A Jump on Fall Leaves

Some of my favorite photos of the boys that I have are in fall leaves.  Every year I think to myself that I really need to take them, and then fall is practically over before it happens.  But, so far, I have had really good luck with how they have turned out.

2006

2007

2008

2009

So now I feel that it is an official tradition, I am paranoid that I am going to miss the opportunity.  (Last year I waited until early November, and when there was finally a sunny day, the park we went to had a huge lawn-mower-turned-leaf-vacuum driving around stealing the last few leaves of the season!) 

So when I saw some changing leaves today, I panicked.  I gave the boys their official sweaters (yes, I know the boys will probably hate me for making them wear these when they are older and looking back on their photos – but I think they look cute in them now – so I am making them wear them anyway, but thank you for your concern.)  Then I paced, waiting as long as I could for better evening light.  I was too worried that the sun would turn into showers and finally left.

Unfortunately, when I drove to the spot where I have always taken photos in past years, there were approximately four leaves on the ground.  I looked around and realized that most of the trees were still green.  

I guess I haven’t missed the opportunity.

We drove around on a leaf hunt anyway (as I had greatly talked up the event – focusing on leaf throwing over photo opportunity) and the monkeys were insisting we find some.

The lighting is bright, and casts lots of shadows.  But, the boys had lots of fun, so I will call it a success.

And try again in three weeks at our favorite spot.

Good Example

Jack is in awe of his big brother. He just can’t get over the fact that Owen can read.  Jack has always loved being read to, and that now includes being read to by Owen.  Jack loves it, even it the stories aren’t  thrilling. 

From the beginning,Jack had always wanted to listen to every book that Owen has read, no matter how slow the going was. If Owen decides to read to me, Jack will interrupt any game he is playing and come curl up on the couch along with us.

When Owen was working on his first 100 book chart, Jack wanted one too.  So I made one with 40 squares, and let him begin with the book that Owen started to read with.  I thought he was too young, but decided to let him decide that.  Jack loved the idea of reading, but didn’t really like working on it.  He doesn’t know all his letters yet, and I play much fewer sound games with him than I did with Owen at this age.  He learned the sounds /s/ and /m/ and /a/ and then completely lost interest, scribbling all over his chart when Owen put a sticker on his own chart.

Since then, Jack has pretended to read lots and lots of things.  He pointed to random things (even if they didn’t have words written on them) and told me what they ‘said.’  At first, most of it was nonsense; he’d say, “that says, ‘ peanut butter’.” or something random like that didn’t have anything to do with the situation.  Later, he would say a word or sentence that had something to do with the item.  He might look at a Lego box  in Target and ‘read’, “Darth Vader’s ship.”  if it looked like that was what was inside. 

More recently, he has picked up books that Owen has finished reading, and pretend to read a page for himself.  He opens to a page, then very slowly says a sentence, “The….dog…..likes….. to…..”  then he squints his eyes, leans closer to the book, and finishes, “ddddddddiiiiiiiiigggggg……in…the….sssssssssssssand.” 
“Oh, the dog likes to dig in the sand!”  Then he looks around to see if anyone caught him in the act, and gives you a goofy grin if you are looking at him.

A week or two ago, Jack started asking again to read out of his book.  He gets SOOOO excited when I say I have time and jumps onto the couch like I am about to hand him a huge birthday present.  It makes me laugh every time.  I  figured this excitement would last for a few days like it did last time, but he shows no sign of stopping.  He always asks for a 2nd lesson (which I say no to.)  Yesterday his was out of his mind thrilled because he got to read his first “story” out of this book.  His story was,

See me eat. 

I have to admit that I was pretty proud of him too.

We do however, need to work on comprehension.  There is a picture that goes with each story (that I cover up until the story is read and ask Jack what he thinks will be in the picture.)  When I asked Jack about the picture for the “See me eat.” story, he said some random thing about someone looking in the water.  I am not sure what that was about (maybe he was thinking ‘sea’ instead of ‘see’?   Who knows?)

