Saturday, October 30, 2010
Costumes
When we asked Mr. 5 and Mr. 7 what they wanted to be for Halloween, they decided they had to be characters from Tron. Actually they wanted to be Tron and Copper, an imaginary Tron character that can fight off any bad guy and do amazing feats that Mr. 5 reports with great excitement. These are not costumes easily found online so we bought glow in the dark tape and set about making our own with some help from our young designers. Mr. 1 gets to be the Sark, the bad guy, dressed all in black with glowing circuit designs. The result looks pretty good but I was a bit worried that the number of people who have seen and remember this 1982 classic is small and the boys may not be as identifiable as we hoped. Luckily they debuted their costumes at the Google Halloween party. They're ready for Halloween ... and fighting their way out of a computer if necessary.
Busy days
Since school started our weeks have been full with piano lessons and practicing, homework, soccer practice, making costumes, and all the other busy activities of the week. Today I took the three boys to Mr. 5's soccer practice so David could help a friend move. On the way home I stopped to drop off our millions of overdue library books. After a busy lunchtime Mr. 1 went to take a nap and I headed into work to see my consult patients. I came home just in time to throw together a salad so we could head out to see some good friends who had kindly invited us for dinner. Home again we rounded up the troops to get clean, read books, pray and get to bed so we can be up early for church in the morning. It was a fun day, productive in so many ways, and I'm happy to spend time with family and friends. Tomorrow promises to bring more of the same but some days I really wish I could just curl up with a book rather than face all the chores that must be done to get us through.
Packages for everyone
Last week I came upstairs to find David turning the coffeemaker on and off hoping he could somehow make it work. It was 5am and he was up first and found that our coffeemaker had failed to deliver our early morning coffee. Alas that was the end of our coffeemaker and a bit of a sad morning. After a bit of Amazon research we bought a new one and thanks to 2-day-shipping only had to survive a few days without our morning cup. David and Mr. 1 unpacked it and set it up - actually Mr. 1 started to help and then discovered the box and claimed it as his own. That actually may have been the biggest help of all.
Train love
Tonight Mr. 1 brought out All Aboard from the playroom, toddling with his heavy load. He brought it too me and said "all boad" and held out his hand and walked me to his room to read it to him. As I was pulled by Mr. 1 carrying this special book, I thought that perhaps in this small way I have been successful as a parent. We love books - and I love this little boy!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Gratitude
Today was a bit of a juggling day and I picked up the boys with Mr. 1 in tow with the plan to spend an hour at the Museum of Science before dropping them off at Google with the Daddy so I could go to the Boston City-Wide Allergy Meeting. We wandered a bit with the boys not particularly wanting to interact with anything - after a long day at school they wanted to just push buttons for a bit. After a bit of encouragement, they perked up and we explored the fish tank with Mr. 1 who loved watching the fish the older boys made and piled in the command module for a flight. Everyone was definitely tired though.
I warned them we only had time for one last thing and Mr. 7 chose Mathematica and we explored a bit which we translated to chasing Mr. 1 down who wasn't interested while being called to look at things by Mr. 7. A bit cranky myself, I told the boys we had to go and Mr. 5 got angry and refused to come. He hadn't gotten to choose a last thing and was not leaving. It wasn't just the sad tears of disappointment - it was angry, yelling, and running away tears and I did not have the fortitude to deal with such drama. So our lovely trip ended with me yelling at everyone, lecturing on gratitude, taking away privileges, and finally telling Mr. 5 I was not taking him back for a long time despite the fact that I had to renew my membership to go in the first place. Some days do not end as well as you'd like.
I've been thinking about how best to teach the boys gratitude. They've learned to say thank you when given things but do not seem to appreciate us changing all our plans to fit in something that they really wanted to do. Or the work that went into a dinner one boy decides he doesn't like even before he's tried it. We talk about these things but sometimes I feel like they just don't care despite their hollow thank yous. Those are the days I leave the museum with a crying Mr. 5 and a cranky Mr. 1.
Then again - they often surprise me by asking how they can help when I'm having a hard day or telling me I'm the best cook ever. Maybe we'll do okay in the end.
