Today I'm thankful for....

1. The way Liam says "conscuse me" instead of "excuse me."  It makes me smile and laugh inside every time I hear him say it.  I know I'll miss it when the day comes that he figures out how to say it the right way.

2. Kettlebells.  They make me sore in all the right places.  A few weeks ago I did 500 kettlebell swings during class.  Today we were swinging and squatting, and doing burpees in between.  It feels great!

3. Summer Vacation!  Lillian had her last day of school yesterday.  She's officially done with second grade!  I'm most excited because I don't have to pack a school lunch for the next two months!  Or go to the bus stop twice a day.  Or remember to sign the homework and reading logs.  Or help with homework, presentations, and writing assignments.  Or remind Lillian to do all of her homework, presentations, and writing assignments. Or drop her snack off at the front office when she forgets it at home.  I LOVE summer vacation!  :-)

And YAY for Lillian for doing an awesome job in second grade!  She learned so much this year. In math- counting money, telling time, adding and subtracting big numbers in a million different ways that I never knew existed (some of which still don't make sense to me...the way they teach math these days is just weird), solving countless word problems about stickers; it's not always her favorite subject, but she does well in math.  In reading she progressed so much.  It's amazing to hear her read out loud, and she even started reading Harry Potter recently.  She also started Spanish this year and was part of a Spanish play called "Animales Internacionales" put on by the entire second grade.  In science she did weight and motion, grew plants, watched caterpillars morph into butterflies, and lots of other stuff.  She really likes doing science experiments and exploring things.  I want to cultivate this interest within her.  In social studies she learned maps just like Grandpa Barker. :-)  She also learned about Harriet Tubman and her work in the underground railroad, and she dressed up as Susan B. Anthony for the Second Grade Wax Museum.  It was a busy, fun, and productive year.  Here's to a wonderful third grade year as well!

4. Swimming at the pool, even though it was freezing.  I packed a picnic dinner and we ate on towels in the grass at pool-side.  The kids were so cold after swimming that Sydney was shaking so hard she could hardly hold her fork still enough to stab her food, and Liam was wrapped up so tight in his blanket that he couldn't get his arms out so I fed him all his food.  Despite the cold they had such a good time.  Lillian even got back in the water twice after drying off.  Liam is still a little fish who loves getting wet and going under water.  He can now float on his back, which he is very proud of.  Sydney was tickled pink that she could touch the bottom with her toes and keep her head above water at the same time.  It's proof that she's growing!  :)  I look forward to getting into the water with them all summer long!

5. Quiet, uninterrupted time to sort through boring stacks of paper.  My desk and the surrounding area are being overrun by papers and clutter piles.  A dear friend watched Sydney and Liam for me while Lillian was at a birthday party so I could sort, file, shred, and organize in peace.

6. Bedtime with Daddy.  Bobby has been away a lot the past two and a half months.  He's rotating in Baltimore again, which means he's only home on weekends (unless he's on call) and maybe one other night during the week.  Last year Lillian had a hard time with this and her stomach would often hurt around bedtime.  This year, it's Sydney's turn to have a hard time.  When she gets sad or upset, she will often burst into tears and cry out, "I want DADDY!!!!"  When she misbehaves or throws a fit, the excuse for her behavior is, "I just miss Daddy," and it's usually accompanied by a very pouty-looking face.  She frequently asks when Daddy will be home or if he's on call.

At bedtime I see it the most.  She feels unsettled, needs a lot of comfort items around her, and makes a lot of requests for things like her special blanket from Grandma BB and Grandma Rita, foot rubs, a back scratch, eye massage, leg rubs because she has growing pains, a drink of water, her Moon Book (that lights up), the lights on more, the lights on less; she wants me to lay with her, sing her a song; she wants to lay in my bed, she has to go to the bathroom.....it takes her for.ev.er to fall asleep.  She used to always be the first one asleep, but since Bobby has been gone she's usually the last.  I guess it could be attributed to her developmental stage and is 'just a part of growing up,' but my hunch is that it's because she misses her daddy.  When he's around she snuggles with him more than she ever has, and I often catch her giving him surprise kisses on his cheeks.  Bobby of course soaks it up as much as he can, which he should.  Winning Sydney's love and affection is no easy task, and it's definitely something to cherish.

