One more day

Will has one more day left at his school. After that, I won't be driving the route that I've driven for the past two years, twice each school day, nearly as much. We won't be racing to beat the green light that also happens to be the world's longest red light in an effort to get there in time. We won't be parking on the street (Grace Street, no less, which I always found appropriate for a church's address), in front of or behind the same cars and vans, seeing the same kids exit those cars and vans. We won't be putting backpacks and coats into a too-skinny cubby while Laura points out Will's friend Walker's cubby for all to hear ("Walker!!!!"--at least five or six of these jubilant outbursts per pickup or dropoff). We won't count the lights and steps on our way out or see Will's teachers from last year standing at their classroom door. Two years there, gone. Just like that.

What will we be doing next year? It's hard to say. We'll be walking, for one. Walking to a brand new school, new teachers, new friends. We'll see some familiar faces, older kids who live down the street, but for the most part, it's all new. That's the trouble with being the first. It's all unknown. I'm never as relaxed with Will (and with good reason, in all fairness, as his temperament requires constant vigilance), never as confident in my parenting. I wish it could be different, that I could relax a little and just let him be. But it's hard with him. It's hard with all of them, I know.

An older lady was leaving the gym at the same time as us this morning. I was holding Laura's hand as she pushed the wheelchair access buttons that open the door and then meandered out, pointing at a plane getting ready to land at a nearby airport. The lady smiled and waved at Laura and walked on ahead of us. A few steps later, the lady stopped and turned around. She said, "She's precious" and I responded with my usual smile and "thanks, we think so too." Then the lady said, "They all are, aren't they?"

Yes, they are. All of them, both of them. Kindergartner and toddler, blonde and brunette, button- pusher and parent-pleaser, sassy and sweet, boy and girl. I need to remember that, always.

Scenes from our weekend

We started our weekend in style, with ice cream from the trolley at our local garden center, where we purchased a tree that now looks comically small in our yard amongst our more mature landscaping.

We got up Saturday and headed out to IKEA. Unbeknownst to me, Laura took this picture at some point. Will was enjoying himself at the kids' dropoff place, which scores major points with us for IKEA. 

We went to get Will a new bed and somehow left with bunk beds. Not our original plan at all, but he was so excited. While he likes the idea of bunk beds, he has yet to actually sleep on the top bunk.

The bed had to be taken out of its box and wedged between the kids' seats before it would fit.

Then the bed had to be assembled, Jamison's favorite part. He loves putting stuff together. And I don't like it at all, so I guess that works out well.

He approves!

Yesterday, we went to Lowes after our regular Sunday morning gym stop and Laura discovered Junior Mints.

On the way home, Will discovered that he could take silly pictures of himself. This is one of at least 20 that he took.

And, finally, this picture is more for me than for anyone else, as it reminds me that we've made a bit of progress in our landscaping odyssey thus far. Also, it reminds me that some houses just look better with a flag, including ours.

Have a good week! This is Will's final week as a preschooler, believe it or not.

Because I love her (and further proof that my phone has become my primary camera)

I know you're probably just dying to see more pictures of Laura, right? I take approximately six million Instagram pictures of Laura daily, and about three of Will. So please forgive my lopsidedness. It will probably resolve itself this summer when he's home and/or out and about with us a little more.

We went to the playground after we left the gym (don't tell Will). She slid and swung and charmed the elementary schoolers at the park for PE (the elementary school is being completely remodeled--hence no gym--hence the kids at the park, so Will is going to be enjoying a brand new school next year) until it was time to pick Will up at school. Here is the proof.

That face kills me.

She has recently begun to sit and color for longer stretches time. We were coloring pages from a Sesame Street coloring book, me a Cookie Monster page and her an Elmo page. (She calls Elmo Meg-O. It's much cuter when she says it, though.)

I can't resist. She's starting to slowly slim down. Kill me now.

