Around the House

Screen time is a very popular thing in our house.  Recently it has expanded to time on various computer/game devices.  Harry has had a DS since he was about seven, but it is only since the spring that he has used it.  He also inherited an itouch as a birthday present that had belonged to his father and then to me.  We try to limit screen time, but it is a constant battle. However, here  is a picture of the boys together playing a video game.  Recently Harry has found an online game he likes to play once in a while.  Robert's access to video games are those that are on my ipad.  I put on some educational games and he likes those, but he is also quite fond of angry birds a the moment and much as I hate to admit it, it can give me a few moments of invaluable time right now when I can make a phone call or take a shower without interruption.  Both my boys are chatty and when we are together they want my undivided attention.  This doesn't mean that they need me to be talking to them all the time, but if I start to do something for any length that they feel "neglects" them they will demand my attention, depending on the time of day/mood/ etc I can divert them, but not always.  In those cases where I really need a few moments those screens can be invaluable.

Here is Robert helping to take out the trash.  He is in the stage where helping is still fun and he wants to do it all on his own!  There are always some thing that he can help with sometimes - it is a funny balance of having the children help out around the house and understanding that they may not do the job I would really like to be done.  I have to remind myself to just appreciate that they are getting there.  I try not to go behind and improve on their efforts (but who am I fooling, I do that with their Dad too - so maybe it is a lesson I need to learn).

Apple Picking

Mondays seem to be my morning for posting.  I don't have anything profound to say today.  The sun is out after a rainy weekend and here are some pictures from our apple picking adventure the previous weekend.

Who is that child under the Red Sox cap?

so many apples so far above

still plenty within reach

figuring out how to use the nabber thingy

Kevin and apples

Heading back to the car with a full load of apples

We made it a day and ended with ice cream

We were sitting next to a bicycle path facing the bay

Something about this expression makes me want to know what he was thinking

Proving that I was along - although this photo is from dinner which came before the ice cream :-)

Fall

Fall is here, but the colors haven't begun to change yet.  Right now we have warm days and then very chilly evenings and nights.  Hopefully that will mean pretty autumn colors.  I have tried to take my camera out and catch some of the natural sights of a waning summer season, but there just aren't always enough hours in the day.  My memories will need to suffice.

I put up our fall decorations with Robert this past week.  I am not a big fan of all the Halloween stuff, my children love it all, but it often feels like another holiday hijacked by commercialism.  I also have things that I have now been taking out year after year.  A sign that goes by the door saying welcome Autumn and some little pumpkin decorations and a scarecrow (which is a rather pathetic little thing, but one of those things my Mom gave me in the year or so before she died and so from fond memories rather than from a recognition of it's material worth, I find a place of honor for it).  We add to these little things with mums by the door and eventually we will get pumpkins, but as I told the boys, if we get them now it would just be to feed the squirrels and they are already fat enough.

The boys are currently very interested in video games.  It is a new thing in our house.  They have been around, but now they are more interesting.  Harry is pretty good at them and Robert is starting to catch on now too, especially on the ones on the iPad or iPhone.  I find myself encouraging them to go outside.  Once outside they usually easily find ways to entertain themselves and are quite happy to be there, but it does take some encouragement.  I suppose the battle is just beginning, but we have always tried to limit screen time and so I hope that the lessons we have taught since early on will hold up.  It is always a bit of a struggle to find the balance in life and so we will muddle along and take this as our chance to teach our children about finding balance too.

These two pictures at the beginning and end of my post are from our visit to Sturbridge a few weeks ago.  We took a short boat ride and that is the pond we were on and Harry found this little woolly caterpillar wandering along the path and we moved him to a fence so he wouldn't get trodden.  Then I took his picture. That is an aspect of my Harry which is a bit contradictory right now.  He loves the idea of guns and fighting and battles right now, but he would literally not hurt a fly.  He objects strongly when I hurt one too.  I just don't tell him about my very effective ant bait poison that I mix up a couple of times a summer, when the ants come in.  This always gives me hope that the "battle" stage of boyhood is one that will eventually we overpowered by his sense of the sanctity of life and the worth of all living things.  We all come to compromises in our minds about what violence is necessary in life and where we must draw the lines in the use of force.  For me that has been the killing of ants and dandelions and so I feel very blessed that my dilemmas are not stronger.  I hope that it will be a similar path for my boys, but I recognize that it is an uncertain world and so I must just pray that God will guide him and keep strong within him his sense of the worthiness of life for all living creatures.

You just gotta laugh

I have been a stay at home Mom for over 9 years now.  Life is not exciting in the direction the press and the media would like to have us believe excitement lies (pun intended).  However, my life is full of exciting and also very funny antics.  Sometimes it is my children and sometimes it is just watching the people around me and their actions.  

This morning as I sat at the dining room table trying to coax my oldest to eat breakfast, I heard the fire horn sound and then I heard sirens heading towards the highway nearby.  We live on a small island, we don't hear sirens very often.  I remembered my brief days working on an ambulance and I thought of what they could be responding to and said a little prayer.  Then I thought about how life changes and merges.  I hear many bangs and crashes in my house.  I have learned which ones to respond to immediately.  Sometimes it is when I have heard nothing at all that it is most informing to take a peak into the room where a child may be disassembling something I thought should stay together or maybe decorating a wall with stickers/crayon/marker that I thought was already sufficiently decorated.  It is exciting and often funny and sometimes I need to leave the room to laugh - since that reward may not be warranted - even though punishment isn't either.

My four year old is still learning to speak clearly - I could listen to him say the words popsicle and obstacle over and over because how he says it just makes my heart sing.  My nine year old is learning other things and analyzes his world with aplomb.  I am always amazed to hear how he interprets the words of his father in a sermon or the actions of adults in the world.  Sometimes I need to stifle a laugh and sometimes I recognize that the old phrase out of the mouths of babes is very apt. 

