The First Swim Class

Bright and early this morning, Melinda and Jacob started their very first swim class. Level 1, Water Exploration. Skills they work on include blowing bubbles, bobbing in the water, getting comfortable with getting in and out unassisted, dunking their heads underwater, and eventually floating front and back with assistance. Melinda tells me that her teacher said that she will be moving to Level 2... but nobody said anything to me, so I'm not sure if they meant right away, or as soon as this 6-week session is complete. I'm sure she'd have to be put in a different time slot to get Level 2 instruction, at least.

Anyway, I got to sit and watch them through a one-way mirror while they were with their teacher. It was a group lesson, but there was only one other girl in their group along with Jacob and Melinda. Right off the bat, Melinda and Jacob both had trouble sitting and waiting for instructions - they both wanted to run off and do their own thing. I watched for about 10 minutes, while they did "Simon Says" in the water, with blowing bubbles, chin in the water, cheek in the water, etc. But then I had to run home, because I had forgotten the towels. And since it was a brisk 34 degrees this morning, that was not something I wanted them to do without. It's an indoor pool, but the shock of going back outside would not be fun if they were wet. Also, I tried to take some pictures, but I couldn't use the flash because of the one-way mirror, and without the flash there was too much movement and you couldn't see anything for the blur.

Here is a quick question & answer I did with them when we got home. Jacob, poor little guy, had some trouble during the lesson. They were holding onto the wall and walking towards the deeper side, when he let go of the wall and kept on going. Within a couple steps, he was in too deep. The instructor was helping the other little girl there, and Jacob was just outside her peripheral vision. I, quite honestly, got VERY panicked as his head went under the water,and he started flailing. It was just deep enough that he couldn't quite get his face back up. It probably lasted a total of 4 seconds - but when you remember that this a little guy who gets absolutely traumatized by water getting on his face in a bath.... well, then you realize that this was probably terrifying to him. The teacher saw him and snatched him up, and sat him up on the wall. He laid down on his tummy right there on the poolside, and wasn't crying, at least... but he had a shocked look on his face. After that, they worked on "jumping" into the pool from a sitting position on the wall, and he did okay with that. He continued participating. But listen to his answers here in the Q&A and you'll see that he isn't thrilled about the idea of more classes. His little scare sort of colored all his answers... he really was fairly excited this morning before class actually started. On the other hand, I was quite pleased with how Melinda did. While not terrified of water in her face, she certainly hates it. Always demands a towel if her eyes get wet. But even though I noticed she was uncomfortable with her face wet, she was very eager to try everything the instructor asked her to do, and didn't panic or get upset when she would go completely underwater.... just kept her eyes squeezed tightly closed, was all!

My questions are in red, Melinda's and Jacob's answers are noted with their name.

Before you went to swim class, how did you feel about it?

Melinda: Happy, because it sounded really fun.
Jacob: Scared.

When you saw the pool for the first time, what did you think?

Melinda: I guess I liked it. (She ran around a lot, I thought she was excited. She tells me she was just playing airplane.)
Jacob: It's not good.

What did you think about your teacher?

Melinda: Fun!
Jacob: Not good to me.

What was your favorite part of swim class?

Melinda: Going under the water.

What did you do under the water?

Melinda: One of the parts when I went under the water, I opened my eyes a teeny bit, it didn't look fun under the water... I didn't see it very much. I didn't want my eyes opened all the way.

What was your favorite part of swim class?

Jacob: Not good. The part I like is the lollipop part when we were all done.

What did you like while you were IN the water?

Jacob: Jumping into my teacher's arms.

Melinda's 2 cents: I didn't have to jump into the teacher's arms. She just caught my hands and my face went under water.

What new thing did you learn at swim class today?

Melinda: I pretty much know how to do everything.

Do you know how to hold your breath?

Melinda: Yes, when I went under.

What new thing did you learn at swim class today?

Jacob: How to swim.

How did you swim?

Jacob: Like a duck.

How do ducks swim?

Jacob: They swim with the yellow colors.

Tell me what was scary about swim class.

Jacob: We go into the swimming pool.

What happened in the swimming pool?

Jacob: I don't know.

What happened when you were walking down the wall?

Jacob: I fell in and that was scary.

Why was it scary?

Jacob: That was scary. Falling down the wall.

Were you stuck under water?

Jacob: Mmm-hmm. And I couldn't get up.

And how did that make you feel?

Jacob: Sad and scared.
Do you want to do swimming class again?
Jacob: Uh-uh.

Why not?

Jacob: I don't like it.

Was there anything you didn't like at swim class?

Melinda: Uh-uh. No. Nothing.

Do you want to do swim class next week?

Melinda: Yes, yes, yes!!

What are you excited about learning next time?

Melinda: Swimming under water.

Do you think you will be good at it?

Melinda: Yes, yes, yes!

Anything else you want to tell me about swim class?

Melinda: Mmm, maybe after the next class.

P.S., regarding some comments I've gotten:
As for witnessing it, I've been processing panic emotions all morning/afternoon. Feels eerily similar to all the bad dreams I've had of Jacob dying while I was completely powerless. My body was just starting to get to the point that I was thinking I should run to the door and scream to get the instructor's attention when she turned and saw him. Took a while for my heart to slow down. I may very well feel as scared as he does. I also insisted that he take a nap today to help recover from the scary morning. He was already seeming clingier and more easily upset than normal, by noon. And that's saying a lot, for Jacob these days.