I am very curious to see how long his enthusiasm will last. 

Take My Order

Jack: Can I take your order, sir?

Bridget: I will have some oatmeal.

Jack: We are out of oatmeal.

Bridget: Oh, okay, I will have a sandwich.

Jack: We don’t have soup and sandwiches here.  This isn’t Subway, this is Starbucks!  Do you want a latte?

____

Jack: Take my order, Mama.

Mama: Can I take your order, sir?

Jack:  Yes, I will have a tall america with no cream.

___

Jack:  I’m hungry.

Mama: I am just making dinner, it will be done soon.

Jack: NO!  I’m not hungry for dinner. 

Mama: You’re not?

Jack: No, my tummy is only hungry for a  snack.

Diversion

It was such a sunny day today, Lisa and I couldn’t bear to take our kids to their scheduled indoor gymnastics class.  We made a spur of the moment decision, and headed off to Fall City Farms to pick apples.

Apparent apples aren’t in season at this time of year here, but we did find some….      

carrots!

Lisa dug the dirt around the carrots with a shovel to loosen the ground enough for the kids to pull out the little orange guys. (Look at that love and dedication from a mama willing to wield a shovel despite the fact that she is carrying her nice purse, wearing a skirt, and treading around a field in flip-flops)

The carrots were picked.

Then they were escorted to the end of the row to join their friends in the wheel barrow.  (Lisa and I thought ourselves quite clever to prolong the entertainment by having the kids run down the aisle to deposit each carrot individually as it was picked.  Ok, so Katie didn’t buy it, but the other three did…)  

The monkeys and their haul – four pounds of carrots. 

You could smell the sweet scent from the wheelbarrow (I don’t normally think of carrots as even having a smell…), and they tasted wonderful!  (after they were fully washed at home.)

Owen kindly explained that “locally grown food tastes much better than other food.”  Then, “Are these carrots locally grown?”

I stopped at a farm stand on the way home to get some eggs.  Unfortunately they were out of eggs, but these drew my eye.   I bought a half-dozen.  They made me feel so happy that I went back and got some for Lisa and two of my neighbors.

Independence

I like to let my monkeys learn things for themselves when whenever possible.  I want them to learn what works and what doesn’t work too.  In general, I think trying things out for yourself is the quickest means to that end.  And a whole lot less annoying than having someone tell you…

So, I have been trying to let Jack decide more things on his own – especially things concerning self-control (Let’s just say the he has less self-control than I would like to see.  He often knows a “sad” outcome of a decision he is about to make– having tearfully lived it the day before, but is too excited in the moment, and just acts on impulse without reality entering into his brain.)

So, I am starting small – with this.  Gum.  It is a very desirable object in our house. In case you are not familiar with this particular type of gum, it is six feet of pink heaven - to the preschool group anyway.

In the past, I have bought this for the boys, kept it in the cupboard, and monitored the amount removed from the container at gum-time.

A month ago I bought a pack each for Owen and Jack, and decided to let them keep it in their rooms.  They could decide when and how much to eat on their own terms.  They just had to spit it out when we were having a meal.  A few days later Owen got some of his gum, and Jack wanted some too, but found his container was empty.

Owen offered to share, but stingily doled it out in very small pieces – making Jack ask for more several times before he had accumulated enough for a normal sized mouthful.  Owen also did not allow Jack to touch the container (which is half the fun of this gum.)    I couldn’t help suggesting that Owen be a little kinder in his dealings with his brother, but let most of the interaction slide as Owen was the one who had saved his gum. 

Owen’s gum lasted for a few more frustrating “sharing” events.  Jack did not like that he was at the mercy of Owen, but did not have much choice.

Yesterday the boys each got a new pack of dreamy bubble tape.  Again I said that they could be in control of their own “rationing” and reminded Jack to think about how he felt when he ate his gum so quickly last time.

