Easter

We hosted our 4th Annual Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard and kids ranging in age from 1 to 7 participated. I filled 146 eggs this year. That is the most I've ever done. Linus had fun with the event, but told me later that he was disappointed he didn't get to talk to everyone. Most of our gatherings have fewer guests and are planned so that we can meaningfully interact with each guest. The egg hunt is a different kind of activity-based event.

We colored eggs after the guests left. We colored a dozen eggs, but he wished he could do more. Even a dozen is almost too many for he and I to eat. (Matthew doesn't eat eggs.) After he ate his dinner, he went and rested on the couch. He looked completely worn out. It seemed like a good time to give him the quilt I made him for his fifth birthday. All that remains for me to do is hand stitch the binding onto it. I didn't want to delay any longer in giving it to him. He was very pleased with it and has been calling it his special quilt. Once I complete the binding, I'll post a photograph of it.

He still hasn't started eating the chocolate bunny that was in his Easter basket, but has been eating the jelly beans and gummy candies. He has been very generous with his candy and shared it with us.

Five!

Linus says it is a lot of fun being five and that he'll be able to do new things this year. When I asked him what things, he said, "I don't know. Lots of things!" It is fun to see how proud kids are when they turn five. Four of his friends came to the house for his birthday party. He invited Ravi and Grace from his current class at school, Audrey from last year's class, and Barrett, whom he has know since he was about 18 months old. He really wanted Oscar to come, but he was out of town for vacation. I planned a couple of space-themed activities and then let the kids just play. The weather was perfect, which meant I could have most of the party in the back yard. This was ideal. We recently inherited an electric bubble blower and the kids had a very giggly time dancing and playing around in the bubbles that blew around the yard. It was a beautiful sight! Matthew and I had fun hosting our very first party without the kids' parents present. Linus' friends are polite and very well behaved. Linus giggled a lot and has happy memories of his celebration.

Baby Squirrels

The absolute highlight of the second half of this month was our experience rescuing orphaned baby squirrels. I sent Linus and Matthew back to the park with binoculars to see what kind of bird was making a shrill call from the nest. It turned out there were two baby squirrels in search of food and their mama. Sadly, she was dead on the ground not too far from their tree. We believe she was struck by a car, as the tree is near a busy street. One squirrel was on the ground and Matthew and Linus brought it home. The other one was too high up in the tree for them to reach. When I returned from being out, they had the squirrel tucked into a box with a warm water bottle. I went back out into the dark to look for the other little one. It was sleeping on the ground under the tree. We fed it some drops of a homemade squirrel pedialyte and I tucked it in with its sibling. Linus was very understanding that we couldn't have direct contact with them because they needed to remain wild. The next day while he was at school, I drove them 45 minutes to give them to a wildlife rehabilitator. It was hard to part with them, but we did all that we could for them.

We also took Linus to his first play and musical. We saw The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley. In the weeks leading up to the performance, he wondered how they were going to have an actor become flat. They accomplished it by dressing the actor in a flat, foam outfit that hung from the front of his body, which was clothed in black. The music and plot was fun. Afterwards, we played in the playground that is outside the Arvada Center. It included an amazing concrete dragon that kids can climb on.

With his birthday party just over a day away, he is excited to have his friends over to celebrate his turning five. Matthew and I cried last night when we looked at the photos from his first birthday. This has been the most amazing five years of our lives.

March

Playing evolution

Planting peas

Playing in the yard


Linus invented a game he calls Evolution. He grabs a book that includes dinosaurs or early people, his compass, and our globe. He spins the globe around and around and then stops it when he decides time has entered a new era. He calls out which creatures have evolved or died out. It cracks me up that he pretends he has this much control.

He got a new teacher at preschool and he adjusted to the change just fine. He told me, "I don't need Dina." I asked him why not. He said, "I never need help with anything." I explained that she is responsible for planning all of the interesting activities they do. The kids adjusted to the change, but the parents are having a harder time of it. I really clicked with Kay and miss seeing her at school. His class went on a field trip to the zoo and got to be on the news for donating pennies for the new Pachyderm Exhibit.

Preparations are under way for his fifth birthday. We sent out the party invitations and next week I'm taking him to Target to get his portrait taken. Turning five is such a big deal to him and and friends.

