Gracious Goodness

Here is my excuse for my lack of posts lately:  "........"

I have none.

Mostly it's just that I've been so busy enjoying the embarrassment of riches this time of year brings, I haven't made time to write about it.  Which is a shame, so I've made an internal deal with myself to post with a certain frequency throughout the summer.  I'm not going to tell you how often that is, because the end of spring/ beginning of summer always turns me into a foolish optimist ("We're going to do a craft every week!  And go on many educational excursions!  And do two separate library summer reading programs!  And volunteer this many hours!  And blog every day!" whoops); not to worry, come mid-July, the children will have whined/bickered/ground me down into submission, and I will be back to my somewhat cranky self.

Still, it's not July yet!  It's spring, and it's Atticus and Adelaide's last day of school- as a matter of fact, they'll be home for lunch- and my mom and Mark are coming for a visit, and we're eating at Zombie Burger tonight, and I have so many things blooming in my yard!  Exclamation points!!!!!!

So, what haven't I told you about that May brought to us in all her glory?  First off, these gorgeous petunias, courtesy of Derek's mom:

Adelaide was with her grandma when they walked by these at a nursery, and Daughter was immediately besotted, saying they looked like a starry night.  And wouldn't you know?  

Becky then generously got them for us.  Thank you, Becky/Grandma/Mom/Flower Enabler!

The rhubarb has been plentiful, but because my rhubarb is somehow always very green with little lovely, traditional red coloring, the desserts I make with it end up tasting delicious but appearing very questionable indeed.

That rhubarb cheesecake bar is topped with rhubarb sauce, not salsa verde, as it might appear.  Señor Google informs me that my rhubarb is most likely green because of the cultivar I have, and that if I want red rhubarb, I will need to plant a different type, which means I need to get that in this year, as we all know of the cruel constraint that requires you to keep your dirty gardener's mitts off of rhubarb until the second year after you've planted it.

Other May happenings:  Adelaide turned 10.  TEN.  DOUBLE DIGITS.

That is the long bow Caedmon made as a gift for his sister out of a tree branch, twine, and kebob skewers.  More on Adelaide and sharp objects soon.

Speaking of Adelaide, Caedmon was organizing our art cabinet (Caedmon loves to organize spaces- drawers, corners, whatever, if you have a mess, he will have a blast organizing it for you.  I can only think he gets this from Derek, because it sure as heck isn't from me.), and found some old coloring and activity books.  One was Adelaide's that she filled in when she was four, maybe five years old, and it sure brought me back to that fun-yet-always-morbid stage went she through.

It reads, "Pinkalicious Likes to Sing- Can you make up a song?  Write the words here."  (Adelaide's words edited for clarity.)  "I love Jesus I pray the Lord God to keep me safe when I'm scared and when I think my family's dead."  

If I had a time machine, it would behoove past Me to go back a few years and tell myself, "DON'T WORRY.  She grows out of this."  Except according to Back to the Future and Albus Dumbledore, those time-traveling sages, one should never meet up with oneself.  Paradox!

And speaking of our resident Organizer, he graduated from preschool.

Cute as a dang button, both of them.  Adelaide there in the background, well, she's also cute, but in a ferret-y kind of way, at least in this shot.

We do still have an Atticus.  He's been lying the grass, responding to my queries of, "What shapes do you see in the clouds, Bud?" with answers like, "Mostly cirrus.  Wait, there's a nimbus cloud!"  So much for sweetness and whimsy.

He's also getting ganglier and bigger-footed by the minute, I swear.  

In other good news, apparently today is National Doughnut Day, a made-up holiday I can actually get behind.  Here's to grossly unhealthy rings of doughy goodness I plan on consuming with wanton abandon!

Semi-Sweet

This week I've been driving our kids to the school bus stop in the mornings, because although I know we can survive twenty minutes outside in single digit temps, I choose not to.  I'm generally a "Why drive when you can walk?" kind of person, so I've had our children out in some extremely questionable weather in the past (number of times kind citizens of our community have stopped their cars or stepped out of buildings to ask if we need a ride:  Countless.  In my defense, our little town stretches out for no more than a few miles at its widest point.  This is not exactly the Trail of Tears I'm forcing our kids down here.), so our children have welcomed this reprieve.

The older two wait in our vehicle until they see the bus getting ready to round the block toward them, then they hop out and go to stand in line.  Every day this week, from the back of the van, Caedmon has given voice to the fierce war waging within him:  "Ohhhh.  I really want to go say good-bye just one more time.  But it's cold outside!  The bus is coming.  I-I- MOM, I NEED TO GET OUT."

