Public Parenting

We had a great weekend, highlighted by fantastic, early fall weather. We did the usual taekwondo, grocery shopping, t-ball practice (which William loves, btw). I got laundry done. Ed painted the railing of our 2nd-floor deck. We took the boys to our city's "Taste of" festival. The boys played outside with neighbors.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post: public parenting. Who doesn't hate having to parent in public? (And by parenting, I really mean disciplining, I guess.) We spent lots of time with our neighbors this weekend, and Seth (and William, too, to a lesser degree) provided me with plenty of opportunities to show off my stellar parenting skills. We did things like "swim" in our neighbor's jacuzzi, dig a big hole in another neighbor's yard, and "share" (or rather, not share) construction toys with neighborhood kids, during which I have to admit I uttered more than my fair share of "Stop it!," "Quit . . .!" "One . . . two . . . ," "Share," "Take turns," and other such weak parenting commands. It seems my children have perfected the art of tuning me out and challenging me in front of other parents.

Of course, I should be saying that my parenting in public is just the same as it is in private. Because, you know, I'm so consistent, *ahem,* and firm, and I know *ahem . . . ahem* how to set firm boundaries. But as you know, I keep it real in Working it Out, and the truth is, while I make every attempt to be firm and calm when disciplining my kids in front of other people (because, of course, I want other people to think that I'm awesome at this whole Mommy gig), on the inside I am DYING of shame and I'm second-guessing myself and I am looking for the least confrontational way to get out of the whole mess. All in all, I didn't do too badly this weekend, but in the end, it comes down to feeling judged--judged that you have a kid who would act this way--and feeling like a bad parent--because you have a kid who would act this way. Even though I KNOW that sometimes, it has NOTHING to do with parenting. Still.

Last week, I went to pick Seth up at school and I was waiting for him to clean up his mess, which he was attempting to refuse to do. His teacher laughed and said, "Seth, please don't make me go into teacher mode in front of your mom." And I laughed and said, "Seth, please don't make me parent in front of your teacher." I love, love, love my kids. LOVE them. But here's my dirty little secret: I HATE parenting.

Story Time

Lately, on our commute to and from work, Seth has been asking me to make up stories. Sometimes I tell a story, and then he tells a story. Sometimes we go back and forth, adding to the same story. I remember doing this exact same thing with William when he was Seth's age. And while it's lovely and gives us some great QT and no doubt further's Seth cognitive and creative and whatever-else development, HOLY MOLY IT'S EXHAUSTING.

Seriously people, I'm tired in the morning and I'm trying to clear my brain from the a.m. scramble and getting to work exhausted is just not a great way to start the day. And of course, by the end of the day I'm fried and I just want a few quiet moments to regroup before I start the evening scramble. But instead, I'm telling stories about talking animals who have to work together to solve problems and little boys who build really cool vehicles that can take them wherever they want to go and kids who find an abandoned construction site and work together to finish the building and mommies who want to stab themselves in the eyeball because they CAN'T GET A MOMENT'S PEACE . . . no wait, not that last one. Just got a bit carried away.

Anyway. really in truly, it's awesome that I have this alone time with Seth. Next year, he'll be going to kindergarten, and I'll be away from him for at least 10 hours a day. So for now, no matter how much peace in the car I crave, no matter how much my throat aches and my brain coils from 35 minutes of sustained talking and forced creativity, no matter how much I cringe when Seth says, "Let's tell stories!" I will not wish these days away. Because I know, with every fiber of my being, that when they're gone, I will want them back. It's the worst paradox of parenthood--wanting time to pass, and then wishing you had it all back.

Power Outages and Crazy $#@ Malls and Ear Infections

The title pretty much sums up our weekend. Saturday afternoon, a huge storm blew threw our neighborhood. We lost power around 4 p.m. We knew it was bad because an entire utility pole had been knocked down. So we packed up and headed to the mall.

Now, the mall closest to our house is crazy town. It is Christmas-crowded ALL THE TIME. Seriously. And if you enjoy people watching, it's the place to go. Every manner of person goes there. Every ethnicity you can imgaine, every age, every color, every style. It's madness. And the biggest madness of all is the kiddie play area. It is truly Hell on Earth. And my kids LOVE it. It is not for the faint of heart. It is pure, complete, unadulterated chaos. Kids of all sizes run around like banshees, jumping off of climby things, climbing onto climby things, knocking each other down, tripping, crashing, screeching.

Before we let the kids play there, we made them walk the length of the mall, and we didn't give them anything to eat (even though they were whining about how hungry they were) because we needed some leverage to get them the hell out of there when we couldn't take it any more. Even so, it still took a good bit of threatening chasing cajoling to get them to leave so we could go eat. We ate at the TGIFridays (we're so cheap!) and then went to Barnes & Noble, where I read multiple stories to the boys. We finally got home around 9:30, to a still-dark house. The boys were excited to use the flashlights and camping lanterns (battery-powered). We got their teeth brushed and pajamas on and they both slept in William's room with a lantern on. What a day!

Meanwhile, Seth has been complaining off and on about his ear hurting--at least for the last several days. I've also noticed he's been sneezing a lot and sniffling quite a bit. So today (Sunday) we went to the Minute Clinic to get his ears checked out. And sure enough, the poor guy has a raging double ear-infection. It hasn't slowed him down one bit, though. I forced him to take a nap in the afternoon while Ed took William to t-ball practice (William is taking a t-ball clinic this fall), and in the meantime, our power came back on (yay!). But then went out again two hours later. (Boo.) But then came on again about an hour and a half after that.

So the upshot is, we ordered pizza for dinner, and at 9:35 on Sunday night, I'm trying to finish up the laundry, and I sent Ed to the grocery store (which I NEVER do because he NEVER gets the right stuff). Oh well. I guess things could be much, much worse. In June, while we were in Florida, a Derecho came through our town and our house lost power for 5 days. We managed to miss that whole debacle (and I even paid our cleaning woman extra to clean out our fridge and freezer before we came back in town), so this was practically a cake-walk. And now, I have to admit, I'm actually not too sad to see Monday morning fast approaching. :-)

Five Things

William picked out five things to share with his classmates to help them get to know him better. Here's what he chose:

1. A poster of a great white shark, because he really likes sharks.
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (the book we're reading right now) because he really loves Harry Potter.
3. A trophy from his Taekwondo tournament, because he's been taking taekwondo for 2 years and he really likes it.
4. A rubber snake, because he really likes snakes and reptiles.
5. A picture of his family--and not just our immediate family, but his whole, extended family on his dad's side: grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, and cousins. (He wanted a picture that also included my side of the family, but I only have one picture, from our wedding day, which didn't include him or Seth, and he didn't want to give up another item, so we decided to just go with the one picture. LOL)

I think those were all pretty good choices. I might have Seth do this same exercise, because it's a great way to capture who the boys are, right now. As for me, I've been racking my brain trying to figure otu what five things I would choose for my bag. A picture of Ed and the boys, for sure. A picture of the Capitol, to represent my job and my interest in political history. A bookmark, to represent my love of reading. Maybe a copy of Cooks Illustrated magazine, because I enjoy cooking. (And I also love magazines.) And my blog book, to represent my blog--and my life!

So what five things would you pick?

First Day of First Grade

Today was William's first day of first grade! He took the bus to school and then went to after care. He was pretty excited when he woke up this morning. He had crawled into our bed last night and when he woke up, he got out of bed pretty quickly, and I wasn't sure where he had gone. I thought he might have gone downstairs to watch TV, so I got up to remind him that we don't watch TV on school mornings. Instead, I found him sitting quietly on the love seat in his bedroom, just thinking. So cute!

