That bright thing-y in the sky

The weather lately has been amazing. Just AMAZING. And with it, I feel like we are coming alive again as a family. Our routines just work so much better with a trip to the park, an after dinner walk, and reading in the backyard. We need to be outside! And with some of the rough housing taken outside, I'm pretty sure our furniture will last about 10x as long (ahem, Henry).

Lucy is most excited about: meeting friends at the park. We have 3 within walking distance, the closest being Sunnyside Park. On weekends and school days afternoons, there is always someone there to play with. How wonderful!

Henry is most excited about: a full sandbox. Unfortunately, you like to roll in the sand, attaching a good portion of it to your skin which makes a messy little trail when you come into the house. Suffice it to say, Dad is NOT loving the required cleanup and forced boy showers that are going along with said sandbox so far. I'm still relieved you are happy outside and not inside pounding on the walls, but a few more days and I may be done with it as well. It's a good thing you also love tractoring.

I am most excited about: longer daylight hours and plenty of places to run off energy with the kids.

Ahhhh. There is such happiness knowing a whole summer of outside days is coming our way!

And the winner is...

We have been playing "raffle" a lot lately. It started as a game of recognizing numbers and letters. Now, you are both starting to write some of the numbers and letters for the "tickets." So it is for learning and fun with a little treat at the end.

Tickets: top left done by Lucy, bottom in light blue by Henry

 

It works like a regular raffle with us calling out the winners and you matching them to your own tickets. But, unlike a regular raffle, every ticket is a winner and you both always win matching prizes: a dum dum sucker, 4 crackers, a jelly bean, etc.

Enjoying your spoils. Note the laser lights on Henry's fingers.

You want to do it every day before school and after dinner - kind of tied to your routine "treat" times. Hopefully, it is all innocent fun and we aren't just setting you up for a life of gambling and disappointment.

Today's geography

Downstairs, kids are watching a show on the iPad.

Upstairs, Dad and Uncle Jayson are putting together Henr'ys new big-boy(!!) bed.

Far away in Idaho, It's Papa's and Khia's birthday. Happy birthday!

Far, far away in Nauvoo, Grandma Linda is arriving for her mission.

We are certainly spread about. Hopefully the coming summer will bring opportunities for us all to be together.

School of anxiety

LUCY. IT'S TIME TO have a panic attack, tour some schools, talk to a million moms, talk to a couple of dads, look at online reviews, attend school presentations, fill out paperwork, look at different neighborhoods, get a realtor, check out mortgages, go look at houses, drive through neighborhoods  REGISTER YOU FOR KINDERGARTEN.

All over town, moms and dads of 4-yr-olds are breathing into brown paper bags because HOLY CRAP, this parenting shit is getting REAL! It is time to make a decision for which SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES will follow.

Do we send you to our neighborhood hipster school? Beloved by student and family but completely foreign in concept (chickens, no desks until 3rd grade!) to your parents. It is 2 blocks away.

Or do we pay the big bucks to send you to an immersion school (yes, I'm still Spanish obsessed)?

Or do we move across town where we are promised better schools which our minds must equate with better lives and futures 20 years into the future?

Really, it all boils down to one question: do we trust the world to take care of you? 

It seems to me, we have these three options.

1. Yes. We trust the world and the community and enter to it with open arms. Wherever you go, you will be fine.
2. No. The world will hurt you. Proceed to move off the grid and homeschool you in a cave somewhere.
3. Um? Have a complete panic attack, spend years trying to control your environment, and then finally be forced into choice number 1. It's a trick because, kicking and screaming or not, trusting the world to take care of you is our only real choice.

I'm a #3 parent, all the way. I want to be the epitome of calm acceptance and trust. Deep down, I know that there is no controlling the down-the-road consequences I want to control. But instead I'm clinging to this panic attack with every fiber of my being. I'm pretending I can get you into the right school with the right friends that will give you the right education and the right experiences and prolong your innocence and help you be well-rounded and smart and accepted and happy and successful and talented and loved and (what-the-heck) rich and all things wonderful.

But is there another way? YES!

Yesterday, I talked to a #1-er. She's in our neighborhood and happy about the public school choice. "It's pretty much the same everywhere," she says. And my brain is rewinding the seconds to hear that again. Did I really hear that? Is she being - dare I say...REASONABLE? Wow.

And then I realized why that line of thinking was such a shock. There are some big reasons.

• I went to 3 kindergartens (partly because my siblings were struggling with school choices and I got towed along) and a couple of different elementary schools after that. There were real differences in the quality of education offered.
• Two of my siblings and one of Jeremy's take their kids to charter schools to beat their own neighborhood school odds.
• Most of my friends either commute long distances to take their kids to school, have moved to go to a different school, put their kids in private schools or ALL THREE.
• Does anyone love having their kids in their local, neighborhood school? ... I am not sure.
• And here is the whopper - the Portland School District on-time graduation rate was 59% for 2011. No that is not a typo; it is a travesty.

Seriously. That is some messed up evidence.

Really makes me long for comfort in that #1 choice, a world where everyone trusts their child has an automatic chance for a GREAT education.

Sigh.

xoxo,
Mama

Farewell

My mom is going to Nauvoo for an 18-month mission. That's a really long time. I am mostly excited for her, except for the really long time part. No. I don't think I will ever be too old to miss my mom.

So I have come to Utah to see her off BY MYSELF for 3 days. Yup, that's right. On a plane. By myself. No one whining. No one crying. No one smelling up the place with a dirty diaper there is no room to change. No one dumping crumbs in my purse and spilling their sticky drink all over me. What a dream!!

This is the longest I have gone without seeing you both and while it has been a wonderful respite, I am starting to miss you right down to my bones. Right down to your cute little cheeks and toes. Right down to the crumbs in my purse! Well...maybe not those.

Love you so so so so sooooooo much,
Mama