But, I was impressed that despite the scare, he continued to participate and didn't have a meltdown. He was more hesitant to get his face anywhere near the water, but he didn't stay OUT of the water or cry at all. We'll see how he is next week. I'll keep trying to talk to him and work through it with him. If nothing else, I hope that maybe it helps him understand why learning how to swim is so important, so that sort of thing doesn't happen again.
Here's to hoping he'll not be too scared for next week. Nothing like starting off swim lessons for the very first time with a frightening event. :-\

Kids These Days

Prepare to be overwhelmed by newness.  The kids have been busy!!

Melinda drew a fun picture the other day.  It seems to me that she has a lot of good imagination, and a fairly decent drawing ability, but it's harder and harder to encourage her to sit down long enough to draw anything anymore.  But here's what she came up with: Her and a friend sliding down a really fun slide (it's on the back of a math paper, so excuse the other odd things that scanned through - I toned them down as best as I could):

 

In just a couple weeks, Melinda has gone from being completely unable to hula hoop, to becoming a quick expert.  I'm amazed at how quickly she's picked it up!!

We also bought a jump rope a few days ago.  Again, something she was completely unable to do when we brought it home.  But with a little time and determination, she again figured it out all on her own.  She's up to doing 4 jumps in a row! 

I don't really have any fun pictures of Jacob, but he's gotten extremely comfortable with computers in the past couple weeks.  A month or so ago, he was completely unable to get a handle on using the computer mouse.  Now he clicks everything, much to our dislike/  Because, yeah - do you really want a 3 year old helping himself to anything and everything on your computer?  He can your change task bar's size, location and type faster than you can even realize that he's standing in front of your computer, messing with things!  The kids are allowed to play on Jesse's computer, which is mainly just for internet usage and games, so there's nothing sensitive there.  But Jesse is frequently annoyed these days, trying to figure out how to undo what Jacob has rearranged.  And the rule is that he's not allowed to even touch my computer, but that doesn't keep him from trying.  He's particularly fond of clicking the pause button when I have music playing.  Over and over and over.

Jacob's also learned how to use the potty "Daddy's way".  Standing up.  Oh, the messes...  He hasn't quite mastered how to get that aim right at the very beginning yet, and we frequently end up with wet potties, wet socks, wet shirts....  but he's bound and determined to keep right on standing up for potty time.  A shame, too - he was so comfortable just straddling the toilet, when even Melinda never was, and still isn't.  She's still nervous without a toddler-sized potty seat.  But Jacob just keeps on trying new things.

With summer coming up, and both Melinda and Jacob still being fairly uncomfortable with water, I finally bit the bullet/got on the ball/admitted reality - whatever you want to call it - and signed them both up for swim lessons.  They'll start in Level 1, geared toward the kids who still don't put their face in water (yup, that's them!), and have half-hour lessons just down the street every Wednesday for 6 weeks.  Melinda's super excited that I'm finally getting her lessons, after probably a good year of talking about it, but she's still doubtful about the part where she's going to have to put her face in water.  Hopefully the instructors are as good as I've heard they are!  Plus, they don't chlorinate the pools, so hopefully it will be easy on their eyes.  From their website:

If you notice a slight salt taste in our pools it is because they are state-of-the-art! We brought these systems in from Australia. We add salt to the pool, raising the salinity to 4500 ppm (the human tear is 8000 ppm). Then we run the salt water through a low voltage electrical charge in the backroom that converts the salt (NaCl) water into natural chlorine. We never have to add harsh chemicals to these pools.

Alex.  Now, Alex is constantly doing something new!!  Can you believe the little guy turns one year old on April 1st?!  Just a couple weeks away!  (*sniff, sob, sniff*)
He's really mastered climbing on our chairs now.  One of his favorite pastimes is climbing up the front room chair, climbing over to the couch, sliding down feet first off the couch, and starting the whole rotation over.  He'll do it for a good half hour before he gets bored!  He loves to climb up onto the computer chairs and see what treasures he can find up on the desks.  And last, but not least, he figured out the dining room chairs.  For a couple days, we got away with just making sure the chairs were pushed in after we were done using them.  Now, though, if he's feeling really determined, he will pull the chair out, and then climb up on top.  And of course, the table is easy pickin's after that.  And what toddler in his right mind wouldn't go ahead and climb up on top of the table if he already got as far as the top of the chair?  So, nothing is safe anymore.  What an adventure...

 A couple other fun, random things that Alex has done:  He really likes to "play" the drums from Guitar Hero:

Alex also likes to take the stairs out of Melinda's dollhouse, and then crawl right on into the bottom floor.  Like he's Clifford the Big Red Dog, or something.  ;)

 

You think we're done yet?  Not a chance!  Alex also has started to figure out the fun little pop-up toy that seems to be a standard in every home, and has certainly been in ours since the early days of Melinda:

And, being such a busy boy, it's always nice to crash on a cuddly Daddy at the end of the day:

 

Alex has been mimicking for a long while now... but we just hit a pretty major first.  We've had a letter Z and letter Z words hanging up on the wall for a couple weeks now, and Jacob and Melinda like to point at them and name them.  The other night, I took Alex near the wall, and he started pointing at the pictuers, too.  So I told him the names of each one.  Pretty soon, he was saying the "zzzzzz" sound right along with me, and clearly proud of himself.  The next night, which was last night, we did it again, and he said "zzzzz" even better than before.  And when we went and sat back down with daddy, we pointed to me, saying "Mama".  Pointed to Jesse, saying "Dada".  Pointed to Alex, saying "Alex".  He paid very close attention, clearly interested in this new thing.  We repeated it a few times.  Then, he pointed just like we had been doing, right on Jesse's chest, and very clearly said "dada"!!!  Of course, then he tried to call me "dada", but didn't sound as sure about it.  But I think we can call that his first word, can't we?  (And, for the record, he doesn't really say "mmm" sounds yet, so I don't think "mama" will happen anytime soon.)