I also remembered to take a few pictures:

Here he is holding last year's first-day picture:

I like how Seth is smiling so serenely in these pictures. Not his usual MO, I assure you.

Anyway, when I picked William up, he seemed happy and said his first day of school was awesome. Hopefully, that's true! On Thursday, he gets to bring five items to school (that will fit inside a paper bag) to help his friends get to know him. We started talking about what he's going to bring tonight. Should be interesting!

Oh, Right--I Have a Blog!

Well, hello there. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Beth, my husband is Ed, and we have two boys--William, age 6, about to start first grade, and Seth, age 4, in pre-k this year. I don't really know why I decided to take pretty much the entire month of August off from blogging. But I guess the mind does what the mind needs. And now I'm back! (Well, that's yet to be seen, I guess. Seeing as how I didn't exactly plan this last hiatus!) Anyway, on this Back-to-School Eve, I guess I should reflect on our summer, and give a brief update about what we've been doing.

Ed's sister and two of her three boys came to visit in late July, and the boys loved seeing their cousins. They spent an awesome day at Ed's uncle's farm, swimming, riding horses, and the ATV and Gator.

Later in August, we made our road trip to Charlotte, NC, to see my mom, brother, and Ed's sister and her family again. The boys loved it and both drives (there and back) were uneventful. Road trips are definitely getting easier as the boys get older! While we were in Charlotte, we visited their kids' museum (Discovery Place).

This last week of summer, Ed stayed home with William and the two of them went camping overnight in Maryland. They went hiking and fishing, and William almost caught a fish. William had a blast, and I can't wait for the four of us to go camping together.

Overall, it's been a really good summer. I didn't have any big plans or summer to-do list to knock out, but we still managed to do most of the things I wanted to do. We went to the beach. We visited family. William learned to swim. We went to the pool a lot. We went kayaking. We went to concerts in the park. And Friday night movies in the park. The boys rode bikes and played outside, a lot. And inside a lot. We went to museums. William read books, counted money, reviewed sight words, and even dabbled in a few of the workbooks I ordered at the beginning of the summer.

As for my year-to-date goals . . . wait a minute, goals? What goals? Ha ha ha. Actually, a friend of mine (Jen of the Funny Noses) always sees the beginning of the school year as the time to regroup, set new goals, renew commitments. I totally get that now. I'm feeling that same familiar urge to get organized, to focus on myself, to be a better me. I'm not going to bite off more than I can chew, but in the past few months, age 40 has hit me pretty hard and I haven't really been happy with myself. So it's time to dig deep, shed my baggage, and pick up the pace. I've never been good at changing. Inertia feels so much more comfortable. But that's no excuse for not trying. So, here I go again. Here's hoping that first grade is awesome, that pre-k continues to rock, and that the year I was 40 turns out to be the beginning of the best years of my life!

The Tooth Fairy--D'oh!

William lost his first tooth yesterday! It's been loose for so long that I actually forgot he had a loose tooth. His two permanent bottom teeth have grown in already, behind the baby teeth. His dentist said this is pretty common and not to worry about it--especially since one of the baby teeth was loose. I didn't expect it to take 3 months to fall out, though!

At any rate, at dinner, William took a bite of something and then spit something out. I was about to reprimand him when he shouted, "My tooth!" I washed it off and put it inside a ziplock bag (it's the best I could do people!) and William put it under his pillow.

We did the usual bedtime routine, I kissed the boys goodnight, started my usual nighttime routine, and (can you see where this is going?) promptly forgot about the tooth under the pillow.

Cue to 6:15 a.m. when William wakes me up and sadly says, "Mom, the tooth fairy didn't come." OH CRAP. I am the worst mom ever!!! I told him it's okay, she can't always get to everyone's tooth during the night. I assured him that she would come. He climbed into our bed and I frantically tried to figure out how the tooth fairy would manage to get something under his pillow. Fortunately, William wanted something to drink, so I went downstairs, got him a drink, and miraculously, the tooth fairy managed to slip a golden dollar under his pillow while he was in our bedroom. When Seth woke up, he convinced William to look under his pillow again (God bless Seth!), and William was thrilled that the tooth fairy hadn't forgotten him after all.

Dude, I'd forget my freakin' head if it wasn't attached! I guess all's well that ends well, even if I did manage to kill a childhood rite of passage--the thrill of waking up to find something under your pillow. Thank goodness there are 19 teeth to go! :-)

Fashion Statement

Yesterday, when I went to pick Seth up from school, he made me close my eyes as he retrieved the "surprise" from his cubby that he had made for me earlier in the day. My "surprise" was a bead necklace on a piece of string. He was so proud and happy to present it to me, and he wanted me to wear it today. So I am!

Don't you think it goes well with the gold chains? He was actually a bit perturbed that I was combining his necklace with the gold, but I prefer the layered look. :-) You gotta love gifts from the heart! (And yes--I'm wearing a cowl-neck sweater to work in sultry July. Our office building is freezing most of the time.)

Five Down, Six to Go

This week marks the half-way point of our summer. We still have six full weeks, which makes me very happy! I never made a "Summer Fun" list this year, but I didn't need to. I realized that since I still work full time all summer, and since we pretty much completely stick to our school-year routine, there isn't much chance of us "wasting away" our summer. In fact, more than anything, I've wanted to avoid over-scheduling ourselves and running ourselves ragged. I've wanted to make sure the boys have as much free time as they want on the weekends--time where they get to pick what they want to do. And surprise, surprise. Mostly they want to hang out at home and play. So that's what a lot of weekend time has looked like.

This past weekend, it rained all day on Saturday (such a nice break from the heat wave we'd been having!), and the boys made a fort and played together all morning (after William went to Taekwondo while Seth and I went to the grocery store). I ran an errand in the afternoon, and while I was gone, Ed sent the boys to their room because they weren't cleaning up when he told them to, and they both promptly fell asleep. I came home to a quiet house, so I put on a sweatshirt and sat on the porch and read my book for an hour and a half. It was lovely! A perfect, rainy summer day.

Don't get me wrong, though. We have participated in plenty of activities. On Wednesday nights, our library features different performers (magician, bubble ladies, Mad Science, puppet shows, etc.) and the boys have chosen to attend all of them so far, except for the puppet show. On Thursday nights, our town has free concerts in the park, and we've attended every one that we've been in town for. I LOVE the concerts in the park. It has such a small-town, old-timey feel. Looking around, you'll see people of every age--older people in their lawn chairs, middle-aged people with amazing picnic spreads, parents wrangling children, children EVERYWHERE, running around playing on the playground, chasing each other, banding together and roaming the park. It makes me so, so happy that we moved into this community.

Other summer highlights so far include our vacation to the beach for a week, kayaking, and William learning to swim (YAY!!!), I also took the boys on a day-trip to Luray Caverns and met an out-of-town friend there. She's another friend I met on the Internet (part of the May '06 moms) and her parents live in Culpepper, VA, so when she told me they were planning a visit (they live in Utah) and wanted to see the caverns, it was a great opportunity to see her and her family. Plus, Luray Caverns is really cool! She posted pictures on Facebook, so you'll have to check them out there. (Once again, Seth was verging on obnoxious in his quest NOT to get photographed.)

