Sporting

John and I are pretty firm believers in the benefits of organized sport.  Pick a sport.  Any sport.  Probably it's good for you and is teaching you some good skills.  So we've all been sporting this year.  All four of us.  Our opinions on our sporting lie on a spectrum between "this frustrates the hell out of me" and "this is super fun - when do we get to play again?"

Basketball is a sport near and dear to John and my hearts.  Dexter surprised us by asking to play back in January.  John surprised us by volunteering to coach the team.  This is their second session of basketball - this session is a co-ed team, and the girls are WAAAAAY better than most of the boys.  Dexter comes home saying how much fun he had.  John mostly comes home tired, and a little frustrated, because there's so much to teach these kids, and you just can't do it in one, one hour practice a week.  But the kids are having fun, and the parents are appreciative and nice, and so I think it's working out ok.  Here's a video from basketball today.

Dexter is swimming now, too - Spring Clinic for swim team started a few weeks ago, and summer swim team kicks in to high gear after school is over, with practice FIVE DAYS A WEEK.  I am not sure I am ready for that sort of commitment, to tell you the truth.

Speaking of swimming, Erin learned how to swim on her own a little over a month ago.  She no longer uses a back pack during her swim lessons, and she's been fetching diving sticks off the bottom of the (very shallow) pool for the last few weeks before and after her swim lessons.  She's looking forward to the outdoor pool opening at the YMCA, although I am positive she will think the water is "too cold."

Erin has been team sporting, as well.  She did eight weeks of Soccer Shots at school and loooooooved it.  She is a tremendous cheater who will happily pick up her soccer ball and run down the field to place it where she wants it to be (here's a link to a little video that shows just that).  She is also an excellent listener who does what she is supposed to do, with no drama.  Which means she kind of fades back in to "the noise" in a class of 20 mildly rotten preschoolers - I don't think her coaches ever knew her name, which made Erin a little bit sad.

Grown-ups like sporting, too.  Besides basketball coaching, John has been shooting guns at clays.  I have no pictures of his doing this, as I've not been with him at the gun club.  I believe John is on the "this frustrates the hell out of me" side of things with the sporting clays.  Except when he shoots well, and is all "this is super fun."

I have signed up and paid money for two sprint triathlons this summer, which makes one much more likely to actually exercise.  I've been biking as much as I can, running, swimming, and doing my favorite cross-fit class just to keep things fun.  I am mildly terrified.

So that's us.  Sporty.  It means we can eat more ice cream.

Happy Anni-Birth-A-Mom!

Poor John had to share his birthday with Mother's Day again this year.  And still, it's the day after our anniversary.  We often times have company for John's birthday weekend, but this year all was quiet here.  We had basketball (Dexter scored a basket!).  John took Dex to the library to build some Geo Trax.  John and I watched a movie (that never happens).  On Sunday we wandered over to Fair Hill for an hour or so to watch horses splash through the water jump at a Horse Trials.  I rode my bike 20 miles.  We ate a lot of ice cream cake.  John mowed the lawn.  It really was a lovely weekend.

Rode 10 miles to the blueberry farm and stopped for a snack.  Erin was disappointed that I didn't bring her home any blueberries.

Birthday boy nap

Cake for lunch.  And snack.  And maybe also for dessert after dinner.  Why not?

Horse splashing through the water.  The kids sat on every jump available around the water.  And they were fairly entertained, for about an hour.

This house looks like a good one to lie on, Mama.  The kids spent most of the time climbing up and sliding down the jumps that looked like houses.  No slivers in butts, surprisingly.

The view is way better from Daddy's shoulders.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Uwff. And some Spring Break

Yesterday Dexter was making a book about World Records - essentially the first person in space, the first shuttle in space, etc.  I haven't seen it - it's not done yet.  But it sounds cool.  So Erin wanted to make a book, too.  But she gets frustrated with drawing because she knows what she wants to draw, but she can't make her little hands actually do it yet.  So she asked John for help.

Erin:  Daddy?  Can you make Uwff for me?

Daddy:  Puzzled look

Erin:  Daddy?  Can you do it?  Can you draw Uwff?

Daddy:  Uwff???

Me:  EARTH.  She means Earth.

Daddy:  Oh!  Earth!  Sure, honey, I can draw that.

Earth, man.  That's a tricky one.  Her r's sound like w's, and her th's sound like f's.  So Earth is a double whammy.

Dex went back to school on Friday, for a snow make-up day, but only about half the kids in his class were there.  They spent some time writing about April Fool's Day, and worked on telling time and reading clocks.  Which - it FLOORS me that first graders don't already kind of know how to do this?  But apparently not.  It's tricky, for most.  I forget that Mr. Brilliant is pretty smart.