This next thing is not so much completely kid-specific, but I still wanted to include it.  We had a few friends over for a playdate yesterday.  I had wanted to do a playdate this Tuesday anyway, but when I saw it was also St. Patrick's Day, we (okay, fine: I) decided to make it a little bit fun, too.  We ran to the store and got some green lei's and some shamrocks (which we hung on the walls), and some St. Patrick's Day plates.  We set out every green food we could manage:  Sliced green apples, cut up broccoli, celery, cucumbers, pickles, green grapes... I would have done sugar snap peas, too, but they looked awful and wilted at the store.  I also made little "rainbows on a stick":

 

And the fun part: Green juice.  I can't remember clearly whether this is something I found a couple years ago on the internet, or if maybe Jesse's mom, Nedra, gave the idea to me.  But basically, it's spinach and apple juice.  Put enough apple juice into the blender to provide liquid, add a whole bag of baby spinach, and blend it all together.  Then, put it all through a strainer, leaving out the really thick bits of spinach, add in the rest of the apple juice, and you're left with a very green apple juice with a surprisingly enjoyable and refreshing spinach flavor.  We gave this to Melinda to drink when she'd get constipated.  But it seemed like it would be fun to enjoy on St. Patrick's Day, too, so I added it to the menu for our playgroup.  :)

 

 

And the playgroup was really fun.  A nice full house, with a total of 9 kids and 4 of us adults.  All those yummy fruits and vegetables were plowed right through.  And when the veggies were gone, Melinda wanted more and requested some carrots and dip.  Of course, she was also given the option of extra bug-shaped graham crackers that our friend brought along.  Can you believe she declined that in favor of the carrots?  :)  Jacob, in the meantime, was working hard to remind me how hard 3-year-olds are.  I guess I had forgotten.  But when he went from perfectly fine to throwing a big ol' giant fit over bike-sharing issues, I exclaimed in exasperation, "Are all three-year-olds like this?!?  Because I seriously can't remember!"  And, in unison, all my friends piped in with a hearty "YES!"  Sigh.  I guess that means I get to do this all over again in a couple years with Alex.  Ugh.

We continued our green fun for dinner:  We had a soup that included green onions and spinach, followed by a leek/spinach/broccoli quiche.  Which was very yummy, by the way.  Although now I'm starting to wonder if maybe the kids wouldn't have enjoyed some corned beef and cabbage.... oh well.  The all-green-all-day thing was fun, too.  :)

Music-Inspired Art

I wish I could remember exactly where this idea came from, but I've been meaning to try it for at least a couple months now.

The idea is to give your child some paper and a coloring instrument, provide a couple different types of music, and get them to focus on drawing how the music makes them feel. So a really upbeat, jazzy piece would hopefully inspire something like more bold, jerky movements compared to a slow, fluid piece inspiring some smooth, peaceful scribbles.


I picked up some posterboard at the store the other day, and decided to make it even more fun with Crayola Slick Stix, which are very much like oil pastels for kids. Combined with the posterboard, coloring would be nice and smooth.

I let Melinda help me out with the music choices, and we ended up picking two songs from Laurie Berkner's Rocketship Run album. I'm not perfectly happy with the fast song, since it is actually a combination of fast and slow, but it worked out well enough. I couldn't convince Melinda to consider any other choices once she made up her mind, anyway.

Here are our videos with our fast and slow songs, and what the kids did with the idea.





And here is just the still pictures of their final projects:

They really enjoyed doing this activity! And actually, we kept on going with it for a while longer after I stopped the camera, with extra pieces of paper, and my own choices of music (including Enya and My Chemical Romance). We had a nice little coloring-to-music party, all three of us! We even tried coloring with our eyes closed... it really was fun.

My only regret... giving Jacob a Slick Stix. I wasn't paying attention to how careful he was being, and he ended up coloring all over his shirt, the table, and the upholstered chairs. Thankfully, the clothes washed out just fine with our regular stain remover, detergent and a hot wash. The table just took a bit of rubbing. The chairs, however, were the biggest problem. He didn't color the chairs, but he was pressing his crayon hard enough that it got a bit crumbly. When the crumbs fell off the table and onto the chair, they got rubbed in by his hands and knees. I did my best to stain treat it and blot it, but it wasn't making much of a dent. Then I added some steaming, and eventually most of it came out. But they're not as clean as they used to be. And of course, smart ol' me stuck Jacob on the cleanest chair we had, and sitting right next to the other clean one. Well, maybe the extra dirt will eventually make them match the other hideously gross chairs. Though I'd truly be better off getting or making some washable chair covers.

Little People Math

Remember all those cute little wooden people I painted for Christmas? Well, they've come in handy recently!

We checked out a random book from the library which incorporated some basic multiplication into the story, dividing 12 children into several different groups in order to play different games. It got my brain whirring (whoa, that was an interesting sensation!), and I came up with an idea to do math with Melinda... with the little wooden people. She's shown a lot of interest in math, after all, and figured out enough to be able to do some addition, subtraction, and even basic multiplication, once I explained to her how it worked.

We had 10 that I painted, and managed to track down a few of the original solid-colored people that came with the car (Alex likes to carry them all over the house- their heads in his mouth!!- so they're never all in one place). In all, we grabbed 12 little wooden people, just like the story worked with.