William and I have also been reading Harry Potter. We finally finished the first book, and then I let William watch the movie. He loved it! First he asked why they left so much out of the movie. Which is awesome because it means he remembered the book and was processing the story. Second, he turned to me with a huge grin on his face, eyes dancing, and exclaimed, "This is awesome!" Now we're reading the second one, but I'm not sure if we'll move on to the third one yet. I think it's a little too scary and mature for him. Maybe we'll save Harry Potter for the summers.

I'm sure the next six weeks will fly by, as the weekends are just about filled up already. The boys' cousins are coming into town this weekend, so Seth and William are excited to see them and hang out. We have plans to go blueberry picking and to swim on Ed's Uncle's farm. The boys are also excited to see their new second cousin--baby Joshua! He's already 8 weeks old and we haven't seen him yet. I love that the boys get excited about new family members. The rest of our weekends will be filled with birthday parties and pool time--lots of pool time. And I think I'll take the boys to Charlotte to visit my mom and Ed's sister the second-to-last week of summer. I was planning a stay-cation that week. But it's a good chance to visit family. After that, there's one week of summer left, and Ed is planning on staying home with William that week.

And then, First Grade! Ack--let's not get ahead of ourselves. Happy summer!

Catching Up--At the Beach!

I don't know when and if I'll ever get back into the blogging groove. But I know I want to keep blogging, at least for now. So when you can't make it . . . fake it!

So I owe a post about our week-long beach vacation. It was fantastic! The boys loved the beach and the weather was great and we got to spend lots of time with my dearest friends and their kids. The boys pushed the limits a few times during the week, but we dealt with it and enjoyed our time together anyway.

Sending William to two weeks of swim lessons right before our trip really paid off. He's doing great in the water now. He still needs to build up his confidence, but he's so much more comfortable in the water now. Every day at low tide, there was a great tidal pool where the kids swam and played and caught tiny fish. One day, we found a baby stingray in the tidal pool. We also saw dolphins or porpoises a few times, and the Sunday of my girls' weekend, I saw a whale. Crazy! (We think it was a right whale.)

The only down side of the beach trip was that low tide didn't occur until about 2 p.m. every day. So that meant that the best time to play on the beach was during the hottest part of the day. But we survived. And we all acquired pretty decent suntans, despite the tubs of sunscreen we slathered on. The other good thing about being in the hot sun all day was that the boys were dead tired by the end of the day. Getting them to sleep was no problem, and they even slept in most mornings. (Sleeping in for them means they wake up between 7 and 8 a.m., instead of between 6 and 7 a.m.)

On the last day of our trip, we went kayaking in park near the beach. The park is on the ocean, but there's a freshwater lake in the park, too. We didn't go out for very long, but the boys loved it.

On the 4th of July, the local city did not have a fireworks show, but there were people up and down the beach setting off fireworks, which we enjoyed from the balcony of the 10th-floor condo where we stayed. And we also lits lots of sparklers.

Of course, true to form, the boys' very different personalities shined through on vacation. Just as I predicted, William loved the beach,

while Seth loved the pool.

No fear here!

And true to form, the boys were not cooperative when it came to pictures of the two of them together. But I guess forced smiles are better than no pictures at all.

All in all, the beach was awesome and we can't wait to go back.

Girls' Weekend 2012

This year's Girls' Weekend was awesome as usual. (You can check out my posts on GW 2011, GW 2010, GW 2009, and GW 2008.) My three best friends never cease to amaze me with who they are and what they've accomplished. I feel so incredibly lucky to have them as friends--to have their support, their unconditional love, their guidance, their laughter. These three women have known me in every single phase of my life, and they like me anyway. I always leave Girls' Weekend feeling inspired and refreshed, ready to be a better wife, a better mom, a better friend. The four of us together would merge into the perfect woman. Maybe that's why we've all hung onto each other for so long.

This year we celebrated our 40th birthdays, and ME treated us all to massages on Saturday afternoon. For an hour and a half, we were pampered from head to toe, and it was absolutely lovely.

On Sunday, we repeated our bike-riding/kayaking adventure (unfortunately, no pictures!) but oh-my-goodness it was so much harder this year. The bike ride was torture. I don't know if it was because we were riding into a headwind or if the sand was softer or maybe it was because we're all 40 now, but ouch! When we finally arrived and started to put our kayaks in the ocean, we saw a shark. Seriously! It wasn't very big, but it was enough to convince TF to trade in her paddle board for a kayak. After watching the surf for 10 more minutes, we decided to venture out. I'm glad we did. After kayaking, we continued the tradition of stopping in the club for a drink before the long bike ride home. A mango banana daquiri made the ride home much more enjoyable!

Fortunately for me, Girls' Weekend blended seamlessly into our family vacation. ME was there the whole week with her kids, and we got to see lots of MJ and her daughter, too. Unfortunately, TF is currently campaigning for probate judge in Georgia so we didn't get to spend extra time with her, but hopefully we'll make up for it in future years. (And hopefully she'll win her election!) I think it's pretty cool to that we can all hang out as families now. Our kids play together and they know how important these women are to me. It's the stuff of fiction, but lucky for me, it's my life! I miss everyone already and can't wait for Girls' Weekend 2013!

Florida Bound

In just a few hours, the boys and I will be hitting the road and heading to sunny Florida. It's FINALLY my annual Girls' Weekend with my three best friends, and following Girls' Weekend, Ed will be joining us for a week-long family vacation at the beach. Woo-hoo! The boys and I are leaving this afternoon and will break the trip up into two shorter legs. Hopefully we'll arrive in Jacksonville by 2 p.m. on Friday.

And hopefully by 7 p.m. on Friday, the girls and I will be enjoying drinks at a waterfront restaurant, celebrating my 40th birthday! That's right--I'm turning 40 tomorrow. Not really sure how I feel about it, but it is what it is, so I might as well celebrate. Maybe I'll reflect more on this milestone later (maybe even write a letter to my 20-year-old self), but for now, I just need to keep my head on straight so I don't forget anything!


Despite the million and one things I had to do last night to get us ready for this road trip, the library was featuring the "Bubble Lady," so after starting a load of laundry and fixing (and eating) a quick dinner, the boys and I headed over. The place was packed, but the boys were happily entertained and I managed to check out a few books on CD, so it was a win-win for everyone. I even got pictures of the boys inside giant bubbles.

 After we got home and the boys were in bed, I finished up laundry, Ed and I packed (he's heading to Cleveland for a college friend's wedding this weekend and will meet up with us on Sunday), I left notes for the cleaning woman and the neighbors taking care of our cat, Ed installed the DVD players in the car, I put out the snacks we'll be taking on the road, and gathered up DVDs  and books for the trip. At some point during the evening, I remembered that my driver's license expires tomorrow (CRAP!), so I this morning bright and early, Seth and I got in line at the DMV and luckily, the ordeal only took about 25 minutes.

So we're all set! Don't know if I'll be blogging on our trip, but I'll be sure to give a full report when I return. See you when we get back!

Crazy Town

I've been living in Crazy Town for the past few days. On Monday afternoon, a man who lives in one of the houses behind our row of townhouses armed himself and refused to leave his house. His father has moved to a retirement community and is planning on selling the house. The moving trucks came on Monday morning to remove the rest of the house's furnishings, and the son refused to leave. So the cops were called. Because the man was armed, the SWAT team came out. When we got home around 6 p.m., it wasn't immediately obvious that something was going on. But then Ed heard something that sounded like gun shots and he noticed that the house behind us had a bunch of heavily armed police officers in their driveway. Then we started noticing SWAT guys positioning themselves all around the house next to the one behind us.

