Time's up

Summer, my friends. It is nearly at an end. At least the break-from-school part of it. School starts on Monday, so we've used this week to squeeze all of the fun that we could out of the last moments of summer break.

This week we went to Local Theme Park's Waterpark, during the day, twice. That is TWO times. That's a lot. I mean, we go several times a week, but we almost never go until after 4 p.m., when the crowds die down and the sun loses its burn-you-to-a-crisp power. I had to put sunscreen on the kids. TWICE! I hate putting sunscreen on the kids (or myself). Which is a big part of the reason why we never go until after 4 p.m.

But earlier this week we had friends coming into town...people without season passes who were paying for their day at the park and wanted to get their money's worth. So we screened up and went. And had a fabulous time. And got burnt to a crisp despite the aforementioned sunscreen. (OK, I got burnt. Olivia got a little red on her shoulders and cheeks. Martin didn't even realize we were in the sun all day. Melanin. Powerful stuff, that.)

Olivia and her friend soaking up summer.

We went back today, early again so that we could take the cousins. The kids had SUCH a good time. Martin has become quite the little waterbug. He played so hard that he just spontaneously fell asleep on my shoulder while I was talking to another mom at the pool. Poor little tired guy.

Pictured: Not yet exhausted, but getting there.

Let's see...we went to a movie this week. We went to a "back-to-school" pool party. We went "to town" to visit friends. It was an eventful week.

And now I'm exhausted!

On Monday, Olivia starts Kindergarten, which doesn't seem like a big thing since she was at preschool at the same school last year. But she was only there 3 days a week. This will be 5 days a week, every week. That is kind of huge. Right? I'm sure it will be a big transition for her. But she is ready. And I think even I'm ready. I think. Maybe.

Birthday week

Martin didn't have a birthday party, per se, for his first birthday. Because of the hectic nature of our schedules this month, we kind of had a series of mini-parties. It all began last weekend, when I stupidly bravely planned to go tent camping with my parents and sister, five hours away from home. We went to see my nieces in the world's greatest amateur circus and also to celebrate Martin's birthday with his godparents (parents to my circus-nieces). Joe had to work last weekend, so this plan was entirely my own.

The camper in the background belongs to my parents. The kids and I shared a tent with my sister on the same site.

It was...surprisingly not nearly as bad as I expected. The kids actually slept. Of course, Olivia bounced around for 2 hours past bedtime until Aunt Lori offered her some earplugs and she promptly fell fast asleep. I then declared earplugs to be the best invention ever.

So, sleep was had by all, but as is the case with camping, you never get as much sleep as you are used to getting at home. After a couple of days of this, we were all exhausted and kind of grumpy. I just...don't get camping.

Anyway, we had a little get-together at the campsite with those of us camping and godparents/cousins coming in for lunch, followed by cake and lake swimming. It was low key, easy to pull off, and everyone had a nice time.

Yeah, yeah, it's my birthday!

On Saturday, I drove 90 minutes from the campsite to pick up Martin's birthmother and then 90 minutes back so we could all enjoy circus festival parade day, followed by the circus performance. Exhausting, but worth it.

Very blurry photo of my nieces in what is called low-casting, but looks very much like flying trapeze (which they also have later in the show). Kids in this circus are all from this county, age 7-21. They are AMAZING!

Yes, that is a tight wire. Yes, those are children balancing on children balancing on a tight wire. Yes there is a net. No, they did not need to use it. No, I'm not related to any of the kids in the tight wire act. They are just amazing.

The circus was spellbinding, as usual. I am just amazed at the things these kids do. And they have this whole army of riggers (volunteers, mostly parents) who race around setting up and tearing down nets, wires, ladders, mats...everything that is used in each of these acts. And a bunch of the riggers are also spotters (those guys poised below the low-casters to catch anyone who fails to catch the bar). Spotters are used for most acts. Things like the high wire and the flying trapeze, though, have their own full nets. All of which are set up by volunteers. I just...am amazed by the coordination required to put on this "amateur" show. It is fascinating.

Sunday we were back home with Daddy, and celebrated Martin's birthday with dinner at Grammy and Grampy's. Monday we rested.

Martin's actual birthday (Tuesday) was pretty low-key. We spent some time with cousins at a local museum, put Martin down for a long afternoon nap, had all of this favorite foods for dinner with Daddy at home, then went to Local Theme Park for a couple of hours of fun. The musicians at the park's show sang happy birthday to him.

And a good time was had by all.

One year in review

Happy Birthday, Martin!

12 months old - July 23, 2013

11 months old

10 months old

9 months old

8 months old

7 months old

6 months old

5 months old

4 months old

3 months old

2 months old

1 month old

July 23, 2012 - Martin Roderick is born.

Birthday Eve

Tomorrow is Martin's first birthday.

When we started down the adoption path, we had some serious reservations about raising a black child or even a biracial child. It had a lot to do with what local black culture seemed to be, in our experience, and trying to explain that to a child who shared the same skin color but not the same environment, etc. etc. Basically, it was our fear of how that would play out in real life.

And then Olivia basically fell into our laps. And we had no choice but to say yes. (I mean, theoretically, we had a choice, but if you were there, feeling what we were feeling, you would know that there was really no other choice for us but to become her parents.)

Because, I mean, seriously. Look at that face! She is perfect!

When we signed up for Adoption #2, we had no such reservations. We knew that the child who landed in our home would be loved whether he/she was white, black, pink or green. I can't even believe now that a time existed when we thought we wouldn't be open to a black child in our home. Because this?

