Lacrosse

Some pics of Nathan playing something that has a passing similarity to Lacrosse.



Chasing down an attacker

Learning to shoot

Playing a game against Canton's kindergartners. Nathan liked being a defender.


I would have had video, but the second game was rained out.

Easter 2009

Easter usually pretty low key, but now that Claire is getting older we can get into it some more. They had fun coloring eggs yesterday, although three of the eggs landed on the floor and got cracked. Unfortunately, I wiped the card while uploading photos and deleted all but this one shot of Claire.


I got a little stressed as the evening wore on. I wanted to send the kids on a scavenger hunt for their baskets, and tape it so Dan could see it. But I couldn't bear to have the house looking like a disaster area for all to see, so I had to struggle to get everything tidy after they went to bed, even though my arthritis is not being kind to me this week. And then I still had to make the clues. Knowing that they were probably going to wake me up at 6:30 too. (Dan worked 10-9 yesterday, and was up at 2:00 am for brunch today!)

Claire's was easy. I planted a few eggs around the house and took pictures of them. Then I printed the photos and put them in other eggs to lead her from one to another For Nathan, I wanted him to be able to read his clues. He's getting much better at reading books at night, so I wanted to reinforce the fun of reading. Each of his clues also went in an egg. They were.....

Follow my clues
And you’ll see
The Easter Basket
Hidden by me

Where’s the first clue
Where is the place
Go get something
To wash your face

Clue number 2
Is so easy
Go get your favorite
Game for Wii

Find number 3
Don’t be a fool
Get your backpack
And go to school

The fourth clue
Is the best
You’ll find your basket
Under mommy’s desk!!

Here's the video of the search. Nathan's goes on for awhile as he tries to sound out words. And Claire's gets pretty dark, should have turned on more lights. ON my dark monitor it goes completely black, let me know if that's true for everyone else too. Oh well.

Pulling teeth

I've often said that getting Dan to communicate things is like pulling teeth. Today Nathan gave me a demonstration of the ways he might take after his Dad. It's amazing that he can talk non-stop, and then be so uncommunicative when I actually have questions for him.

Me: Hey, you lost a tooth. Did you lose it at Kindergarten or the Daycare.
Him: Kindergarten
Me: Where?
Him: The nurses office.
Me: The nurses office? Was it bleeding so they sent you there?
Him: No.
Me: Was it so wiggly that they sent you there for the nurse to pull it.
Him: No, I was already there.
Me: Huh?
Him: I was wiggling it while waiting in line.
Me: Waiting in line for what?
Him: To get my head checked.

So, to go along with the tooth I thought he pulled but that actually fell out on his pillow, and the tooth that Claire knocked out, we now have the tooth that he pulled out while waiting to get his head checked for Lice. Fun times.

Holiday Concert

Nathan had his Christmas concert yesterday. Here's one song, the rest are up on Youtube.



I really must remember to get there early and bring the tripod next time.

Hockey Mania

Nathan started hockey a few weeks ago. It's been a learning experience for both of us. On the first day, I forgot his stick, so he starting crying when everyone else started practicing with the puck and we left instead. I also flubbed the uniform assembly, by putting his kneepads on outside of pants with nothing over them. But I'm learning. I even found a youtube video that showed how to wrap his stick in tape so that it'd be easy to pick up with gloves on. I had one awful moment when I had to be a mean, threatening mommy to get him on the ice because he was feeling shy. But I knew that once he got out there, he'd have fun.

He's learning too. From the first day they've been drilling kids on stopping, getting to their knees and back up, and parallel turns. We're a month into things and they're doing work on passing and controlling the puck. The kids are between five & seven, some are in their second year, but most just had basic skating skills. Nathan has been skating well, but he doesn't know how to hold the stick. We think that although he's finally settled into being righty for writing, that he may be a lefty for sports. So Dan keeps showing him how to hold his stick for a lefty, but then the coaches keep switching it around on the ice. The picture below has him holding it completely wrong, but he's about to score a goal, so that's cool.

This weekend, the kids got to do a little show at the period break of the Clarkson U Men's game. We went on Friday with Papa and Clair in tow. Unfortunately, Clarkson's method for revving up the crowd before the game is to blow a giant train-like whistle as they introduce the starting line-up, with a noise assist by the pep band. Claire immediately went into hysterics, and her wail "I want my blankie" could be heard across the stadium in the silence before Au Canada started. I managed to get her into the lobby and calmed down, and cajoled her back into the stadium a few minutes before Nathan's show started, when Clarkson had the temerity to score and that fricken-fracken whistle blew again. She was able to calm down enough to watch Nathan, but as further proof of my bad luck, I discovered the camera had gotten too cold in the car during dinner, and wouldn't work to film the event. Oh well.
We had a second chance on Saturday. This time I left Claire with the grandparents, and we had fun watching the game for awhile too. I could even explain most of the rules to Nathan, and he loved it when the puck skimmed the glass right in front of us. He's decided Clarkson is his favorite team, which could be a problem with Dan who's been a St. Lawrence fan all his life. And here's the video of him skating around the arena and not coming anywhere near the puck for two minutes. He's #14. (There is a second #14 with striped socks who I started to follow, Nathan just has blue pants on)

Into the Leaves

Sorry the ending is so abrupt, the steadicam didn't like being thrust into the pile.