We got the boys inside the house and closed all of our shutters. We pretty quickly learned what was happening. And were told to stay indoors, away from the back of our house. At one point, I was in the kitchen making dinner and looked up to find a SWAT guy on our patio. That was crazy. But we did our usual routine and got the boys in bed. When we woke up in the morning, the cops were still there. Ed noticed two of our patio chairs were missing. He peeked outside our patio gate and saw this:

Yep--those are our chairs.

We got the kids ready for school, just like we always do. If you're wondering what the kids knew at this point, we told them that a man was inside the house and didn't want to come out, and the police wanted to make sure that nobody got hurt, so they were trying to talk to him and get him to surrender. But, they also wanted to make sure the man didn't try to run away, so that's why they were surrounding the house.

When we got home, we saw a policeman in the area between our house and our next-door neighbor's. (We live in an end unit.) I got the boys inside and then went to peek out the window on the side of our house. And found this, right below our playroom window:

Well, hello there heavily armed SWAT guys!

The boys did not know they were there, and we went about our routine. The suckiest part was that it was a GORGEOUS day yesterday, and it would have been perfect for riding bikes and grilling on the patio. But that wasn't going to happen with this guy on the patio.

Can you see him behind the gate?

Fortunately, some time around 10:00 p.m. last night, the situation was resolved. When I told Seth that the bad guy put down his weapon, Seth cheered and said, "Yes! He made the right decision." I didn't tell Seth that the guy had doused himself and parts of his house with gasoline. Yikes! I also didn't tell him the cops had tasered the guy. Anyway, all's well that ends well. I hope that guy can get the help he needs. And I really feel sorry for the father who now has to put his notorious house on the market.

Quite the adventure for our sleepy little community!

Pick Me! Pick Me!

Our local library's summer program has begun, with special evening shows every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Last night's show was Mad Science--all about the laws of motion. Seth decided to stay home with Ed so William and I headed out just the two of us. The show was great and full of opportunities for audience participation. Every time the facilitator asked for a volunteer, William's hand shot in the air. And every time, she picked someone else. William stopped raising his hand after a while, and I could tell he was feeling discouraged. What kid isn't dying to get picked from the audience? What Mom doesn't send a silent prayer skyward that goes something like, "Please pick him, please pick him, please pick him."

By the end of the program, there was just one demonstration left. The facilitator said she needed a volunteer. William raised his hand and made sure he was sitting on his bottom. Two big kids in front of him shot their hands up, too, and were practically on their knees, obscuring William from sight. Then the clouds parted and the angels sang, the bigger boys sat back down on their butts, and the facilitator picked William! ("You--in the blue shirt," she said, pointing to William. "ME?" William asked, incredulously.) He sported an ear-to-ear grin the whole time he was up front, and I was so, so happy for him. He was helping to demonstrate the third law of motion--every action has an equal and opposite reaction--so he strapped on a helmet and kneeled on a little vehicle that was propelled by the release of high pressure gas (maybe dry ice propulsion?). He had to push down on a lever, which released the gas and moved him forward. He had so much fun.

I only had my iPhone with me, and the lighting was terrible. But I got some pictures!

After the program ended, we walked across the street to the park where he has his summer camp, and he showed me all around--where they play Duck-Duck-Goose, how they walk from the community center to the park, where they waited for the bus to go on their field trip yesterday. It was nice to spend time with just William, and I was just so, so happy that he got the opportunity to be picked out of the crowd. It's the little things, right?

Father's Day . . . and SUMMER!!!!

Our first official summer weekend is behind us and I think we maxed out the fun factor. The weather was absolutely perfect (although it was a little bit too cold for swimming--I think I need to get the boys full wet suits for the pool!), and we capped off the weekend by celebrating the best dad two kids could ever wish for. The highlights include:

• Pool party for William's kindergarten class on Friday. This was almost a disaster because William is still not swimming and is not overly comfortable in the water. But all of his friends who were there were swimming and jumping off the diving board and having a great time. Poor William was so upset at the beginning of the party. I made the mistake of getting in the water with him and Seth, because then he just took out all of his frustration on me. It was hard to watch him feel so down on himself. BUT, I think it's exactly what he needed to see--especially as he starts two weeks of swimming lessons this week. Unfortunately, the water was really cold and the air temperature was in the low 80s with no humidity. And if you're not moving around a lot and actually swimming? It's pretty cold. But once all the kids got out to eat and play on the playground, William had fun. And then he got back into the pool and played with a few kids in the shallow end, even though he was freezing. I was so relieved the party was salvaged for him. And my big take-away lesson? I have to let him fight his own demons. Sometimes it takes despair to inspire motivation.
• Beach Boys concert with Ed Friday night! This is the Beach Boys 50th anniversary tour, and Brian Wilson is back with the band. There are still five original members in all, and they sounded fantastic! We had a really great time singing and dancing and the boys had a great time with Ed's parents. 
• "Date" to the mall with William to get new shoes and a Harry Potter Lego set. We are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and William is now completely into Harry Potter. We're a few years too late in the toy department, but there are still some Lego sets out and about. So I promised William we could go to the Lego store to pick one out. We had a really nice outing together. Fortunately, William shops like I shop--he knew what he wanted, quickly picked something out, and then we were done. 
• Father's Day breakfast for Ed (we took him to a local diner) and then the pool, playing outside, dinner on the patio, and "swimming" in our neighbor's Jacuzzi. We got Ed a book for Father's Day and then left him alone for the entire day so he could read it. And he did! He finished the book in one day. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the day with the boys, and we capped it off by hugely successful "swimming" in the Jacuzzi. Amazing what can happen with warm water! William went under water over and over and even "dove" to the bottom to retrieve torpedo toys. And this was with 5 other kids in the "pool." The look of accomplishment and pride on his face--the huge, ear-splitting grin--made the rest of the weekend's good times fade in comparison. I hope that sense of accomplishment will carry over into this week and next as William tackles swim lessons and summer camp.
• Speaking of summer camp, William started summer camp today. I dropped him off in the "before care" program at the community center, with a room full of strangers. He admitted before we left that he was a little bit scared and a little bit excited. But he went in and met the counselors and started playing fussball with an older kid. (Actually, I started playing with him, but then the older kid came up and asked if he could play.) For this week and next, he's doing a "summer fun" camp at the park, with outside play, swimming, arts & crafts--the usual camp stuff. He'll also take a swim lesson every day. But of course, today's weather is rainy, cloudy, and cool. So I doubt they'll get to swim or play outside in the park. But hopefully he'll have lots of fun with activities in the community center. As Seth and I were leaving the building, we saw one of his friends from kindergarten going inside, so I know he'll have at least one friend in the program. After this camp, we head to Florida for a week at the beach, and then when we get back, he has a week of "Ninja" camp, and then he starts the summer camp program at his school. He'll be familiar with the staff there, the setting, and likely even most of the counselors. I'm glad, though, that we're starting off with this different summer program. Different is good, and it challenges William a little bit. It also feels like "summer," even though he still has to wake up every morning and do the same routine. (Although he doesn't still ride the bus every day.) I hope he's literally a "happy camper" when I pick him up this afternoon.

So that was our weekend. Lots to be happy about as we embark on our summer adventures. I'm most excited about heading to the beach in two weeks. We're staying at my friend's ocean-front condo for the week (I have the BEST friends!!!), AND I'm starting the week off with my annual Girls' Weekend. So much to look forward to!