I warned them we only had time for one last thing and Mr. 7 chose Mathematica and we explored a bit which we translated to chasing Mr. 1 down who wasn't interested while being called to look at things by Mr. 7. A bit cranky myself, I told the boys we had to go and Mr. 5 got angry and refused to come. He hadn't gotten to choose a last thing and was not leaving. It wasn't just the sad tears of disappointment - it was angry, yelling, and running away tears and I did not have the fortitude to deal with such drama. So our lovely trip ended with me yelling at everyone, lecturing on gratitude, taking away privileges, and finally telling Mr. 5 I was not taking him back for a long time despite the fact that I had to renew my membership to go in the first place. Some days do not end as well as you'd like.
I've been thinking about how best to teach the boys gratitude. They've learned to say thank you when given things but do not seem to appreciate us changing all our plans to fit in something that they really wanted to do. Or the work that went into a dinner one boy decides he doesn't like even before he's tried it. We talk about these things but sometimes I feel like they just don't care despite their hollow thank yous. Those are the days I leave the museum with a crying Mr. 5 and a cranky Mr. 1.
Then again - they often surprise me by asking how they can help when I'm having a hard day or telling me I'm the best cook ever. Maybe we'll do okay in the end.
Hammond Castle
Mr. 5 has been studying castles so when we saw there was a castle complete with armor and drawbridge in Glouchester we knew we had to visit. It's beautiful and full of treasures. It has the flavor of Isabella Stewart Gardner where each room is decorated with the beloved pieces collected over a lifetime and not a room all filled with one thing. The boys shot arrows from the arrow slits and admired the 1930s workshop. John Hammond was a protege of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell and the inventor of remote control. He was quite an inventor and held almost 1000 patents. A great example for young, industrious boys!
Trip to Glouchester
We met my grandparents (the boys great-grandparents) up in Glouchester for a mini-vacation. Nana and Papa decided to fly out for the fun. We walked on the beach, visited a castle, ate lobster, and enjoyed the company.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Jungle walk
Last week I was on my own with the 3 boys while Daddy visited the Googleplex in California. It was my first time in a long time I was on my own with the boys (residency scheduling is easy to work around) and we did just fine although we were all definitely excited to be back together Thursday night!
On Monday it was raining as we set off for school. Mr. 1 had been up on and off throughout the night and I overslept when I finally got him back to sleep around 3:30am so we were a bit on the late side and everyone was cranky from being rushed out the door. And we really couldn't ride bikes in the pouring rain. Yikes - how to get these guys to hurry to the train?
"Boys, watch out - I think we're in the jungle. Do you see the monkeys in the trees? Oh no, is that a jaguar in the tree? What about that anaconda?"
Luckily our kids love to pretend and they picked it up and ran with it. We ran away from the anaconda, were joined by "Orang" (our friend the orangutan), and discovered jungle magic. It was a hit. That night I had to sign a contract in order to be taught jungle magic (Orang and Jaggy - the jaguar - and Froggy all signed too). Mr. 7 and I have been reading The Dark is Rising series (a wonderful 5 book series by Susan Cooper) and the colors of jungle magic did sound a bit like the six signs.
The jungle world continues - today a tiger tried to sneak onto our train and I'm pretty sure I was on a jungle spaceship at some point. Somehow Mr. 5 always finds the spaceship - no matter where we are!
On Monday it was raining as we set off for school. Mr. 1 had been up on and off throughout the night and I overslept when I finally got him back to sleep around 3:30am so we were a bit on the late side and everyone was cranky from being rushed out the door. And we really couldn't ride bikes in the pouring rain. Yikes - how to get these guys to hurry to the train?
"Boys, watch out - I think we're in the jungle. Do you see the monkeys in the trees? Oh no, is that a jaguar in the tree? What about that anaconda?"
