pedalpedalpedalPEDAL!... and more!

Another blog post.  Another chance to catch up a bit, and to show the tip of the iceberg of fun we are having these days.

Last week, we headed down to NC to visit Grammy and PaPa.  Seeing as how PaPa is very into roadbiking; has always loved bikes and the childhood freedom attached to them; has a great long, paved and downsloped driveway; has been hanging on to two kid bikes which he found at the dump over a year ago; and mainly, seeing as how Alder has been riding his balance bike very well for over a year... he decided to try a little something out.  While the boys were out in the driveway kicking around on the balance bikes, PaPa pulled out the dump bikes.  Alder wanted to use the tools to help take the training wheels off the one of his choice - the cinderella one, which had one homemade wooden make shift training wheel and thus was a rickety ride.

Then Papa took him to the top of the driveway, told him to pretend like it was his red balance bike, except pedal, and viola, Alder began riding a big boy bike.  Just like that.  And the excitement was obvious, time and time again.

Of course this would be one of the times when the video camera was not accessible, but these pics capture it quite well.

Since then, Granna and Grandad came to visit and we went to the running track at the nearby middle school.  This provided great opportunity to build some endurance, and we are even seeing this as an opportunity for Mommy and I to add some running miles to our weeks.  Major bonus there!

Granna and Grandad brought Alder a hand-me-down 20 inch bike at Halloween which is just a tad too big for him.  So, Papa and Grammy gave him a 16 inch for Christmas this year.  Alder is so proud to be 4 and a half and riding a big, big boy bike.  And of course, as would any 4-year-old, he loves to be cheered on to go farther and turn in more and more circles, etc.

Let me take this opportunity to place a huge plug for balance bikes.  Its so hard to believe that the norm has not always been to start with these, rather than training wheels on a pedal bike.  When a little one, as young as two, can first master the rather natural concepts of balance and catching themselves when they lose their balance, then the challenge of pedaling is not as daunting.  Alder got his balance bike at age three.  Heath got his at age two, and at the rate he is going, Heath will likely be pedaling without training wheels before he is four.  We can't wait till we can all ride together, independently!

Heath, by the way is sweeter, and more fun everyday.  Such a constant bubbling of love he is.  Here are a few funny pics, where I asked him to pretend like he was:

angry,

surprised,

sad, and

just happy.

Oh, wait, no that's Dad in 1978.  Crazy, huh?

He likewise loves his independence: "Iya do by-ya my-ee SELF."  He got some solo time driving PaPa's tractor/train.  To adults it is a way to haul lots of firewood to the back door.  To Heath and Alder, its the ability to be the conductor on a trip to see the chickens across the road.

Heath continues to be obsessed with music and we feed it however we can.  Both boys have enjoyed assembling (with my help) and jamming on drumsets lately as well.

Much much more to come.

Alder's big decision

Alder turned 4.5 on Nov 19 and he was really tickled by this.  Now he thinks he is "almost 5" which is a super big deal to him.  We have been gently and consistently supporting Alder's admitted desire to stop sucking his thumb over the last several months and talking about the many reasons why it would be a good idea.  He also has friends in his class that are currently or have recently gone through this....wearing gloves to school or tape around the finger as a reminder.

After talking about these methods that his friends were using at school to kick the habit, I asked Alder what method he would want to use when he decided to stop.  He thought a "Cars" bandaid would be the best way, and this is good since we have a box of these already.  We were hoping that by involving Alder in this process, rather than imposing it upon him, he would be much more likely to buy into it and to succeed. I need to mention here that Alder really loved to suck his thumb - when snuggling, when sleeping, when riding in the car, when watching something on a screen, and when generally upset or tired.  And he did not passively put it in his mouth; he sucked on it.  During this conversation I suggested that Alder could give it a try, to quit, after thanksgiving.   He agreed and got unexpectedly excited about the idea.  Then came the 4.5 birthday and as we stood in the kitchen soon after waking and talking about how he was now 4.5, he announced that he wanted to stop sucking his thumb today, a week before Thanksgiving!  Excited, but honestly skeptical, I gave him a big smile and encouraging hug and we went to get the first of many bandaids to follow.  Believe it or not, that was it.  Since that day, nearly a month ago, Alder has put his thumb in his mouth only a few times, and all of these events were unconciously in his sleep.  He used a sock over his hand for the first week or two and now prefers the bandaid only.

