Hallie’s leaving quite the trail of men in her wake. In her short life she has pledged to marry, and then heartlessly abandoned, Daddy, Travis, and her friend Alex. Her commitment to Alex only materialized during our San Juan Islands vacation. They haven’t even actually seen each other since she declared she was going to marry him. But out-of-sight, out-of-mind in Hallie’s world. Tonight she declared she was going to marry her new kindergarten friend, Garrett. Read the rest of this entry »
We had Hallie’s “Meet the Teacher” tonight, and now it really does feel like she’s starting kindergarten. With the staggered entry set-up, we didn’t know for sure until today who her teacher and classmates would be. It was surprisingly frustrating to be unable to get fully charged up about things until now. I kept having to tell Hallie that Ms. Wood might NOT be her teacher and that we wouldn’t know until today. Hallie really liked her, so I was quite relieved to see the class list when we arrived tonight. Read the rest of this entry »
We were just back from our San Juan Islands vacation and were discussing the waterfall we visited. The next morning Travis is in a talkative mood and enjoying his breakfast when he pipes up with an interesting conversation.
“Daddy, do waterfalls have bones?”
“Um, no,” I answered, never really having thought about it before. “I’m pretty sure they don’t, T.”
“Oh,” he said as he went back to eating his oatmeal. I could tell his wheels were still turning.
The next moment he starts up with a rapid-fire, stream of consciousness soliloquy. “Daddy, do you know how waterfalls work? They have little faucets that turn on and spin around when the waterfall is running! That’s how they work!,” he said proudly.
Life looks a little different in T’s world!
One Saturday morning I was awakened by two very happy kids who were racing around the bedroom. They were drawn towards my guitar, which sits in a corner of the room. Each would strum the open strings, race over to their dozy but chuckling daddy, and cackle before racing back to do it again.
Travis was speaking through his teeth in his funny lisp voice, his lower jaw jutting out mischievously. “Would you like to listen to ‘Family Island’?” he’d ask before returning to the guitar to strum it. Again he would return, ask “would you like to listen to ‘Family Island’?” and race back to the guitar.
Occasionally when Travis seems to start speaking in jumble, I will throw a “would you like to listen to ‘Family Island?’” at him to tease him. Though it made a big impression on me, it doesn’t seem to have much staying power with the kids. Oh well!
Well, Travis hasn’t gone back to pull-ups and I’m very glad to see those days behind us. On the other hand, I’d hardly say he’s “potty trained.” He’s having a couple of accidents a day and especially seems to have trouble letting me know he needs to poop. The funny thing is that he’s been 100% dry at night and at naps. He’ll even wake us up in the night to call for “potty patrol.” Read the rest of this entry »
We took Hallie to her first day of Kindergarten today at Conn Elementary. She had been so excited that she barely slept last night. She was so intent on going that she woke us up at 3:30 in the morning to ask if her alarm clock was working. I stepped from my shower at 7 AM to see she’d already dressed herself.
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As if we haven’t hit enough milestones this week, Travis finally got the hang of pedaling his bicycle today! For months (really years), he’s taken the Fred Flinstone approach to trikes and bikes, walking his feet along the ground and showing no interest in pedaling. Read the rest of this entry »
It was a happy Hallie I picked up this afternoon (after sitting 30 minutes in the carpool line). She was clutching a handful of new drawings and immediately announced, “I liked art time the best!” As far as I could tell, today’s art time was just time to color with crayons. But that suited Hallie fine. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s hard to believe that Hallie actually starts kindergarten tomorrow! In some ways it seems like this got here so fast. In others ways, Hallie has seemed “school-aged” to me for so long that this seems like something that should have happened already. Read the rest of this entry »
If last week was a week of challenges, this week is a week of accomplishments! Travis has been feeling better since his Thursday ER visit. In fact he’s felt good enough that we’ve been swimming almost every day since then. Read the rest of this entry »
