June wrap-up

I'm waaayy late on getting all the stuff out about what happened in June, which is too bad because it was a fun, busy month. But I know that it will bug me if I never get anything written at all. So, just for my own satisfaction, here's June in a nutshell: the fireflies are out at night, the pool is open, the cat spends more time out of the house than in, the garden is planted, etc...

And, another season of soccer is over. Phew!

We had both Olivia and Max signed up on teams, which added up to be a whole heck of a lot of practices. Yikes. But this year Adam signed up to be Max's team's coach, so I got off easy and he drove to all of those practices instead.

Olivia may have been her team's most enthusiastic player, even if not the most skillful. She really, really loved it...and what more can you ask.

Next, we spent most days doing what we do best in the summer: hanging out at the pool. It wasn't so easy with the many days of rain that we had this month, but we really did our best. It gives me an excuse to not have cleaned any of my house, fixed any decent food, or kept the yard weeded if we had to spend most of the day at the pool.

And Max finished another season of swim team again. Luckily he's still in it just for the fun, but it helped that he did get a couple of first places in his individual events, including his 25yd butterfly.

While Max's weekends were taken up with swim team, Adam decided to take the girls up to NYC to see Sha-sha for a weekend.

They went to an art festival on Governor's Island where one of the art exhibits was a huge pile of rose petals to play in. Apparently they were there for a very, very long time. Adam had been meaning to write his own post on this trip, so I'm sorry if I just stole your thunder, but I'm just thought something was better than nothing, and because I know that somtimes ye olde blogging can really get away from you.

Then my sister Jessica came to spend a week with us.

She's an ideal summer visitor--she's great company for conversation and shopping, she will have a splash fight in the water with your son, will french braid your daughter's hair when you don't know how, and will laugh at all your husband's jokes no matter how corny.

We looove having Aunt Jessie around, especially because it just seems like she's part of the family after the summer she spent with us a couple of years ago. But I admit, she spoiled me most of all by being an extra (and willing) pair of hands for putting sunscreen on kids, making sandwiches for lunch, changing a stinky baby. Maybe she didn't get much of a restful vacation, but we all loved having her around. Thank you, thank you.

At the end of that week Jessie's husband Ryan (aka, "Uncle Ry-nan" by Isabel) came in to spend the weekend with us. This was about the first real chance we've had to get to know him since they got married. We tried to show him a good time, Delaware-style, (at least during the small breaks we had between thunderstorms) with some Italian subs from Cassapulla's and some Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer, a trip to Longwood Gardens (in the pouring rain), and a stop at Woodside Farms creamery. We found out that he's a pretty awesome uncle and bro-in-law, especially after his putting up with a really long game night.

And my friend Hope, who now lives in the Czech Republic so I never get to see her, sent Saul this amazing sweater that she knitted herself. I'm pretty in love with it, but also because it was Hope who originally taught me how to knit several years ago and gave me some fabulous yarn that I used to make Olivia the first (and probably) only sweater I've ever made. I've not done any serious knitting for a while, but this sweater is inspiring me to pull it back out and try again. Many, many thanks Hope! Speaking of this cute baby, he is only getting bigger and bigger...which I now have serious reservations about. Even though I've spent so much of the past few months working on getting him to grow, I'm pretty sure that I want him to stay my tiny baby forever. I couldn't have custom ordered a sweeter, happier, more social and smiley baby. (And it doesn't hurt a lick that he's already sleeping a good 10 hours at night--wahoo!)

These photos are thanks to my friend Emilie and her magical photo skills. I keep asking her to be my family's private photographer, but she keeps not doing it.

Finally, Adam's Grandma Fitzpatrick passed away. She was in her 90s and was ill, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. But still, Adam said that the funeral was more emotional than he had anticipated. He was very glad to go to Florida with his mom and sister, to spend time with them, and to learn all those things that you learn and appreciate about a person after they've died that somehow you don't learn in the same way while they're alive. It definitely won't be the same without Grandma Fitzpatrick alive anymore.

Well, I think that's it for now.

Same Girl, New Smile

When Olivia was 2 years old she had an accident involving a collision of her two front teeth and our raised, stone fireplace hearth. It was nasty. Suprisingly enough, once her teeth grew back down out of her gums, they came out of the whole ordeal looking decently normal. Until recently.