In the meantime, we're taking advantage of all of our community's offerings. Tonight we're stopping by the library on the way home to join the summer reading program. On Wednesday night, the library is hosting a Mad Science show. On Thursday night, our city has concerts in the park. At some point this summer, we WILL go kayaking. We will make homemade ice cream. We will grow tomatoes. (We are so late on this one already, but I'm hoping we can still make this happen!) And we will make our own Summer Service List. I'm trying to keep things low-key and to not have a whole lot of expectations. What I want most for the kids this summer is FREE TIME. It's hard to balance all of the of experiences I want them to have with what they actually want to do. I want them to have a chance to get bored and to use their imaginations and to explore and not be directed and led and entertained all the time. So while I have ideas for awesome things we can do this summer, I plan to implement them sparingly, and when the time seems right. I'll offer them up as ideas, but for the most part, I just want to follow their lead and see where it takes us. Although we've had just one weekend of official summer, so far, so good!

Kindergarten Graduation

I know I have a TON of catching up to do. No good excuse for not blogging--just busy! All good things going on, though. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of blogging and can do a wrap-up of the last few weeks. But for now, I actually have a picture to post (thanks to another mom in William's class).

Such a goof ball! Tomorrow is William's last day of kindergarten, and at the end of the month, Seth will begin his transition to Pre-K. Yikes! They're getting so big.

I'm looking forward to summer, but I'm also worried about how to make sure William doesn't forget everything he's learned this year. I still have to force him to read to me, but we'll be joining the library's summer reading program, so maybe that will motivate him. I also got a bunch of first grade workbooks and am hoping we can "play school" this summer. Somehow, I think that might be a struggle, but I'll put in my best effort! We started reading Harry Potter (the first book) and he's suddenly completely obsessed with Harry Potter. So lots of Harry Potter may be in the cards this summer. I did end up joining a neighborhood pool, so hopefully lots of swimming will be in the cards, too.

For now, I'll just reflect on how proud I am of William for making it through kindergarten (mostly) unscathed. He has learned and matured so much this year and I know that he struggled at times but he managed to make a lot of friends, have fun, stay positive, and learn a lot in the process. Congratulations William!

Drive-by Ketchup

I love the post titles that some of you fellow-bloggers come up with, so I'm completely poaching two of them for today's post--Driving By (by HeatherV) and Ketchup (by Jen). So without further ado . . .

• William has gotten some awesome birthday presents this year, including Snap Circuits Jr. He's played with it constantly since opening it. Not sure if he's actually learning anything about circuits and electricity, but it's a pretty awesome toy, imo. He also received a bunch of cool Lego sets, several of which he has put together entirely by himself. I'm so impressed with his ability to do this, mostly because I completely underestimated him (I'm ashamed to admit) and assumed he would need my help. I mean seriously, I get lego stuff wrong all the time!
• The other cool gifts he got were a watch and a remote control helicopter. He is now officially a big kid. The concept of time suddenly clicked for him when he got the watch. Now when I tell him that he has 10 minutes, he gets it. He is also crazy about his helicopter and took it to school for his Superstar week. He got to fly it around his classroom and his friends were uber-impressed. Nothing's more awesome to a six year old than to impress your friends!
• Snails! 

About a month ago, William finally got to redeem his first big reward from his responsibility chart and he really wanted snails. Ed was pretty adamant about NOT wanting an aquarium in our house, and he told William that he could put the snails in our fountain pool on the patio. On the day that we were going to pick out the snail, our neighbor Charlie invited William over to play, so William asked if I would go get the snail so he could play with Charlie. So I went solo to pick out a snail, and for some unknown reason, I decided to get 3 snails. (WTF???) I brought them home and William was thrilled. We put them in a fish bowl in William's room because the fountain was still pretty cold. We put a rock in the bowl and fed them some algae pellets. Pretty cool. Overnight, one got out and we found it behind the dresser the next morning. We put a lid on the bowl and put the escaped snail in a different bowl. (We weren't sure if he was dead or not. He wasn't.) Finally, it warmed up enough to put the snails in the pond. Meanwhile, William noticed that one of the snails really liked to get on top of the other snail. Crap. (He also knows that that means they're "mating" but he doesn't actually know what mating means . . . yet.) So fast forward to last weekend when William runs inside and says, "Mommy--one of the snails laid eggs!" Sure enough, one of the snails laid eggs. I have no idea if they'll hatch or not. I have no idea what we'll do with them if they do. No one told me snails mate like rabbits. I clearly had not considered the reproductive habits of snails at all when I bought the damn things. As of now, we can only find two snails in the fountain, so the third one must have bit it along the way. But still, that's one snail too many. So we may be taking a trip to a local pond or stream for a little "release" party soon. I'll keep you posted! Never a dull moment, right?

• Soccer--William only has one more game left this season. He has shown a lot of improvement over the past few weeks and I'm very impressed with how engaged he remains throughout the game. He tries very hard and he seems to enjoy it, and that's exactly what I want for him. He hasn't scored a goal yet, but he's had a few assists, and he's taken the ball from the opposing team several times. He might even miss it a little bit when the season is over.
• Summer--ACK! How is summer here already? I've been working on our "summer list" in my head, looking ahead to figure out our schedule. I'm trying to decide on what pool to join this summer. I'm on waitlists for the two pools closest to our house. There's a pool with no waitlist not too far from our house, and it's $425 to join. Or we could pay $215 for a bounce pass to a group of regional pools. There are five in our area, with one that is very close to our house. But that is the pool that we like the least. It's very crowded all the time. And I'm not always impressed by how clean it is. The boys really like the other pools in the region, but they're all at least 30 minutes from our house, so going to them on weekdays are not an option, and even on the weekends, they're an all-day event. Still, $215 is a lot less than $425. I'm going to try to visit the $425 pool this weekend to check it out. And then I guess I'll make the decision. Either way--SQUEE!!! SUMMER!
• Since my last post, I've managed to be a little more productive. I synced my iPhone and transferred off almost a year's worth of digital photos. I also uploaded some new content for the boys and removed some apps I don't use. I also started Insurgent and stayed up way too late last night reading. (I decided to put down the other books that I wasn't reading anyway. I'll get back to them later!) Now I just need to blog about the boys' birthday parties and add a bunch of pictures, and I'll be good to go. So stay tuned!

Falling off the Wagon

Every day this week, it's been my intention to upload pictures to my blog (to add to the boys birthday letters, and the picture of my sister and her husband and the boys) and to blog about William's Mad Science birthday party. But each night I've sunk into my bed or the couch and watched TV or read magazines or perused Pinterest or Craig's List or Facebook or any of the other tempting Internet time-sucks. I can't think of anything productive I've done this whole week and I'm not feeling all that great about myself. No reading (other than magazines), no meal plan, no blogging, no QT with Ed, no cleaning, no laundry, no organizing.

BUT that was this week and now it's Friday, and I can move on. Tonight I'll focus on laundry and maybe the boys will play outside until it gets dark (and even after it gets dark). Tomorrow, after a soccer game and visit to Ed's grandmother (who needs prayers to get stronger and on her feet again), we'll drop the boys off with Ed's parents and Ed and I will have an entire 24 hours kid-free. I feel crazy pressure to use that time well--to not squander a single precious minute of it. So tonight will also involve coming up with a plan. Ed needs a new suit, so that will take up some of the time. We'll look at rugs at Pottery Barn and then maybe check out Costco, and maybe finally pull the trigger on one. We might look for desks at a furniture store. Maybe we'll just go over our list of priorities for the house and come up with an actual plan. Maybe we'll pick paint colors. ACK--too many possibilities!!!! Maybe we'll just go see a movie. LOL.