We lined them all up in a row, and started making equal groups. First we did 6 groups of 2 (6x2), then 4 groups of 3 (4x3), then 3 groups of 4 (3x4), and 2 groups of 6 (2x6), finishing up with 12x1. Each time, of course, would equal 12 people. She got so excited by splitting every person into equal groups.

And then, gasp, I even did some very basic algebra with her, since my mind was so focused on equaling. Woah, am I crazy or what?! I did it like this:
Here Melinda, we have a group of 3 people here. This next spot is blank. And then on this side, we have a group of 6 people. How many people do we need to put in the blank spot to equal 6? 3 + how many equals 6?
She caught on pretty quickly, and generally wasn't making mistakes. It was kinda fun!

And then we veered away from real math, and just started playing sorting games with all those people, instead. Who knew I made them so versatile? I certainly didn't plan it this way. They split easily into groups of boys/girls, or groups by color similarities (blues with other shades of blue, purples with pinks, etc.), or groups by shade of hair color. And then lined them up like a rainbow. Neat.

It was such a good time, apparently, that she begged me all day today to repeat our math activity, making sure those people were gathered and ready to go when I was finally ready. We didn't play quite so long with the people this time around, because suddenly we were talking about numbers.

And I made a big chart of numbers. Oh, boy, did I! I wrote out every single number up through 230, in lines of 1-10, going down in colums. She had a lot of fun counting along with me, and noticing the different patterns the chart of numbers created (like the diagonal line with 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, and 99). I would have kept going... but I ran out of room on the page. ;) I can't remember the last time I wrote so many numbers at once. Dare I say it was sort of cathartic?? Not that I needed the emotional cleanse, oh no - after all, I got a full night's restful sleep, didn't you?

Oh wait, no... no, I didn't get a whole night's restful sleep. How could I be so silly? No, of course, last night was the night that Alex randomly decided to wake up at 11:30pm, and stay awake all the way until 2:30am. I sat, laid, walked, bounced, anything I could think of, and I did it silently, in the dark, for THREE HOURS. He wasn't upset at all, for the longest time, just awake and probably wanting to play. When he changed from maddeningly-just-on-the-edge-of-sleep (which he "entertained" me with for a full hour) to "I'm-tired-of-being-still,-time-to-play!" at 2am in the morning, I gave up with a giant huff. I was too tired to hold my eyes open anymore, and I was getting mad beyond reason. So I left the room, him screaming, and Jesse got to deal with the fallout. Alas, but the couch gave me no relief, either, since I could still hear the crying, and a dripping faucet, and a ticking clock.... And even when he was finally asleep and I got to go back to bed, I suddenly couldn't sleep, and laid there for another half hour. Oh, the joy of late nights, especially when you assumed you were out of that stage....

Anyway... that's all a giant tangent I didn't intend to make. But it just goes to emphasize just how nice it was to write all those numbers today. Mindless repetition, nice clean strokes of a pen on a big white page...

Ahh, good ol' math. How fun you can be when you aren't a 4-page calculus problem, or an unbalanced checkbook! Good times.

The Halloween Party

Alternative title for today's post:
In Which Becky Feels Like a Complete Failure

Seriously, Friday night majorly frustrated me.  It's a miracle I was still in a good mood by the end of the evening.
Synopsis:
Saturday night, Alex started suffering from a head cold.  He didn't fall asleep until 12:30am, and woke up bright and early at 8am.  Much too early.  But he couldn't sleep through the stuffy nose anymore. 

9am on Friday, I was running around trying to get everyone out the door for playgroup.  Usually they start at 10am, which is a reasonable time for me to get out the door.  But this week and next, they're early to accomodate our host's schedule.  Apparently, 9am is too early for me to be on time, I'm discovering.  So we arrive at playgroup at 9:30... and it was only about an 8 minute drive from our house.  And poor Alex screamed the whole drive there.  He was incredibly cranky the whole time I was trying to get us all ready, too.  It just wasn't a good morning.  I'm afraid I made for poor company once we were at playgroup. Alex fell asleep in my carrier at playgroup, but woke up again, and got cranky again.

11:30am, we get back home.  Feed the kids, nurse Alex some more, finally get him to sleep.  He went down at noon.  Feed myself.  Check on emails quickly, etc.  Get the kids into older clothes in order to ready for Art Play, and head out the door again at 12:30pm.  Wonderful blessing: Alex stayed asleep through the transition into the car!

1pm-2:30pm, Melinda and Jacob were in Art Play. They did Pablo Picasso funny faces this week! only Jacob's looked more like a big blob.  He named his Blue Volcano, lol!  Alex remained happily asleep (and it was happily - he had been SO CRANKY the entire time he was awake so far that day, I needed the quiet).  I read in the car until it was time to pick them up.

3pm, we get back home, again.  I immediately start working on finishing costumes:  I made some underwear to match Melinda's Tinkerbell costume (because it became apparent, after she tried it on for me, that her antics made the dress ride up a little too much to be modest without the matching underwear).  Then I went to make some shoes to match.  The making of the shoes went surprisingly smooth... although it came time to locate some pom poms to attach... and they were nowhere to be found.  I'm sure I could have found them within 30 seconds at the old apartment, but I haven't used them since moving, and now I have no idea if we even kept them.  I can't see that I would have thrown them out, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  No, I didn't dig through every single box that I've stashed away in various closets, but I looked through the appropriate ones, to no avail.  Argh. 

Then I had to work on my costume.  I had decided to just be a mummy, since it would be straightforward and have minimal preparation.  So I cut my strips of fabric as quickly as possible, no problems there.  During this, Jesse arrived home with some food and we ate quickly.  Then we started getting ready for the party.

