The First Day of Summer

My plans for the week.

This summer, my goal is to keep the kids busy.  I also want them to go back to school smarter than they left.  Claire is already reading on a first grade level, but I want to get her to chapter books before the end of summer.  My goal for Paul is to get him to read simple sight words like "and," "the," and words like that.
Other goals include learning the names of all the planets, learning to add and subtract (Claire), learning to count to 100 (Paul), and learning all the state names.  Yes, I know that some of these are high goals, but I'm trying to shoot for the moon and no matter what, they will be learning.
Last night I got ready for this morning.  We have swim lessons at 11 a.m., so from 8 to 10:30 a.m., I planned on teaching.

Here are the kids reading words, math facts, and journal prompt for the day.  Yes, Paul is still three and I'm making him write in a journal.  Mostly he drew, which is just fine.

Claire was excited to get to work.  She didn't even want to put on regular clothes, but got to work in her pajamas.


It was the first day of swim lessons at the Benbrook YMCA.  Claire was in a beginning swim class, but she and her classmates did so well that the teacher advanced the entire class.  Now she's in a "Can Swim" class.

Paul was more apprehensive than we anticipated, but Mr. Marco got him going pretty well by the end of the swim lesson.  We love that both kids are in extremely small classes.  Paul's class has five kids and Claire's has three.

This afternoon we visited the Wedgwood Branch of the Fort Worth Public Library to see Lucas Miller present Science Rocks!  This guy is hilarious, and if you get a chance to see him, do it.  He sang songs about animals and other zoological issues.  He even rapped and wore different costumes.  Claire and Paul were picked from the audience to be backup dancers.

Now that we're back home, it's 5:20 p.m. and we're winding down for the day.  The kids are excited to read their newly checked out books and I'm about to make dinner.  Tomorrow will be another day full of excitement.

An Evening in Sundance Square

Last night we didn't have plans and Adam had to work, so the kids and I went to downtown Fort Worth to see what kind of adventures we could find.  We found a lot, mostly expressed in pictures below.

First we went to the Central Public Library.  We stayed until closing and checked out many books.  We kept hearing closing announcements over the PA system, to which Paul kept saying, "We're going to get trapped in here!"

Then we stopped to look at a partially demolished building, shown below.

We found this interesting because it seemed incomplete.  It looked like the demolition company started their job and then punched out at 5 p.m. on Friday, regardless of whether or not they were finished.

After staring at the building for a while, we rode Molly the Trolley, a free shuttle around downtown.  We met many interesting people, all with wineglasses in their hands, all celebrating one gentleman's birthday.  We also sidled up next to a car of newlyweds, still in their gown and tuxedo.  They waved cheerfully and we clapped for them.

We got off the trolley and started walking around downtown, looking for more adventure.  We met this lady below, who had a bad day and decided to reverse her mood by standing at a street corner with a sign.  We gave her several hugs throughout the evening.  As we toured around, we kept ending up at her street corner to give her more hugs.  She said she turned out to have a great day.

After hugs, we enjoyed some gelato before returning for more hugs.  I warned the kids that their gelato might get on her pristine white outfit, so in this photo, they are keeping their distance.

We saw several people marching in protest of Palestine's lack of recognition as a country.  I didn't explain all that to the kids, but Claire recognized the word Obama, so I said they didn't like his job.  We called this a parade...These people were marching through downtown with their banner, singing, "Give Peace a Chance."  We only saw them for about ten minutes and then they disappeared, so I wonder if they didn't have parade permit.

There were many carriages downtown, but Paul's favorite was the one pulled by Michelle, shown here.  The horse owners were friendly and let us stand talking to and petting their horses for a while.  Claire pet a horse named Bucky.  The kids were also highly entertained that behind the horses was a special sack to hold their poop. 

After all this excitement, we headed home, but not before riding an escalator and waving and folks from a sky bridge.  The entire evening cost me $17, but the fun we had was priceless.

The Last Seven Days

Today's blog is a run-down of what we've been doing the last week.  Above you see a picture of Lyndale the Literary Lion. We met him last week at the library. Apparently Lyndale is a full-time librarian in Dallas. He's an excellent presenter for kids. He had all the kids rapping along with him. It was pretty awesome. We've been rocking out to his CD, which was only $5. And guess what? He's on i-tunes!

Later on that night, Adam was riding  his bike around the neighborhood and then found this awesome sight.  At the church by our house, they had Christian gangsta rap blasting out their doors and fires in the parking lot.  I believe the name of the band was the John 8 Crew, but I couldn't find them on Google.

So yeah, what these people had going on at their church actually made us come from blocks away.  We heard about what was happening and immediately got in our car and headed to the church.  We toured the church and picked up all their literature.  Unfortunately not one person spoke to us.  I found that disappointing because we were trying to figure out what the occasion was, etc.  And, if I have something cool at my church, I want to make sure everyone feels at home and knows the program.  If the purpose of having gangsta rap blasting out your church is to draw people to church, that worked, but we were kind of disappointed after that.  We left after hearing the hit "Feel the Holy Spirit Drop" and having a hot dog weiner thrown at our windshield by a little kid.

Here's a picture of Paul at basketball practice.  Unfortunately I keep rotating this darn pic and it won't take.  So my apologies for the crick in your neck.

We also attended a goodbye party for our friends the Leonard family.  Here's Blake and Paul hanging out in the backyard.  The Leonards were friends from church who are now friends from Baltimore.