He then bolts out the van, and scurries up to Adelaide to hug her tightly one last time before she leaves him for seven long hours.  

Caedmon's in the orange coat and blue hat, squeezing his sister.  Pardon the frost patterns and snow in the foreground; I don't get out of my vehicle even for a picture, so this was taken through the windshield.

Today Atticus got a hug, too, although there's no picture of that embrace as it was quick and very perfunctory.  

You would think that this would mean that Caedmon loves it when we go to his sister's school to eat lunch with her, but no.  Absolutely not.  He gets very quiet and increasingly downtrodden as more and more fourth grade girls squeal over him and say to Adelaide, "Oh mah gahsh.  Your little brother is SO CUTE.  He is adorable.  Oh em gee.  Look at his face.  Look at his Batman hat.  Do you think he'd give me a hug?"  

It got bad enough last time that Adelaide took the worst offender, a very nice but rather loud girl aside and said, "Privately, I agree with you, Caedmon is cute, but you really shouldn't say that in front of him; he considers it very offensive to be called 'cute' or 'little' or anything like that."  

By the time we left, he hadn't said a word in thirty minutes and his shoulders were hunched up around his ears.  All he'll say about the lunch experiences is that he does not like to be around so many bigger kids, and he does not like to be called cute.  Fair enough.  

None of this is terribly surprising given how loud and crowded and busy Adelaide's lunch room is, and I'm able to watch as it begins to overwhelm our youngest within minutes of our arrival, but I was in Caedmon's preschool for two hours yesterday morning for his Valentine party, and you want to talk about overwhelming?  So loud.  So shrill.  And it's busy-ness borders on a swarm at times.  It is nuts in there.  It's always incredible to watch how Cade's preschool teachers can begin singing any of the songs they use to transition from one activity to another, because all those children who were I swear about to go Lord of the Flies on each other settle down and start cleaning up or washing their hands or sitting on the carpet.  I guess it really is the presence of bigger kids that overwhelms our son so much.

Those same magical preschool teachers had also instructed that their students were only to write their own names on their Valentines; scratching out the recipients' names on nineteen pieces of paper is too cumbersome for little hands, and it's much easier just to go through a line and drop a Valentine in each sack, not worrying about which one goes to whom.

Our Caedmon, however, threw a wrench in this whole plan Wednesday night when I stated how happy I was that all his Valentines had been finished for days, as he'd already written his name on every last one.  He grew upset, started honest-to-God weeping, and through a torrent of tears told me that "But Mom, the Valentines all say 'To:' and I can't just leave those blank!  It'll look stupid!  You're supposed to write who each one is to, Mom!"  Then I began sorting through them, and he had already phonetically spelled out half the names of the kids in his class: Noah was Nou, Drake was Drak, etc, etc.

And that is how Caedmon got to stay up past his bedtime doing something his preschool teachers told him expressly not to do.

Melchior, Gaspar, and Caedmon

Caedmon had his first ever Christmas program last Friday night.  Before we left the house, we had a stern talk with the other two offspring:  "Listen, your little brother has sat through your concerts and programs and junk for years, and it is finally his turn, so you are going to sit there and you are going to listen and you are going to LIKE IT."

Not that Atticus and Adelaide needed much prodding; it was obvious that Caedmon was attaching a large amount of importance to this little preschool program when he began rehearsing his line two weeks beforehand.  "And myrrh,"  "AND myrrh," "And MYRRH."  This from the boy who has entire monologues memorized from the audio versions of Hank the Cowdog and The Jesus Storybook Bible, both in the narrators' Texas and English accents, respectively.  I don't think he was really worried about forgetting the words he was responsible for, exactly, he just wanted to nail them.

Ours is the wise man in the middle.

And my gosh, nail them he did.  He projected "AND MYRRH!" clear to the back of that church, after helping the first two wise men remember their own lines, of course.  Well, I don't think he was helping them remember, exactly, as much as making sure they delivered them in a fashion acceptable to our son's high performance standards.  There was whispering and prodding and I've decided that if Caedmon were a dog he would be one of those breeds that herd and nudge other animals into place.  Maybe a sheepdog.

He was this happy the entire time he was up there.  