Whatever we do, I'm hoping it will recharge me and motivate me and get me geared up for the rest of May. I have been feeling the pinch of time lately, in so many ways. On a daily basis, I feel like I am shortchanging the boys with our long hours away from home. I hate that we get home and then it's rush-rush-rush to get through all the things we need to do each evening. We haven't even had time to enjoy all the wonderful birthday presents William received. And then it's rush-rush-rush in the morning to check off all the things we need to do to get ready for school and work. Adding soccer to our schedule has definitely made things a wee bit more difficult--more than I expected. I'm very glad William is playing and I think he's gaining a lot of skills and I hope he wants to do it again in the fall or maybe next spring. But the logistics of after-school activities is so freakin' hard! After this spring, I've decided that when Seth starts school in 2013, I am going to look for an after-school babysitter to meet the boys at the school bus, to cart them to activities and play dates, to allow them to PLAY AT HOME after school, which is what they want to do most of the time. I realize that things change--things always change. But I feel like it's only going to get more complicated as the boys get older.

In the meantime, I will take a deep breath and I will build up that momentum I had leading into last weekend, and I will keep trying--to be productive, to be organized, to be fun and kind and happy. I will notice all the wonderful and cute and amazing things my kids do. And I will feel so incredibly thankful for all that I have. Why, hello Wagon. Yes, I would like to get back on!

I Did It

I ran in a 4-mile race. I didn't run all 4 miles. But I signed up for it, I trained, and I followed through. That's pretty huge for me. The race was much hillier than I expected. In fact, the first mile was all uphill. So that was fun. (Not) I ran the first mile and alternated walking and running the rest of the race. I finished up with about a half-mile run, with an overall time of 56 minutes. I think in all, I probably ran 2 miles and walked 2 miles. I actually truly enjoyed it, though, and definitely want to do another one.

The boys were there to see me begin the race. In fact, they insisted on seeing me off. And when the race started, Seth clung to my legs and cried while Ed pried him off. All of the runners around me went, "Awwwww." Nice way to start a Mother's Day race, huh? At the finish line, I eagerly anticipated their proud and smiling faces, only to find no one I knew in the crowd. Ed had taken the boys (and my mom) to get something to eat, and they ended up at Silver Diner, where they were happily munching pancakes, bacon, and waffles while I trudged across the finish line. So now, of course, I have to enter another race because, dammit, I want them to see me cross a finish line!

When the boys finally did see me, they asked if I had won. They seemed a little disappointed that I hadn't, but hopefully they will understand that doing your best is more important than winning, and that following through on a commitment--even a commitment to yourself--is worth its weight in gold.

Happy 6th Birthday William!

Dear William,

It blows my mind that you are already six years old. It seems like just yesterday that I was riding home with you from the hospital, sitting next to you while you stared and stared at everything around you, taking it all in, not wanting to miss a thing. And yet, sometimes I can barely remember what you were like as a baby. You are such a big kid now, so independent and capable and full of knowledge. And you are also funny and silly and you love to make people laugh. You are an amazing kid and Daddy and I are so proud of you.

Your sixth year of life has been filled with so many new challenges and you have embraced them all with eagerness and honesty, feeling your way as you go. You are almost finished with kindergarten, and I am blown away by all that you have learned. You can read now, count money, and tell time--among the many other skills you have gained. You have kept a positive attitude and an open heart, and I love how much you love to learn. You have made lots of new friends and truly enjoy playing with and learning from others. You have continued with taekwondo this year and have made so much progress with your skills. And you played soccer for the first time this year. Even though you don't really love it, you give it your all when you're in the game, and I'm so proud of you for that.

Your interests this year have ranged far and wide, but you continue to mostly love non-fiction books and your favorite subjects have been the Titanic, snakes, and submarines. (And venus fly-traps!) You also still love to draw, and I am amazed by the detailed pictures you can draw, straight from your imagination. Speaking of imagination, yours is still going strong, and I love how you and Seth can play train, or rocket ship, or submarine, using everything from boxes to laundry baskets to chairs to beds. I also love how kind you are to Seth (most of the time) and how you encourage him and support him. I know it's not always easy to be his brother, and I appreciate your patience.

I also appreciate your patience with Daddy and me as we figure out how to parent a grade-school kid. We want so much for you and it's so hard to know when to step back and when to take your hand. We are so proud of you for all that you have accomplished this year, for all of the fears you have faced and the challenges you have conquered. You are so thoughtful and caring, sensitive and kind. I hope that you will always have these qualities as you navigate these school-age years. I hope that you will grow a thick skin and the confidence to know how loved and treasured and valued you are, not just by Daddy and me, but by your friends, teachers, coaches, and family. You are a joy to be around, and I am excited to see all the ways you will grow in your seventh year. In the meantime, just know how much we love you and how lucky we feel to have you in our lives.

Love forever,
Mommy

Remembering

I knew May was going to be a crazy month. A good crazy, but crazy. And I know I'm not a very organized person and that I'd have a hard time staying on top of everything. But OMG--I'm so disorganized and not staying on top of anything! I guess I should give myself a little more credit. No major disasters to speak of yet. But I swear--remembering shit is the BAIN of my existence. We've been over the whole list thing before, and I've tried in so many ways to be a list person. I've tried iPhone apps and post-it notes and pads of paper in my purse and spread sheets on my computer and I might just need to start writing things on my hands. 'Cause OMG, I HATE HAVING TO REMEMBER STUFF ALL THE TIME. IT doesn't help that Teacher Appreciation Week was this week. Actually, Seth's school celebrated a week ago and William's school has been this week. Every day for two weeks I've had to remember to bring something in (flowers, chocolate, doughnuts, cards) or have the boys make something (cards, pictures, clay sculptures) or give money to someone. Plus both the boys' spring pictures came in, so I've had to remember to write the checks for pictures and send them to school. I have to remember to write tuition checks because our school doesn't do automatic debit. (Damn them!) William has soccer on Wednesday and Taekwondo on Thursdays so I have to remember cleats and soccer ball and shin guards and water bottle and uniforms and belts. I have to remember the boys' allergy medicine every morning and Clark's butt ointment every morning and night. William's birthday party is this weekend, so I've had to remember to put together goody bags and to make lists of what I still need and keep track of how many kids will be there and call the Mad Science people to work out the details. I have to remember my workout clothes every day, and to charge my iPhone and Kindle and to download Downton Abby episodes so I can watch while I run. I have to remember to do laundry during the week so I have clothes to work out in. (So I don't have to dig a dirty sports bra out of the hamper like I did this morning.) I have to remember a snack for Seth to eat on the way home. I have to remember to get Mother's Day gifts for Ed's mom and my mom. (Oh crap! I KNEW I forgot something.)  I have to remember all my friends' kids' birthdays ('cause most of my friends' kids' birthdays are in May).  (And I know I don't HAVE to, but I WANT to and everyone else is so good about acknowledging stuff like that, and I suck at it!) I have to remember Seth's class performance, and to bring the camera (and extra batteries) so I can videotape it (which means I have to remember to videotape it) and William's class performance. And to bring Seth's backpack and water bottle to school on Fridays for their class walks. I have to remember dentist appointments and emails that I need to respond to. And thank you notes. And grocery lists. And the fact that we need paper towels and toilet paper. I have to remember to leave money for our cleaning woman every other Tuesday. (I LOVE having to remember to leave money for the cleaning woman every other Tuesday.)

I realize these are all things that most normal people handle with very little effort or angst. It's all a part of life and adult responsibilities. Yes, I have a calendar (both on my iPhone and in our kitchen). Yes, I try to do things the night before. Yes, Ed helps. A LOT. But I'm just not built to remember things. It hurts.

