First Day of First Grade

Ava was so excited for school to start.


And it seems like all summer I have had my sights set on this day. It's here. I walked my little girl to her room, helped her get her bag and lunch in her locker, took her picture, and kissed her goodbye as she colored a picture, I now find myself back at home feeling like...now what?


I don't know her well, but Ava is in the capable hands of what I like to think of as the best first grade teacher ever, Mrs. Burns.



All of our interactions so far have led me to believe this and I hope my hunch is true. I think she will be just what Ava needs: nice. She seems very warm, very kind, very gentle, in love with her job. She's been teaching for 26 years. I am sure there will still be some roller coaster phases but I'm crossing my fingers that this will be a great year.

Luke will start his three-day-a-week preschool next week. We'll meet his teacher on Friday and we're hoping for someone similar. This will be kind of a big step for him, the school is big, the hours are longer. I don't like the idea of him being away from me so much but if he is going to start Kindergarten next year, I feel like it's necessary.

So now what?

At the beginning of the summer I gave Ava my point and shoot camera and told her she could use it however she liked. What resulted is really more of a bunch of pictures on a few days, all spent at home. I had no idea what was on that memory card until I recently downloaded the pictures. Who knew what the girl thought was so inspirational? Worthy of documenting? I found myself in a lot more pictures than usual, and I must admit they were some of my better shots. I can sit here now and wonder how her day is going and keeping saying little prayers that she is doing okay. And I can scroll through these pictures and see all the ordinary things around my house a little more like Ava. And I can wonder what she thought was so awesome about the toilet that it needed to be photographed. The following is a tiny sampling.

Summer 2011, A Photographic Essay
By: Ava
Commentary by: Mommy

Still working on the self portrait skills.





When you think about it, doorknobs are very good.








The Throne.













Rilta and The Fish. (Stuffed animal made and named by Ava, herself)










Hachi, (The dog from the movie of the same title. Happy to assist her, this photograph required the movie to be paused at the precise moment)




These two are creepy, that must be why she took this photo.








Through the Stairs,



The two-handed-chocolate-milk-maker stir, I promise with practice, you too can perfect this photo-worthy skill.














The counter, of course!




Everybody's favorite time of day-Daddy comes home!



Luke's messy face.




The flour

And for those who have stuck with me this far, my blogging heart is happy because of

It's About Time

Luke turned four almost two months ago. I had hoped to take his birthday pictures in Utah or Idaho, where it's not so blasted hot. Unfortunately, for us, I didn't.

So here we are. Each day Luke gets older and the temperatures show no sign of breaking. We went ahead as early as we could this morning and caught a few good ones before we were just too hot.

Fall can get here anytime. I'm ready.

Luke was much more willing to get his pictures taken than I anticipated. He smiled and looked for the most part. I had him put his hand under his chin once, and then that was his pose of choice.

I love that you can see his bruisy legs in a few. He does flips off the couch! Wahoo! He does karate kicks in the air! Hiya! He does crazy shooter moves! PashooPashoo! He earned those bruises fair and square.

He speaks so much more, has started using phrases like "I just can't believe it!" and "Oh my gosh!" All of what he says is coherent but half is mostly irrelevant.

Love, love, love that boy.

Winding Down

I never thought I would be so sad to see the temperatures drop back down from triple digits, but two days short of sharing and only one shy of beating the heat record of 1980 (42 consecutive days over 100) some big clouds and a "cold" front rolled in and we lost our chance.

I also never thought I would think that 95-100 degrees could feel so pleasant. It's all relative, I guess. Our air conditioner can keep up with 100. 108, not so much.

Summer is winding down here, and I can't decide how I feel about it. For the first time in a few years I am not 100% excited to see the start of school. We've enjoyed these past few months of freedom. Sure, we've had our moments, but overall it's been a sweet time.

I've started to look back and there are many things that I am glad to have been able to witness and share with the kids this summer.