Although you can't see them, underneath the wise man getup are his fancy duds (oxford shirt + sweater vest bought at a garage sale last summer for this exact occasion, $1.50 for both thankyouverymuch), which he was so smugly pleased with he wore them to bed post-program.  Then, after I woke him early the next morning because we had a bit of a drive to get to Crisler Christmas (which, yes, is a thing), he stumbled out of his room, all warm and rumpled and still in his Christmas program outfit, and asked if he could wear it to Crisler Christmas, all while rubbing his eyes sleepily.  Because Derek and I both have a functioning hearts, we told him he could, but to brush his teeth and wash his hands, or something.

See?  Cute as a dang button.

I did make him take them off that night, because I am a cruel mother with an unnatural penchant for washing dirty clothes, or so goes the tale of woe Caedmon is currently telling.

Sad Faces and Newsletters

It's the week before Christmas, which means I've stopped in between each word of this sentence to add something else to my grocery list.  A forgotten ingredient for the chili we're bringing to Crisler Christmas this Saturday, a can of frosting for Atticus's Polar Express party next week, ground ginger because Adelaide reminded me we haven't made any kind of gingerbread concoctions so far this year and that is a hanging offense in her book.  She tends to moderate her requests so much that when she asks for something, I jump to accommodate her.  Hang on, was I just outsmarted by Daughter?  Again?

This week has also brought things like cookie decorating day at Caedmon's preschool.

Parents were invited to stay and help decorate the creations, and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of Caedmon's time away from me.  It turns out Cade is an interesting mix of Derek and myself, which has somehow turned him into an early reader who isn't afraid to shout out the answers to every question the teacher asks, not giving anyone else a chance to answer anything.  This is why I sound like a Catholic nun anytime I'm around his teachers, constantly saying, "Bless you," and patting them in solidarity.

This week- this morning, actually- I've also been sure to brush off Caedmon's fears to go downstairs by himself, especially when he cites "the sad face in the kitchen" as the basis of his worry.  When I finally sigh in resignation and hold his hand as we go down the stairs and into the kitchen together, this is what greets me:

That is indeed a sad face in the kitchen.  It's also the back of the toaster oven, which I'd forgotten I'd moved in order to make room for our demon printer that refused to print the Christmas newsletter I finally finished last night.  Something about needing both ink and paper to work.  I'm sure once I've replenished our supply of both, it will still refuse to work simply because my IT guy won't be here.  (Note:  My IT guy is Derek.  He's also the Information Technology guy for various family members and at work, despite the fact that he is not an actual IT guy.)

At this point I'm just thankful the dang newsletter is written, because it is tortuous to write.  Scratch that; it's fun to write, but tortuous to read.  Derek asked me to read it aloud to him last night, and I got three sentences in before I thrust the laptop at him and told him to please, please, please read it to himself, silently.  I knew that if I read one more word aloud I would no longer be able to fight the compulsion to delete the whole thing because it's all TRASH, UTTER GARBAGE.  

I love reading the holiday newsletters that come in our mail from our loved ones.  It's one of my very favorite things!  I don't put any of those newsletters through the interrogation that our own has to go through:  Is this thing too braggy?  Boring?  Overly long?  Cutesy?  Too detailed?  Am I making our imperfect lives seem too perfect?  The structure seems off.  My syntax is a travesty.  When did my vocabulary disintegrate?  WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER WITH ANY OF THIS?

Then I remind myself for the millionth time that reading these same things from our friends and family is ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS, and trust all the recipients to be gentle and forgiving of any flaws, because that is what relationships are about, and why we do silly things like Christmas cards:  To build and continue relationships.

Except for that one family whose photos and letter and very lives seem like one flawless package, delivered specially to our mailbox every December.  They suck.

Pretties from a Wednesday Run

When you do outside stuff like running or cycling or walking, you get to know your own corner of the universe quite well.  I tend to stick with the same routes when I'm running because my sense of direction is questionable at the best of times, and while attempting to move at a faster pace than normal, well... I'm going to be nice to myself and just say that my brain goes on autopilot and can't be bothered by trifles like "Turn left on 550th Ave unless you want to be stranded on a random gravel road with no idea where you are but with an exceptional view of acre upon acre of cornfields."

Anyway.

Many routes around here consist of miles of straight paths and fields, which is lovely in its own way, but today's was a little more entertaining, provided you find things like trees entertaining, which I definitely do.

Look!  Apiaries!  I love these things, and it always heartens me to see them; I'm always afraid of certain things dying out, but it would seem that beekeeping is not.  Just the bees.  No big deal.