But, it feels better to get all of that out. And now I need to go make a list of what I need to remember to do before William's party. I hope all you moms out there have a fantastic mother's day! Send me endurance vibes on Sunday morning as I run (and walk and run and walk) in my first (and most likely last) race. Hopefully I'll be back on Monday with lots of happy things to say. :-)

Weekend Recovery

We had an awesome, fun, VERY busy weekend, and now I am sipping tea and enjoying the relative peace of my office cubicle. Our weekend highlights included:

• Ending Screen-Free week by playing outside Friday night until long after it got dark. We taped flashlights to bikes and scooters and the boys and our next-door neighbors played and played. They made wishes on the Wishing Star (the first star we saw), but then we decided that they had wished on Jupiter by accident, so they wished again on another star. After much-needed baths, the boys went to sleep at 10:00 p.m., completely exhausted and completely happy.
• Stretching Sreen-Free week into the weekend, which turned out to be not difficult at all. The boys woke up and played with toys, did puzzles, and helped make breakfast. I'm happy to report that they did not complain about no TV once during the entire week.
• Going to Taekwondo on Saturday morning and then to an 11:30 a.m. soccer game. William is doing really well with soccer. He stays engaged and tries really hard. I can't say that he "gets" it, or that he anticipates the action on the field. But he seems to enjoy it. Not sure he'll want to do it again in the fall, but we'll see. 
• Taking Clark to the vet on Saturday afternoon. He's an indoor cat and we noticed that his fur on his belly was starting to disappear. Turns out, he has infected/impacted anal sacs (Google it, I dare you), and when cats are in pain, they will often over-groom. He has licked his butt raw, so now he has to wear a cone around his head and we have to put antibiotic ointment on his butt twice a day for two weeks. He is miserable with his cone. But hopefully the ointment is providing some relief. The kids have never been to the Vet's office before, so it was a big adventure for them and they were very well behaved.

• Participating in a neighborhood block party on Sunday. The boys played outside pretty much the entire day. By the end of the afternoon, all 10 of the young kids on our street were out in full force, riding bikes, pulling each other in wagons, fighting, running around, having a ball. Our street neighborhood is small, and there are lots of personalities to navigate, but we are still extremely happy with where we live, almost one year later.
• Hosting my sister and her husband--Aunt Anne and Uncle Greg--for a visit. They live on the West Coast and we rarely see them. My sister had never met Seth! So the boys were super excited to see them, and they got to witness our neighborhood in all its glory. Kids were everywhere--including on our back patio at one point. Seth came out and had a meltdown at one point because all the kids were playing with his tools and wreaking havoc on his workshop. Although I wasn't thrilled with inability to share, it was a timely fit, and everyone quickly cleaned up and cleared out, and we enjoyed dinner on our patio and got to spend QT with Aunt Anne and Uncle Greg. I even took a picture! But I didn't download it from the camera yet.

 So that was our busy but exciting weekend. In between all of that, we went grocery shopping and I managed to run some quick errands while Ed took the boys on a bike ride along the bike trail near our house. I even mostly finished our laundry! May is living up to expectations, but so far, so good! Now if I can just get through this coming weekend--Baba's visit, soccer game, William's birthday party, 4-mile run, and Mother's Day! Hopefully it will be just as fun and exciting.

Monthly Wrap-up

Things are moving right along in the Hahn household. I'm trying not to FREAK OUT that it's May already. Trying not to freak when I look at our calendar and see it filled to the brim. Instead, I'm looking at the calendar and trying to see all of the awesome things we get to do in the next several weeks. Soccer practice, science night, soccer games, taekwondo, family visits (my sister who has NEVER MET SETH is coming--so excited, and my mom will be back for William's birthday), birthday party, school performances, dentist appointments, Mother's Day, 4-mile run, overnight date night.  So much stuff!!! We may even try to go camping over Memorial Day weekend. Maybe. Depends on the weather. And if there are any available campgrounds around here. Which is unlikely.

Anyway, with all of those things to look forward to, I better take a look back at April and see how things are going with my goals. In no particular order:

I have been keeping track of my spending better--updating my categories in Mint.com and paying attention to where my money is going. But that has not translated into reigning in my spending. Ack! I feel like I'm a little out of control. The other day at the grocery store, I spent $175. That's the most I've spent in a weekly shop, and I wasn't even getting stuff for a party or alcohol or any of the usual big-ticket items. I did buy laundry detergent and allergy medicine. But still. Ugh. I also bought a new dress from my fashion-consultant neighbor which is super cute. But I need to get shoes to go with it. So I went online and bought five pairs of shoes to go with it, with the plan to keep two (one pair to dress it up and one to make it more casual) and return the other three. Decent plan, but I don't usually spend big like that in one sitting. It was kind of fun!

Anyway, on to better things. RUNNING! Yes--I'm still training for the 4-mile run. No, I do not think there's any way that I will be able to run the full 4 miles. BUT, I'm doing better every day, running for longer periods of time and feeling pretty good. I'm mostly running on the treadmill, and now I've started watching TV on my Kindle while I run. I never want to run outside again! LOL. Anyway, It's possible that I'll be able to run about 2 miles of the race, and then maybe walk/run the rest of it. Even if I only run one mile, walk a little, run another mile, etc., I will still feel proud of myself. I'm sticking with it and not giving up. And I'm not turning 40 until the end of June, so maybe I'll still have time to reach my 5k goal after all!

Parenting--It's hard for me to judge myself on this goal. I think I'm doing pretty well. I haven't completely lost my temper in a while, and that's pretty good. I've read (and am reading) some good parenting books, so hopefully I'm implementing some of what I've read. They are awesome kids, and I'm pretty proud of them, so that says a lot.

Focus on my marriage/decorating my home/stop biting my nails/take more pictures/send birthday, etc. cards/blog more--all major fails at this point. Although Ed and I will get an overnight date night this month, so that's progress, right?

Clean my house more--CLEANING WOMAN!!!! Enough said.

Meal plan/prep more the night before--Doing pretty well with this (as noted in my last post). I still tend to get lazy about prepping lunches the night before, though. I'm usually scrambling in the morning, which is never fun.

Read at least 24 books this year--Right on track with this one. There are so many books to read right now, though! I get on the waitlist for e-books at our library, and then it seems like three of them become available at once. Ack! And then I have to read them before they become unavailable. So I'm sitting on Insurgent right now, so I can finish Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which is crazy sad, but I'm compelled to keep reading).

So that's where I am. Not too shabby, I guess. The boys are happy. Life is good. I'm finally getting my hair cut and eyebrows waxed today. What more could a girl ask for?

Meal Planning

Thanks for all your kind comments on my slogging post. And a bunch of you asked about meal planning, so I thought I'd fill you in on how I make meal planning work for me.

But first, before I get into that, I have to mention my dinner date with Tanika on Saturday night! We met halfway between Baltimore and Virginia and enjoyed an awesome dinner and drinks at a very chic Italian restaurant. :-) You'll have to read Tanika's post to see a picture and get a much better description of our evening, but suffice it to say that gab time with girlfriends is AWESOME!!!!

Okay--so back to meal planning. First of all, keep in mind that there is no ONE right way for everyone. Once you start doing it, you'll find that you have to tweak things and things will evolve as you go. You'll find that some weeks/months are better than others. Some weeks, even with a plan, things will go to hell in a hand basket. Just stick with it and be flexible. And if you find that what you're doing now--without a meal plan--works for your family, then don't sweat it! If you're good at keeping track of things in your head and you don't forget things all.the.time, then you're already doing great!