First off, I did Melinda's hair.  Another nice miracle for the night, it actually pulled into a bun.  And it actually looked good.  And it actually stayed put - ALL night long.  I was amazed.  But then, I did use a whole handful of styling mousse, and then a truck load of hairspray on top of it.  She looked awfully cute with her hari up, I think!  Then I got her dressed, all but the wings, so she could get into her car seat.

Then I started wrapping myself for a mummy.  It was slow going, and part way through, I realized I should put on some more form-fitting clothes in a lighter color to make it easier.  So I unwrapped, changed, and started wrapping again.  Then Jesse started helping, and it went better.  But as we were doing it, parts that were wrapped up started coming unwrapped.  And I was hardly moving much at that point.  But we kept at it, deciding that even if it looked sloppy, well, people would still get it.  But then there wasn't enough to wrap my head, like I had wanted to do.  I was disappointed.  And then as I walked back and forth in the apartment to gather other things, things really started to fall apart.  I was in kind of a hurry - it was time for the party to start and we hadn't even left the house yet!  But as we were about to walk out the door, my mummy strips started slipping down (not unravelling, just getting so loose they slipped downwards) to the point where I was practically tripping myself.  So, it became apparent that this would just not be a safe idea.  But since we were running so late at this point, I couldn't take the time to unravel myself.  I had to cut it all off.  Poor wasted fabric.  :(  At least I bought it cheap.  But I was SO frustrated!!  The whole reason we were late was because of taking the time to get me into this mummy costume, and then there we were, going without me in a costume at all.  I felt a little heartbroken.  Okay, a lot heartbroken.  I was pretty upset and flustered.  I love Halloween, it's so much fun, and this was kind of ruining it for me.  But what could I do?  Nothing.  So off we went.  After I had changed back into my regular clothes, of course.

We got to the party pretty late.  It started at 6:30, and games ended at 7:15.  We got there at about 7:00.  Well, slightly earlier, but I still had to put the boys into their costumes, since they aren't car seat friendly.  So we really got into the party at about 7.  Which, with how insanely crowded it was (wow! too bad all ward activities aren't so well attended!), the kids got to do all of 3 games, and stand in lines the rest of the time. Pin the eye on the monster, donut eating contest, and bean bag toss. They really really wanted to do the fishing pole game, but the line was far too long.  What a shame.

Oh, and I realized in the car that, in our hurry to get out the door, I had forgotten to get stuffing to put into the Peacock an Phoenix tails.  Urgh.  It didn't matter too much for Alex, since he would be carried around anyway, but the Phoenix looks pretty lame without any tail stuffing to support it.  I ended up taking the stuffed snake out of the car and tying it around Jacob's waist, under the costume.  Which also looked a little bit goofy, but he thought it was pretty funny... and it kept the tail off the floor a little bit.

So anyway, the kids did their parade through the church, and then we did the trunk-or-treat out in the parking lot.  They thought that was pretty fun!  I was starting to finally feel less flustered by that point, and maybe even enjoying myself.  Alex had started looking sleepy, and so I tucked him into my pouch carrier, and he fell asleep easily.  Unfortunately, he woke back up while we were outside, only 10 minute later, and got all cranky on me again.  Ugh. 

After trunk-or-treating, we went home, pumpkins in tow, and Jesse looking and acting completely ready for a quiet night.  But once we got home, to the very messy house (because really, I had no time for cleaning on Friday, and it already needed it by then!), Jesse almost threw a fit.  Well, a fit for Jesse.  You couldn't really tell unless you were watching the way he was cleaning, huffing and puffing and letting out gigantic sighs every time he picked something up, and practically stomping in and out of the room.  I asked him to calm down (very nicely, with a big hug and a smile!), and he just rolled his eyes at me and told me that he was calm, and just wanted to clean up.  Could I please let him go and finish cleaning?  (You have to understand that I'm chuckling as I write this. He gets so silly when he's tired and frustrated, but it doesn't seem silly until the next day.)

Anyway.  The kids got in bed.  They had a great time.  They're so excited to trick-or-treat on Halloween.  We finished cleaning up.  Mostly, at least.  And the rest of the evening went fine.  Alex even went to sleep 2 hours earlier than normal! 

But really, it was a frustrating night.  And of course, all my energy this whole week had been focused on getting through that evening.  On the drive home, I realized I had no idea what we were going to do the next day.  Or the day after that, or the day after that.  No immediate plans, no projects consuming my time?  How odd.  It felt a little spooky, actually.   But you know, it's nice not to feel pressure to finish something, even if the pressure only comes from my own mind. 

So... yeah.  This summary turned out a lot longer than I intended it to be.  Thanks for getting through it, if you did.  I wish I could say I kept my sense of humor through the whole thing.  And honestly?  The reason I got through the evening as well as I did was simply because I kept thinking about blogging it.  I didn't want to lose my head and have a miserable post to share with you today.  ;)

Here's the few pictures I got before my camera's batteries died! Yep, just one more thing that went just a little wrong.  I didn't get much of Melinda.  I'll make sure and take a good picture of her on Halloween.

The family.  

And no, I don't know what Jesse is, lol.  He just decided to wear a lab coat from work.

Melinda (Tinkerbell) and Jacob (Phoenix) during the parade.

 

By the way - the Bubba Fet behind them was Jacob's favorite costume of the night.  We found a Bubba Fet action figure in Jesse's things while we were moving, and Jacob loves it.

 

Sleepy Peacock.

Jacob the Phoenix poses with his treat bag.

Happy Peacock.  Heading for Mommy's camera.

The destroyed remains of Becky's mummy costume.  Tragic.