Wierd stuff started happening with them, and so the dentist recommended that they both be pulled and the gums cleaned up in order to get everything ready for the permanent teeth that would be coming down sometime in the next year or so. Deal. And let's be sure to get this done before we're off to Adam's brother's wedding and all the pictures that will be taken. Can't have a girl with crazy teeth in those, now can I!

In order to get her ready for this event I told her all about when I was in Kindergarten and I had a bike accident that left me two-front-teeth-less (and I stayed that way until almost the end of 3rd grade) and how that night my parents bought me a milkshake for dinner and that I got to eat it in my Grandma Smith's bed watching TV and feeling rather pampered. So I promised her a shake for dinner, even though I couldn't promise a night out at Grandma's. And then I told her about the song she could sing at Christmas wishing for two new front teeth....to which she basically replied, "Why would only want two front teeth for Christmas?"

Now, the big day has come, and she was a champ. The earlier picture is her coming home from the extraction (as they call it) feeling a bit tenuous about smiling, but by the afternoon she was ready to hit the pool.

Looking good, eh!

Second Grade

Even though Max has been out of school for several weeks now, it's taken me this long to get around to writing about his year of 2nd grade. It's funny for me to have him be finished with 2nd grade now as I remember quite a lot of my own second grade year. It's one more thing that tells me that he's really growing up (and that maybe I'd better be taking this parenting thing a wee bit more seriously if he's going to start remembering everything!).

Actually, he had a great year. We were both really happy with his teacher, his best friend Elliott was in his class, and he was accepted to be in the school's TAG (accelerrated learning) program. And speaking of, since this is my blog, I feel a bit of bragging coming on. I mean, every child has their strengths, afterall. Max may draw like a 4-year old, but, boy he can read! And this year he really proved what a bookworm he is.

The school uses a reading program where each student, after reading a book, can take a computerized reading comprehension test. Each test has a different number of questions and number of points awarded for each question answered correctly that is based on the book's grade level--the higher level the book, the more points possible to earn, etc.. So, by the end of the year, we learned that Max had read so many books, and at such high reading levels, and had gotten so many of these comprehension questions correctly answered, that not only was he highest scoring second-grader, but that he had the 5th-highest score in the whole school. And since the school is grades K-8, I'd say that's pretty awesome. Way to go, Max!

And here's a little poem that he wrote for class about what life will be like when he turns 100 (....original spelling preserved):

When I am 100
by Max

When I am 100 I will be old.
I will have wrickles.
I will not go out side.
I will read all day.
I will go to the store slowly.
I go almost never.

That's how I will be.

Finally, I had to include this picture of Saul visiting Max's class on the last day of school because I just loved how many of the kids in class came and swarmed the stroller to get a look at the baby. It's fun to have even a bunch of 8yr old boys love seeing a new baby.

3 Months

Look who's 3 months old!

And what a boy he is too.

He smiles, he coos, he drools, he produces toots that smell like they came from my 27yr old brother,

he attracts the adoring gaze of many,

and....drumroll, please....he eats.

Much, much better, thank you.

I think that by the end of this week he'll be into the 9lb range.

So here's a picture just to show off the last of his chicken-legs.

neighbors

Let me explain the above photo. It is 8am and this is Max on his way to the bus stop with our neighbor Sammy, whose Mom stops by our house every morning and picks him up. What it doesn't show is that I am probably still in my pj's with one or both girls still sleeping in bed (and now the baby) and that I'm not forced to drag any of them out of bed/house in order to take Max to the bus myself. And for me, this is huge--especially when the temperature is in the teens. Then, in the afternoon, if I don't show up at the bus stop myself (because, again, I have a sleeping baby or maybe because my toenail polish is still drying), she'll bring him home for me. Have I mentioned before how much I love my neighbors? If not, then it's long overdue.

This weekend marks the 4-year anniversary of our moving into this house. I'll admit, there have been plenty of hard and stressful things about our house specifically, and trust me, I've complained plenty. Nevertheless, with each year I'm increasingly convinced that we were divinely led to be here, with one of the biggest blessings being our neighbors.

How do I put this....I love my ward community. A lot. And having a strong ward/church community is really, really important to me, especially as a parent. But I have also found that it is easy to become socially insulated within a ward, so Adam and I long ago decided that we would always work to also build and nuture a community that was outside of our church interactions. Our neighbors made that easy because we moved not just to Delaware, but to the 1950s.

Really.