Luckily our kids love to pretend and they picked it up and ran with it. We ran away from the anaconda, were joined by "Orang" (our friend the orangutan), and discovered jungle magic. It was a hit. That night I had to sign a contract in order to be taught jungle magic (Orang and Jaggy - the jaguar - and Froggy all signed too). Mr. 7 and I have been reading The Dark is Rising series (a wonderful 5 book series by Susan Cooper) and the colors of jungle magic did sound a bit like the six signs.
The jungle world continues - today a tiger tried to sneak onto our train and I'm pretty sure I was on a jungle spaceship at some point. Somehow Mr. 5 always finds the spaceship - no matter where we are!
Topsfield
Six years ago we visited Topsfield Fair with our 18 month old and he had a wonderful time seeing all the animals and absorbing the sights and sounds of the fair. We decided that since we again have an 18 month old to show the animals too we thought we should try to make it so Saturday we drove up and spent the day. We had a wonderful time and Mr. 1 is the perfect age for it all and Mr. 5 and Mr. 7 loved being his tour guides. He especially liked the sheep and would point and say "baa" and loved petting their fuzzy, newly sheared backs.
We also saw the Royal Canadian Mounted Police perform and it was a great show with everyone cheering on the horses. Governor Duval Patrick was supposed to come and for some reason the older boys really wanted to see him so we had to wait after the show until he made it to the stadium. Once they saw him they seemed much less interested - I'm not sure what they were expecting. Possibly not a man in jeans and a button down but some sort of fancy garb and entourage (Mr. 5 did ask why Massachusetts doesn't have a king - he knows the United States has a president but a king does have a bit more pomp and circumstance that goes with him - maybe we should review Revolutionary War history again).
We had at first told the older boys we would check out the rides at the end but everyone seemed so happy with the animals and show that we headed out without venturing to the very crowded (and expensive) rides section. Although I do love a good ferris wheel.
After all the excitement, we stopped at Jordan's Furniture on the way home. The grown-ups wanted to look at something and we'd heard that it was a bit of a carnival and the kids would love it. They were not impressed at all with the furniture although Mr. 7 had brought his new favorite book Hoyle's Rules of Card Games (he's been alternating between The Phantom Tollbooth and that - we've been trying to keep fiction and non-fiction active) and stopped at every comfy chair he could find to read. What the kids loved was the "Liquid Fireworks" show that played every 15 mintues or so. We actually dragged our dinner from the other side of the place so they could sit right by the fountain and watch it over and over again. Mr. 1 would stand up and dance with the music. It really is beautiful - especially Stars and Stripes Forever. Better than the synthesized opera overtures version. We finally dragged them out by promising card games when we got home! After all Mr. 7 now knows all the rules.
We also saw the Royal Canadian Mounted Police perform and it was a great show with everyone cheering on the horses. Governor Duval Patrick was supposed to come and for some reason the older boys really wanted to see him so we had to wait after the show until he made it to the stadium. Once they saw him they seemed much less interested - I'm not sure what they were expecting. Possibly not a man in jeans and a button down but some sort of fancy garb and entourage (Mr. 5 did ask why Massachusetts doesn't have a king - he knows the United States has a president but a king does have a bit more pomp and circumstance that goes with him - maybe we should review Revolutionary War history again).
We had at first told the older boys we would check out the rides at the end but everyone seemed so happy with the animals and show that we headed out without venturing to the very crowded (and expensive) rides section. Although I do love a good ferris wheel.
After all the excitement, we stopped at Jordan's Furniture on the way home. The grown-ups wanted to look at something and we'd heard that it was a bit of a carnival and the kids would love it. They were not impressed at all with the furniture although Mr. 7 had brought his new favorite book Hoyle's Rules of Card Games (he's been alternating between The Phantom Tollbooth and that - we've been trying to keep fiction and non-fiction active) and stopped at every comfy chair he could find to read. What the kids loved was the "Liquid Fireworks" show that played every 15 mintues or so. We actually dragged our dinner from the other side of the place so they could sit right by the fountain and watch it over and over again. Mr. 1 would stand up and dance with the music. It really is beautiful - especially Stars and Stripes Forever. Better than the synthesized opera overtures version. We finally dragged them out by promising card games when we got home! After all Mr. 7 now knows all the rules.
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