Mr. Jack-O-Lantern

Tonight was the designated pumpkin carving night!  Those 4 pumpkins were hanging around our living room all week just absolutely aching to come to life, I tell ya!  Right after dinner was cleared and a few necessary phone calls made, we got down to jack-o-lantern business.

You can see how Alex started out all nice and happy.  Melinda went to work on cleaning out her pumpkin.  Jacob loved the idea, but not the actually business of getting gooey.  Which is typical for him, really.  He doesn't like his hands getting dirty.  But he sure loved the tools for carving!

Once the pumpkins were emptied out, the face-making began.  Melinda and Jacob both drew a face on their pumpkins first, and then Jesse carved them out.   Jacob went a little hog-wild with the drawing, but he did get a face on there.  Not a carve-able face, mind you.  He did dots for eyes and a single line for a mouth. 

But after taking it over to Daddy, it got spruced up a little bit.  Same basic shape, with a little extra in the outline department.  Makes for a truly cool pumpkin designed by the resident 3-year-old!  I can't remember if it was Melinda or Jacob who later called it a "frustrated" pumpkin.

Melinda re-did her eyes several times, because she kept making them too small.  But eventually, she got what she (and I, by way of encouragement) were shooting for.  And then came the mouth... she's been practicing this on paper... she made it "scary".  "Because sometimes Halloween is scary, too, dad!" (And she said that completely cheerfully, like the scary part of Halloween is something exciting.)

During the cleaning-out stage, Alex lost his patience.  Completely.  If I wasn't holding him, Jesse was.  And since Jesse was doing the majority of the helping, I was holding him most of the time.  But for a while, Jesse held Alex while I cleaned out my monstrously thick and spaghett-squash-like pumpkin innards.  You can tell here that he's been pretty upset, what with the red face and tear-streaked cheeks..  Ahh, the teeth.  The second one is just about to break through, but in the meantime, Alex puts anything and everything in his mouth and chews hard.

Finally, I took Alex and Jesse got to carve his face.  Did the whole thing by hand and with his own imagination, old-school style.  No stencils for us this year!

After Jesse was finished, Alex was still upset.  So he went into the sling while I started drawing on my design.  And then as I started doing the first few bits of carving, I realized that he was asleep.  So, baby goes down, and I get my hands free for real carving.  Thank goodness, this was all starting to take a while!

I had gotten a carving idea from some blog out there and decided that's what I wanted to do this year, so I picked my pumpkin big and tall in order to make it work.  I'm happy with the way it turned out!  But I was last one working at the table by a long shot. 

And then, the photo shoot!  I must say, it's fun to have 4 pumpkins all lined up and glowing this year!  

They'll be transported to our ward Hallowen Trunk-or-Treat tomorrow night.  We'll see if anyone wins anything from the carving contest!  And of course, don't forget that there'll be photos of kids in their costumes tomorrow night!  Well, probably tomorrow.  If I get too tired, I reserve the right to post it all on Saturday.  ;)

Kids & Conference Weekend

We really enjoy the ability to watch our church's semi-annual General Conference at home over the internet.  The new video stream this year was absolutely fantastic, too.  I could watch it all on my full screen, and the quality was as good as I would see on a TV.  But best of all, it was practically seamless in the streaming.  In past conferences, we've had to give up on the video stream and settle for the audio only, because it would just hiccup too often, and have to sit and buffer before it started again... it just created too much of a disjointed listening experience.  This conference was so nice!!

The biggest benefit of watching conference at home, of course, is that the kids aren't going crazy in a dark chapel for several hours all weekend.  Most of the time, the kids just entertained themselves with their toys while Jesse and I listened to the conference, but we had a few fun moments I caught on camera.

During one session, Melinda and Jacob broke out a bunch of canvas toy bins and played in them like nests.  Alex, of course, couldn't help but to join in on the fun.  I just love the range of expressions and interactions in this series of photos.

 

 

There was one point where Jacob and Melinda were running back and forth, and Alex was "chasing" them as best he could.  They play this game every now and then, and it's just too funny.  The two older kids run pretty much at top speed across the room, and stand there laughing their heads off while Alex starts to crawl towards them.  As soon as he gets just a few paces closer, they dash back to the other side of the room, and Alex starts heading back, completely unruffled.  As soon as he gets a few paces in, they race past him once again.  What a silly bunch of kids!  ;)



During the last session, I broke out the paints, and we painted some autumn-themed pictures.  Or, at least, that was the goal.  Jacob mostly just made big layers of paint squiggles.  I was quite impressed by Melinda's pumpkin painting - she outlined a pumpkin first, then sketched in a face, and then started painting it.  She called it "done", until I suggested she add some other things, like a sky and the ground.  Then she quite happily added a blue sky, a yellow sunshine, and a patch of green grass.  She also had the start of a small red pumpkin in there, but left it as it was.  I couldn't be left out, either, so I tried my hand at autumn leaves.  Not terrible, for years of having no painting practice of my own.  We taped them all to the wall after they were dry.  Fun!

 

 

Bouncy!

Last night went mostly according to plan.  After throwing together a super basic meal of chicken, rice and corn (that neither of my children would eat), we all headed out to The Ultimate Playzone to celebrate Melinda's birthday.  They're only open for family times on Monday nights, so it's not something we could do on her birthday.  But honestly, like she cares!!  Melinda and Jacob were beyond thrilled to spend about an hour and 15 minutes bouncing and climbing their hearts out.  And since myself, Jesse and Alex were all free, it only cost $14 for all of us to get in.  And there were only about 3 or 4 other families there, so not crowded at all!  It was a lot of fun.  For all of us.  Even Alex got to crawl around on some big ol' bouncy toys! 

