Gametes In Love

Our home has hard water.
Our children also appear to be allergic to flushing the toilet.

Together these things make for an uncomfortable looking bowl. Don’t worry — I clean, but as much as I stalk our sons following their bathroom visitation (and also heckle them when they leave “forgetting” to flush) I’m not batting 100%. So… I’ve embraced the help of toilet bowl cleaners. They’re the blue pellets you drop in the tank (I may revisit this decision when we run out).

However the newly blue water is perplexing to S2. Now he doesn’t know what to do. Two out of our three toilets have the cleaning pucks, and he’s not sure if he’s allowed to go. Question he’s asked twice now: “Can I pee on the blue stuff?”

Yep! Then flush, won’t ya?

PS. Yes, I know we’re in a drought. Yep, I’ve heard the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” line. I am happy to modify our toilets to pull up less water. But I need the damn bowl flushed!!!

S2 is swimming every day this summer. He’s enrolled in classes, which is great, since this kid hasn’t seen an instructor on this topic since last summer. Getting them in classes at the same time, while coordinating work schedules, and week-end activities just hasn’t worked out. He’s reclaiming his sea-legs, let’s just say. He’s definitely a lot more mature in the water than he used to be. For example, he’s no longer trying to drain the pool by drinking it. Win! However, his attention span is that of a gnat, and I heard his instructor yell out his name just about every other second. I’m hoping swimming through this summer will make him a little more water independent.

G also hasn’t had any lessons over the past year, but he’s still holding his own in the pool. He’s relying more heavily on the doggie paddle, though, which makes me a little sad, given that he was swimming butterfly style (well… for beginners) last summer.

I watched both of them swim last week… and I took photos. I got subjected to a slew of inquisition from G’s classmates over why I was there, and how come I wasn’t at work, and how I was able to take the time off of work to do that. What I was really hearing was a lot of excuses other parents gave their kids on why they couldn’t be there: I get it. I normally AM that parent, myself. Punches you in the gut to hear it from the other side, though.
G dug having the camera around mostly because he was the kid with a parent around. I dug that he and his buddy B were more or less doing what I asked them to… though B is by far a much more willing subject.

Here goes:

I want more swim-time photos of the kids. Now that I feel pretty comfortable with the GoPro, I see a community pool visit coming up soon with some under-water fun. Consider this my “above ground” contribution for the year.

G and S2 have been sharing a room now for a few weeks. This was driven mostly because S2 refused to sleep in a room alone. He’d beg and plead his brother to let him sleep in his room, and the only way that was happening is if they shared G’s bed. This produced us coming in to wake them [the following morning] to scenes like this. I’ve started going in with my phone, because they’re cute (or hilarious) and deserve some documentation.

The funny thing is that even AFTER they moved into the same room, they occasionally still wake-up in the same bed. So… the photos will continue 🙂

This morning the boys and I headed to the beach. S needed some quiet time at home to get some work done, and the kids seem to tolerate each other outdoors, so off we went. We ended up on Pescadero State Beach.

A few weeks ago we went strawberry picking and S2 pleaded for 8 minutes (he was very precise!) at the beach on the way home. I agreed, thinking if G hated it, 8 minutes would be fine. G hated the beach in the past: it was too loud, and he just really didn’t dig it. That day was the first time we’d gone since he declared that. Those 8 minutes, though, turned into more than half an hour, and I could barely peal both of them away. The two were busy chasing each other, finding logs and sticks of all sizes, and throwing them into the water.

So I wanted to go again — this time less stressed for time and something we had to do later. Today seemed like a good day.

During our last beach visit, S2 declared he didn’t like sand in between his toes… but didn’t want shoes either, so he was running around in socks the whole time.
G found a ball (spherical objects are somehow magnetically attracted to this kid… and vice versa). The beach was deserted, so I figured “finders keepers” applied at that moment. So we have a new ball!

I won’t lie — being alone with the two of them freaks me out. I won’t let them anywhere near the water which helps, but we are a LONG way away from me reading or doing anything but staring in their direction when we’re out there. And those two are fast! Thankfully, G IS his brother’s keeper when we go, and is very helpful in running after him and corralling him back.

We took snacks, we took pads (it about an hours drive each way, so it’s my deal with them), and life was good.

Now here’s a gratuitous over-share of photos.

S2’s has been working on his behavior at school. I won’t lie — the kid is far from perfect, but he is improving. His teacher has been using a color scale. There was a period of time, when he spent more time in the yellow and red than he did in the green. We had to do something. So out came the behavior chart… again. We did this with G, and it felt right to try w/ S2.
Then again… there are days like today, where in reading his report for the day, and going to the next page, I spot this:

I guess he’s pre-loading his behavior?
My favorite part to this though? He didn’t give himself straight A’s. You know… he’s trying to keep it realistic with one sad face, at lunch, which is occasionally one of his rough periods.

I’m both mortified about my future, and a little impressed with him right now.

Lookie! S2 built his first computer!

Sure, it’s made out of paper… but we all have to start somewhere 🙂

Storm asked for a Pikachu stuffy… but he had to earn it. It arrived before he had completed his tasks, so he took to the next best thing: snuggling with the box.

Once in awhile, I’ll catch the boys playing pretty nicely with one another. This was one of those days

So… I’m only about 6 months behind on artbook projects. I make a book of all the artwork the kids do, for each of their years of life. It’s a great way to look back on their creative growth, but more than that, it’s a good way to preserve the art, and not have to store the original. I had kept saving the originals for my mom to go through (she likes holding on to the actual stuff), and no joke I had a whole cabinet full of projects. After Mom went through them I ended up being two big trash bags of stuff.

Anyway… back to the book. I finished G’s Age 5 book last week. I’m now organizing S2’s artwork. I came across this pairing:

S2’s depiction of his older brother:

Aaaaaand his depiction of himself:

Note, these drawings were done back in December of 2013, He was a little over 3 then, so his “style” was just kicking off. But it amuses me that while G at least resembles a humanoid, his own self portrait makes me think Gobble Gobble 🙂

Ok — enough of making fun of their art. I’m sure deserve some parenting penalty for doing that… or something.