Lessons in Democracy

I've been focused on the protest movement in Madison and worried a lot about what Scott Walker is doing to Wisconsin. I've talked to Linus about acceptable forms of protest, including writing letters, making phone calls, and joining a rally. After showing him some great short YouTube videos of the protesters, he wanted to play that we were protesters. We carried long wooden blocks as our signs and we chanted, "Kill the bill!" I chose to be a school teacher and he was a fire fighter. After we were done he said, "It was like we were helping in Madison! That is what I imagined; did you?" Acting responsibly, I explained to him how killing a bill is not like killing a living thing.

Kiddo got in trouble at school recently. Miss Kay told me after class that he was not being himself and was playing very rough with his friend. She separated them for the last part of class, so they couldn't sit together during snack or story time. He flipped out when I said he couldn't stay after school to play with his friends. He denied everything Kay said and wouldn't cave in, even when I pointed out the Miss Kay likes him a lot and wouldn't say bad things about him if they weren't true. He threw a big tantrum at home and then fell asleep. After dinner Matthew got him to confess. We had to talk to him about not doing bad things, even if your friend is and we talked about why lying was not nice at all. After a few days I got over the shock that he'd misbehaved. For the most part he comports himself quite well.

He went to his first drop-off birthday party. I wasn't worried about him being at Barrett's house without us. Her parents are great. It just felt weird not being there and celebrating with him. He is excited about turning five soon and is proud to be fitting into size five clothes. He is getting better at building interesting train tracks without using the picture guides that came with the train set. In the last week or so we have pretended to be astronauts working at the International Space Station, geologists hunting for rocks and minerals, and he pretended his xylophone was a computer and he played an evolution game on it. He began with life in water "because that is where life started, mom." He included asteroids crashing into Earth, but he said all of the creatures survived "because that makes us happier."

The photo is from when we went to a story time led by a children's author, Barney Saltzberg. Linus liked it because the man was very silly.

Snow and Valentines

We are having the best winter weather this year! I love it! We got a really good snowfall, followed by a few days of very cold temperatures, and then another snowfall. We've had snow on the ground for over a week. I think this has only happened once since we moved here. We've had fun shoveling snow and Matthew and Linus built two snowmen last weekend. School was cancelled one of the days and Linus and I made chocolate chip cookies, did puzzles, and drank lots of hot chocolate.

Enrollment forms were due at Linus' future elementary school and I didn't turn them in until the last day. I'm not ready for him to go to kindergarten, but he is definitely ready. One Friday a few weeks ago he was moping around the house and when I asked what was wrong, he said, "I wish I had school today." My baby is growing up. I cried to Matthew how it wasn't that long ago that we stared at his birth certificate in awe, and now I had to pull it out to take to the school. While we were at the school office, Linus liked hearing an announcement made over the PA and he was impressed that the drinking fountains were at two heights (one for little kids and one for big kids). When people ask him which school he will attend he proudly says, "Teller!"

He and his classmates are excited about exchanging Valentines tomorrow. I'm playing a game with the kids during their party. The dramatic play area is now set up to be an airplane and Linus likes making announcements over the microphone.

My quilt store is going out of business and Linus went to their sale with me. I found him a seat on the stairs where he could play with his Etch a Sketch and be out from under anyone's feet. I kept circling back to check on him and one time found him chatting with a woman who was waiting for her friend to finish shopping. She said he was "very well-spoken and a good conversationalist." By the end of our two-hour shopping adventure, he was taking shopping baskets to people in the very long line. He had everyone charmed. People told me he was very polite and well behaved. Thank heavens! I was worried he'd get impatient and I wouldn't get a chance to take advantage of the sale prices.

January Wrap-up

All is well with Linus. He acts goofy much of the time and especially likes being silly with his friends. He and his friends are showing so much maturation lately. They've gotten taller, self-confident, share their snacks with one another, and sometimes have nicknames for each other. Linus' friend, Oscar, likes to call him Lina. This started when Oscar's baby brother pronounced Linus' name that way.

