My Boy is a Doughnut Eating Champ!!

The Bus Ride

Last Friday I went with John's preschool class to a local farm for their annual fall field trip. Paul took a similar trip when he was four to a different farm. I was home with John at the time and was able to attend with him in tow. John and I drove separately while Paul enjoyed his first ride on a bus. The weather was miserable, but everyone had a ton of fun. When it was John's turn to go on the field trip as a big, bad preschooler, he was beyond excited about the bus ride. Despite having previous experiences of riding a city bus (through the Bronx no less) and multiple airport shuttles, he was convinced that riding a school bus was magical. That he would step on it and be transformed into a KINDERGARTNER. Nope, I would reply, calming squashing his dreams, you'll still be in preschool. Nevertheless, he remained excited and hopeful as we waited for the bus on Friday morning. When it arrived, the children and a few parent chaperones foolish enough not to drive their own cars boarded the bus with a buzz of anticipation. Video cameras were rolling, camera phones clicking; you'd think it was high school graduation or something. (For proof that I am not exaggerating my point here, see photo below.)

As the bus pulled out of the parking lot, the children began to squeal with an excitement generally reserved for Santa Claus. Every bump we hit, every turn we made, every light we came to was accompanied by similar noises of delight. Well, except for when one of the little girls in the back whacked her head on the seat in front of her when the bus stopped suddenly. Then there were sobs. Unfortunately, our bus driver got lost on the way to the farm and a 40 minute trip took us over an hour, but we made it there in one piece and had a marvelous time in the mud. Thankfully the rain held off until the ride home, which is more than I can say for Paul's trip. Here he is, three years ago, happy as a clam with his preschool buddies.

The next day, John accepted the fact that he was not yet in Kindergarten and seems content to watch his brother board the bus every morning. For now anyway.

The Deep, and the not so Deep

Paul and I have struck up some interesting conversations lately. His brain is a fascinating piece of machinery that I don't think I will ever truly figure out. His questions often lead to deep religious discussions that I hope open his mind a bit to the world outside of our little suburban universe, and then... the conversation ends faster than it began. For example: Yesterday he asked me what gelatin was. I asked why he wanted to know and he said that some of the kids in his class aren't allowed to have it. For the third year in a row he is in a classroom with students who have extreme nut allergies. I am a lactose sensitive vegetarian and he has recently been diagnosed with lactose intolerance. Conversations about food restrictions are not new. But I had a feeling the gelatin one was more related to religious practices, so I began explaining first what it was and then why some families choose not to ingest it. He seemed intrigued and we continued to talk about different religious practices and what, in a nutshell, each of the major religions believed. Our community is relatively diverse and I was able to use different families for examples. I wanted to make sure he understood the concept of freedom of religion and that he was free to choose something other than what we currently practice. All in all, I felt pretty good about our conversation. A few weeks back he had asked about the devil and I worried that what I had said then may have scared, confused or bewildered him. It is hard to tell with Paul. You give him an answer and he thinks it over, then asks if he can have a snack, go to a friends', practice his math facts on my tablet. I try to reengage but when he says the conversation is over, it's over. The gelatin discussion was no exception. After my explanation about who believes Jesus was the savior and who doesn't and why some people don't eat certain animal products or walk to worship and how he is free to visit any church at any time, he looked at me and said, "Your vocal cords move up and down when you talk." Hmm. Guess that was the end of that conversation.

Leaving Home So Soon?

My oldest son no longer wants to spend any time with me. I didn't think this was going to happen until he was at least 10, or maybe even 12. But nope, at seven he's decided that I am no longer cool. There is a group of kids up the street who are all his age or one year older, and they are way more fun than mom and little brother. His disappearance down the street started with his kindergarten girlfriend. ("Maa-ummm," I can hear him say, "she's just my friend now.") He begged me to let him go to her house and I finally relented, opening up a pandora's box of sorts. We live on a court that is on one end of a long street containing several other courts. Because the other courts are only on one side and the feeder street comes to a dead end, you can bike along the sidewalk for several "blocks" without ever having to cross a street. Remember as a kid when mom said, "Go as far as you can before you get to the corner"? Well, that takes a while in our neighborhood. And I figured what the heck, he should be okay as long as he doesn't have to cross the street. So I let him go. And he discovered that the boy next door to his "girlfriend" was pretty cool. As was the boy next to him. And the boy next to him. And the boy two houses in the other direction. Now he never wants to stay home. There are kids down in our court, but he doesn't like them nearly as much. (And there is some drama there that I won't get into on my blog.) So off he goes, riding his bike into the sunset at every possible opportunity. Occasionally the boys will make their way back to our house and look for frogs in the backyard, but it is much cooler to hang out at the other end of the street. To be honest, I am a little jealous. The parents down there seem like a lot of fun, but it's not like I can just ride my bike down there, ring the doorbell and say, "Hey, you wanna play?" Life is much simpler when you're seven. And you have an outgoing personality like my son and not a hermit-like personality. Like me.