Fall day

I let myself get buried too. What a treat for the senses to be surrounded by the feel and smell of dry leaves. Plus, it was in the seventies today, so that's an even better treat.


Got the other tooth out finally. I'm teaching him "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, because he sounds funny with his new lisp. The new teeth have already broken through, so he should be all set soon.

i think the kids were playing a bit of CSI. Claire stuffed her doll in the branches, then covered it with leaves. Nathan had stolen my camera away, and he took the crime scene photos as they recovered the body. This is why we needed to add parental controls to the Tivo.

Photo dump

September is about new schedules and new schools and no time for blogging. So here's some pics instead.

Family hike on Labor Day weekend to a waterfall in the 'Daks.

Waiting for the bus the first day of Kindergarten.

On the bus.....

Stuffing scarecrows at the Harvest Festival.

Birthday party for Brittany the pig. (the candles are carrots)

What Have I DONE!!!

Good? Bad? Horrible different at first but I'll get used to it?

It was really necessary after the haircut she gave herself. And Dan doesn't like her screaming fits when he has to comb her hair and put elastics in. Now I just have to deal with screaming fits at the hairdressers every few weeks.

Any suggestions for different styles that aren't so "page-boy"? It's hard to think of what would work with her straight, fine hair.

Beauty School Drop Out

Okay. There are two things wrong with this picture, can you spot them?

See the hair next to her ear. It's supposed to be about an inch longer. But my darling, angel of a daughter decided to practice her beautician skills and gave herself a haircut last night. At least most of her work was confined to the end of the pony tail, so a visit to the hairdresser should even all that out tomorrow. But there were also a few suspiciously short hairs right on the crown of her head too, that I discovered when I removed the elastics. She may be sporting a spiky Alfalfa do later this month.


Here are the remains.

Graduation

I think every grade now does some kind of moving up ceremony, which will soon get tedious. But this first one was fun anyway. Here's Nathan with his teacher, which is a counterpoint to the photo in this post.



The ceremony was rather elaborate. The kids sang songs (except Nathan, who just looked around while everyone sang). As they were giving out diplomas, they played a recording of each child saying what he/she wanted to be when they grew up. Behind them, a large sceen showed them each dressed up as their future job, then a picture they'd drawn. Lot's of veterinarians, doctor's, nurses and fireman.

I'm sorry that this video came out so strange, the camera couldn't deal with the projection screen. But the audio makes it all worth it.

Hey Batter, Batter, Batter Swing Batter

I think he learned that follow through from Big Papi.

No trauma

Nathan came downstairs with a very satisfied smirk on his face and his hands cupped together this morning, tooth #2 clasped firmly between them. No blood, no crying, no fuss. He just yanked it out before getting out of bed in the morning. The tooth fairy is getting extra mileage this week.

More trauma.

So of course Nathan wants to take the gold coin everywhere and show it to everyone. And of course he's wearing pants without pockets today. So of course he dropped it somewhere in the sand at the playground.

I just about had his friend going home to get a metal detector when I remembered that I had four other coins in my purse waiting for the next teeth. So I put on my sneaky shoes and dropped a new coin under the slide, although given that Nathan was right behind me, I came close to being found out.

More details on the box for Joy.....Every time he loses a tooth from now on, he'll put it in the box and in the morning he'll find the money in there. I had a tooth-shaped pillow that did the same thing in my youth. I like the box idea better though, because once all the teeth are out and the Tooth Fairy legend is debunked, I'll put his baby teeth together in the box for a keepsake.

Past and Present Mother's Day

2002 - Spent the day upset and frustrated because we'd been trying to conceive without luck for a few years. Trying to stay hopeful about the appointment I had with a fertility doctor in a few weeks. Also annoyed because we had plans to go to Vegas and canceled when Dan was promoted-he'd have to work Mother's Day. Dan came home from work and thought he'd done a good thing bringing me some leftover dessert of chocolate mousse in a chocolate box. Except I burst into tears when I saw the "Happy Mother's Day" on the lid. So instead he hauled me off to a local restaurant for a late night snack to cheer me up. He must have done a good job because Nathan was born about nine months later.

