The Wednesday News June 9, 2010

Hump Day!  It's been a productive one.  A bunch of things I've been putting off got done.  I think I was finally successful at changing the title photo for the blog.  Whatever I tried, it would publish as miniscule and you couldn't see who was who.  It's already hard to tell Harry and Malcolm apart without further challenge.

The kids are signed up for a week of camp...get this...they're ALL GOING AT THE SAME TIME!!!!  I'm not sure how Harry and Malcolm will handle a full-day camp, but I figure it's good practice for them for 1st grade.  They only go to kindergarten for 2 1/2 hours right now.

My daughter, who is very skeptical about entertainment, activities and the level of fun that will or will not be provided, has not stopped talking about this camp since she went last summer!  It's very traditional (swimming, games, arts and crafts and even a campfire event during the week that involves roasting marshmallows!).  I wish I could go (well, as a date with hubby sans kids!).

Andersen is also going for the second year and is equally thrilled.  I think Andy's favorite part is having a little of his own spending money for junk food during the day.  They have a small store on the premises.  He eats plenty of healthy food so I'm not worried.  His favorites there are swimming, archery and other sports.

It is also very reasonably priced as camps go.  I wish we had the means to do more than one week as they absolutely love it there, but that's fine.  Dave has the week off and we're going to tear this house apart!  I can't wait to get all of the junk out with NO distractions!  OK, not the best summer vacation, but in a way it is because after the house is organized, we can ENJOY our home more and it will feel like we ARE on vacation!

The kids are also doing swimming lessons for a week and the older two are doing a "field trip" week each.  Lilly, being older, gets to go to far away and exotic destinations (such as Six Flags...hmmm....seems like I mention this place in several of my posts...what's up with that?  You KNOW how I feel about roller coasters.  If not, see my post from last summer entitled "Emotional Rollercoaster" www.somanykidssomuchfun.blogspot.com/2009/09/emotional-rollercoaster.html).  Andy still has to wait another year for that, but they go to the beach and other fun things during his week.

I am trying to see if Harry and Malcolm want to do a 1/2 day sports camp in addition to their one week, but they weren't that into it last year.  So, we'll see.  On to the news!

Harry

Harry got hit with the fever virus thing that was going around as did Andy at the end of last week.  So, we had a low-key weekend in terms of sports...two of the boys couldn't do any!  He is participating in a teeball game tonight, one of his last ones.  As everyone was feeling better on Sunday, we went out for lunch.  We had been under a tornado watch both Saturday and Sunday.  This is EXTREMELY rare for the Northeast.

There was a lot of damage nearby, but not right in our town.  The worst storm kicked up while we were at the restaurant.  Dave had 3 boys in the bathroom when the power went out!  Like the kids weren't scared enough already!  See, their sister is a weather fanatic and gives us the blow-by-blow (pun intended) of the storm (right down to wind speeds, directions and the fact that a rotation was unlikely because the storms were in a line and not clustered together).  I found out on the news later that she was absolutely right about this!  The meteorologist said that if the storms were NOT in a line, we would have been in deeper doo-doo in terms of severity of the storms.

The power was only out for a few seconds and there was emergency lighting in there, but still.  What timing!  Lunch was very yummy as always.

Harry didn't miss any school with his illness and is enjoying his last few days of kindergarten.

Malcolm

 Malcolm, the guy who had been over this fever thing for several days when his two brothers got hit, went to soccer solo and did great.  He also has limited time as a kindergartner left before he's a big first grader!  It's easy to get sucked into TV and video games when your brothers are sick and your sister's at a sleepover, but he has been enjoying books too.  One of his favorites is a book with photographs and facts about insects.  I am one of those people who like insects and reptiles so I am equally enthralled!  I missed a great photo-op of Malcolm and Andy exploring a bug crawling up the side of our house.  They looked like two kids from a Science Club brochure!  The moment just wasn't long enough for me to run and get the camera.  Most likely, a more interesting insect, or arachnid for that matter, came along and off they went.

Lillian

I gave Lilly a less traditional "girl" color this week.  I think purple and pink are still her favorite colors, but I'm not sure.  Lilly has been wearing boys' clothes all week.  In fact, she accused Andy of "stealing" the shorts she wanted to wear tomorrow!  Poor kid!  He has some EXACTLY like hers...and I think they're the same size too, but Lilly can tell the difference.

I find it kind of charming.  I, too, went through a "tomboy" stage.  Tonight, she told me she wanted to go outside and play in the rain, too.  It was a cold, steady, wear-your-heavy-coat kind of rain.  She didn't end up doing it.  (Update: All games involving a bat and a ball were rained out so no outdoor exercise was had as planned.)

She's very excited because she got her yearbook today.  I told her I never had one until I got to high school and she was very lucky.  It's wonderful to see how many of her friends' signatures she got.  What fun!  She also designed a color-coded system and drew squares around the heads of classmates and teachers.  Some of the colorful categories were teachers, friends and kids in her class.  A dilemma shortly came about when she was faced with a friend who was ALSO in her class!  This is the good stuff about school.

Andersen

Andy bounced back from the virus in time for school on Monday, but he had a lingering sore throat.  He did have a negative strep culture though and is finally almost done with that symptom.  Andy doesn't usually stop for ANYTHING, but he was telling me his throat hurt so much that he couldn't even swallow his favorite foods.

I was able to find enough photos for him to complete his school poster.  I'm going in next week to see his class's creations.  He's going to have the same two teachers next year and he's looking forward to it.  This is a new concept to the elementary school.  They call it "looping".  He really is loving baseball.  His last game is on Saturday.

Mom

Ooh!  I like that color!  I'm definitely girly and I grew out of that tomboy phase before I hit my teens.  What have I been up to?  I'm just trying to keep up with all of the year-end school events and set up the kids' summer activities as I mentioned above.  I have already told them that I am going to put a reward system into place for doing productive things like reading, working in their summer workbooks and keeping up with their chores.  The screentime around here has gotten out of whack with all of the fatigue I was dealing with until recently.  I've already started the weaning process.  I never thought I'd say that as I was always SO careful about limiting the amount of TV/video games my kids took part in, but hey, I will get back on track!

Dad

Dad's teenage car ended up stranding him on the side of the road this morning.  Thankfully, it was not raining yet.  One tow truck and an hour or two later, the mechanics explained that they had changed a consumable part with a defective one recently.  So, the repair is on them!  Hey, there's some great news and it's not the car's fault.  It's not just blaming someone else like a teenager may, it was actually not its fault!  It's been a struggle this week to get me my scheduled "breaks" (something we just started working on together), but I know he's trying and very aware of my need for them, which means the world to me.