes him, even if that's in the produce department at the grocery store. <--happened last week

Before school today he told me that he was probably going to work on his fraction book at school. I thought that was fantastic as I've always felt he shows more interest in math and science than language (other than being read to everyday, which can go on for hours). But, when I picked him up from school, he had a writing worksheet in his book bag. This was HUGE! Never, in a million years would I have guessed he filled out a worksheet today, and he was proud of himself. I told him that it looked like he had worked hard and really concentrated while writing the numbers ( he's writing numbers not letters...he's Cole's boy). He confirmed that it was hard work and it did take a lot of concentration.

It might not sound like a big deal...my preschooler is beginning to color and draw. But I'm so excited to watch this new skill develop, and he can't seem to get enough.

Today's writing worksheet. Pretty exciting stuff.

Our project at home: drawing a solar system banner for Ian's room

Ian's Birthday Backyard Water Bash

Ian turned five! It was his golden birthday, and his first "friend attended" birthday party. All the kids from school came, and it was hysterical. We had wild boys running all over the backyard. We had a kiddie pool and slide, sprinkler, and 500 water balloons. It was so easy and simple. It was an absolute hoot!

He requested "Barber Garden" for supper

 Of course, both of them wearing hats sparked a slew of, "Are they twins?" questions

Happy, happy birthday, sweet Ian boy!

Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons have come and gone. It was a great two weeks. My nephew was here, and participated in the lessons, too. Next year we'll do it all again.