(Note:  If you're looking for an excellent, excellent nonfiction children's book about bees and the honeybee crisis, I highly recommend The Hive Detectives:  Chronicle of a Honeybee Catastrophe.  For two years it has remained one of Adelaide's favorites.  It pulled me in, too.) 

Something about this view makes me think of the scene in Mary Poppins when Bert is drawing with chalk and creates a path that leads out of view.  Remember Dick Van Dyke's "British" accent in that movie?  (Suspicious quotation marks intentional.)  As a kid I didn't think twice about it, but the first time I viewed it as an adult it added an entirely new (accidental) layer of comedy to the movie.

The truly glorious aspect of the above photo, though?  SHADE, GLORIOUS SHADE.

And then I found this snake!  I almost tripped over him, which would have been unfortunate for the both of us and cut short a fated friendship.  Not to worry, fellow snake lovers:  I moved him to the side of the road post-photo shoot, after I'd yelled non-sequiturs like "FIERCE!" and "WORK!" at him while snapping pictures.  Because as far as I can tell, that's what fashion photographers do.

What type of tree creates this perfectly tree-shaped tree, I wonder?

Hello, Ballard creek.  I swear, whenever and wherever I cross you, you are stunning.

This may be my favorite view of all, as it means I am done.  I've been dropping Caedmon off at preschool, then leaving my vehicle parked there to set out for my run, so when I arrive back at the school, it means walking and then water and then sitting.

The preschool is only on the basement level of the building; the rest is the dwelling of the teacher and her family.  Not pictured are the goats and chickens and yoga mats.  Yes, it is that kind of preschool, and our kids love it.

Also not pictured were today's strong winds, which was the only thing that kept me from overheating.  I love strong winds during a run and in general, but I recently saw this video and had to admit that a lack of wind could have its benefits:

Chandelier Tree from Colin Kennedy on Vimeo.

Caedmon the Preschooler

Yesterday marked the first day where we had all three children in school, at the same time, for at least a portion of the day.

That's right:  Caedmon started preschool.

First thing yesterday morning, while attempting to rouse Atticus for the day, I heard Caedmon begin to stir in his bed a few feet away.  He usually burrows deeper into the covers for at least a little while, but not on this day:  He sat straight up and joyously exclaimed, "PRESCHOOL'S TODAY!"

We didn't have to leave for preschool for nearly an hour after dropping the older two off at the bus stop, so he had plenty of time to get ready and squirm around and not eat his breakfast out of pure excitement.  I made him stand on the front porch for pictures before we left, the same as his siblings have every year on their first days; while this induces eye-rolling on the part of the other two, he was so excited to finally be included in this little ritual, he dashed right out the door and held unusually still while I wielded the camera.  It was adorable.

So

ridiculously

 excited.

He was also wearing a shirt that is too small, his shoes were on the wrong feet, and I'm pretty sure those are his brother's shorts.  He was so proud to have "picked out exactly the right clothes for my first day of preschool," I didn't have the heart to make him change.

Then it was time to take him to the school.

Derek had the morning off work, so he and I both got to walk him in.

There was a lot of energy in the school, anxious and excited kids rocketing around, anxious and excited parents standing around, along with the ubiquitous crying kid following the teachers around.  Caedmon marched right ahead of us through the door, hanging up his jacket in the coatroom and moving the attendance rock with his name on it to the "present" basket.  He hugged each of us several times in farewell, and then Derek and I left.  

Thankfully I had somewhere to be immediately after, so my emotions didn't even have a chance to catch up to current events and turn on me. Derek dropped me off at the coffee shop, where I was forced to have a salted caramel latte; I mean, it was our baby's first day of preschool, after all.  I coped by spending the bulk of the morning sitting around discussing Jesus and stuff with my friends while Derek went to the gym.  To my bible study ladies:  You make everything better.

Before long it was time to pick Caedmon up again, where he had tales of chocolate chunk granola bars and a new friend (the crier, strangely enough; Caedmon is not historically the most compassionate or sympathetic of children, so I was heartened by this discovery) and a book about a raccoon.  

Hallelujah and pass the peaches.  We made it.

UPDATE:  Okay, so I was doing fine until I went hunting for these pictures of Atticus headed off to the same preschool a couple years ago with a two-year-old Caedmon, who refused to be left out of the picture:

Or how about this one of an apprehensive Adelaide, headed to a different preschool but with the same teacher?

Look at tiny, 1-year old Atticus!  Not pictured is giant me 9 months pregnant with Caedmon, who was born a mere eight days later.  

Sheesh.  I think this is what they mean when they talk about "borrowing trouble."  

