Just Keep Swimming

This summer we signed all three kids up for swim lessons.  The first day (and the second, if we're honest) was a bit bumpy, with lots of tears and resistance, but, thankfully, they did amazingly well by the end of the week, as promised.

 Since then we've had several opportunities to practice our newly acquired skills, going to the Aquatic Center, splash pad and Uncle Brent and Mimi's pool.  

 Swimming has been a great addition to our summertime activities!

Caleb's First Half Week of Kindergarten

Caleb's first day of nightmare - I mean kindergarten - was this past week.  It started off with his alarm beeping for five minutes starting at 6:20 and him just sleeping through it.  He finally woke up when I came in to see if he was up and ready to go (he wasn't) as we had discussed the night before.  After squabbling a bit about what he would wear to school (apparently what we had picked out the night before was no longer good enough), he finally got dressed, made his bed, brushed his teeth and came down for breakfast.  He took exactly two nibbles off of his pancakes and half a sip of milk before it was time for us to head for the bus stop.  So much for heading to school on a full stomach.
We took this picture right before heading out to the bus stop.

This is where the story gets a bit more interesting.  It's also where I start to exhibit signs of PTSD when relaying the story.  Caleb and I headed for the bus stop, just as it started to rain again.  No big deal.  We just brought the umbrella with us.  He had expressed a strong desire in riding the school bus all summer, and we talked about how it would be as we climbed the hill to the stop, all while keeping a close eye on the clock so as not to miss the bus.  Once there, Caleb started to act a bit more hesitant.  You can see the tension in his face and hands in these pictures while we waited for the bus to arrive.  Poor fella.

When the big yellow rectangle came around the bend, I gave him my best pep talk, "You can do this, buddy!  This is going to be so much fun!"  Apparently it wasn't good enough because when it was his turn to get on the bus, he wouldn't budge.  He would not be pushed or prodded or bribed to get on that bus.  Understandably, the bus driver couldn't wait forever, and she closed the doors and started to drive off.  Caleb immediately began to protest that he wanted to get on the bus, and the bus driver gave him one more opportunity...which he did not take.  As the bus drove away, Caleb was crying and yelling that he wanted to ride the bus.  Too late, bud.
So we quickly ran (well, I mostly drug him) back down the hill to hop into the van to take him to school.  Once there, he walked in with me just fine.  Then he slipped and fell on the floor in the cafeteria as we walked to his classroom, but he got over that pretty quickly.  In his classroom, as I was starting to leave, it became evident that he was not going to let me leave without a fight.  And fight he did.  The last thing I recall as I was trying to leave was him hitting his teacher who was trying to keep him there.  Great start to the school year.  All the other students were quietly coloring or talking with their new classmates.  I walked out of the school wondering if there was a page or two about starting kindergarten missing from my parenting handbook.  While I drove away in tears of frustration, the school bus that he should have been on pulled into the parking lot.
I called the school half an hour later to see if he had calmed down, which I was informed he had.  Incidentally, I'm sure that I have been labeled as "that parent" by the office staff because I called to check on my child within the first hour of the first day of school.  Sheesh.
Thankfully, he rode the bus home with no problem and received a good report from his teacher.  She even sent this little note home:

RaRa took him out for ice cream to celebrate his first day.
I was sure that day two and three would be better.  In actuality?  Have you ever seen Groundhog Day?  That's how it was, even down to the beeping alarm that is seemingly incapable of arousing him from his slumber.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Today, we did just skip the miss-the-school-bus-step and went straight to school.  I'm told that Tony pretty much had to pull him out of the van, and two teachers had to practically carry him into the school.  Nevertheless, he had another good report from the teacher and actually seemed to enjoy school today.
Now I know why the first week of school starts in the middle of the week.  The students, parents, teachers and staff couldn't handle five days of this in a row!  All I can say is that I've never been so happy that tomorrow is Saturday (and that we can turn that stupid alarm off)!  Here's to a better week next week...

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I guess I should have known that this day was coming.  I suppose it is a bit of a right of passage.  But I certainly wasn't prepared for it when we heard Caleb say (from the living room), "Mom, Wren's letting me cut her hair!"  I quickly ran from the kitchen to find Wren sitting stiller than ever while her older brother calmly gave her some long "layers" with our purple safety scissors.  I may have shrieked.  I may have made an ecstatic utterance.  And maybe (just maybe) I may have cried...just a little.  My baby girl was born with the most beautiful flaxen hair I've ever seen, and so long as she still had the hair she was born with on her head, she could still be my baby girl, right?

 Her hair is nearly down to her waist, so perhaps it was due for a cut anyways, but I wasn't expecting it to be so soon (and so sudden).

After seeing my overreaction, Wren soon realized the grave mistake that she made and soon began to cry too.  Thankfully, because she does have so much hair, the shorter spot can barely be noticed.  At least we can say that she has learned two things from this ordeal:

1) Never leave your hair in the hands of anyone but a professional (and especially avoid anyone wielding purple safety scissors); and

2) A good hat can cover a multitude of sins.

Making Mountains Out of Molehills

Growing up, we often used to make treks to the top of Kennesaw Mountain, both for the exercise and the views.  I've been waiting for the time that our little ones are big enough for them to join us on these climbs, and we decided to give it a try this past July 4th.  After all, it may be called a "mountain" but that term is really stretching it in comparison to the truly large mountains of the world.  It is no Everest or Kilimanjaro.  It's only about a mile to the top.  True, it can be pretty steep at times, but still, it's only a mile.  We could do this, I was sure.  Perhaps I was a little too optimistic...
It started inauspiciously enough.  We (and thousands of our closest friends) parked our van in the parking lot down the road and began pushing our double stroller (with room for two, but not three, riders) towards the mountain.  We made it to the sign and posed for a proud picture for the memory book (err...blog).

