aim? ball seventeen?

Note to self: throwing a ball at a small person's bat is a lot harder than it looks. But hey, it's a heckuva lot of fun to say, authoritatively, okay, kiddo. Now, you have to keep an eye on the ball...


Heh. As if I know anything about the subject.

Pax! Pax!

enter, the peas.

 Three types of them, to be precise - but the specifics of peadom were irrelevant next to the joy of the boy collecting stuff. Sigh.

No, wait - I lie. In truth, we love our jaunts out to the farm, especially this lovely local one. Getting ourselves out of the house takes a crack bunch of sheepdogs right now, and occasionally leaves me hoarse and gasping words that I really would rather the boys didn't learn. But then we're out, and a zip down the road from this quiet greenness, a wisely shaded picnic table, and this:

 In the field, the boys stop grumping about having to brush their teeth, there is no Lego to divert them to absolutely essential something that must come before changing out of their jammies. And I try not to gape at the idea that all of this joyful, careful focus is happening over - peas.

Yep. Snap peas, sugar peas, snow peas - and now? our peas.

What on earth will I do with them all?

so, in case you missed it? summer

of course, if you are at all unclear on the subject, you most definitely do not live at my house. Here, the mornings be loud and the afternoons be bitchy, and periodically the Eldest will wander over and explain that he is oh, so very tired. You know, he'll say confidingly, the Gigs* woke me up an hour - no, two hours - early this morning. Which is to say that, his brother woke up at his internally cuckoo-clocked hour of 6:something wee am, rather than letting the Eldest snooze until 7ish.

My parenting position on this sort of thing is, officially, that there are many reasons that it can suck to be the older child, and this might be one of them. Also, that the Eldest spent oh, five? years requiring us to make him the center of our attention - and gently accepting mid-field, slightly off-center. The morning adoration and play with me! It's a day! Let's play with something FUN! from his sibling is just deserts.



 So, yes. Summer. It started gently, with the Eldest transforming into lo! a fourth grader. Don't ask me what it means, except that I'm pretty sure that there's a growth spurt in there somewhere. Eventually. Also? A sudden, horrified awareness that if someone makes trouble, the mature, sensible fourth grader might be part of a group held responsible. Hm.

Shortly his mother stopped smirking in corners where she thought he couldn't see, the smaller one dusted off his hands, was offered and solemnly wielded the rose-shaped light saber of the Padawan, graduating to apprentice Jediship. (or some such) And I'm going to hold the grin in my tone here, but you know that it was a soggy occasion.

The Preschool of Wonders was wise enough not to equip their graduates with lightsabers - they gave them kiddush cups, instead. Armed with a nice bit of Judaica, the kidlets trotted happily off after a slightly adapted "Tick, Tock" song, wondering why that last line had come with a sudden round of adult mucus. They were, after all, going to see everyone on Visit Days, right?

::sniff::

With that taken care of, it was time to - well, to anything. The boys began with aerodynamics, 

 paused for a bit of whoop!

and went on to figure out how they could conquer the world.

And if you hadn't noticed, I suspect that I haven't been blogging nearly enough. Trust me - they did.


* Gigs, along with Trig and Gigabyte are a variety of names that we use for the really no longer toddling Toddles. For obvious, Palinesque reasons, I'm going to eschew the lovely Trig. Let's see if Gigs works for us - and your opinion is most welcome. The name is, of course, short for the Giggles.

ready, set - heyyyy!

With 1.5 days to go until the end of school, the Eldest pulled a stomach ache last night. By the 2 am run to the toilet (visit #5), I was persuaded. And the kid's home today, happily crashing the Toddles' special mama-time day. The Toddles had asked to go visit a yarn store, for yarn that I can play with. And make things with. But it has to be in our budget! (grin from the mama) Oh, and can we go to Starbucks?

Except, of course, that when you have a kid with the trots, not so much with the outings, right? Right. Not that he's had any trotting today.

By 10.45 am, the Eldest had played 'horsie' with the Toddles, helped him spread a few bins of teeny toys across the floor (and down the stairs, o joy), managed to require an icepack, and was asking about lunch. Having eaten, mind you, breakfast *and* a snack.

Um.

Feeling a strong urge to indulge in a round of the it's not faiiiiiiiir! wail, I've hidden myself upstairs to do something very mature: ogling chocolate. And just when I've discovered that the glorious, lovely Alpha Confectioners do not ship to the US, and I've managed to deal with/ignore (thereby allowing the sibs to build relationship problem solving skills, dont'cha know - it's what all the cool? sane? mamas are doing. no, really.) the umpteenth sib crisis, and I'm about to consign my two to offspring perdition, they go and do something like this:

Okay, says the Eldest, checking a book. We're going to need a potato, two metal forks and two plastic forks.

(I choose not to ask why. It feels safer.)

I'm ready! says the Toddles. I have a big pad of paper and a pencil! I'm ready! What do I write again?

The Eldest looks at me, fractionally hoping that I'll rescue him from dictating to his brother. I grin back, ruthlessly. He pauses, sets his shoulders, and turns to his brother, who is now bouncing alarmingly with a freshly sharpened pencil. (eeeeep?)

Okay, the Eldest begins. First, you write 'potato.' Then, 'two metal forks.' Then, 'two plastic forks.' Got that?

The Toddles looks game, but how does the potato word start? His brother explains.

One careful 'p' later, the Toddles grins proudly, and the Eldest applauds. But do you want to write the rest? asks the little. You're better at it - you've got more practice.

Oh, no, says the Eldest, earnestly. You are a great writer! You can do it - it's just going to be slow, because you are a new writer. But I'm very excited for you to do this writing.

Chocolate urge vanished, I trotted off for a nice, triumphant cackle. We might've been catapulted early into summer, but this? this I might be able to handle. Of course, it would help if my stomach stopped heaving about like that....

urgh.