It's the kind of neighborhood that when you drive through it, anyone out working on their yard or walking their dog on the street will wave to you (that really freaked me out in the beginning--I don't know you, why are you waving at me!). Most of the moms are still stay-at-home-moms; most of the families are still two-parent-families; the moms will hang at the bus stop to chat in the afternoon; the kids run through the surrounding yards to get to eachother's houses (as there are no fences separating everyone's property); there's candlelight caroling at the covered bridge at Christmas time (yes, there's also a covered bridge in the neighborhood!); Halloween is an all-out block party; when babies are born, people show up with dinners and gifts and offers of babysitting; and do I have to say any more about the Pool Club! Ultimately, we find ourselves living in a little slice of surburban paradise.

Tonight we hosted a small neighborhood open house to say goodbye to our immediate nextdoor neighbors, Jeanne and Andy, a super sweet elderly couple who are this month moving to a retirement community. They are original to the neighborhood, and in fact, our street, Abbey Road, is named after Andy's first (late) wife, Abigail--the street existed before the Beatles Album, afterall. They are part of what made me feel like we lived in a kind of time-warp, and it's not just because their immaculately kept house is still furnished the way it was when they built it in 1956. It's because they pass out apples on Halloween; they are generous with sharing eggs or vanilla or nutmeg when I come up short; Jeanne makes me homemade scrubbing pads from the mesh bag that onions are packaged in; they bring us leftover desserts after having hosted their church group; they invite Adam for dinner if I am out of town with the kids; Jeanne occasionally comes over for a chat and bringing some handiwork, she with her knitting, I with my unfolded laundry; Andy brings us flowers from his greenhouse (have you ever smelled a night blooming cereus flower--intoxicating!); and they collect little items from around their house, like toothpicks and corks, that they think the kids would want to use for art projects. They are so kind and gentle to our kids. I'll miss them dearly.

Jeanne now tells me that she's praying for us--praying that the new neighbors will work out and be good replacements.

Oh, so am I.

On Pools and Pottys and Expectations

Or, on being Shirley "I've got my happy face on today!" Hastings.

Remember waaaay back last summer when I was all, "Olivia can swim!" Well, I do, but apparently Olivia doesn't. Yesterday I held a little swim clinic in our bathtub where we could practice some important swimming techniques like, oh, putting your whole face in the water. Other clinics have included laying face down on an ironing board in order to practice using "big arms." Although the most progress that we made with that one was to get her arms to stroke forward rather than backward. Yes, it looks as uncomfortable as it sounds. And now we've spent every weekday evening of the last two weeks at the neighborhood swim team practice where I watch her smile and smile and have the greatest time ever, except that the whole time she's clinging to either the coach's neck or the kick board. And, strangely enough, she totally thinks she's a swimmer!

I'll let her think it until tomorrow when they have the Time Trials and then they kick her off the team because she can't swim the full length of the pool on her own. Never mind that it's really me--the one pacing at the side of the pool during practice giving out additional instructions and acting like an over-zealous stage mom--who will have to be let down easy when it comes to this finality that swim team is not in her schedule for this summer. Ok, ok...I know it doesn't matter, that there's always next year, that at least she's happy....but I had such high hopes! Oh, Shirley, I get it.

And then remember when I was all, "Isabel will totally be potty trained before the baby is born!" Well--surprise, surprise--she's totally not. I might as well have announced that I was giving my cat cooking lessons and putting him in charge of this year's Thanksgiving dinner. We've run the gauntlet of success and failure over the past few months with a particularly low moment on one day where by the end of it she had pooped in her pants five times (who poops five times a day!) and I couldn't help but take it personally. Please, please, please tell me you've been there too. There I was, kneeling in front of her next to the toilet, my hands gripping her shoulders, and my face in hers, and all the frustration comes boiling out as I basically lose it telling her, "YUCKY! YUCKY! YUCKY!" And, her little lip starts quivering, and in my mind all I can think is, "That's right, you just go ahead and cry!"

Let's just say, using shame as a method of potty training is equally unsuccessful.

And here I didn't think that these expectations were all that outrageous?! But until they're ready, I'm going to do the best I can to just wear my happy face.

p.s. Olivia is now asking me if she can go swim in the bathtub again. So can we count that as progress?

Adam just finished reading The Hobbit to our kids. So, I had to smile when yesterday in church and one of the speakers used the word, habit, that Olivia perked up and asked,

"Why is he talking about Hobbits?"