Lest you think life with Laura is all rainbows and glitter, this was this morning after she'd been Krogering for a little too long for her liking.

I got new bedding a while back. The toile was a little un-springy. 

Old Glory is back. After a totally maddening search for the perfect flag/pole/bracket combo, we finally found one that worked. Or worked only after Jamison sawed off about a foot of the flag pole to make it functional. And after I replaced the too big flag that came with the set with one of our castoffs from another attempt at replacing our old flag. Seriously, it was a ridiculously long process that I won't bore you with the details of. (Yes, this English major is ending a sentence with a preposition. Please forgive me. I'll just call it exercising my poetic license.) Our house just looks better with a flag.

Maybe my next post will showcase pictures of Will. If I can resist Laura and her cuteness, that is.

Playing at home, the zoo, and yardwork, with bonus photography by Laura

Will has seven days of school left, plus a picnic at a local park on his last "official" day. I'm still not sure how it is that he's finished with preschool and will be starting kindergarten in a mere four months. We're spending as much time as humanly possible outside, the adults among us most likely working with the giant mulch mound that we had delivered Thursday.

We've been using our sidewalk chalk and paint (3-D, no less!) quite a bit. (Thanks Reagan and Mac!)

Will is deadly serious about the 3-D glasses.

Laura, not so much. (In her defense, though, they are a little big for her.)

In a flurry of let's-get-the-most-possible-use-of-our-eight-zillion-passes, we spent Saturday morning at the zoo. I never take pictures of the animals because, honestly, they're always a little boring to look back over, but I identified with this hippo. Except for the fact that if it were me bathing, there would be two little onlookers, one of whom would most likely be telling me I looked funny. (Will is obsessed with telling us that we look funny, especially when we're minus an item or two of clothing.)

The zoo is full of good perches for the kids whenever they get tired of walking.

And then, of course, there's always the train . . .

and the carousel. (Laura's picture on the zebra we were trying to get her to ride is one of her patented sheer terror experiences, so I omitted it so as not to frighten young children who may one day remember her terror  whenever they get on a carousel themselves.)

This is really the first time that Laura has gotten into being at the zoo. She loved the penguins and would've stayed here forever if we hadn't been right next to the petting zoo and playground. Every single time we left an animal, she would wave and say bye-bye _______ (birds, monkeys, etc.). Whatever the formula for total sweetness is, it's contained within her DNA. 

After the zoo, we came home and busted our arses in the yard. Again. The very front (next to the street) is, for all and intents and purposes, completed for now, besides periodic weeding and cleaning up. Any time we're out in the yard, someone inevitably stops and compliments our yard. And while we used to defer to the previous owners and our "luck" in inheriting it, we now claim it as our own. Because we've worked pretty hard getting it in order. Our neighbor two doors down gave me the ultimate compliment the other day as he was on his way into his house, saying that Doug (the previous owner/consummate gardener/retiree) would be proud. I like to think that would be true, at least regarding this front part.

Speaking of yard work, this tree that my husband is working on is dead. He has made it his goal to remove the entire thing piecemeal. I have nothing more to say about this matter.

And finally, Laura is a budding photographer. That is my leg, shoe and the toilet. She does good work.

More soon!

Every once in a while

For the most part, whenever we work in the yard, we are cursing the previous owners and their grand landscape design. But every once in a while, we're thankful. Like when our low-maintenance roses grace us with their presence.

A few other various things we're thankful for these days:

Pigtails! They were short-lived, though, since she yanked them out the second she got in her carseat. Cute while they lasted, though.

Living in a city with lots to do with our children is really, really nice. We spent a few hours at the Children's Museum Saturday morning and both of them loved every single second of it. We also visited the Natural History Museum for the first time and it was another hit. If you're ever in Cincinnati, and especially if you have kids, visit the Museum Center. (As an aside, the building used to be the train station and it's really impressive. It's huge, but I guess that shouldn't be surprising, as it houses three separate museums.)