2003 - First Mother's day! It was actually pretty rough. Dan working again, and just a few months after my Mom died. But I dragged Nathan over to Dan's restaurant for Brunch and got ooohed and aaahed over so much by the restaurant staff that things perked up.

2004 - Dan working again, do you see a trend here? Dad came to visit, so it was a much nicer Mom's day. We pretty much spent the whole weekend painting and decorating Nathan's bedroom.

2005 - Very, very, very pregnant. Decided to walk to a local ice cream place with Nathan and indulge. (I think, and I could be wrong, but I think Dan was at work) Pleasantly surprised when a woman there strikes up a conversation about the joys of motherhood. Realize later that she'd seen me on Mother's day with no husband around and no ring on finger (too swollen) and thought I was a single mom about to be raising two kids. She was talking to me because she pitied me.

2006 - Had to share this one, it fell on Claire's B-day. But I decided to ignore her and have a Mother's day for Janet and I.

2007 - I'm finally coming to grips with the fact that the kids will probably be out of the house before Dan can take the day off and give me the whole "Breakfast in bed, massage, feet up all day, no chores" Mother's day that everyone dreams of. Not that we did too bad this year. The kids and I had a great morning painting, and playing by the riverside with Zeppo, practicing baseball and making brownies. A little bit of everything. And then Dan was home for dinner, so that's the best part. Although I still haven't gotten a massage.

Spring

Just some pictures of the kids and Zeppo out in the yard. The weather for the last three weeks has swung wildly from hot summer days, to snow and freezing nights. It's made it really hard to organize the kid's dressers when they go from wearing shorts one day, to jackets and mittens the next. Hopefully, we're past that now.


Last picture of Claire with long hair, we got it chopped right after this picture.



I'll take some pictures of the yard soon. Dan went crazy mowing this week to try to reclaim some of the yard for a veggie garden. We bought seeds today, so we need to get moving on that soon. We also want to put a compost pile there, and need to get supplies for that. Plus, we added some more flowers to our flower patch today.

The next step is a classic white picket fence for the front yard, so Zeppo can go out without a leash, and so the neighbor dogs won't be able to add their poop to our yard. It's poopy enough.

Take me out to the ballgame

Dan and I are still arguing over whether the kids will play baseball or lacrosse every spring. But I've drawn first blood. Lacrosse won't take kids until Kindergarten, but T-ball will start them at 3 or 4 years old. he he he

So here's Nathan, ready to hit a home run.


Turned out to be more of a dribbler up the third base line. And there were a few foul tips and bunts. He's a bit slow on the fielding plays too. And I think he's trying to bowl the ball. Maybe lacrosse is better. And maybe I should bring the video camera next time so you can all experience the charm of 14 boys and girls who have no idea how to play baseball.

My All-star

This is the finale of nearly five months of skating lessons. Nathan actually preformed much better than I was expecting, and hit most of his marks. Only one of the falls was unintentional. He's the only skater with a red shirt and black helmet, so it's pretty easy to follow him in the wide shots. Enjoy.

Super Duper Trooper

From the local paper:

Visit from trooper State trooper Patrick Roda visited Mrs. Martin's pre-kindergarten classroom at Lawrence Avenue recently. The children have been learning about "Our Community and Jobs People Do." Posted 03/13/08.

Nathan is #18. When Officer Roda (otherwise know as William's Dad), asked the kids if they knew what he does, Nathan raised his hand to say they "under arrest bad guys". I wonder if he told the officer that he thinks George Bush should be arrested if he ever comes to New York. It's perfect timing that he's learning about community helpers this week, because he has his first dentist appointment next week. After Mrs. Martin has him whipped into an anti-cavity, anti-sugar frenzy he'll be thrilled to see the dentist. He was especially impressed with the effects of coke on an eggshell.

If you really want to know everything there is to know about where I live, you should read this paper. It really gives a perfect impression of what it's like to live her. Especially the venting and complaining in the Sound Off section. Just don't laugh at how little there is in the Events Calendar.

Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!

I started this post a few minutes ago

I seriously didn't plan this. I made ham last night. So there were leftovers today. And usually when there is some leftover ham, I scramble up eggs for the kids to have with it for dinner. And a few months ago, I discovered how much they like to have food coloring added to their eggs. So, on Theodor Geisel's Birthday, my kids had green eggs and ham.

And then I found out from Wikipedia that his b-day was the 2nd, it's just that Nathan's pre-K was celebrating it today. So just forget I said anything.

Claire's class was "studying" clowns last week. Isn't she adorable? I wish I had a picture before all the paint wore off. She has a wonderful teacher, and each week they pick a theme. They've done triangles and pets and snowmen; all their artwork and stories revolve around the them each week. It's really cute.