Preschool is going great and Linus enjoys each day there. Miss Kay plans fun and unusual activities for the kids. I got to help out the day she had the kids ice skating on the art room floor, which she had me cover in shaving cream. The kids skated around in their stocking-feet and the floor was just as slippery as ice, but messier. I had a blast helping out this day! The dramatic play corner has been a post office with a postal scale, rubber office stamps, envelopes and writing paper, letter carrier dress up clothes, and mail boxes. Linus has played in the post office a lot of the time.

Mr. Smarty Pants read an early reader to me the other day. It was one we haven't had out in several months. Matthew also discovered that Linus can do addition and subtraction. I wonder what else the kid knows?!

Some of the fun things we've done this month include ice skating downtown, visiting the zoo on a 60+ degree day, building vehicles out of Legos, taking care of a friend's cockatiel, and putting up the Ursa Major constellation on his bedroom ceiling with sticker stars that glow. Each day flies by faster than we realize.

Bonus

Here he is, wearing his super hero mask that he wore to the singing party, and the jester hat that Ziggy said he could keep from the Twelfth Night performance, and all bundled up for the short walk home.

Christmas

We were invited to Rich's and Lisa's house for Christmas Eve dinner, along with all of our neighborhood friends. Rich cooked us a traditional Italian Christmas dinner and the rest of us brought appetizers and desserts. It was such a pleasant evening eating, drinking, and laughing together. Linus chose to wear his reindeer antlers headband for the party. Lisa even pulled out a light-up Rudolph nose for him to wear. He and Grace took turns with it.

We celebrated Christmas at home by opening gifts, eating Christmas cookies, and attempting to have cheese fondue for dinner. The dinner was a flop: the cheese seized up and we couldn't dip anything into it. We have enjoyed having Matthew home for four days the week of Christmas and the week of New Year's. He and Linus have spent a lot of time playing with Linus' new train set. We've also had a lot of fun watching the class gerbils over winter break. It will be hard to part with them tomorrow.

(The top picture is from the singing party at Wendy's and Lon's house. Linus is wearing the jester hat that was worn by the man playing the fool during the flash mob presentation of part of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It was a 40th birthday gift for me, a bit belated. He played the lolly pop-looking drum most of the evening.)

Happy New Year!

We celebrated the beginning of 2011 with sledding in City Park. We finally got snow on December 30. All three of us were excited. While Matthew and I shoveled the sidewalk, Linus sledded down the little hill in our front yard. It was a cold day, around 11 degrees, and my extremities were freezing. So after lunch Matthew and Linus went sledding while I curled up on the couch under a quilt. Yesterday it was around 24 degrees and I joined them in the park. Linus told me that if I was scared going down by myself the first time, to let him know and he would tell me I would be okay. We had a fun time taking turns going down individually or with Linus. Linus only face-planted once and he was brave enough to try all of the lifts kids had made. Back at home we warmed up with cranberry scones and hot chocolate. Then we made rolled honey comb candles with a kit we received for Christmas. I made black eyed peas and rice for dinner and read Anna Karenina while Linus painted dinosaur figures and Matthew transferred files to his new computer.

Festivities

We've managed to do a number of fun things this holiday season. We went to the lighting ceremony downtown and Linus liked riding the bus. The next weekend he and Matthew went to the Tuba Christmas concert downtown. Linus told me, "I never knew tubas could sound so pretty!" We went to The Nutcracker and he was excited to see the Chinese dance that we saw in rehearsal. He loved the show and fell asleep in the car on the way home. We decorated our gingerbread barn later that day, which explains why he is wearing a tie in that photo. Friday we walked a few blocks to pick out our Christmas tree. We were able to carry it home. We decorated it yesterday and Linus says it is the prettiest tree we've ever had. He likes looking at the ornaments given to him for his very first Christmas.

Linus wrote his first letter to Santa. He asked for a dinosaur set and Thomas and Friends trains. He told me, "Now I'll get those things for Christmas!" I said, "Not necessarily. That is for Santa to decide." He asked, "Why wouldn't Santa give everything kids ask for?" I said, "Well, maybe the kid asked for way too many things and Santa thought they were being greedy." He asked, "Am I being greedy?" I answered, "No, honey; you aren't being greedy." That must have satisfied him because he moved onto something else.