And here is Laura and her leopard raincoat. I had to take a picture of it because I think she's really, really close to outgrowing it (which should come as no surprise since I think it's a size 12 months!). We stopped at Kroger after her music class this morning and she honked the horn of the car buggy nearly incessantly, waving at passersby all the while. It's really hard to be in a bad mood with her around.

Today's big project is reorganizing my closet. Are you jealous?

Seriously?

What the hell is wrong with people? I know you've probably already seen this woman (who, incidentally, believes her critics are "fat," among other things) already, but I alternate between thinking that she can't possibly look like this and feeling sorry for her. But then she called me fat, so I'm over her.

I don't want to write about Tanning Bed Mom too much, though. It's just too depressing.

What really made me take notice of this gem of a photo (besides the obvious) is that I'm pretty sure she's wearing Laura's hairbow. The way this woman has her hair fixed is the exact same hairstyle that my two-year-old wears. And Laura does seem to be mysteriously missing a fair amount of her hairbows.

In other totally unrelated news, I really did myself in at the gym this morning. I have discovered the stair climber. Not the lame one with the little pedals that I think I could do for hours without breaking a sweat, but the one that simulates actually climbing stairs. If these crazy things sit mostly unused at your gym, there is a reason. It's taken me a full nine months of regularly busting my arse at the gym to work up the courage to climb on one but I can say that, after I finish (and catch my breath and change my sweat-soaked clothes and take a long, restorative nap), I'm really kind of embarrassingly proud of myself. There was an older man on the one next to me yesterday and we got off at about the same time. We crossed paths on our way to the disinfecting wipes and gave each other knowing looks, like we were part of some sort of secret club of people who like mercilessly torturing themselves. Then I realized that he was probably a good 40 years older than myself, so maybe it was just pity on his part. 

I also realized that making myself go through this misery (actually, it's not that miserable--I like it--is that weird?) is my own sort of validation. I don't have a job wherein I'm regularly evaluated for my effectiveness at anything, so this is my own way of setting up my own challenges and either meeting them or failing. And things may be chaotic at home, our house may be falling apart and the laundry may be taking over, the yard may look awful and the car may be filthy, but I'll be damned if I'm not finishing my allotted time on the stairclimber. (I think, now that I read back over that, that there may actually be something wrong with me.)

What? Did you not want to read about the boring details of my gym routine? I really had no intention of writing about the gym when I started with the photo of Tanning Bed Lady but then I started to shift my legs about and remembered that they were sore and this is what you get. So.

Stay away from the tanning bed and have a good weekend!

It's May!

It's already May and that means that we're officially only four school weeks away from summer vacation. I thought last school year went by quickly but this one has surpassed that for fleeting-ness.

Laura and I go to her music class on Tuesday mornings. We have time to kill both before class after dropping Will off at school and after class before picking Will up. So we usually go to the park to "fwing," one of Laura's very favorite activities. But today, our second park stop involved more wandering around the flowers and hanging out at the fountain.

This particular park is so nice. I could have walked around for a lot longer than we had time for. It made me wish our yard looked like this. And then that thought made me laugh.

She takes my breath away. I love her so. We thought about sending her to school next year a few days a week but I want to keep my best girl home with me another year (or forever, maybe). I love having her with me, going places together, testing out every nearby "fwing" that we can find. I still can't believe we got so lucky. 

Will and I are in a heated game of Rivers, Roads, and Rails right now. He's (not surprisingly) much more skilled at this game than his mother, as I'm just not very spatially-inclined. My firstborn, however, counts the ability to solve puzzles and such among his skills that come most easily to him, which is always novel to me, as I tend to think that my children are merely carbon copies of their parents, namely me. (However, I should note that  Jamison is far better with puzzles and numbers and the like. I guess the other half of the DNA is equally important after all.)

OK. Time to get a beatdown at the hands of a five year old. Sad but true.