Spoken like a True Fisherman

Here we are in mid-July, months after my last post. And I know I have a lot of catching up to do! But I won't let perfect be the enemy of the good. So I'm making a note of this little gem.

William has been in fishing camp this week, and he absolutely LOVES it. They've gone to a different lake or pond each day to fish. They go out in row boats or fish from the shore or even wade into the water. Tomorrow they're going on a boat in the Chesapeake. Yesterday he came home with a container of chicken livers that he bought to use as bait for catfish. (I was thinking he'd spend his money on a Slurpee or something, but whatever!) On Monday, he caught five fish. On Tuesday, he caught three. Yesterday, however, he only caught one.

I asked him if he was disappointed that he only caught one, even though they fished for close to 4 hours. With a huge smile on his face, he said, "No way, Mama. Even if you only catch one, it's still totally worth it."

Next weekend, we are going camping with three other families. Fishing is DEFINITELY on the agenda, and William proudly proclaimed that he will be in charge. Fingers crossed that the fish will be biting at the campsite!

Happy 8th Birthday William!

Dear William,

Today you turn 8 years old. I can hardly believe how quickly the time has gone by, and yet, it's sometimes hard to remember the shy, focused baby or the happy, truck-loving toddler that you once were. Your 8th year of life has been pretty awesome. You traveled to Mexico (and loved it!). You finished 1st grade and started 2nd grade and made a lot of new friends. You learned to write in cursive. You went camping twice. You wore a tuxedo in your cousin Ashley's wedding. You spent lots of time sledding in the snow. You played t-ball and baseball and earned your gold belt in Taekwondo. You went to Sea World, Legoland, and the Kennedy Space Center. You played on the beach and spent time with your cousins and friends. It has been a busy year!

Daddy and I are so proud of the young man you have become. You continue to soak up information like a sponge. When you're interested in something, all you want to do is learn more about that subject. We love that about you! This year, you have explored lots of different interests, but you are drawn most to the ocean, reptiles, and space. You are reading a lot these days, and with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, you have finally found fiction books that you enjoy reading cover to cover. You still prefer for me to read to you, though, which I am more than happy to do.

You enjoy school and love your 2nd grade teacher, Ms. Plata, as much as you loved Ms. Lightbourne (your 1st grade teacher). You have lots of friends and love nothing more than being silly and making your friends laugh. You are an enthusiastic student and a good friend--you like to include everyone and you have such an easy-going personality. You are a wonderful big brother to Seth. Even though you guys fight a lot, you are so protective of him, and you take him under your wing immediately when you guys are part of a bigger group of kids. I love to listen to you two playing together--making up adventures and staging epic battles. You have a fantastic imagination! As much as you love playing with others, though, you also love retreating to your own world, where it seems you can play endlessly with all kinds of different toys: Legos, Playmobil, army guys, blocks, rockets, airplanes, action figures, and anything else that happens to be lying around.

William--it has been an awesome adventure being your mom and dad. Most of the time, Daddy and I have no idea what we're doing, and we're so lucky that you are our first-born. You are loving and happy and forgiving and you're not afraid to tell us what we're doing wrong. We hope that you feel loved and safe and confident to try new things, to make mistakes, to stand up for yourself, and admit when you're wrong. We hope that we are helping you learn all the important lessons in life, and we hope you know how much we love you. We hope that you can look back on your 8th year of life and remember all the wonderful things you learned and experienced. And we hope that your 9th year is full of more of the same. We will do our best to guide you--to encourage you, support you, and most importantly, to stand back so that you can grow into the independent, responsible, caring, capable, and loving person that you are so obviously on your way to becoming. Happy birthday, William! We love you.

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Happy 6th Birthday Seth!

Dear Seth,

Happy 6^th birthday to you! The year has flown by and once again, you have grown so, so much. In your 6th year of life, you finished preschool and started kindergarten, learned to ride a bike, lost two teeth, went camping twice, learned to swim, played at the beach, got a passport and went to Mexico, wore a tux and served as a ring bearer in Cousin Ashley’s wedding, played on a soccer team, had play dates with new friends, enjoyed a LOT of snow and sledding, went snowboarding at Jack and Kate’s house, visited Sea World, Legoland, and Kennedy Space Center, and spent time with your cousins and aunts and uncles. It has been a very busy year!

Daddy and I are so proud of the young man you are becoming. When you set your mind to it, you can do anything. (Of course, you can set your mind to not doing things, too, which does not always end well, but you’re a quick learner!) You have a great work ethic and love to see the results of your labor. Whether it’s helping in the yard or in the kitchen, organizing toys or cleaning your bedroom, or coming up with some way to make money (Lemonade stand? Selling tomatoes?), you take on tasks with an intensity and focus that is admirable.