The Kitchen: A Five Year Long Remodel

Our kitchen remodel has been coming along slowly as we gathered the funds and made decisions. We had replaced the floor immediately upon moving in back in 2008 because it was, in a word, disgusting. The front hallway was chipped gray slate, the main kitchen area was greasy, peeling linoleum, and the back section leading out to the garage had a lovely covering of brown shag carpet. Needless to say I didn't even bother taking any before photos. We just ripped it out. CJ spent that Memorial Day weekend laying down snap together laminate in a pattern that resembles ceramic tile (without the side effect of cold feet!) and is a breeze to clean. Our only problem has been the slight buckling that it does every year when the humidity sets in. Putting in a whole house air conditioning unit has helped, and CJ also has been working to eliminate the problem areas by cutting and refitting some of the pieces. His other big endeavor has been to replace all of the woodwork with oak. It is a long process full of measuring, cutting, staining and nailing, but the end results are certainly worth it. Additional changes to the kitchen were the custom made bookshelf, garden window (both recently stained - will take pics soon!) and new patio door. We also updated the hardware, which was an easy way for me to contribute to the project,

 and put in a new counter top and sink. The counter top has a breakfast bar which we can start using as soon as I buy some stools.

 The final phase is to replace the ceramic tile behind the stove and install new back splash. Here's a photo of the old tile. It is all gone now and patiently waiting for a decision to be made on the new stuff. I know in my mind what I want, it's really just a matter of finding it at the store!!

Once the tile has been installed I will post finish product pics. And then the only room in the house that will need updating will be the boys' bathroom. We have big plans which involve taking down a wall and putting in an additional sink, but decided to wait until the boys outgrow the animal wallpaper. And learn how to not pee all over the floor. (Does that ever happen?)

Heading West

For this year's vacation we decided to take the boys out west to visit my brother and his family. They make their annual trip to the beach at the same time, so we tried to plan other activities around that in an attempt to give them some space on their vacation while still enjoying their company. It worked out pretty well. We stayed in Anaheim for the first half of the week and visited Disney Land, which for anyone who has taken several trips to Disney World is a little disappointing. Or so the hubby says. I enjoyed our day at the park, with plenty to do but not too much that it became overwhelming, and just enough of a crowd to keep the lines short and the street strolling comfortable. It was a good day, even when the children started punching each other in line. Ah, brotherhood. For the Fourth we headed down to Laguna Beach and had a fun day playing in the sand and surf. Paul learned how to boogie board and John spent the day digging holes. 
The boys both lasted to the firework show (an impressive feat on day 2 of jet lag) but then crashed hard. John fell asleep during the show and Paul on the way home. Carrying their limp, sleep-filled bodies back to the hotel room was no easy feat. During the week we were also able to visit one of my friends from college and her family, and the boys bonded with her husband over Star Wars toys and video games. On our way to my brother's house we stopped at the La Brea tar pits, something I had wanted to see every since my first trip to California back in 1985. We had gone with my grandmother, also a teacher, who wanted to see the tar pits for their educational value. However dad got lost trying to find them and when we finally arrived it was dark and the area was closed. We pulled up to a black fence while he tried to explain how the animals had sunk to their death. The black fence is still there, in addition to a cool museum with an impressive row of dire wolf skulls. I was happy to finally see the big tar lake and other bubbly pits throughout the grounds where, as CJ put it, the Earth is farting.  
The boys had a ton of fun playing with their cousins and swimming in the pool. Both of them improved their swimming skills exponentially, proving that peer pressure can be a wonderful motivator. We also had some fun adventures, like a visit to a tree-climbing park, a day at a kid-centered museum and an adult's night out in Hollywood. The boys' final thoughts: John - "I goed underwater and swimmed like a fish." Paul - "I learned how to swim in the middle of a pool. What?" (Paul's current catch phrase.) 

A Superhero Birthday

During the weeks leading up to John's birthday, he insisted he wanted a Tyrannosaurus Rex cake for his birthday. I kept hoping he would change his mind considering I had no idea how I was going to pull that off. Finally I decided to consult my colleagues and search the wonderful world of google images. There were a few reasonable ideas, but they involved a lot of cake and way more prep than I desired. I went home that night and asked him if he really, truly wanted a T-Rex cake and he replied that no, he wanted Iron Man instead. Iron Man??? We've never seen the movies, never read any books about him and have no Iron Man toys. Apparently his friends at school suggested it and suddenly it was what he HAD TO HAVE. I sighed, went back to google and searched for Iron Man cakes. The two major problems? Red and gold. Red is a very tricky frosting color and gold? Well, it took me a long time to make the gold thingy for Paul's Green Ninja and it ended up looking a bit like a jock strap. I wasn't about to go through that again. So I surfed around for superhero cakes and stumbled upon The Hulk. The suggestion was met with instant approval and it turned out to be a relatively easy cake. My only regret is that I didn't make the fists fist-like and they looked more like paws. My husband pointed this out AFTER I had already molded and frosted them. He told me he "didn't want to intervene." For future reference dear: suggestions are always welcome.

 The green frosting turned out well (much better than red would have!!) but I ended up wearing much of it on my hands along with some black that leaked out of the lid. oops.

Overall I was pleased, as was the boy. He was happy I had sent him to school with green frosted cupcakes on his birthday, but he liked the "real Hulk smash cake" even better. Love.