The kids discovered that carrots don't actually grow as little nubbin fingery looking things. They saw a cousin in Idaho eating a big carrot with the leafy tops. "What is that?!" They were surprised by the answer and I was surprised that they hadn't known.



Anyway, these "big carrots" have been all the rage this month. And it kind of makes me wonder what else they don't know.


Ava's reading has improved so much. We spent a lot of time on the couch, close together with a book between us. I am still anxious to see what the school thinks, but at least I know for sure that the only direction she has moved is forward.

She has made so many strides in becoming more independent. She wants to take showers instead of baths. She wants to get ready for bed without help or prodding, she wants to keep her room clean, she wants to have chores. These were all her requests after spending time with her older girl cousins and one episode of Dora the Explorer Girls, the tragic tween version of our old friend Dora. I'm not ready for a tween but I sure won't complain about having a girl whose resume includes the list above.

Max has started saying so many more things. He has an attempt at almost every word. He is fun and loud and knows exactly how to push his brother's buttons, and he makes us laugh every day.

Luke, made headway with his drawing skills this summer as well. I was beside myself to witness his first "person".


In fact he was so excited by my excitement, he dropped his marker, grabbed my face, and said in micro-machine-man fashion : "ILOVEYOUSOMUCHYOU'REMYBESTFRIEND!"


He and Ava have been so different developmentally. Ava was drawing little pictures by 2 and a half but struggled with the alphabet by kindergarten. Luke knows all the letters and many sounds, but hasn't been able to come up with anything recognizable on paper.

It has been interesting to see what will happen next with each of them.

This summer has been a clear reminder to me of how lucky I am to be here with them.


I get to feed them, dress them, clean them, teach them, love them, hug them, kiss them, all day, everyday.




Ava asked me the other day, "Is it fun to be a mom?" The problem with this was that the question was posed right after I had some display of a bad attitude, can't be certain which. I don't remember if it was an ugh, or a sigh, or maybe, possibly a small amount of yelling.



The great part about that question was that it made me realize that not only do I have a little guy who carries around a calculator "phone" like he's married to it, because unfortunately that is the example I set, but I also have a little woman, a future mother, who constantly watches, making her own observations as to what being a mom is all about. And at that moment I realized that I probably don't always do the job justice.

Before I got too down on myself though, I thought back about this summer, this intense mothering session I have just put in. And I figured that there still was some ughing, and some sighing, and maybe some yelling, but man, we sure had some fun!

Dog Days

It has been so hot. Oh, so hot. Days upon days, weeks upon weeks of 107, 108, 109 degrees. We don't go outside at all. My friend tells me that we are only a mere 5 days from breaking the heat record from 1980. Which is great if you ask me, because if it's going to be this hot, we better be breaking a record for it.

The fact that in the morning, 88 degrees feels even halfway decent, is crazy. And then still being 102 degrees at 10 pm-crazy. I may have had some heat induced delirium over the past week. The fact that I really put an egg and a piece of cheese on the sidewalk to cook may also qualify as crazy.

I didn't have as much faith in the egg, I thought the cheese would melt easily, and I wanted to be sure to have something to show the kids. So even though I was out of real cheese, I found one lone Kraft single way in the back of the dairy drawer.







What happened to that cheese only reaffirms my conviction that fake food should be eaten with caution.

I swear that stuff turned into straight up plastic.




The egg did better than I thought. Throughout the evening it cooked more and more. I didn't even put them out until 4 pm.




How do you like your eggs?

Sunny side up?




A little runny in the middle?



Come on over!


By way of information, in case you ever meet Max in a back alley, or you want to join our family, or you just want to look cool, I will teach you our secret handshake.


Max wants to do it all the time. Max also likes to carry around a big calculator and call it his "phone" all the time.


But back to the handshake,

High five!





Bonkey!



Shake!





Finally, light a candle and say a prayer, we are fish sitting for a few weeks. And it would be just my luck that these things die under our watch.