But today was the first real day back at school after Spring Break.  And we had a pretty nice break.  It went by fast.  Dexter spent afternoons during Erin's nap sitting on the sofa reading books.  We had plenty to do in the mornings before nap time.  And most of our evening activities were either cancelled, or didn't happen because our therapist was sick last week.  So it was a nice relaxing week.

Hadn't done Dexter's seven year picture for the wall yet, and he didn't want to go to the picture studio.  So we went to Longwood instead, and have like 50 excellent shots of the cute one.  It's going to be tough to pick one.

Short Stuff came along, copying her brother left and right.

I made them do some pictures together.  Which is fairly well impossible.

See?  Cute.  CUTE.  CUUUUUTTTTEEE.  How to choose?

After nap we finally got around top opening the Easter gifts from Grandma and Aunt Marcie.  We did it on Grandma's birthday.  To help her celebrate.  ;-)

John fixed the lawn mower and mowed the back yard.  The kids helped.

Erin went to a birthday party on Saturday, and since we were already late to nap we decided to skip it altogether and go watch Dexter's basketball game instead.  It was...  entertaining.  There's Dex, Number 8.

Erin's party was a super hero party, so she came home with this cool mask.

Sunday was WINDY and cold, so Erin and I stayed home and did nothing.  This is Erin, winning at Connect 4.  She has no idea how to play.  I did get her started with Zingo, though - she really likes it.  And she's pretty good.  She won't play Uno with me - she only plays that with Daddy and Dexter.

And now it's Monday and Dex gets off the bus soon and we're back to normal.  Normal-ish.  As normal as we get here on Uwff.

Franklin Institute

This morning we ate a quick breakfast, tossed the kids in the car, and headed to Philly to visit the Franklin Institute.  It was "Sensory Sunday" there, where they turn down the sounds and the lights on some of their exhibits for kids who may have some sensory issues.  I have no idea how it is on a "normal" day, and if they could have turned the down the volume of the pack of Boy Scouts that would have been GREAT - but we got to go early to beat the crowds, and it was at a discounted price, so we were cool with it.  The kids had a BLAST and would like to go back tomorrow.  The grown-ups would like to go to bed right this instant, and have re-discovered how much they dislike other people's kids.

We spent a whole lot of time in the space exhibit - SURPRISE!

Checking out astronaut suits

Building a Mars rover, the old-fashioned way

Building a Mars rover on the computer - this game has been declared "The Most Fun Game EVER."  John spent a lot of time here.  Fortunately he had a smart phone and free wi-fi.

Erin and I checked out the HUGE train while the boys built more Mars rovers:

There was a pay phone in the train room.  "Mama, how do you hang this up?"  Excellent question, sweetie.  You've never seen a phone with a cord, have you...

Testing out different kinds of train wheels

Blowing the train whistle

All Aboard!  Erin drove.  I got to ride... in the tender.

We had a fun time in the Maze of Mirrors, which was part of a younger-kid oriented room with some water play, bubbles, fog horns, and air tubes:

And then we went and checked out THE BRAIN.  Climbed in the brain.  Made neuron connections.  Put together a brain puzzle.  We liked watching the kids turn a wheel to watch the neural pathway light up, and have ping pong balls POP out of the end when the message got there.  Erin giggled like mad, although it scared the bejezus out of her a few times.

Brain climby thing

Both kids inside the neural pathways of the brain.  They did a nice job of staying together.  Erin, being little, actually had an easier time getting through some places than Dexter.

Say BRAIN!

Very cool screen where you could move neurons around and get them to make pathways.

This is the neuron with the ping pong balls at the end.  Erin was giggling, but then got too scared to actually turn the wheel the whole way.

Dex tried it out, too

I have no idea what this thing is actually supposed to DO, but the kids had a wonderful time dancing around in front of the screen.

Here's Dex, doing something like what the directions said to do.

We spent LOTS and LOTS of time in the Amazing Machines room, which made Dexter and John very happy.  Erin and I did ok for a little while, but Erin was tired and grumpy and I can only watch gears and pulleys for just so long.  So we went and played with rocks in the gift shop.

Erin built a cool domino line

The kids worked together to move the crane and move some pieces of foam.

Dexter spent so much time playing with gears.  He LOVED it.

This was his crowning achievement - with gears and four pulleys.  He was very proud of it.

We spent a little time in the Sports Zone, but it was super crowded and hot by the time we got there.  The kids ran a race, jumped for height, and had an arm-pedaled bicycle race:

Our final stop was the Franklin Air Show, all about airplanes.  We floated balls in mid-air, banged drums and watched the wall opposite shimmer, sat in an airplane, and tried on some wings.  There was lots of air blowing in here, which made Erin happy.  She likes it when things blow her hair:

Dex, pretty close to flying away.

And then we drove an hour home, and Erin single-handedly ate an entire sleeve of Girl Scout peanut butter sandwich cookies.  And now it's 9PM, and I need to go to bed.  Science, man.  It's EXHAUSTING.