7. And speaking of bedtime and children sleeping...I love it when all three of them fall asleep in my bed and when I go in to check on them, they are laying all over the place and all over each other.  Sydney will have a leg draped over Liam, whose head will be on Lillian, whose arm will be across Liam's face.  I don't know how they sleep like that, but it cracks me up.  My little angels asleep in a heap.

Sydney's Selfie & Other Things To Be Thankful For

Today I'm thankful for . . .

1. Handprint Art.  This afternoon, Sydney and Liam made some pretty awesome works of art for Father's Day.  I would post pictures of their work, but it would spoil the surprise for you-know-who.  I'm under strict orders to keep it confidential.  So stay posted until June 15th...

2. Picnic lunches in the yard.  Sydney and I had lovely picnic lunch in the sunshine this afternoon.  Sydney laid out a big yellow beach towel all by herself, which she was very proud of accomplishing.  It started to get pretty hot in the sunlight, so we fetched our giant umbrella and ate under its shade.  We enjoyed star noodles, cold pizza, grapes, strawberries, cucumbers, and goldfish crackers.  It was quite a feast.

3. Big umbrellas.  Our big umbrella is good for more than keeping us dry during a monsoon or providing shade during a sunny afternoon picnic.  It can also be a big boat, as Sydney showed me.  She sang "Row, row, your boat" as she rocked back and forth inside of it.  She also twirled it around like a baton, and she even stood up on a chair and stretched up high to make the umbrella touch the ceiling.  It kept her quite entertained for a good while.  I just hope that the old superstition isn't true of having bad luck when you open an umbrella indoors- if it is, we're totally doomed.

4.  Sydney's Selfie.  She got a hold of my phone this morning and took about 50 photos around the house- mostly of her toes, the inside of our bedroom closets, and the view looking over the balcony and down the stairs (I don't want to think about how she had to dangle my phone over the edge of the balcony for those photos...)  Of all of them, this one is my favorite.

5. Lots of time with Sydney.  I just realized how much I'm writing about Sydney.  I'm so glad I got to have some one-on-one time with her today.  Liam has been sick with a fever and a cough over the past few days.  Today his fever seemed to hit a peek and he took a very long nap in the morning.  That gave Sydney and me some extra time to spend together.  We had a lot of fun, but I hope Liam hit the worst of it today so he'll be feeling better soon.

6. Drawing with Lillian.  Lillian wants to learn how to draw a horse, so we looked up some easy step-by-step instructions online.  We sketched, erased, and resketched together.  We discussed where to draw our lines and we asked each other, "How would Unlce Alan do it?"  In the end, our horses didn't turn out nearly as well as the teacher-illustrator's, and we decided that her instructions weren't ideal (although our ability level is probably some of the blame...at least a little bit). :)  I did a quick search on our library's online catalog and found some books by a guy named Dan Green.  He has a bunch of different books on how to do simple line drawings, geared toward kids- "How to Draw....101 Animals; 101 Monsters; 101 Silly People; 404 Things for Girls; 404 Things for Boys; Dinosaurs and Other Cool Things, 101 Ocean Animals," etc.  I'm hoping we can get our hands on some of these books soon.  Lillian suggested getting them for her birthday...hmmm, good idea!

I love how Lilly drew her horse's mane, and the sun with the squiggly rays coming off of it.  Like it's right out of My Little Pony! 

7. The way Liam says, "I want you" and "I want to hold you!" when he wants me to pick him up and hold him.  If he's talking to someone else and I mistakenly think he's talking to me he'll say, "I'm not talking at you, Mom." His little brain is working so hard trying to master the grammar of the English language!  I love it!