In school, your teachers tell us that you are delightful. You are a rule follower and you get along well with everyone. You have worked hard learning to write and read. You have even started reading Magic Tree House books by yourself! (You read them out loud to Daddy and me so we can help you with the hard words.) You are a little bit impatient with sounding out the words, preferring to guess at what the word might be. But your vocabulary is growing, and you are getting better and better at being a word detective. Your math skills are growing every day, too—especially as you like to count out money! It has taken a while, but you've finally figured out that 5 one-dollar bills is the same as 1 five-dollar bill. Progress! Most importantly, you are a good friend to your classmates. You are considerate and thoughtful, taking great care to please others. We love this about you, Seth!

There is so much that we love about you--your passion and energy and sense of humor and even your stubbornness. You are so much fun to be around and to have around. You are a good brother (most of the time) and we love how you and William play together, look out for each other, and look forward to seeing each other and sharing experiences. We couldn't imagine our lives without you and can't wait to see what your seventh year has in store for you. We hope that you will have an awesome year, full of learning, loving, and living life to its fullest. We will do our best to guide you--to encourage you, support you, and most importantly, to stand back so that you can grow into the independent, responsible, caring, capable, and loving person that you are so obviously on your way to becoming. We hope that you feel happy, safe, and loved, today and every day. 

Love, 

Mommy and Daddy

Goodbye Winter

Today I stayed home from work. I'm fighting a sinus infection and relishing a few quiet hours to myself. It's early release day, so I only get a few hours, but I'll take it! Of course, the first thing I did this morning after the boys got on their bus was log into my work e-mail and draft a Tweet for approval today. You can take the girl out of the office . . .

Anyway, it's been a while since I've posted anything. And it looks like my new normal of not blogging is probably not going to change much. But I'll slip 'em in when I can so I can try to keep tabs on my life. Our winter has been pretty good. We've had lots of cold and snowy weather--much more so this winter than the past few years. Lots of snow days and building snow caves and sledding. I had it in the back of my mind that we would try to hit a local ski resort for a day of ski lessons and snow tubing. But alas, that didn't happen. Maybe next winter. We have had a relatively healthy winter, too. I think I've had two colds (including my present one), and Seth hasn't had any sick days. William had Strep twice, and he got a crazy rash and hives that we're still not sure what caused it. But I'm knocking hard on my desk that we've seen the worst of it. For all of you struggling with sick little ones, I swear--it gets better! It seems like age 5 was our turning point.

William has been busy this winter with Taekwondo and a program called Odyssey of the Mind. He has really gotten into Taekwondo and is eager to learn each skill so he can progress to his next belt. He's not the most flexible or coordinated kid, so he struggles a bit (I'm afraid he gets that from me), but I'm proud of him for pushing himself and sticking with it. (We haven't really given him a choice about sticking with it, though. This is one of those things where we think it's important for his development and confidence, so while he might have wanted to quit several times along the way, we haven't let him.)

Odyssey of the Mind has been a whole new kind of adventure. For those of you who have never heard of it, it's an international competition for kids from kindergarten all the way through high school. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. For William's group, they solve a performance-based problem. Basically, they are given a prompt and they have to put on an 8-minute play that includes all the elements listed. This year's prompt is to create a prehistoric arts festival that includes three pieces of art, music, a song (with lyrics), and a dance, an audience made up of at least 10 characters that reacts to the festival, and a cave painting back drop that replicates a real cave painting. William's team consists of 6 2nd-grade boys, and guess who's coaching? Yep--me. Thankfully, I'm co-coaching with another mom, which has made it infinitely easier and more enjoyable. It has been really HARD to get the boys to focus, however. And it's hard for 7 year olds to think realistically about what they can achieve. They are full of awesomely big ideas, so we have had to do a lot of "guiding" to get them to be practical and to think about time and material constraints. Despite all of the headaches, they have managed to put together a pretty funny skit. The "competition" is this Saturday, although at their level, they don't actually compete against the other teams. They do get a score, however, to help introduce them to the idea of competition. I think it has been a good experience for William. But I doubt we'll do it again next year. 

That said, we are gearing up for our very busy spring season. Seth will be playing soccer and William has decided to play baseball again. He'll be doing single-A, which is coach pitch. And I agreed to co-coach again. I love the coach I'm working with this spring. He has twin boys and his wife is fabulous and I think it will be a good season. The only difficulty will be that spring ball has one practice and two games a week. So combine this with Seth's soccer and William's TKD (which is two times a week) and we will be doing some major schedule juggling. I'm hoping that our babysitter can step up and help us get the boys to their practices. This is where the fact that I am not Type-A comes in handy. You just have to go with the flow and know that things change from week to week. 

Overall it has been a really good winter. In January we went to New York to visit one of my best friends and her family. We had an awesome weekend. Seth even got to snowboard for the first time. (And did very well, I might add!) The boys spent time with Ed's parents and Ed and I got some much-needed couple time. We rearranged a bunch of furniture in our house, which was exciting. We moved the piano out of the living room into the dining, freeing up the space for a better layout in our living room. We moved the sofa-bed out of Ed's office into the playroom, providing somewhere to sit in the playroom and giving Ed carte-blanche to do what he wants with his office. (The playroom can be closed off, making it an acceptable space for a guest room.) I've been scouring the 'net and various stores for rugs and window treatments. It might be a while before we make more purchases. Ed has been busy tricking out his office, but otherwise, we want to wait 'till the boys are a little bit older before getting new living room furniture. 