Jesse asked, a couple minutes after we got in, if I brought the camera.  Sorry hon - I just don't feel like crawling and bouncing around with an expensive piece of technology strung about my neck.  So, there aren't any pictures.  But if you can imagine Melinda doing incredibly dangerous-looking half-flips off of inflatable plastic bouncy equipment, that's what you would have seen.  And Jacob's hair drenched in sweat.  And Alex laughing his head off at the bright colors and tricky crawling surface. 

Oh, and of course - the perfectly peaceful way that Melinda and Jacob both promptly fell asleep at 8pm.  Ahh, bliss.  Sure, that is worth $14 in and of itself.  Not that Alex would let the evening be completely perfect - he decided that he wanted to scream his head off every time I tried to set him down to sleep.  I gave up and let him play until Jesse and I went to bed much later.  He made up for it by sleeping from about 11:30am - 2:45pm today.  ;)

Melinda said to me this morning that the day after tomorrow is her birthday!  And she just can't wait for her birthday so her friends can come over to play!!  (*slaps head*)  I had to explain to her again that we're not having a friend birthday party this year.  But that we will have a holiday party.  Remember, Melinda?  The deal we made?  Part of which was going to the bouncy place last night?  I felt like I disappointed her all over again.  Oh, well.  Life goes on.

And P.S. - after about 2 full months of living in a 2nd floor apartment and dragging groceries up the stairs and through two different heavy doors, repeatedly, getting completely winded and struggling with the weight of bags, I've decided that the "American Dream" is simply to have a home with minimal obstacles from the car to the kitchen.  At least, I think that's my dream.

Art Play

I've been looking... um, quite lazily... for a class that Jacob and Melinda could both attend together for a while now. I happened upon a plea from a woman on a local email list recently - her son's art class needed extra participants in order to not be canceled. I asked for more information and got it, and we're now enrolled in a weekly "Art Play" class at The Painting Workshop. It is a drop-off class, 1.5 hours long. There's Whole Foods nearby, as well as Cylburn Arboretum (G&G Newson, that's where we took you last time you came out to visit, remember how gorgeous it is?), so Alex and I at least have something to do while the other two are busy. Their teacher is amazingly awesome with young kids, which just made Melinda and Jacob even more excited as I dropped them off. They each smothered her with hugs, true to form.

Today they talked about a painting by Jackson Pollock, and then did their own painting, attempting to mimic the style - which was, enjoyably, splattering paint outside! It was a gorgeous day for it, and they had a lot of fun. Apparently they were also dancing to music as they splattered their paint. They picked their own background colors from a choice of light colors, and the splatter colors were chosen for them. They also were asked what their paintings looked like, and so they named them on their own. Melinda named her "Splatty", and Jacob named his "Spider Webs". Quite honestly, after how striking their paintings look, I'm tempted to buy some canvas and have them do a few paintings for our still-bare walls.

"Splatty" by Melinda

"Spider Webs" by Jacob

Unfortunately on the way home, our timing was bad enough that we were contending with a police funeral. I don't know why, but it seems like all the police/rescue workers are always buried at the cemetary very close to our part of town. And thus, the roads become TERRIBLE. I mean, they shut down the highway in order for the procession to use it on their way to the cemetary. But I had taken an alternate route home. When I crossed over the highway and remembered about the funeral, I gave myself a mental pat on the pack for avoiding the highway. And then about 20 seconds later I hit the gridlock. Yeah, all those people not on the highway were joining me on the road. Greeeeaaaat. Seriously, it took me at least twice as long to get home, more like 3 times as long. I was in the stupid car for over an hour. When it normally takes 20-30 minutes. We'd move 2-3 car lengths at a time, and sit for a couple minutes going nowhere in between. I was so afraid Alex was going to wake up and need to nurse when I had no way of getting off the road. Thank goodness... he did wake up, but fell back asleep before we made it home. Jacob got a good nap, too. Melinda, like me, was bored out of her mind. But we made it home, amazingly. And we're looking forward to Art Play again next week, for sure!

Magnadoodle Tracing

Every now and then, it's a nice thing to have new ideas for quiet activities for kids, isn't it? I'd like to share one of mine.

I don't have my own ideas very often, and this one really came out of the blue. About 8 months ago or so, I was sitting with my two older kids, playing with our mini Magnadoodles. We did a lot of the typical things like tracing each other's hands, practicing letters, drawing our own pictures, and so on. Suddenly it just dawned on me how they like to sometimes trace things, and how it would probably work through paper on a Magnadoodle, since it's all magnetic anyway. I tried it, and it worked VERY well, so I instantly set out to make a full set of traceable papers to go with our Magnadoodles.

All I did was take regular computer paper, lay it over the top of the Magnadoodle, and press around the edges with a dull pencil to make an outline. I then cut it out, following the outline, and I had a piece of paper that fit perfectly into the Magnadoodle's face. Then I drew a simple picture on it. I also flipped the paper over and drew another picture on the reverse side. Then the kids can place the paper on the face of the Magnadoodle, hold it down, and trace with the magnetic pen. Take the paper off, and voila! You have a very magical-seeming tracing!



I made a whole set of pictures, including monsters, dinosaurs, flowers, mountains, rainbows, a house with a tree and sunshine, an apple, ABC's, traced hands, the kids' names, and quite a bit more. I store them all in a zip lock bag, and take them along with us wherever we need a quiet activity - the car, an office appointment, and especially church. The kids love that they can make more intricate drawings by tracing, and I love that they're practicing their fine motor skills while having fun! My son a bit older than 2 years old when we started this, and he would often just scribble over the whole paper, but still exclaim with joy when he "finished" the picture and saw the result underneath. He later started containing his scribbles to key areas on a drawing, and now, just turned 3, he often follows a line well enough that you can tell what he was tracing when he's done. And with a whole set of reversible tracing papers, this activity will keep both my older kids occupied for a good 10-20 minutes!