After about a week, once we realized that he was gonna keep pushing through, we started building up for a cupcake.  Alder remembered that our friend Brayden had also recently earned a cupcake for the same feat.  He requested strawberry, which luckily we had frozen from the Spring and made them work just fine.  We made several huge muffins, put a little icing on them and invited some neighborhood friends to the park for a little celebration.  He was beaming.  Now we are working towards some frozen yogurt, we think.  But, he doesnt even seem to need the build up.  He knows how great it feels and is so proud to have big-boyed through it.

We are amazed by his willpower and self control.  We have also seen a surge in his overall confidence which is more than we could have hoped for.  We are so proud of him and remind him frequently of how hard it is for people, even grown-ups, to break habits like that.

Of late

The recent void of updates here is only proof that we have been up to alot.  This will catch us up a bit.  Biggest blogworthy event was for certain our annual October migration to the beach (see also 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007).  Four of us families from three states convene for as many days as we can in one house to share fun and food and to make tons of memories.  This year we were 10 kiddos and 8 adults, and two buns in two ovens.  It truly seems better every year.   Here are a couple of photos, but then links to blogs that have already done a wonderful job of capturing the trip.

Something we didn't do enough of.  I would guess that 80% of the time when all of us were in the house and not enjoying the beach, at least one of the guys was strumming.  It was nice.

Something we did alot of: eating together.  Luckily we all have very similar preferences in the ways our families eat, so prepping meals is actually a focal activity and fun.  Here are all kids except ours (Alder is in the background, Heath likely napping) enjoying an afternoon snack before heading out again to the beach.  These kids can spend hours digging, exploring, finding critters and simply walking along enjoying wach other.  As always it was a pleasure to be around such a caring and polite group of kids.

Random fun at the dinner table.  Les taught some of the older kids how to build card houses and Heath wanted to learn too.  We also taped a giant piece of paper there for a while for some artistic free for all.  But, not as long as I might have thought.  It doesnt take long to completely fill a blank space with color with this crowd.

Joren in his heaven.

The ladies, waiting together to see how orange their henna locks turn out.

The fellas, mesmerized by a gadget.

Most of the younger gang (again except our boys, this time being stubborn about posing).  I like how Braden is displaying his finds of the morning.

This I think is funny, as it captures the beginnings of organizing to have the customary last morning group pic taken.

And somehow, we did it.

Lots more photos and reflection can be seen on the Kruidenier's, Morrison's, and Aardema-Gagnon's 

blogs.

Other fun of late:

Apple picking with some friends from school.  Followed by lots of apple eating and dehydrating apples...which make a very yummy snack.

Granna, Grandad and Elizabeth visited for Halloween again this year!  Despite the cold and rainy weather, we had a super time.  We carved pumpkins, the boys dressed up like spiders (tarantula and black widow to be precise), and even trick or treated with friends around one short loop in the neighborhood despite the rain.  They each got one peice of candy and have only asked for another peice a couple of times since then.  They know it is not something they can have often so they forget about it....and I took the bulk of our leftovers to class the following week and gave it to students.

...and some other fun tidbits:

When we finish reading Heath's book each night, he likes to stick it under his tummy before going to sleep.  We usually remove it later.

Alder has been enjoying drawing pirates.  We have numerous versions of this image lying around the house and this one seems to be the best.  Jason made it our screen saver on the house computer and Alder is proud.  Notice the "bullets" dripping out of the guns on their belts....not that we are excited about this necessarily, but it is fun to see how he draws something when he doenst really understand it.  He says, "Daddy, look, and their pistols are shooting."  And that is just fine.

The CentralEats food blog that we have started for the boys school is growing with two new posts each week on Tuesday and Saturday.  We are having fun with it and hope it grows to be a resource for parents needing healthy lunch and dinner ideas.