Yesterday was Paul's first basketball game.  He did well for a near three year old.  I think all the kids at one time running for one ball intimidated him and he wasn't as aggressive as some, but he did shoot for a goal one time (missed) and said he had fun.  His next game is tomorrow, so maybe he'll do better now that he knows what to expect.

Today is library day again, so who knows what the next seven days will hold?  Excitement for sure.

God-incidents

Sometimes everything falls into place so perfectly you know God had a hand in it.

Yesterday after Adam left for the airport, the kids slept in. This meant we didn't have time to walk to the library. We were sitting down eating chocolate chip pancakes when the doorbell rang.

A friend of mine, I'll call her "Betsy," was at the door. (I decided to give her a code name here not because she needs one, but because I've always wanted to give someone a code name.)

Betsy and I had been estranged, and although I wasn't mad at her, it appeared we wouldn't be able to be friends. The details don't matter.

What does matter is that Betsy was on my side of town to visit a different friend that lives in my neighborhood. She got lost and ended up on my street. She saw my house and took it as a sign from God she should come talk to me.

We mended our friendship and everything is fantastic. I am so proud of her, though, because that takes courage to ring the doorbell at a house of a "former" friend.

Talking with Betsy made us late to the library, which in turn, lead me to having a conversation with one of our librarians about umbrellas. Claire and Paul have super cute character umbrellas from Wal-Mart and we were talking about them when he mentioned he had forgotten that he needed to buy one. He told me that recently when feeding the homeless, a lady asked him if she could have his umbrella and he gave it to her. That left him umbrella-less in the rain.

After the library, we immediately went and bought Mr. Michael a new umbrella.

Last week I read Adam Hamiton's book "Why?" in which he states that he believes in both coincidences and "God-incidents." Yesterday was full of "God-incidents."

Spring Love

Spring is my favorite season. The flowers are in bloom, the weather is perfect, there's Easter and various birthdays, and I just can't help from being happy. Today we enjoyed the weather by walking to the library. The kids slept in so I gave them breakfast in the wagon and we pretended they were at a restaurant on wheels. Luckily one of the diners finished her breakfast before we mounted a giant hill, because this waitress/cook has a hard time hauling a wagon of two kids up a steep hill. I also practiced my hospitality skills by offering several sincere compliments and introducing myself to several moms that I see every week but never knew their names. The best part about today's adventures, though, was picking buttercups and rubbing pollen on our noses.

The kids loved doing this, but unfortunately the time I used the camera, the pollen didn't show up so much. Oh well. Happy Spring!

Political Activism

We love our library. Every Wednesday morning at 10:30 you can find the Wacky Boyettes at the Wedgwood Branch of the Fort Worth Public Library. The children's librarian, Vidya, (known to Claire as Miss Video) leads the kids in songs and stories and crafts. Claire and Paul both love it.
If you've ever seen Claire at church, you can picture her at the library. She feels right at home, runs up to different librarians to say "hi," hides in the bookshelves, shows off the stuffed animal of the day, and generally makes herself comfortable. Paul likes to dance to the music and pull books off shelves.
We're regulars at the library and consider the librarians our friends. So when we heard that the Fort Worth City Council had proposed shutting down our library, we were horrified. Sure, there's another library close by, but it's too big and crowded. If Claire hid in the shelves there, I'd never find her. We like our little library.
We immediately fired off a letter to city council and the mayor. They responded, thanking us for our comments and promising to do the best they could. Adam and I talked and we felt that wasn't enough. I wanted to go speak to the council in person but didn't want to take the kids. Adam had a different idea.
"You should take the kids, because they are patrons, too," he said. "Every time they disturb the meeting, the council will be reminded why you are there and maybe that will make a difference."
So yesterday we tried it. We got to city hall at 9:30 a.m. The meeting was supposed to start at 10, so we signed in as speakers and sat down to wait. A 30-minute wait is manageable; I brought Barbie and Ken and snacks. Everyone thought the kids were precious.
Thirty minutes dragged on to an hour. We went into the meeting and everyone still thought the kids were adorable. We sat quietly and looked at books while the council went through the agenda, approving resolutions and listening to presentations about various topics.
Thirty minutes after that, Paul was done. He wanted to walk around. His cuteness was waning. Claire had brought her giant magic wand from the circus and was waving it around and tapping people with it. Her cuteness, also, was waning.
We waited in the lobby, calmed down, went back into the meeting, got fussy, left, came back, left, came back; I lost track of the time. I finally told the police officer my name and asked her to come get me when it was our time to speak. At this point some people were sympathetic and some people were irritated. City council meetings aren't for kids.
When it was our turn, we made a grand entrance. Claire pranced down the aisles tapping people with her wand and entertaining the audience. Paul tried to speak into the microphone. I tried to be serious. The mayor thought it would be a great idea to pass down his gavel for the kids to play with. I just set it to the side.
I did get to say my piece and I think they listened. It ended up being a good idea to bring the kids because it was definitely memorable for all involved. Apparently we even made the news and appeared on two different channels last night. Unfortunately we missed both showings.
Some people would be horrified at the idea of taking two small children to such a serious event, and I have to admit I was at times. Adam and I both believe that sometimes our presence is more important than our decorum. I hope that turns out to be the case here. We'll know if they keep our library open.