Calgon, take me away!

Erik and Adin had a bath tonight, and while I was sitting next to them reading, Adin managed to pour about half a bottle of bubble bath into the tub.  The water was pink.  When I looked up and commented, Erik said, "I know!  I tried to tell him to stop."  He must have been trying telepathically, because I didn't hear him say stop.  Oh well.  Erik got cold and got out of the tub, but Adin stayed and played longer.  He had me cover him with bubbles, and I think he looks like he should be in the 80's commercials for Calgon. 

Also, it seems Erik is a good enough reader now, that we have to keep an eye on his room after lights out at bedtime.  He was sitting up and reading when I came to check on him tonight.  Fortunately, after karate and baseball practice, he was pretty tired and fell asleep quickly.

Happy May Day!

My dad has been in Norway for two weeks, so the kids were excited to be invited over to my parents' last night for lasagna.  I have a flower wreath with ribbons that I bought a year or two ago when I decided that I'd better buy myself something I would buy my daughter if I had one!  I mostly just wear it on May Day and tell the boys I'm the Queen of May.  After dinner they couldn't take it anymore and had to try it on.  When they are teenagers they may be mortified by these pictures, but they smiled so nice I can't help sharing. 

Head spinning

It's so funny how variable Adin's maturity is.  When we are transitioning from one activity to another or from one place to another, if I don't give him a lot of mental preparation time, he can throw a fit worthy of a two year old.  However, other time his coping skills and problem solving are remarkably mature.  Playing a new game on my Kindle, each time he loses, he says cheerfully, "I did my best."  When I came in from taking out some lawn waste and commented on how cold it is outside and how cold my fingers were, he suggested I might want to make myself some hot cocoa, which I think showed a nice ability to put himself in my shoes.  Last month, when I was upset that I couldn't celebrate Erik's birthday by buying myself a coffee, he suggested I find a different way to celebrate!  That one really made me laugh because I was the one fussing like a two year old and he was the mature one putting the situation into perspective.

Erik's teacher told me last night how pleased she is with his oral Spanish.  Now the classroom expectation is that the students speak only Spanish.  She said many of the students are not yet confident and so they mumble when they speak, which makes it hard for her to hear and understand them.  She said Erik speaks out clearly.  I told her that Joe and I felt Erik seemed to turn a corner at spring break.  He seemed to miss speaking in Spanish, began using some Spanish with us, and told us he thought he was losing Spanish skills during the break (which he would not have cared about earlier).  Since then, he's been using more Spanish at home with us.  I wish I spoke and understood more Spanish.

Baseball! Wait, I already said that.

Joe took Erik to the first Little League meeting today.  They divided the kids into teams.  Erik has a school friend and a neighbor on his team, so I'm pretty excited about having people I know to talk to at the practices and games.  Erik said that at the meeting they already taught him some new things about catching and hitting.  While they were at LL, I took Adin to the park and practiced hitting off his T ball Tee.  We saw a neighbor in his yard with his mom on the way, invited them to join us, and they did!  St. Louis Park has such a small town feel to me.  As soon as the temperatures rose to the 60s, the neighbors all came out and it's great to see everyone working in their yards and playing in the alley again.

Baseball!

It looks like it's going to be a baseball filled summer.  Today we signed up Erik for Little League and Adin for T-ball!  Joe took them over to the park tonight to practice, Erik has 'try outs' tomorrow.  They want to keep the teams fairly evenly distributed with ability levels.  I got out of practice because I ran a 10K this morning and developed blisters on the bottoms of my feet!

Swim lessons

Erik had swim lessons tonight.  The instructor has been having the kids put float noodles at their waists and swim the short length of the pool, sometimes on their stomachs and sometimes on their backs.  Today she had them basically race back and forth several times.  Joe and I were very proud of Erik.  He was persistent, didn't get frustrated when he wasn't the fastest and listened well to the instructions.  When he was swimming forward, he often had his head up out of the water and was more doggy paddling, but when he put his face in the water and actually scooped with his hands he was swimming pretty fast!  Then on his back, he popped his head up every few seconds to make sure he wasn't about to crash into the wall, but again when he was actually swimming, he was really fast.

His albatross has always been jumping into the pool.  He doesn't have a lot of trust.  Today, the instructor had them swim along the side to the deep end, get out and form two lines.  Then she had them jump in two at a time and swim the short length of the pool in races at the deep end!  The final task was to jump off the starting block at the deep end and swim to the shallow end.  She held his hand while he jumped in, but Erik actually jumped in and swam the whole length of the pool.  That's easily the farthest he's ever swam before.  He was very proud of himself.  The video is sideways but it's fun to see him go for it. 

President's Day

 We went to the playground on Monday.  Adin's cheesy grin.

 Erik is working very hard to climb onto a playhouse.

 The plows leave a nice sledding hill when they plow the parking lot.  The school left some sliders on the playground, so we did a little sledding.

 Erik found a football, so we tossed that around too.  I think the blur in the corner is Erik tossing the ball at me.

 He's almost made it to the top.

 Adin loved being surprised at the window. 

aaand he made it!

Read!

Erik and Adin are in fun stages of literacy right now.  Adin is a voracious reader.  Today at the dentist, he sat with a book and read Richard Scarry while I had my teeth cleaned.   Tonight he sat in bed and read for 30 minutes after bedtime and really only put down the book and turned off the light under extreme duress. 

Erik is learning to read at a more normal rate, and is slowed a little right now by being in Spanish Immersion school, where he won't have English reading instruction for a couple more years.  However, he is becoming more and more adept at decoding words.  I love when he reads me a simple picture book.  Adin comes and sits on one side of Erik and listens to the book, too.  It's very sweet.  I coach him a little on the odder vowel combinations, and on putting a little dramatic flair into his reading. 

Scholastic Books had a great poster:
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy books, and that's kind of the same thing.