Drumming and Heath's general obsession with music, and pretending to be Dan Zanes.  Not sure how long this phase is gonna last, but we hope the general obsession with music sticks around.  

Alder had a science fair project for school last week.  At first, this sounds like such a pain.  These kids are too young to do this!  What a hassle.  But the school encourages total student invovlment and super simple projects.  And thankfully Jason saved the day with a simple idea he found and adapted online.  It took us only a few hours spread over a night of other stuff.  He found a recipe for bird seed cakes.  We then asked alder what he thought the birds would like to eat most, plain bird food or bird food with something else added.  He decided what the additives would  be and we make bird food cakes with (1) nothing added, (2) peanut butter added, (3) honey added, and then (4) a cake of just paper and flour.   These are all now hanging on the playground at school to see which ones get eaten first.  The honey one actually fell apart and the peanutbutter one poses an allergy hazard so only the plain and paper...oh well.  The learning is in the process and not the outcome, right?

Phew....that't it for now.

Mission Hank

Strangely, Hank is important to the boys.  Not that they ever play with Hank, we don't take Hank anywhere with us, he doesn't even come inside.  But for some reason they always seem to mention him in passing sort of as a member of our family.  Maybe its because they think Hank truly slows traffic by our house and that they are safer when playing in the yard because of him.  Our neighbors gave Hank to us for that reason, having seen Les one day running to grab Heath before he got too close to the road, so we have said from the beginning that that was Hank's purpose.  And he didn't come with that name - Heath gave it to him - which is good because it is much better/easier than calling him 'flourescent yellow slow down man'.

I never thought I would be that person - shaking my finger at teenagers (and grown ups) as they drive by WAY too fast as my children ride their bikes near the edge of the road.  I am even talking to neighbors about the possibility of a speed bump....yup, that person....so, Hank has become an important sign to folks to slow down on our road that many use as they enter and leave the neighborhood.

So, it was significant one morning when he was gone.  We figured it was rambling neighborhood teens as it happened the night before a day off from school.  The boys didn't know why someone would take him.  I mean, obviously he wouldn't leave on his own or he would have by now.  So that was that, Hank was gone.  Hopefully someone was taking good care of him.

Until we got a message from a neighbor from across the neighborhood one night: "... we think we saw your yellow man in the woods down the road from you house..."  WHAT!?!?!  The boys were immediately excited, and Les and I fed off that, planning an impromptu rescue mission... right now, in the dark and in footie PJs.  We jumped in the car with flashlights, Lesley walked along and peered into the woods - a downsloped, covered in ivy and blackberry - but no luck in seeing him, though flourescent he was, in the dark.  Less a failed attempt than a spike in the excitement, as now we had to come back, SOON.  So this escalated for a couple more days till the next night when we could head down.

This was to be it, we had what we needed to make this mission a success: Dad had scoped it out that morning to confirm he was there, lying in the woods; we had lights; a rescue rope; the wagon, dried out; camera; and the adrenaline of the boys to pull him out of the thicket.

 They pulled hard...

 He got a little stuck...

 They pulled harder....success!

 Our voyage back home....

Les and I laughed as we pulled the wagon back in the dark.  wondering waht the few passersby must have thought....what the Hank kidnappers would think when they spied him, unscathed and back in his original location.  It was a joyous occasion and one we will remember fondly, at least Les and I.

School Overall

We had parent/teacher conferences this morning.  And when I mentioned this to a co-worker today, he looked at me strangely and said, "Aren't your kids...?"  "Two and four, yes", I said.  Pause. "And I guess that says alot about why we are so pumped about our school."

Of course we are only a few years into parenthood, but I'd like to think that if there is anytime for parents and teachers to comunicate regularly about what their children are doing in school, then it is in these early years.

We love these conferences because it is a window into their days that we do not get, and from an adult's perspective.  We do a fair share of reading about Maria Montessori: her philosophy and how the works are purposed to present children with free learning experiences that are paralleled with natural phases of inquisitiveness ("formative planes").  And we love to hear how our boys are responding and learning in this environment.  We see results everyday at home, but it is good to get this teacher's perspective every few months.