Anyway, I think Monday mornings ought to start out with some laughter, so here are some pictures that make me smile :-)

a GQ pose on the first day of Webelos

Who knew that a shorts hat was the way to go for pre K style?

Gotta check it out in the mirror (note the undies match the hat)

Trip to Sturbridge

This past Tuesday the boys were out of school for election day (a unique Rhode Island tradition, which once made sense, but now is just an extra day off for no apparent reason).  For once I realized back in August that this was going to come about and I began thinking about what we could do.  We had a gift certificate for the family to go to Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts and I figured if the weather was nice it would be a great day for it.  I asked Kevin to take the day off and we were blessed to wake to one of those perfect September days and so we went off to the 1830s right after breakfast.

I remember fondly our visits to Sturbridge Village as a child.  My boys are not as interested in history as I was as a child.  Here they are playing with the tiles on the quilt table.  For them it was making patterns, the fact that sewing is eventually involved did not really enter their minds.

Playing with an interactive game in one of the barns

There are many more hands on things for the children to do than when I was a child - it was hard to get Robert away from some places, but he came eventually holding onto Dad's hand

Here are the boys in the school house.  This fascinated us as children and fascinates our children too.  The classrooms of today are so far removed and changed from those of the 1800s.  My children's classrooms are so different from my classroom.  Computers were brand new and seldom in classrooms and typing class was still on an old fashioned typewriter.  It wasn't until college that I used a word processor.

stilts and jump ropes were out in the playground by the school house. Harry gamely gave it a try.  I tried for a few seconds and decided that I didn't need to sprain my ankle again this fall :-)

Offering some love to the calf on the farm

We took the 15 minute or so river cruise.  The boys were very talkative and didn't give the gentleman much of a chance to tell us his usual spiel.  It was one of those interesting moments as a parent when I couldn't decide if I should reprimand my children for interrupting or respond to them about the observations and questions they had about what we were doing.  As is normal, I think (and hope), for a 4 year old, Robert was still interested in whatever he had on his mind.  It is sometimes a dilemma to me about where to draw lines and how to deal with people who aren't comfortable with children or sometimes of a generation that thinks children should be seen and not heard.  I recognize the need for this in some situations, but we were the only people on the boat besides the driver so we weren't disturbing anybody.  It was a nice ride though and we saw, fish and water lilies and a great blue heron.  We really couldn't ask for a nicer day.  Also despite attempts otherwise we managed to keep both boys inside the boat.  That was a relief because it was nice out but it would have been a cold afternoon if we'd had a wet boy.

The last stop of the day was the children's playground.  I think this was Robert's favorite part.  Harry spent a fair amount of time climbing and running around too.

It was a lovely day out of time.  Sometimes the days we don't plan too much and just let things fall as they will are the best ones of all.  I was hoping our trip would be more successful than our first trip to Sturbridge which was an overnight in the winter when the highlight was the hotel pool.  It was and I think Harry even learned a few things.  His favorite part was the blacksmith shop.  I missed much of that because I was outside with Robert blowing bubbles, but there was plenty to see and do and just being in the beautiful weather with happy children (most of the time) was worth it all :-)

First Day of Pre-Kindergarten

Smiling and ready to go

I think his backpack is bigger than Harry's

And an action shot!

Summer Vacation is over but...

Well, the school routine is starting back up.  For Harry it is back to the regular slog.  This year there will be a little change because Robert is at preschool 4 afternoons a week at Harry's school.  So we will all meet there at Robert's dismissal time which is a mere 10 minutes after Harry's.  In the meantime Harry is meant to sit and read or get a start on homework.  Then we will all meet outside Robert's classroom.  Tuesday will be the first day of this adventure, so fingers crossed that it all works out.  Normally Harry would have taken the bus, but an adult is meant to be at home when the child arrives and that cannot be guaranteed with the Robert in afternoon class.

Harry is now a fourth grader and he was looking forward to the learning part of school, but not the sitting down and paying attention all the time (some of the time is fine, but all of the time?).  Anyway, hopefully it will be a good year.  We met his new teachers a day before classes began and 2 of the boys in his class are military families new to the area who happen to live in our neighborhood and take the same bus.  That may be a nice thing as they get more independent in the 4th grade and are expected to write down homework etc, each day.  That is a difficult task for Harry, so it may be nice to have others to check with for assignments.

I must admit that this year I am not quite ready to let go.  Perhaps because Robert is 4 and I realize it will be a blink of my eye and they will both be in all day school.  I am realizing that I will miss having a little person around most of the time.  As much as some days they drive me crazy.  I always love to have my little energy bundles around.  The add so much to live and to my perception of it.  This will be our first almost full week of school with Robert in classes too.  Say a prayer for us as we adjust.

And so without further adieu - here are some pics from our end of summer adventure in Boston and at Grampy's house!

On the slide at the playground where I went to elementary school

It was a much less comfortable ride for those of us who are not elementary school sized :-)

My reader on a bench at the playground - the field in the background seemed much better when I went to elementary school 

On the T - we had a running commentary provided by R

H on the other hand had other entertainment options :-)

I think this carousel on the Boston Common is the 3rd one we've been on in the past couple of weeks  and was by far the slowest one although it had some pretty cool animals

At 4, R still gives me a smile and a wave :-)

First swan boat ride :-)

Swans!

Boston Public Gardens

Back in Needham with my best friend's daughter - a mini version of her Mom :-) - it brought back so many lovely memories of our childhood and she looks so darn much like her mom did when she was that age :-) - my mini me is a boy so it isn't quite the same :-)