Mission Boredom: Accomplished

Remember how I said we were going to try and make things dull around here for Caedmon to get him excited for preschool?  Well, our evil plan has worked:  He now cannot wait.  I'm sure the Back to School night his preschool hosted last night helped, with the playground and toys and goats, but I like to think Derek and I played our boring parents-part rather well.

Earlier this week we made sure to spend plenty of time at the cell phone store, which was filled with lovely people but not so many kid-friendly things.  The one toy they have kind of exhausted its potential for Cade when we were there FOREVER last Saturday, so he had to sit there and listen to me talk to the very nice employee (she just got married, and has worked at the store for five years, and works crazy, crazy hours, with very little downtime in those hours) and Derek listen to the random fellow customer who approached my husband to tell him he looks a bit like Peyton Manning.  This happens more than you might think.

Then yesterday he got to sit in the next- most fun place for small children:  A car dealership!  What fun!  There he participated in ever so exciting activities like:

• Bring Daddy Golf Digest magazine
• Watch Mommy oooh and aaaah over the giant fancy coffee machine
• Sit and watch Daddy fill out paperwork
• Visit the bathroom
• Listen to salesmen talk about deathly boring things like vans and interest rates

Poor kid.  No wonder he wants to visit the land of chickens and crafts four days a week; this only child business (while the other two are in school) is for the birds.

The other person to be pitied around here is Derek, because while all things smart phone-related are old hat for him, everything is exciting! And new! And fancy! for me.  He has already threatened to block me for sending him an excess of eggplant emojis.  "None of your emoticons make sense," he says.  Making sense = not a priority for me.  I just pick the things I think are pretty.  This makes me a gem to live with.   

I couldn't figure out how to get the darling picture of Caedmon appropriate to this post off my phone and onto here.  In its stead, please accept this disturbing picture of a hand-drawn William Shakespeare featuring Atticus's eyeballs staring through and into your soul.

Hey, look!  I figured it out Derek told me how to do it!

Atticus! Preschool! Excitement! Exclamation Points!

Today is the day we've been looking forward to for a while now.

Atticus went to preschool this morning.

We went through a rough patch at church where he quite simply did not want to be parted from us to go to his class, but he got over that several months ago.  He will still occasionally display some separation anxiety-fueled behaviors, however, so I was a little concerned about how this morning was going to go.  At first he didn't seem nervous while getting ready, but at one point he looked up at me, face anxious, and asked, "Am I going to make some friends at school like Adelaide did?"  I reassured him that he would, then commenced worrying about how the drop-off would go.

I needn't have feared.  He held tightly to my hand as we walked around his (fabulous) preschool, but when it was time for Caedmon and I to leave, he couldn't even be bothered to turn around and say good-bye, so engrossed was he in the new-found toys.  I had to hug his back.

(Is it just me, or do I sound all formal right now?  I've been writing some serious emails today, and I feel like I'm having trouble getting out of Professional-Time-To-Sound-Intelligent Mode.  I mean, "needn't"?  Seriously?)

Caedmon had a rougher time than his big preschool-going brother.  When we went to the school's open house a couple weeks ago, he kept asking questions like, "Where's my seat?  Where's my bag?  Which hook is mine?" and at home, he's been engaging in every preschool-related conversation like he was planning on attending right alongside Atticus.  We've been pretty careful to tell him that he'll get to go in two years, when he's four, but what's a year to a two-year-old?  It's both tomorrow and it's forever, that's what.

He accepted my hand when it was time to leave the brightly colored, toy- and book-filled, chicken-occupying (yup, there's a chicken coop right next to the playground where they get to hold the chickens and help collect eggs, oh yeah, and friendly sheep right on the other side of the fence), enthusiastic teacher-led, way-more-fun-than-you'll-ever-have-at-home preschool.  Hence, I have no idea why his little face was so downcast and his voice started to hitch when he said, "But I don't wanna play with the toys at home."  So I did what any super-mom would do:

I bribed him with a chocolate muffin at the coffee shop.  Go, me.




Requisite First Day photo:

Right before this Cade said, "You forgot to give me my bag, Mommy!"  Oy.

And then there's this one that his teacher took, which shows Atticus in one of his personal versions of heaven: Surrounded by pretty girls.  No wonder he's excited to go back.

He was so excited to show me what he'd made when I picked him up, and to tell me what he had for a snack, and what he got to play with, and to tell me that "I get to come back tomorrow!"

Sounds like a pretty successful first day to me.