Montessori might not be for everyone and we don't necessarily think it is THE WAY.  But we love it more all the time, as the boys get older.  We found out this morning that Heath will be moving up to the primary classroom (a different one from Alder) after thanksgiving.  This is very exciting and it sounds like he is very ready for the transition!  We also learned that after many months of spending almost all of his time in the "math area," Alder has started really wanting to be in the "language area" where he is sounding out words using the movable alphabet.  He told us this already, but it was nice to hear more about it from his teacher.

Here are a couple of videos shared with me today by fellow Montessori parents that communicate some the aspects of it that we appreciate the most about this method of education.  Not only as parents, but for Lesley as a teacher of college "kids," always trying to find ways to encourage them to truly learn/understand and not just memorize/regurgitate, we see a lot of relevence here.

One good thing about winter

I typically dread the shorter days. Lament the evening hours indoors when they used to be spent playing in the yard.  I was reminded last night of a reason why short winter days can be nice.  Huge full moons before bedtime.  The last few evenings (since we moved the clocks back) have been clear and fairly mild with a huge waxing moon.  Yesterday, when Alder saw it, he yelled, "look mom!  A Gibous!"  We used the boniculars to look at it once it was very dark and after a few seconds of silent observation, he said..."I see a T-Rex"  I have always thought the dark shaded regions of the moon looked like a bunny rabbit, but when I asked to take a look, I too saw a T-Rex.  Rabbit ears had become open jaws.  "Cool!"  I replied.  I will never see the moon the same again.

Happy full moon.  Rrraaahhhrrr!

Two things

First, a short skit, as verbatim as I can manage, from one morning last week on the way to school:

Heath: Want PaPa pick-a-me up  fum skoo.  (repeated 3 to 4 times)

Me: Well, PaPa is not available today.  PaPa is riding his bike across North Carolina today.

---30 seconds---

Alder: Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be wore out.

Me: (Laughing, as I knew where this was probably going.) What do you mean you want to be wore out?

Alder: I want to be wore out like PaPa and Granddad, so I can not go to work. 

Me: Well, one day you will be worn out, I promise, and then you can do whatever you want.

Alder: When are you going to be wore out?

Me: Not for a long time still, but one day I will too. 

Alder: Then you won't go to work?

Me: Only to the work I really want to go to.

Alder: (processing)

Heath:  Want PaPa pick-a-me up  fum skoo.  (repeated 3 to 4 times)

Me: (sigh)

Secondly, this picture, Les took with phone, that I love.  The overexposure of the sunlit shirt against the mysterious space of that rootball is just jewel-perfect randomness:

I know I still owe a post on Heath's obsession with baseball (and now Dan Zanes).  Heath is proving to be very much an all-or-nothing type of guy, taking things to the very limit of his capability.  More soon (hopefully)...

Alder is writing and drawing!

I had not thought too much about how fun it would be to see our children's creativity begin to emerge (and be expressed in more than just colorful scribbles).  Lately Alder has been enjoying sitting quietly and drawing and we are loving what he is creating.  He can color in the lines now.

At his school, children can draw on these peices of paper and then they ask them what they drew.  The teacher uses a highlighter to write the words and then the child uses a pencil to trace the letters.  You cannot see the tracing very well, but Alder is getting pretty good with this though he prefers to write the letters he knows in print.  Here are a few favorites from lately:

This last one is especailly sweet - a fire station for Heath.  Alder asked me the other day as I was laying down with him to take a nap, if he was going to marry when he got older.  I said that I hoped so, I hoped that he could find a best friend that he loved that much.  Then, a couple of days later he said that he was going to marry Heath.  So sweet.  Don't worry, I did go on to explain that marriage was not really for brothers....

Here is one we are especially proud of, and actually older than the others here.  We were going to a birthday party and making a card for the special girl.  I coached him through the letters he did not know how to write by writing them on another peice of paper.  He would then trace it and write in on this paper.

Lastly, Alder has begun to learn to read a clock at school.  Here is his second O'clock Book that he has brought home.  Again, you cannot see that he has traced every word and number as well as drawn the hands on the clock correctly.

An interesting comparison, here is one of hte first drawings he brought home, last April.  Things change so fast...