Is Perfection.

Happy Birthday Eve, my sweet baby boy!

Vacation recap

We celebrated 4th of July week in the Colonial Capital, Williamsburg, VA. It was fun and interesting. And exhausting and frustrating. Historic sites with kids under age 10 or so are exhausting and sometimes pointless. But we plodded on and did as much as we could.

Olivia found certain things to be extremely interesting. Like the blacksmith.

She asked a million questions while I baked in the oppressive heat.

 And storming the governor's palace.

Let's get 'em! Give back our gunpowder and stuff!

 Also, there were cool places to pose.

Canons are cool.

Locked in the stocks. Charge: Excessive whining.

 Also, there was colonial dress-up.

Anti-arrow armor

Martin's not sure exactly how this tri-corn hat is supposed to fit.

 We all learned some things about history.

Like, dude, this governor guy decorates his house with weapons. That is so weird.

General Washington...what does this say? Why? Did you write that part? Who did? Why?

So, overall, a good week. Not something I want to repeat anytime soon, but not because of the destination. The stuff we did and saw was worthwhile. My kids just don't travel well at this stage. Long road trips are really, really hard. But it was nice to spend a week together and away from home.

Sprayers and cups

Summer continues to be a blur. I continue to have no time to say anything about anything. VBS was super-awesome. I got a billion things done during those mornings. Olivia is finally settling into summer and behaving better. We are leaving on vacation soon. It just now got hot. In honor of it finally getting hot, we've been spending a little more time at the waterpark.

Martin did not like the spray park until I gave him a cup.

This cup-and-sprayer thing is awesome!

Water princess. Always ready with a pose.

As it turns out, it was all about the cups and not at all about the water. He crawled away from the sprayers and just wanted to play with all of the cups. Happily. And tiredly (look at the eyes).

Here, Mommy, have a cup.

Summer ups and downs

I swear, I don't know what happens to time in the summer. It's like it just disappears into a black hole. I have all of these things to do and nothing gets done. Perhaps I need to hire a couple of preschoolers/kindergarteners to come over and entertain my big kid so I can do something other than keep up with her.

So, somewhere between the last post and this one, school ended for the year and summer break got well underway. Olivia has been...difficult. It's weird...she's at this age where she can reasonably do things now, like sit still for long periods of time working with me on reading or a craft project. And that is good. But for some reason she has regressed in sleeping to that stage where she has nightmares and can't fall back asleep and/or she refuses to go to sleep at night without vast amounts of fighting and someone to sit with her until she passes out. This is annoying and exhausting. I am going to chalk it up to lack of proper schedule and pray it disappears when school starts again because the thought of dealing with this AND school...well, I just can't go there.

There are some ways that we are winning this summer, though. First, Olivia is big enough for all of the rides at Local Theme Park now, and though we have not yet convinced her to get on a real coaster (and I'm not really trying all that hard because I'm not a coaster fan myself), she has embraced a few big kid rides.

Her first ride on the super-tall water drop ride. Perhaps it would be better if you had a photo of the drop.

OK, there. Now you know.

This summer has been weird so far. By this time last year we had something like a dozen days in the 90s. We have not reached that point once this year. We have not had a whole lot of days in the 80s. We don't really know what to do with ourselves when the weather is consistently in the 70s. You would think we'd enjoy the opportunity to get outside and play without sweating constantly. But mostly we just wonder when we can get to the pool.

The pool (waterpark). Strangely enough, this pic was taken in May on an actual hot day. We have not been back to the waterpark since then.

Warm enough this day to put a little water in the baby pool. Not nearly warm enough to pack up and head to the waterpark, though.

The upside to a mild summer is that we have been able to use our porch a lot. Our porch is our main living space anytime the weather is below 85 degrees. Lots of windows, lots of light, lots of toys and projects and mess (and a TV). Right now, we have the sewing machine out because, a couple of weeks ago, Olivia proclaimed that she wanted to learn to sew. The weird thing about this summer has been that the TV has mostly been off and Olivia has been OK with it. This is because she has taken a sudden interest in learning all of the things. She has asked to have reading time and is trying to sound out words and practice her spelling now and again. And then came the sewing. She just got it in her head that she wanted to sew something. So I got out the machine and a bag of small scraps and tried to teach her to do a nine-patch quilt block.

Yeah, that didn't work out so well. The pieces didn't exactly match up. And we were not patient with each other AT ALL. So I started having her sew seams just for practice. And then a small pillow. And then she discovered my stuffing stash and drove me out of the room and made a dozen tiny ugly pillows for her Barbies all by herself. And now she is just sewing random things. (I made a dog! I made a glove! I made a bracelet!) Most of her random things are completely non-functional, but she is having fun. She's learning to stitch and snip and THREAD THE MACHINE OMG. (Side note, I could not successfully thread a sewing machine by myself until after my first year of 4-H, when I actually sewed and actual piece of clothing with a HUGE amount of assistance from my Mom, God bless her.)

Threading the machine. Oh yes, she does.

I just...wow. I mean this kid will sew random bits of nothing for HOURS, TV off and everything. Aside from picking up little bits of fabric and thread all over the place, I am really loving this new passion of hers.

Future designer of haute couture originals.

Martin continues to be a major cutie. He enjoys eating cheerios off of the floor and pulling books off of bookshelves. He will pull up but will not cruise along furniture. I am fine with this. Also, he nods and claps...often AT you when you are in the same room. It is lovely being applauded for doing nothing.

Yeah, you know you can't resist my smiles.