Reed is to toothbrushes what the Hamburglar is to hamburgers. The disappearance of my bristles had made me bristle some, but I couldn’t help but smile once the culprit was discovered. We’d known Reed to reach into his bathroom drawer to fetch his toothbrush, but it’s been a recent development in which he appropriates the brushes of his family members.
My mom kids us – at least I think she’s kidding – that the activities in which we enroll our daughter may border on superfluity. A early-childhood educator in a past life, she undoubtedly knows what she’s warning against – that of the hurried child – when parents overschedule and micromanage the lives of their children, thus bypassing a critical developmental period that historians have identified as “childhood.” Awareness of this reality isn’t enough to avoid its trappings, for there are plenty of well-intentioned parents who think they’re doing right by pushing their kids.
Picnics at the spray park – what’s better than that for a kid? Reed made his clothes-soaked debut at the local park, following the wet footsteps of Olivia before him.
Mom and daughter took a road trip to the Wisconsin Dells, the land of cheese, water parks, and tourists (or are they locals?) who drink and smoke in excess. They met up with Beni’s college friend Jenna and her daughter Camille, who, when not swimming, spent the weekend learning from our not-so-proper child the techniques of making flatulent noises.
As quickly as you can snap your fingers, clap your hands, and tap your feet along to the music of a year-end concert, the school year has come to a close. It all passed by so quickly – the parent-teacher conferences, the compositions of a budding author, volunteer opportunities, scholarly research, school lunches, and special celebrations – that it’s hard to believe and/or accept that it’s all over. Fortunately, the kids sent us parents out on a high note (literally), treating us all to a spirited concert on the last day of their school year.Willaby Wallaby Woo Dat from chris k on Vimeo.
So On and Solo Forth from chris k on Vimeo.
Olivia and her kindergarten teachers
I’m not sure if the picture above and the one of Olivia from four years ago foretell for our kids a lifelong love of reading or a lifelong struggle with hoarding.
On this Mother’s Day, I extend the mother of all thanks to the mother of my children. We love you!
A five-year age difference makes things interesting when we try to pair up our kids. (Big Sister nearly doubles Younger Brother in both height and weight.) Case in point: the bike trailer. Olivia is a little too big for it, Reed a little too small for it, and their being buckled in within a smallish moving capsule is a little too much for both of them. And so the trailer often sits motionless, as it was in these two pictures, in the back corner of our garage.
