Plans and Deeds

We finally decided we will be going to the Rethinking Education Conference in Dallas on Labor Day weekend. I'm excited. I'm hoping I will get some inspiration and some great ideas. I'll be driving down with the boys. The girls will stay home with Ian. I'm sad to be leaving the girls. They are only 18 months old. But we will survive and next year I will make sure that we all get to go -- it's called something like advance planning.

Yesterday Zane wanted to go buy a new Bionicle with his own money that he has saved up from gifts and the tooth fairy (we haven't started allowances yet). He never thinks about spending his money or buying something he might really want. This is a stark contrast to Caleb who wants to buy everything in every store and on every commercial he sees. So we went to Target. I love to go places in the middle of the day now that school is back in session. We went to see the matinee showing of Ant Bully on the first day of school. We practically had the place to ourselves. Anyway, back to Target. Zane already knew what toy he wanted because he read product reviews on a bionicle website. He picked it out and Caleb got one too. Zane paid for his. Then we went home and he put it together by himself which is a first. He was very proud of himself for putting it together. They played with them for hours.

We need to make some changes around here. Nothing is safe in our house from grabbing baby hands. I realize I have put a lot of pressure on the boys to make concessions for their sisters. They are the ones that have to move their things and themselves up and out of the way. I'm working on coming up with some solutions that give them their own space away from the girls but where we can still talk and be together. I'm also making a better effort to distract the twins while the boys are watching a movie or something before the fighting starts. I can hardly blame my 5 year old for poking and hitting the babies when they won't stop climbing all over him. He plays sweetly with them most of the time -- usually several hours a day. The grabbing babies have made things stressful the last week or so because they have figured out how to move chairs and get up to counters and high places that were our last safe places. It has been stressful for me because they try to pull up to the stove or the counter while I'm making dinner. One got onto the dining room table which happens pretty often even with the chairs on their sides. While I got her down, the other pulled her chair up to the stove in the kitchen. The stove was off but it was still hot. She didn't get hurt. But I was a tab bit frazzled by it. I'm trying different things to keep them safe especially during dinner without locking them up. They are old enough to be distracted and entertained by something new or unusual. Sometimes I give them a little water and lots of containers to practice pouring. They also like to dump out buckets of crayons or dig through the movie cabinet. Sometimes it is the only way I can get dinner made. Then I'll clean up the mess when I get the chance.

Zane wants to build a catapult. So, I checked out The Art of the Catapult by William Gurstelle. I need to get the supplies. We'll probably start it after we get back from the conference. I'm also anxious to start my worm bin. I have deliberated for months about where to keep it once it is built. I have finally decided to make a wooden box on casters that fits into the pantry closet (there is one side that doesn't have shelves). I will actually keep the bin in the garage which is just off the kitchen but move it indoors when the temperature is above 90 degrees or below 20. It just gets too hot and occasionally too cold here to keep them outdoors. Now with that decided, I can get started making the thing. This is my project but I hope the kids will get involved and enjoy the process of a live compost in the house. I'm planning to make it tall enough so that the girls won't be able to reach into it until they are older.

An Occasion

The other day Caleb decided he wanted to have a tea party like we used to do. A tea party with real tea and cake and stuffed animal friends. I was busy in the garden. But I made tea and set out cake and told the boys to go ahead and have the tea party while I worked outside. Zane joined in and they both went upstairs to get dressed. The put on their "occasion" clothes, they called them -- a pair of shorts (with underwear, they both made a point of telling me) and a clean shirt. I love this term occasion clothes. It is just clean clothes (no swim trunks) and underwear. Zane said he would have put on a tuxedo if he had one because he is now the ruler of the upstairs. Then they played with Bionicles for a couple of hours while the tea got cold.

When I came in, I added some snacks to the tea party. They ate and slurped back some strong, cold tea and continued playing Bionicles. Later we washed the cars. The babies helped. We all got soaked but the girls didn't mind. Then Caleb played in the soapy water for a long time by himself.

Little Chefs, Big Chef

Yesterday the boys got to do some cooking at the restaurant. They were so thrilled. It was beautiful to see them excited and happy. We went to Chang's yesterday after the County Free Fair. Ian has been working open to close (that's 6 or 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.) for 5 days in a row (except Mon. when he worked a mere 11 hours). So he is exhausted and demoralized by it. And he misses the kids so much. They miss him too. So we went up there to have an early dinner. The restaurant was empty when we got there. Ian took the boys back to the kitchen. They go back there to look around whenever we stop in. This time he let Zane make crab wontons. He put the wontons in the fryer basket and lowered it into the fryer. Then he plated them and brought them to the table. Caleb made spring rolls in exactly the same way. They both came to the table shouting across the room about what they had made. Then we all sat down to dinner. All the boys could talk about was doing more cooking. So Ian took them back to the kitchen to make dessert -- more frying. They made a new dessert called Lucky 8 which is phyllo dough rolled into long, thin sticks. They have mocha cream in the middle. Then there is a caramel sauce to dip them in and crushed toffee on the plate to roll them in after the sauce. It was good. We all needed to spend time together. I desparately needed to get out of the house. I feel so bad for Ian when he works so much. It's like he sacrifices himself every day when he leaves the house. It wouldn't be so bad if he was happy with his job. I mean he loves food and people and he is very good at what he does. But the restaurant business -- especially someone else's restaurant -- sucks away little pieces of him every day.

Caweb is now Caleb

Caleb is correcting his speech. I guess he has reached an age where he understands that there is a difference in the way he pronounces his words and the way other people say them. He has always said his "l" as a "w" sound. He even said his name was Caweb. Now he says almost every "l" as an "l" sound. Several months ago Zane had given Caleb a hard time about how he pronounced certain words. I remember the first time he said "line." His mouth twisted and his tongue came out. He said "l-l-l-l ine." It was really hard to do. The more he tried, the easier it got but he stopped trying for a long time. Now he is doing it on his own. He has also started pronouncing his "th"s. They always sounded like "f"s before. I guess he decided he was ready to work on it. So he did it in his own way, in his own time. I have noticed but I haven't made a big deal about it.