Fun at the Park with Grandpa & Grandma

The daycare was closed on Thursday and Friday, so the kids stayed home with Grandpa and Grandma while Zac and I went to work. Since the weather was so nice, they spent a lot of time both days at the neighborhood park. The kids especially loved climbing the trees.

Last Daycare Parent-Teacher Conference for Alice

We had out last parent-teacher conference for Alice at her daycare this morning. It was not as traumatic as last time,when they implied Alice was too smart for kindergarten and would be a behavior problem. They were a little more tempered this time, and I don't know if it's because she turns out to not be the genius they thought, or because she is not the behavior problem they feared. As a teacher myself, I know that teachers rarely tell parents the whole truth, so I'm always trying to read between the lines. They didn't really have anything surprising to tell us this time, because, as Zac always says, "They're getting the same Alice we are." We asked mainly about her behavior, and they said she gets along well with others and does a good job following the rules. Her struggles, as we well know, are that she talks a lot and moves a lot.

Below are her progress reports and some examples of her work.

On these, the teacher transcribes what Alice says.

These two were given as an example of progress. They were done about a week apart, and the bottom one is much improved from the top one. The teachers' main concern is that Alice often writes from right-to-left rather than left-to-right, but it seems she might finally be getting it.

Grandpa & Grandma Shogren come to visit

On Wednesday my parents flew into town for a visit. They were thick as thieves with the kids in no time at all.

Bath adventures

With a little help from Zac, Alice recreates a science experiment she saw at the museum during the astronomy fair (it has something to do with atmospheric pressure I think).

Later, she went free-diving.

Simon's new love: Tayo

Simon found this toy, Tayo, that we've had for over a year. It's the bus from a South Korean TV show that the kids watch from time to time. Now he loves it more than his hoot owl, which had been the love of his life for about a month now.

Alice swims!

This afternoon was Alice's third swim lesson. There are five kids in the class, but one didn't show up today and two were refusing to get in the water, so Alice got a lot of extra attention. She made quite some progress today--even swimming without any floats for the first time! She still needs a bit of work on her form, but the key thing is that she's not afraid and can do it. We'll have to go swimming a lot this summer to build her skills. The class seems pretty lame to Zac and I, but Alice loves it, even though she sits there freezing most of the time. She tells every single person she meets that she's taking swim lessons.

Balloons

Balloons are always a good way to keep the kids entertained on the stay-home day.

Lego lady

Alice spent a good part of Sunday morning building with the legos. Zac and I are so happy she likes building with them.

Ritter Park

Lindsey suggested having a playdate at a new park this weekend, so Saturday morning we met at Ritter Park. It's amazing that we can still find new parks to go to that are less than 20 minutes away. It turned out to be a great park and the kids had a blast. The redbud trees were beautiful, and fortunately Lindsey and I color-coordinated.

Simon mostly played in the sandbox, at first.

Alice and Grayson went and did the climbing wall.

From a parent's point of view, one kid pushing another is the best thing ever.

After the kids played at the playground for a long time and had a big snack, they headed down to the adjacent creek, and eventually explored the culverts. 

Then, they headed back up to the playground and discovered some more fun things to do.

Evening on the sidewalk

With the warm weather today, we spent the time between supper and bedtime snack down at the sidewalk. It's always a bit nerve-wracking to be so close to the street, but the kids are pretty well trained to stay out of the road. Here are three videos of how they entertained themselves. Simon always wants to see himself on the video, so that's what he's whining about most of the time. In the third video, I finally turned the camera to front-facing so he could see himself while I made the video.

St. Patrick's Day green milk

For St. Patrick's Day, Alice said she needed to have something green for breakfast. Her idea was a green pear and peas. Zac suggested making green milk for her cereal. Alice was really happy about that.

Alice asleep

I found Alice fast asleep in this rather stiff pose this morning.

Lazy lollipops

Blame Zac for the vertical video.

Sunday morning and books and play

This morning, Alice woke up at her normal time, and went into the living room to start working her way through the pile of hand-me-down books we got from Julian last night.

When Simon finally woke up, Zac and I were both busy in the middle of something, so I told Alice to go play with him until we had a chance to get him out of bed. A while later, when I finally had a chance to check on them, this is what I found. Alice had moved the light with the colored bulb over to the bed, then climbed in it with Simon, and they were using the red light as an x-ray machine to perform checkups on the owls.

Our big day: Reptiles, restaurants, machines and trampolines

On Saturday, we had been planning to go to the annual reptile day at the science museum, but then Zac's dad invited us over to check out their new trampoline. So we made a new plan: We would go to the science museum in the morning, eat lunch out, then the kids would nap in the van on the way to Burlington.

The morning started out well. Although Zac burnt the eggs, the kids took advantage of the open front door (to get the smoke out) to play happily on the porch while round two of the eggs were cooking. Alice was very involved in cutting up a string, dipping it in water, then putting the pieces on her stick.

Once we ate breakfast and got packed up, we headed off to the science museum. I love that Simon can now catch on to the plan, because the whole way there, he kept repeating, "I'm going to touch a snake!"

The kids had a lot of fun touching all sorts of creatures, but eventually Simon started breaking down, so we decided to head on to the next stage: lunch. Because of the warm weather, the outdoor bridge between the buildings was open, so the kids had fun running across it.

To get back to the door we came in, we had to go down three flights of stairs. Simon wanted to walk down himself, but he was messing around and causing traffic jams. So I just picked him up and carried him down the stairs, and he got very upset. So, just like last year, I ended up walking out of the museum holding a screaming, kicking child.

Having deemed the museum restaurant food unlikely to be eaten by our children, we drove to a nearby Chinese restaurant, that had outdoor seating. It was perfect for the kids, since they didn't disturb anyone. Simon did OK, but Alice kept laying down on the bench and rolling around.

Simon wasn't eating very well, but luckily Zac had some toothpicks, so he kept giving Simon "samples" which he would willingly eat. At home, the kids will do lollipop "cheers" (because if you're a kid, lollipops look just like wine glasses). At the restaurant, they invented yet another way of spreading germs: sample cheers.

After we finished lunch, we walked to the nearby rail yard to look around. Here the kids are playing on an old, dilapidated luggage cart.

Then, of course, we had to check out the digger that was parked in a field adjacent to the parking lot.

The kids were covered in food and grime, so we put on fresh clothes, packed them up in the van, and drove towards Burlington. The kids each napped for about 20 minutes, so it was less than ideal.

When we were about 45 minutes in to the drive, Zac noticed the van seemed to be shaking a lot, and suspected we had a flat tire. Luckily, we were right by an exit that had a lot of gas stations, so we pulled off the highway.  Zac pulled into a parking lot and looked at the wheels and didn't notice anything, but decided to err on the side of caution and pulled into the adjacent BP that appeared to have a shop.  

This ended up being the most random, lucky choice. It was kind of a weird place, with lots of hand painted signs giving advice for life, but it gave off a friendly vibe. The shop in back of the gas station had a run-down kids' play area next to it, as well as a pen full of goats and chickens. We couldn't have asked for a better place to spend an hour while they figured out that our lug nuts were loose. Everything was rickety, and broken, and the slide was so steep Simon plopped right into his bottom at the end. The kids had a blast!

We finally arrived in Burlington. Simon just wanted to snuggle (his 20-min nap was not sufficient), while Alice enthusiastically used the trampoline.

The kids also did well at supper, which was spaghetti. It was possibly the first meal they ever willingly ate there (the fault is entirely on our kids, not the food). Then, after supper, they went and played while the adults visited for a while. It was miraculous. Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel after all.