Autumn 2010

What a fun time Linus had on his field trip to the Colorado Ballet's studio! Miss Kay was able to arrange this rare treat because one of her students has parents who work for the Colorado Ballet. I went along for the fun and witnessed all of the wonder this trip entailed. A number of the girls came dressed up in tutus and with satin ribbons in their hair. After hearing the story of The Nutcracker in one of the practice rooms, we were quietly herded upstairs to where some of the dancers were rehearsing. We all lined up on the floor against a wall and respected the serious work of the dancers by remaining as quiet as possible. Linus was enraptured! Since then he has been dancing to the Chinese Dance from the Nutcracker Suite, which was the piece the dancers practiced. We will be attending the performance on December 4th and are all looking forward to it.

Linus chose to be a sea turtle again this year for Halloween, but with the addition of flippers and face paint. He trick-or-treated with Emma, a two-year-old friend of ours. I stayed home to read War and Peace and hand out candy, while Matthew chaperoned the kids dressed up as a glass of lemonade.

Linus has been helping me with raking leaves, doing DK sticker books, and starting to read the beginning readers I got for him a while ago. I suggested he read one to me, because I suspected he would be able to read the whole thing. Sure enough, he managed it all, with only one reminder about how to pronounce that word that is spelled "t-h-e" and can't be sounded out correctly. Matthew and I have had the suspicion that he is gradually teaching himself to read.

He continues to be a happy kid, but has been throwing tantrums a few times a week. It is hard not to laugh when he grumpily tells me, "You can't have dessert tonight! Your behavior is inappropriate!" I don't think so, kiddo.

Growing Like a Weed

Napping


Checking out a rocket from NASA's Orion project


Loading his pockets up with buckeyes off a tree in the park


Playing with the hand boiler I brought home from the science store

Linus has grown about two inches since his birthday. I measured him after I shared with him an article in the newspaper about the newest person to be the smallest adult in the world. We pulled out his growth chart to compare his size to the man's size. At his first birthday Linus was taller than him. We've had so many days in the last couple of months where I felt like I spent all day feeding him. Some days he was hungry every hour or so. It got taxing and sometimes I felt like handing him the box of granola bars and saying, "Here. Have at it!" One day in the late afternoon he told me he was hungry and I was completely out of snack ideas. Even I was tired of the snack options. So I fed him dinner instead. He protested that dinner couldn't be a snack, but I argued that we wouldn't call it snack; it was dinner. Then when Matthew and I ate dinner at six, Linus had dinner number two. Needless to say, he outgrew some clothes. I pulled out the size four winter clothes and some of the shirts fit just right. I wonder how long they'll fit.

He caught his first virus of the season and has a cold. On Sunday I was downstairs sewing and it was quiet upstairs for a long time. I went up and found my guys napping on the couch. Linus ended up taking a three-hour nap. All that growing and germ-fighting wears a kid out! In Matthew's case, all that working and parenting wears a guy out.

Let's Pretend

Author, writing about space


Police officer


Super Hero

Transformations

While working in the front yard, Linus found a stick with what appeared to be insect eggs attached to it. He looked through his Colorado bug book and didn't find a picture of them to help us identify them. Matthew also didn't know. I took photos of them and emailed them to two biology professors we know as friends. They didn't know either. I ended up finding out what they were by looking at scores of bug egg photos online that were taken by a Colorado professor. Turns out they are katydid eggs. We will keep them in a container on the porch and wait until next spring to see if they hatch.

I've been trying to make more progress on my Jane Austen bust business. Now that Linus is older, he is better able to occupy himself while I do trials of rubber products for creating a mold. He also assists me by taking photographs of the process. Even though the plastic gloves were huge on them, he was still able to do a bit of pouring of the liquid rubber, with my help. The materials are messy and not very safe for the skin. He has been trying to wrap his brain around the fact that I'm making busts to sell. "Why do you want money?" I told him we could use the money to pay for extra things like his music class and an iPad for me. So now and then he encourages me by saying, "You'll sell lots and lots of busts and get lots and lots of money. You'll be able to buy lots and lots of iPads and iPhones." He really knows how to motivate me!

September

First day of school



Helping out at our CSA distribution point

Linus settled back into preschool smoothly and enjoys playing with kids after school. He is still getting to know his new classmates and prefers to play with his friends from last year, like Audrey. When they saw each other on Thursday they exchanged a big hug. His favorite game is Monster, which involves someone playing the monster and chasing the other kids around. He doesn't have much patience for the kids who are bossy and controlling, or the ones who irrationally change the rules in the middle of playing. He is more confident this year and I hear him try to get everyone playing nicely. When this doesn't work, he goes and plays with someone else.