This morning, Bridget and Jack were playing upstairs and came downstairs barely able to talk.  Apparently they each had three feet of gum in their mouth.  (While this wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for, I did find it particularly funny… this is them singing “Grey Squirrel.”)

Yum. 

And this is what I almost stepped on in the garage a few hours later. Double yum.

So, I was not really sure how my little experiment was going.  Jack certainly did not slow down his eating of his gum, quite the opposite.  But that could mean two things.  He was impulsive, or he didn’t care all that much about not having his gum last as long as his brother.

A few hours later, I realized there was a third meaning.  He solved the consequence problem.  If Owen was going to have gum when Jack didn’t, Jack could certainly take care of that too…

A Painting Kind of Day

Eric started his second day of painting today.  He worked from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM! We have six individually framed windows that Eric had to tape off besides that floor and ceiling.  He was a trooper!!  I hung out with the boys most of the day, but did help in the evening for about 5 of those hours, but much of it was running to the store to buy more supplies.   We did finish tonight, so that is exciting.

One fun thing Eric did was paint the boys’ names on the wall  They thought it was the best thing ever.  I am not sure what they will think tomorrow when they realize it is gone.

I had some of my own painting to do – a sample work for the art lesson that the kindergarten kids in Owen’s school will do next month.  I let Owen and Jack do it so I knew it was kid friendly. 

Since the paint was already out, we decided we might as well get the most fun possible with it.

Owen’s masterpiece is, “A rainy day, and that’s the grass, and that is me and that is my you, Mama, holding my hand.”

 

Jack is big in to mixing colors and filling every tiny spot on the paper.

Jack’s masterpiece: “This is the sun, and this is the moon, and this is me when I was a tiny baby, and this is me when I was growing.  And this part where I was a tiny baby, that’s you, Mama, holding me so tight.”

It Takes a Village

After school I took Owen and Jack on a ferry ride to Bainbridge island with my friend Lisa and her daughters Katie and Sarah.  After taking the ferry back to Seattle, we decided to go out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant with Lisa’s husband, John.  (Poor Eric was in the middle of painting our bedroom and couldn’t make it...) 

For various reasons that I won’t bore anyone with, we made a staggered arrival in three separate cars.  Lisa ended up at the restaurant first with Katie in tow.  John arrived shortly afterwards with Jack, and I was farther behind with Sarah and Owen - having had bad luck with carseats and parking spots.

As Jack walked up to the restaurant, some old friends- Tom and Di, who have known Jack since he was born, were sitting at an outside table and recognized him.  They watched Jack standing there for several minutes without seeing Eric or myself  arrive, and became alarmed.  Di approached Jack and said hello, and started asking  where his parents were.  Of course, Shy-Jack kicked in.  Lisa claimed him, “He’s with me!” when she realized that Di was worried that he was alone.

I barely came into view of the restaurant before Di called out an enthusiastic greeting and came over to meet me.  Di told me how worried she had been for Jack when she didn’t see me, and was laughing about it, but I didn’t totally understand with she was saying.  In my mind Jack was fine being with Lisa and John, but of course Di would not have associated Jack with them at all.  It wasn’t until I sat down and Lisa was telling me the story again, and described that mom-panic-voice that Di had as she was talking to Jack, that I realized what had happened.

I imagine it wasn’t until Di saw me, that she could make a final confirmation that Lisa wasn’t some nut-job who had kidnapped Jack.

And I felt so great to know that there were so many people out there who care about my kids and my family.  That Di would wait until she knew Jack was safe before going back to her family dinner, that John would make Jack feel comfortable enough to ride in his car, and earlier in the day when Becca waited with Owen after school since I was running late, that Lisa took Owen when Jack was having a lie-on-the-ground-and-scream-tantrum because he didn’t get to cross the street while holding an orange flag and I wouldn’t let him run back into the street in protest.

In a big world, it is nice to know I am part of a small village.