Monday, September 06, 2010

Labor Day Weekend


With two weeks of school now under our belts, we had a long weekend. Hooray! Ryan was off and we enjoyed the weather cooling a bit--down to highs in the low 90s. Made for a beautiful morning at a river west of town. We gathered with our church group there at about 10 Sunday morning and the kids played and played in the water. They loved the rocks and splashing around with the other kids and even a few dogs. It was shallow enough in the area where we planted ourselves that they could roam pretty freely. The only near-disaster was when Stephen's shoe came off. A friend grabbed it and then we calmed a hysterical boy. All in all, the kids - young and old - enjoyed it quite a bit. Tyler took some photos.

Stephen turned 4 back in June, and we had thought about getting him a bicycle. Because of the heat in the summers here, we decided to wait until September to get one for him. Our outdoor time in the summer was largely spent at pools! So we headed out to test-ride a few. True to his usual experience of being a giant child, he is already at a 20" size, and his helmet size is 8!!

He is LOVING school. He sings the songs that he learns there so much that I'm getting them stuck in my head all day. (Thanks, kid.) Tonight Ryan said something to me about next January, and I immediately blurted out "January February Maaaaarch April May ..." I think each time Stephen belts out the days or months, he sings the whole list a minimum of 3 times. His teachers tell me that he is quiet in class, so I am hoping that he warms up and can be more interactive with the teachers and other students. At this point I'm fairly sure he's just absorbing it the best he can, as it's an entirely new experience for him. He had "homework" this weekend, which was to practice writing his name. The teacher said it was fine if they just got through one letter and that we shouldn't push them to do a lot right away. But he wanted to write it in 5 different colors so he wrote his name 5 times. Yup, already an overachiever.

Abby doesn't seem to mind the time alone with mommy every morning. I even asked her if she wanted to go to school like Stephen does, and she said, "No. I stay with mommy." Last week we got to go to Whole Foods and she pushed a little shopping cart. She was positively exuberant! We also joined some friends at a park one day and she played with her friend Nicholas another day. When we picked Stephen up on Friday, she was so excited to see him that she ran up to him standing against the wall where the teacher dismisses them and jumped up and down, chanting "OPPOSITES OPPOSITES OPPOSITES!!!" The only explanation I have is that she thinks he talks about opposites at school just like in the Arthur Goes to School book.

Big breakthroughs this week for her: She's been ASKING to wear her Elmo shoes instead of her red crocs. And pigtails stayed in her hair for a couple hours this morning. Must be time to have another baby. My baby is growing up.

On Monday we drove an hour south of town to Ryan's supervisor's house. They live on some land and have some chickens, goats, and even a donkey. We like that we can get farm fresh eggs from them!

In this first picture, you see a happy girl with a slightly less happy dog. A few minutes after she began to play with the dog, we heard a blood-curdling scream which was NOT preceded by a thud. I ran to find her holding the side of her face and screaming "THE DOGGIE HIT ME!!" We think he took his paw and clawed her nose, eyelid, and forehead, based on the scrapes we saw on her face. She pretty much left him alone the rest of the afternoon.


The next few photos are from our excursion outside to collect eggs from the chicken coop. Stephen actually grabbed a couple himself. But Abby also wanted to carry them. We had to watch that they didn't swing the bucket too fast. There's also a photo of William climbing up the windmill. I'm glad Stephen and Abby didn't try that.



Next up: the adventures of Tropical Storm Hermine!

1 comment:

Bethany said...

Glad Stephen is enjoying school. He will talk more when he is ready... trust me as Abbey's mom. :) Also very glad Abby's run in with the dog ended with a scratch and not a bite! Poor Abby.