We got to spend last weekend at a cabin in the mountains. It belongs to our friend's parents. We enjoyed feeding the ground squirrels, watching Stellar's jays, climbing rocks, hula hooping, reading, cooking and dining together as a group, consisting of two children and seven adults.

Linus and I are digging up our front yard to replace the grass and weeds with plants from other parts of our yard. When he isn't helping me, he rides his trike up and down the block, or pretends he is a superhero, train, or paleontologist. Sometimes he pretends he is a mushroom researcher. He got the idea for this after I read him a news story about a mushroom convention.

Super Heros

Linus is now wildly interested in super heros. He says Spider Man is his favorite. He desperately wants to check out super hero books from the library, but we've only managed to find two so far that aren't too scary. It appears that there are entry-level super hero books that are for beginning readers. What is different about these is that the villains don't cause too much trouble. In one that we have the Penguin causes birds to go crazy. Pigeons create traffic jams, sea gulls steal ice cream cones and hot dogs, and the ostriches escape from the zoo. The Super Friends make short work of the problems and catch the Penguin without a fight.

Linus likes to make up super heroes by combining characteristics of different creatures. For example, the size of a T-Rex, with horns like a big horn sheep, and the speed of a gazelle. He is starting to want me to play "bad guys" with him, but I turn down the invitation. "Why not, mom?" I tell him, "Honey, I'm just not interested in bad guys. I'm more interested in nice people."

As always, he says the most sweet things. After spending time in the new children's garden, Linus told me, "I like spending time with you." (The photo is of him playing in the stream there. All of the kids were having a blast.)

Here is a conversation we had about before our May trip to Virginia. He wanted to know why our rental car wouldn't be fancy. I explained that fancy cars cost too much. He said, "Well, people with too much money can rent them and then they won't have too much money. That would take care of that."

Berry Picking

We went out to Berry Patch Farms to pick black raspberries last month. Linus and I have gone out at least twice each summer that we have lived here. We have such a blast together. He giggled at a fancy chicken with a mop of feathers on top of its head and he thought it was great fun to ride in a tractor-pulled wagon. He has grown into an amazing berry picker. He is so focused and pick, pick, picks. We left with a harvest of seven pints. After a snack on the porch, while watching the chickens and potbellied pig wander around, we went home and cranked out two batches of jam and a pie. We were exhausted by the end of that day! We'll head out again soon to pick strawberries.

Lepidoptery

Now that our CSA has started delivering broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, we have a steady supply of caterpillars to observe as they transform into butterflies. We've already released three butterflies and a moth. Linus is most excited about the inch worm that came home with us on cauliflower. He calls it Inchy and likes talking to it. We've cared for more than enough caterpillars if this were only a science lesson. I enjoy raising them as much as Linus and continue to pluck them from our produce and put them in our big glass bowl. I'm doubtful that I'll use that bowl for anything else this summer. The cute little things are nice to have around.

July 4, 2010

For the second year in a row, Linus participated in the Fourth of July kiddie parade at a nearby park. Sadly, I was sick in bed with a nasty stomach virus. I am disappointed I missed the event, especially getting to help him decorate his scooter. He returned home with tales of riding the route and hearing a band play. He also ran into Declan, a boy from his preschool class. That evening Matthew and Linus went to picnic in the park for the jazz concert and I stayed on the couch and tried to keep Saltines down.

We signed Linus up for the same little summer camp that he attended last summer. For the month of July he attends for two hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. The kids eat lunch together, play outside, and then do organized activities. On Wednesdays he has music and on Fridays they play active games. When I pick him up he is always happy, tired, and sweaty. Excellent!

He continues to be interested in dragons and dinosaurs. He has also been checking out books about prehistoric sea creatures and early humans. When books say that dragons aren't real, he says, "But I'll find dragon fossils!" Now wouldn't that be an amazing accomplishment?!

Tonight while I was cooking dinner he came into the kitchen exclaiming, "Wow! Dinner smells really good! Thank you for making dinner!" Awwwww. I'm so glad he appreciates it.