We also have already figured out most of our summer plans. I have the boys enrolled in summer camps, including a 3-week summer camp in Maryland that includes hiking, rock climbing, swimming, kayaking, archery and air guns--all the classic summer camp activities. The camp sends a bus for the kids in the morning and drives them back in the afternoons. I hope it is awesome for them! Ed and I also planned our 10-year anniversary trip. We're spending a week at a Sandals resort in Jamaica. We decided we wanted to relax and do lots of nothing on our vacation, so the tropics sounded pretty appealing. We enjoyed the all-inclusive amenities on our Mexico vacation, so a Sandals resort it is. We're going at the end of August, while the boys spend the week in Charlotte with my mom and brother and Ed's sister and her family. We can't wait!

I think that's enough of an update for one day. I would have included some pictures, but that would have required more time than I am willing to spend on my computer on a day off. Maybe next time! For now, I have a date with the shower, a cup of hot tea, and a good book!

Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

Man--I did so well in November with my posting, but since then? Let's just say that blogging has fallen completely out of my routine. But I'm not giving up! I love looking back too much to give it up yet.

So, where have we been? December was a crazy, whirlwind month (as always), but fun and magical and enjoyable all the same. I think I'll go back and do a retrospective post on Christmas, but in the meantime, suffice it to say that the boys had a great holiday, spent time with family and friends, got some really cool toys (although Seth was underwhelmed by his haul this year--that's what Santa gets for trying to go low key!), and generally enjoyed the break from school and routine. They had the full two weeks off, and I got quite a few days off from work in that time, too. And Ed took off the rest of the time, so we were fully covered.

We mixed things up a little bit this year, though, by spending the night on Christmas Eve with Ed's parents. They live in Maryland, about 50 minutes from us, and our usual routine is that we sleep at our house on Christmas Eve, open our presents in the morning on Christmas Day, and then head over to Ed's parents' around noon. What complicates this a little bit is that on Christmas Eve, Ed's aunt and uncle, who live in Damascus, MD (also about 50 minutes from us), have a big party. Ed's cousin dresses up as Santa Claus and hands out presents, sometimes they have Karaoke--the kids love it. So in the past, we drive all the way to MD Christmas Eve, drive all the way back to VA and usually don't get home 'till 11:00 p.m. Then on Christmas Day (after very little sleep for everyone), we head back to MD to Ed's parents.' That's a lot of back and forth. So this year, instead of driving all the way back to VA on Christmas Eve, we drove 15 minutes to Eds' Parents' and slept there. It was a little weird for me not to have Christmas morning at our house. Ed's parents don't have a Christmas Tree or decorations (they're Jewish), but the kids didn't mind at all. And it turned out to be a relaxing morning. (Although we still didn't get a lot of sleep since the boys woke up at 4:00 a.m.--4:00 A.M.!!!!--and decided it would be okay to go downstairs and open their stockings. But I digress.) I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone. It's not something we'll do every year, since Ed's sister and BIL and their 3 boys stay at Ed's parents' every other year for Christmas. But it worked this year.

Sooooo, since the holidays, we've been back at school and work for a week. It's been crazy cold but we're coping. We're actually having an energy efficiency expert do a home evaluation tomorrow to see if we can do anything more to better insulate our house. It's pretty drafty! Plus our hot water heater is in the attic (I KNOW, right?), and there's never enough hot water in the winter. So short of moving it out of the attic, we'll find out if we can do anything extra to insulate it. (It already has an insulation blanket around it, but clearly, it needs more.) Hopefully there will be at least a few more things we can do (cheaply) to make our house a little cozier.

Unfortunately, William came down with some kind of bug this weekend, so we're home today (just a low-grade fever, sore throat, stuffy nose). He's better today--no fever--so hopefully he'll be back at school tomorrow. But in the meantime I'm going to try to get a few things done that got neglected over the weekend. Sick days are good for stuff like that. William was actually disappointed that he didn't get to go to school today. They're learning about Egypt in Inquiry and he looks forward to it, so that's always a good sign that things are going well. Seth is fully into learning sight words, but he is reluctant to read when he doesn't know exactly what the words are. He's the perfectionist who gets frustrated when he doesn't get something right away. I know it will "click" for him soon, though.

So that's my update for now. January is humming right along, and I'm working hard to enjoy all the moments, not let life pass me by, to balance the schedule with free time and room for spontaneity, and to be mindful and appreciative of all that I have. 2013 was not a bad year for us (lots of my friends had a really sucky 2013, so I'm lucky in that respect), but I want to look back at 2014 with more than just, "It was okay." And hopefully, I'll keep recording it all here so I can have some proof that it was a kick-ass year!