Shortly after this picture was taken (as in 15 steps later), it all started to fall apart - well short of the base of the mountain.  Caleb was tired and didn't want to walk anymore.  That's when we started in with the bribery.  If he could make it to the top of the mountain, he would get a big, giant ice cream cone.  We were more or less able to drag him to the base of the mountain - not quite kicking and screaming...yet.  But once the real climbing commenced, he had had enough.  Thankfully, Wren was itching to walk, so she hopped out of the stroller and he hopped in, in what was the beginning of the longest game of musical chairs (stroller?) I think I've ever played - and most certainly the longest climb up Kennesaw Mountain I've ever had.
I was certain that Wren could make it to the top judging by the vigor in which she started her climb.  The girls left the boys behind for that first leg of the mountain.  But, alas, she too began to slow...and slow even more...until Daddy and the stroller caught back up with us.  Then we began the bribery with her...if she could make it all the way to the top of the mountain by walking by herself, she would get the largest, tastiest ice cream cone she's ever seen.  That worked for about 10.8 seconds.  Then Judson walked for a bit while she and Caleb rode.  Though he gave it his best shot, his short legs and limited oxygen level soon had him ready to ride again.  It gets a bit fuzzy from here, but the rest went something like this:  we would somehow manage to bribe one of them out of the stroller so the free-walking (and inevitably tired and whiney) child could ride again, until that walking child too was ready to ride again.  At one point, Tony, in an attempt to keep Caleb interested in walking, turned on the Imperial March on his cell phone.  So, yes, if you were at Kennesaw Mountain on that particular day, we were the family slowing marching up the mountain to Darth Vader's theme song.  I'm certain we frightened a few families visiting our country from foreign lands...It even devolved so much that for the last stretch of the mountain (which seemed like the last half a mile) one of us was carrying one of them while the other pushed the other two in the stroller.  (On the bright side, what I thought would be an easy walk up the mountain turned into a serious workout.)  It may have crossed our minds that we should just turn around and call it quits, but I refused.  I was going to show them the meaning of perseverance - even if it meant that we would be a sweaty, grumpy, hot mess by the time we made it to the top.  And I wanted to show them the great view from the top...the sweet reward at the end of our hard work.
 

 And we did it.  Not without sweat and tears, but we did eventually make it to the top.

Now it took us about an hour to get to the top, and we knew that there was no way our kids would suffer another hour to get to the bottom.  To shorten the ride down, we came up with an innovative (though perhaps not quite as safe) way to transport all three kids in the one stroller...

(I can assure you that Tony had a firm grip on Juddy at all times.)
Once everyone was in place, we kicked into high gear and ran to the bottom.  Whatever time we lost on the way up, we made up for on the way down.  We may have received some strange looks and comments on the way down, but there was at least no crying or whining all the way down.  While no one earned a giant ice cream cone (well, at least none of the children), we all had a small bowl of ice cream when we got home to reward them for hanging with us on this adventure.
It may have turned into more of a feat than I had anticipated, but we left with the pride of knowing that we had made it, despite serious adversity (i.e., three cantankerous children).  And my quads were a little sore the next day from the downhill run.  I would call that a win-win.  Though next time (and every time after that until our kids learn to walk the whole way) we will most certainly bring the second stroller with us.

Stairway to Heaven

Caleb's theological thought has been going a bit deeper here lately.  One night this past week, while I was putting him to bed, he had a string of thoughts and questions all pertaining to Heaven.  Here were a few of his musings:
"I don't want to lay on a cloud."  I told him that he wouldn't have to lay on a cloud if he didn't want to.  Nor would he have to play a harp.
"Will I fall off a cloud?"  I assured him that if he did choose to lay on a cloud, he would most definitely not fall off of it.
"How will I get back down from heaven?"  Uhhh….I'm just guessing, but I said that he could fly or be transported down?
"Can we bring the Jesus Storybook Bible with us to heaven?"  I couldn't see a reason why that would not be welcome there...if we were to bring possessions with us.
"Where will Noah be?"  Good question.  Maybe in a boat floating on the River of Life?
"When will Jesus come?"  No one knows that one.
But by far his most pressing concern was:  "Is there really a stairway to heaven?  Where is it?"  How do you explain to a five year old that the stairway to Heaven is not a physical structure but that Jesus is the true stairway to Heaven - the only way that we can enter Heaven?  I tried, but I think we will still need to work on that one.  He's looking for an actual staircase somewhere.
I just love his inquisitive nature and his curiosity over these matters!

Aside from delving deep into spiritual questions, we've also been busy at VBS.  Caleb spent not one but two weeks at Vacation Bible School recently.  We had tried to sign him up for one where he went to preschool, but it was full.  So we went on the waiting list and signed up for another one.  When we got into the first one after all, we said why not do both?  He had a great time at both!

Much to Judson's great pleasure, we also spent some time at Brent and Mimi's house where we sat on a real live tractor!

The kids also finished up their Summer Reading Program in which they completed 50 different activities related to the library and reading/writing in exchange for...inflatable guitars!