If you're like me, however, and the daily chore of putting together dinner makes you want to jump out of your skin, then a meal plan just might be worth a try. I only go to the grocery store once a week, so I really have to be organized about what I need. I have NO TIME to run to store during the week, unless I go at 9:00 p.m, which I HATE. And I can send Ed, but I just hate for either of us to take the time to do that. So planning helps. It also helps the budget, because I can be very impulsive when I grocery shop!

So begin by making a list of meals that your family likes to eat. Includes sides and veggies, and keep in mind leftovers and desserts. Also include quick, last-minute meals (like cheese and crackers, or sandwiches, or frozen stuff you just quickly heat up). And when you first start out, just start with things you make now for dinner--hot dogs, mac 'n' cheese, chicken nuggets. You don't need to be fancy and you don't have to slave in your kitchen. As you get more accustomed to meal planning, you can start shaking things up a bit and try recipes that you've been wanting to try. I tend to try new things on the weekends, though, when I have more time. It stresses me out to do new stuff during the week.

Next. look at your calendar. Consider what's going on each weeknight, and figure out what nights you'll be able to spend a little more time making dinner, and what nights will need to be quick. For this week, for example, we have an after-school event on Tuesday night, and William has soccer practice on Wednesday night. So we'll do fast food on Tuesday (probably Subway), and on Wednesday, we'll do spaghetti (using jar sauce) and leftovers. The other nights, I'll have a little more time, and the weather is supposed to be nice, so I'll use the grill. Just write down a meal with a side for each night of the week. I try to alternate the kinds of meat I use, so this week, for example, Sunday was fish, tonight will be steak, Wednesday will be meatless (although William will probably eat leftover steak), Thursday will be chicken, and Friday will be tacos. You can also make a lot of something early in the week that can be repurposed later in the week. So I could use the leftover steak from Monday to make fajitas on Thursday. Or I could make extra chicken on Thursday and then make quesadillas for Monday. You get the idea.

The trick to this method for me is that I have to remember to take meat out of the freezer when I need it, and to do whatever prep I need to do beforehand. This is the only way I can make it work on week nights when I don't get home from work until 6:00 p.m. For meat, it has to be able to cook in about 20 minutes or less. Making cutlets out of chicken breasts and boneless pork chops is great for weeknight meals because they cook so quickly. You can marinate them quickly, too, or use a rub, and they get pretty flavorful because they have a lot of surface area per bite. We like breaded cutlets (I fry them in oil), or sauteed cutlets with pan sauce (like pork or chicken picatta, with lemon juice and a little white wine or chicken broth). Lots of options. So for the prep, I'll either do the meat prep when I get home from the grocery store (make the marinades and put the meat in freezer bags with the marinade and into the freezer, or I'll pound out chicken breasts or pork chops and divvy up the cutlets between freezer bags and put them into the freezer), or if I didn't have time to do that, I have to do it the night before I plan to make it.

As for how I keep track of our meal plan, in the past, I just tended to scribble my menu plan on a piece of paper, and on the same piece of paper, I would keep a running list of what I needed from the grocery store. That worked for me, but I really wanted to put something in the kitchen that we could all see (especially Ed), and that would be a better visual daily reminder for me. Our kitchen does not have a lot of wall space, however, and our refrigerator is not magnetic. But I found a space that works and I bought this magnetic dry-erase board from Target. ($13.00)

I got the idea from Pinterest, which led to this website. Her system is crazy, uber-organized. She printed all her meals on magnets and printed different colors for veggies and sides. Mine is not quite as pretty. I just write in our meals, and in the notes section, I jot down my grocery list. I put activities at the bottom (like soccer practice or science night) so I remember to plan meals accordingly. But I don't use it as our complete family planner. This one is just for meals so far. Jotting down my grocery list has been way more helpful than I anticipated. I had been keeping a notebook in my purse where I wrote down my grocery list, but inevitably, I forgot to make a note of something we were out of. With this system, I write things down as soon as I think of them. I do have to transfer this list to something portable to take to the store, but I've been using my grocery store's online list feature, which organizes the list by aisle. I can access the list with my iPhone, and that makes shopping super easy! Also, I don't usually plan more than a week ahead. I tried planning two weeks ahead, and grocery shopping only every other week. But that didn't work well for us. I have to go to the store every weekend anyway for milk and fresh produce. And I need more flexibility than I get with a two-week plan. So for now, just one week ahead works. But as the calendar fills up, I like seeing what we've eaten over the past few weeks. It definitely helps with the planning so that we're not repeating as much.

So that's pretty much my system. Like I said before, it's evolving. And it works best when I get off my ass make the time to prep ahead of time. Buying in bulk is cheaper, of course, but if I don't have the time to spend on separating the meat and putting it into baggies and adding marinades or pounding it thin, or making hamburger patties or meatloaf or whatever, then buying in bulk does not really help much at all. And I'm hoping that my kids' preferences will continue to evolve. They still don't like rice or potatoes. William and Ed don't like casseroles. They're not big fans of soup or chili. And I haven't found many crock pot meals that work well for us--especially since it has to be on for about 10 to 11 hours. So my options are limited. But meal planning certainly helps me stay on top of things, try new things, and generally helps to keep me organized.

So any questions? Did I leave anything out? I'll post this week's menu, as an example:

Sunday: Salmon, corn on the cob, green salad (I used this Montreal steak seasoning marinade for the salmon and it was really, really good!)

Monday: Steak (with the same marinade), roasted potatoes (I drizzle olive oil over diced potatoes and sprinkle with Greek seasoning mix and put them in the toaster oven 'till they're done), asparagus

Tuesday: Fast food night (probably Subway)

Wednesday: Spaghetti or leftover steak

Thursday: Grilled chicken (from the freezer with zesty chicken marinade), broccoli, dinner rolls

Friday: Tacos (using taco-seasoned meat from the freezer)

Saturday: TBD (I often don't know ahead of time what the plans are for Saturday night, so it's usually TBD on my menu plan.)

Books, Books, Books

I've been thinking a lot about books lately--both my own reading list, and what books the boys love. I've come across some lists of "best of" books (like this list of 75 books that build character), and I've been tracking down books at our local library and on Amazon to be sure that I expose the boys to a wide variety of awesome books. In preparation for Screen Free Week coming up, I thought I'd post some books that were my favorites as a kid, and some that have been (and still are) favorites of the boys.

These were some favorites when the boys were infants and toddlers.

(We love all the books by Leslie Patricelli)

These are books they loved back then and still love now from time to time: 

(We have and love the board book--still!--but there's also a full version)

(William will read this book to Seth now)

 (Not sure why, but this was the potty book that both the boys loved the most)

These are some of our standbys--

(Any and all Berenstain Bears books. The boys love 'em!)

 (We also LOVE Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy and Ladybug Girl and the Bug Squad)

 (We own and Seth especially loves ANY and all Little Critter books.)

(This is the sweetest story ever. Makes me cry every time.)

 (This was one of my favorites as a kid and now both boys love it. I have the original printing--the cover I show here--but the link goes to a newly illustrated version. I prefer the original!)

These are some of my favorites, and for the most part, the kids love them, too:

So there you have it. I'm sure I've left off a lot of books that I'm just not thinking about. In addition to books, we also read a lot of magazines, specifically High Five (which is a younger kids version of Highlights) and Ranger Rick (which William has just recently really gotten into). My mom bought the boys subscriptions to both and I love how the boys save every issue, and they like to go back and re-read them. I highly recommend them!