Seven month writing hiatus – and I’m OWNING IT! Better late than never?

Just a feeeeeew things have happened since my last blog entry – the biggest being a new house!

At the beginning of February, we crunched the numbers and realized that finishing the wish list for our 1929 beauty would be about the same (if not more pricey) than just moving. We were sad to leave our neighbors and Des Moines proper, but I’m currently basking in an office space next to second floor laundry. I was lured away to the ‘burbs by the talk of my own shower space, fenced-in backyard where I can see kids from the kitchen, and an attached two-car garage. There are many more things that make this house a little more family-friendly, and I love it.

The process of buying and selling our houses was CRAZY. We took the idea of looking seriously in early February and CLOSED IN EARLY APRIL. WHAT JUST HAPPENED. We put in an offer on our new house on Friday night (pending the sale of our current house). We listed Chicken in Flight HQ on Monday and had three showings that night. On Tuesday, we had TWENTY TWO showings. On Wednesday, we had nine more showings and two written offers by the evening. We took the one that gave us asking price and no inspection required. WHAT JUST HAPPENED. (Oh, and call Jaci Holt for all of your real estate needs.)

The boys adjusted nicely to the move. Fred acted like nothing happened at all. Ben was bothered by the extra ten minutes to get to school and dropped some pretty hard guilt trips on us about how much he loved the old house. Things are better now, and he loves it here too. One of the reasons that we jumped on the move was so that he can start kindergarten in August (WHAT) and hopefully stay in the same school moving forward.

“Hi. I’m Ben. I’m a 5 and a half years old.”

Ben is my baby elephant, because he doesn’t realize how much he has grown. He still jumps on me and piles into my lap. While it’s hilariously barely working (and sometimes painful), I mostly allow it – knowing that the ability and desire to be so close to me won’t last forever.

Speaking of time flying, he finished Developmental Kindergarten with flying colors. It was a great program for him, and he loved his teachers. He made a couple close friends (and worked through issues with “the mean ones” and “the one that cries all the time”). Thank goodness his teacher sent home a list of what they did, because I usually got about two sentences a day of his activities.
“BEN! IT SAYS THAT LAST TUESDAY YOU WENT ACROSS THE STREET AND  GOT A TOUR OF THE GROCERY STORE AND LEARNED HOW FOOD GOES FROM A FARM TO YOUR TABLE!?”
“Yes. We did that.”
Oh, buddy.
His penmanship is improving and I’m so excited to see where he goes from here! At the beginning of summer, he was PUMPED about kindergarten, but now he reminds me daily about how he likes to stay home. We’ll see how he feels as it gets real – in a couple of weeks!!

If you get this kid going one-on-one, he can be downright chatty. That’s something that I never saw coming. I’m proud of how he has become more assertive in conversations, although he still is comfortable taking a backseat and doing his own thing. He has grown leaps and bounds in his speech development, but there are still sounds and words that need work. My favorite mistakes are “canjalope” (cantaloupe), “eh-jerny” (energy), and “sings” (things). Even though I will be proud of him when these errors are corrected, I will secretly miss them.

He also has the best phrases. He has started most conversations lately with, “Didn’t you know………..?” As in, “Didn’t you know that the moon goes around the earth?” and “Didn’t you know that I like to play Mario?”

We are constantly making up stories about the adventures of Jack Meower. One of Ben’s favorite things is being pushed on the swing and telling “Jackie stories”.

Thanks to school, he often said “Ya gotta be a friend to make a friend!” These kind of moral lessons have caused a lot of hilarious conversations while playing Mario. After all, what IS Bowser’s motivation? Why is he bad? You have to be a friend to make a friend, BOWSER!

I also love coming up with phrases when you can’t think of other words – like calling a squirrel, “Hey, look! A nature animal!” or licking an envelope – “You have to lock it with your spit!”

Ben is starting to see Fred as a potential buddy and playmate. It’s hard when Freddy is stuck between baby and kid – but those times when he sees Fred as a really awesome brother are priceless. Speaking of…..

Fred: Blissfully and frustratingly and fabulously TWO.

 

So stubborn and so cute. I have confirmed why I chose upper elementary for my career – potty training and speech development is a tough age for me to parent. But we have more ups than downs, and he is definitely so cute.

When modeling requests to prevent whining, I often slowly said, “I……want……(insert noun here).” By doing so, I created a monster that demanded, “I WANT I WANT I WANT!!!!!” Thankfully, his growing vocabulary is helping out, as well that the use of “peeeeeese” and “tank-you”s.

Fred is counting! He can easily get to ten and then it’s a beautiful crap-shoot of vowel sounds. He also flirts with the ABCs and some songs when he’s in the mood.

Something that Fred has done for months (and cracks me up every time), is running between Jesse and I whenever we get close to each other and yelling, “SA-PIZE!” (Surprise!). It’s hilarious and will never get old.

One of Fred’s favorite activities is throwing things everywhere and announcing it (“Toy eh-ee-where! Paper eh-ee-where!”), then yelling, “EEEEEN UP EEEEEN UP!” to start us all singing the clean up song.

We are currently at the end of the first week of potty training Fred. There has been enough victories to keep going and enough failures for me to remember why this stage is super hard. (“Wet eh-ee-where! Pee eh-ee-where!)

Fred likes pointing out “butts”. You know, on your shirt, on the remote, on the microwave. Butts! (“Buttons” for those of you over the age of 2.)

Our summer vacation came to us in the form of our Floridian family visiting! Ben and Fred went into serious withdrawal when they left, often asking for company over the next several days. We managed to fit in the zoo, Adventureland, and lots of play time. (My phone and computer are in a fight so I don’t have my recent pictures handy yet.)

Other than that excitement, it’s been a pretty steady summer of park visits, going to the Y, and playing. I was very proud of Ben when he finished two weeks of swimming lessons. He isn’t independent yet, but he has enthusiasm and made it out of the house and on time for each one. WIN.

One of our goals for the summer was to go on a family camping trip. I accomplished the victory of setting up a campsite and taking the boys on a hike before Jesse arrived after work, and I felt pretty awesome. The boys had a blast, but Fred went into full night-terror at 1 AM, and I drove him home to sleep. If we weren’t surrounded by a lot of sleeping strangers, I think we could have stuck it out. It was a learning experience and fun – sometimes.

 

That’s a quick catch-up with hopes of more writing soon! We will be here, enjoying the last few weeks before KINDERGARTEN!!!!