I'd love to hear more unique ideas for quiet time activities! What works for you?
More "Works For Me Wednesday" at Rocks In My Dryer!

Randomness

I've been slacking on the blogging lately. So sorry! By the time I get to sit down long enough to think about things like that, I'm just too tired. But, we're almost completely settled in, here, and so I think I can manage to say at least a few things!

Randomness #1: I know a few of you are wondering what our new place looks like. I was going to hold off on that until everything looked GREAT, maybe even PERFECT, but hey, let's face reality: This is me here. It probably won't be perfect, ever, and if it is, it won't be for many many months. I can't keep you all waiting that long!! So, un-perfect as it is, here's the new place. Please note that it was very nearly spotless before playgroup at our house this morning (at least, everywhere except for my bedroom and the master bathroom), but I didn't have time to make a video then. So this is it in it's partial playgroup aftermath. And, uh, yeah. Still no curtains for the sliding door. I keep thinking I'll just make them (especially because then I could make nifty matching pillows on the couch!!), but it's a traverse rod, and I have absolutely no experience with how they work, and not much time to really sit down and figure it out with online tutorials. I think we'll be doing some shopping tomorrow, and either buy something pre-made, or at least give myself a physical reference point to look at. Anyway, here's the new place.


Randomness #2: Tropical Storm Hanna is coming tomorrow! We're not worried at all. It'll just be some rain and wind, I'm sure - an extended strong storm, and we love those in this family! When we first moved to Maryland, we had an apartment that was ground level - half sunk into the ground. The A/C unit was at ground level. When there was a hurricane (thought it was a tropical storm by that point)- during our first month there, mind you - it dropped a lot of rain and flooded the well beneath the A/C, and the water came in and flooded our master bedroom's closet. Not fun. But we're on a 2nd floor, now, so no worries. I suppose there's the possibility of losing power for a while, but hey - good thing I have a lot of books in "queue" to read, huh? :)

Randomness #3: Things you learn at a ward party:

1. If you stick a big sister with a balloon in front of an eager 5-month old baby, said baby will do everything within his power to lick the balloon to death.
2. If a grabby baby is anywhere near a paper plate and plastic fork, he will reach it. And you will not be fast enough to catch what falls. Take precautions.
   
3. Balloons that float to the top of the church's gymnasium will often catch on the corner of a lighting fixture and pop dramatically.
   
4. Said balloon-popping will easily cause all three of your children to jump and turn stiffly towards the sound at the exact same moment.
   
5. When doing a ward talent show, interviewing participants beforehand in a video format, with the pretense of being stuffy famous people, is a fantastic recipe for good laughs.
   
6. Loose tablecloths, plates full of sloppy joes and other food, and 5 grabby kids at one table is a disaster waiting to happen. Find reusable adhesive tablecloths, and put stock in them.
   
7. If you make a bet at how many balloons will be at the top of the ceiling at the end of the evening, guess on the very high side, or you'll be dead wrong.
   
8. You can never have too much dessert at a potluck. Seriously.
   
9. 6:30pm dinner time, + normal bedtime of 7:30pm, + 3 tired, hungry kids =/= happy ending (that's does not equal, for those of you not in the mathematical know-how, or who are otherwise confused by my makeshift text symbol).

Randomness #4: A couple Alex videos. 'Cause, you know, he's growing so darn fast, there's always something interesting to see!!

First video- Melinda being her normal, crazy self, taking it upon herself to entertain Alex while I made dinner. She is so over-the-top, but so far, both younger brothers just love that about her. Most of the time. ;)


Second video- Alex crawling. He pretty much crawls full-time, now, and he's not slow about it, either. He can crawl over low obstacles (like your legs), and up small steps (like into the kitchen and bathrooms), and he pulls up to his knees on furniture and toys and anything else he can steady himself on. I have to be on constant choking-hazard watch, these days. Jacob made me a bit lazy - he was never one to really stick a lot of things in his mouth, and now I've had a couple years to forget what it's like to be around a little baby. It's almost like I'm doing it for the first time. Plus, now I have a lot of older kid toys to be worried about.




Randomness #5: I almost forgot! We finally got a WiiFit. Yay! We were at a church playgroup when Serena called up a store (Shhhh, don't tell!... I think she's been stalking them!!!) and found out they finally had some in stock. I told her how eager we were to get one, too, and that we couldn't find any, and she offered to get one for us. When I got back in touch with her later in the day, she had to tell me that they wouldn't let her buy more than one. Which, I guess, I should have anticipated, with how hard they are to come by. BUT, as soon as Jesse walked in the door, he called up and found out there were still some in stock, and ran back out to get one. So, we have yet another new toy to play with. I've tried a few of the little activities, and the balance games are interesting, and the yoga poses - holyohmygoodness, even the basic positions are painful. There's a jogging game, too, but I find it rather awkward to run in place. I think I'd be better off with jumping jacks or something that's meant to be done in place. Maybe something like that might be one of the unlockable games. And yes, I know this game alone won't get me in shape. Don't worry, I'm not expecting it. Still, it's fun to have a game that might actually be good for your body, huh? And it can track my progress for me, too. Which will either be fun to watch, or at least a very good kick-in-the-pants for how much more serious I need to get.