wordless wednesday

our church is going through a major expansion right now.  for months we've had construction crews on site, and orange cones and scaffolding and even a crane or two on the most exciting days.  since the kids go to preschool here five days a week, we've witnessed the progress on an almost-daily basis.  liam, especially, has been quite interested in monitoring what all the men in hard hats and their equipment are doing.  there's just something about power tools and tall ladders that really gets our five-year old's blood pumping.

this past sunday, we were all invited to walk through the addition, which is enlarging the narthex with dozens more pews. as we carefully stepped through the makeshift entrance on a couple of wooden planks, we were given a permanent marker and asked to sign our names on the concrete floor, thereby leaving our permanent mark before the tile is laid on top of it sometime this week.

it struck me, how this simple action so accurately parallels the very real presence of our church in our family's life.  this is the same church where i played mary in the preschool christmas pageant in 1979; where i was raised and confirmed; where chris and i were married; where chris was received into the episcopal church; and where liam was baptized.  (susanna's baptism took place in asheville.)  so as we held those black Sharpies in our hands and left our signatures on the foundation of our church, i felt so immensely blessed to know that our faith is the foundation of our family.  as we say every sunday at the culmination of our service: thanks be to God!

signs of the times

i recently saw an ad for A&E's critically acclaimed documentary "obsessed", which shows adults with fairly serious OCD issues washing their hands repeatedly, flicking on and off lights, or twirling their hair.   it occurred to me that the viewing public is fascinated with the whole concept because, let's face it, we all have OCD tendencies.  i mean, our billion-dollar toy industry would have ceased to exist decades ago if it weren't for the fact that every american child develops an obsession about one thing or the other.  can you imagine what life would be like if they didn't?  "oh, santa, i don't need another matchbox car.  i already have one!"  or, "you gave me a princess doll last year.  why in the world would i want any more?"  etc.

so of course, liam is like all of his friends -- he gets stuck on something and won't let it go.  unlike his friends, however, he's not buying silly bands or trading pokemon cards or asking for more legos.  but he sure is running us out of house and home in the paper department.

because liam is obsessed with creating EXIT SIGNS.

what is an Exit Sign, you ask?  here is a list of simple steps so you can make your own!

step 1: find a piece of paper.  it could be a shopping list, or the back of a receipt, or a piece of junk mail, or it might even be a brand new sheet from a notepad if you're feeling generous.

step 2:  fold the paper hot dog bun style.  (this is the term i'd use when teaching symmetry in middle school math -- as opposed to hamburger bun style -- if that visual image makes any sense.)  give it a good crease so it will stand tent-like on its own.

step 3:  with a marker or crayon, write the word EXIT, the # of the exit, whatever the destination may be, and then an arrow pointing off to the side -- just like you'd see on a highway.

now that you know exactly what i'm talking about, you might wonder how this all started .  it's been going on for so long (i'm talking months and months) that i can't quite remember.  i think that he was growing tired of the plastic street signs that came with his parking garage and wondered if we could make something new and different to guide his cars as they exited the lot.  and i must have suggested creating an Exit Sign.  that first week or so of this obsession, we must have made dozens.  he'd tell anyone who'd listen all about his Exit Signs, which was always met with a quizzical look and an, "oh my, doesn't that sound interesting?!" (which is what all nice adults say when they don't understand what in the ham sandwich this child is talking about.)  he'd climb into the car after preschool with three or four ideas for new Exit Signs, chomping at the bit to get started as soon as we walked in the door home. 

so we now have Exit Signs for just about every place we frequent on a regular basis: church, the beach house, the grocery, the library, the toy store, the dry cleaner, the bank.  and then some really suspect places ... like the courthouse, and, um, jail.  (i admit that i let my tags expire and had to show up in court to have my fees waived ... but i swear to you we've never been to the raleigh jail.  no idea where that idea came from.)  we've just about exhausted every meaningful destination, to the point that if i just happen to mention something in passing that we do not yet have an Exit Sign for, he's all over it like hot butter until we've created such a Sign. 

while i initially wanted to just snap a picture to document this funny obsession, looking at all of these Signs together in close proximity was actually quite enlightening -- it's like a visual progression of his fine motor skill development.  when this all started, liam would come to me with a new idea for a Sign, and i'd do all the work while he hovered.  but little by little, he's taken over every step.  he now folds the paper.  he now chooses the location and figures out how to spell it.  he now painstakingly writes in thick capital letters and draws the arrow.  and then he proudly shows it off to anyone who's around, before he finds its rightful spot on the floor somewhere and he starts the whole process over again.   

one important note: these signs are accurate.  he can now get on mapquest, type in the destination, and pull up a list of directions that will include the exit number he needs.  obviously, this is not always the case -- in the picture above, you might be able to make out the one  that says "exit 100B, MY BED" -- but by and large, if it's a real live place, it's correct.

so if you ever find yourself on a highway, lost with no GPS and no map, fear not.  give liam a call.  he'll hook you up -- and then, to be sure, he'll be hunched over the kitchen table, tongue protruding from his little mouth in concentration, as he creates yet another Exit Sign.

wordless wednesday

our two children share lots in common: eye color, dislike of most vegetables, love of board games.  but one area where they totally diverge is art.  child A cannot care less about anything artistic.  if s/he is ever forced in any small way to sit down and work on an art project, s/he will do it half-heartedly for the minimum required time before discarding it in pursuit of bigger and better things. 

child B, on the other hand, will sit at an art project for two hours straight, intensely focused on the matter at hand with a critical eye.  and after months of painstakingly laboring over coloring books, choosing the exact shade of peach for cinderella's face, or selecting coordinating markers for snow white's dress and shoes, s/he has recently moved on to drawing freehand.  faced with a blank sheet of paper, s/he'll decide what to create and then somehow come up with an amazing final product that's proportionally correct and even bordered with a contrasting hue to really make it stand out.

care to wager a guess as to which of the following art projects belongs to whom?

(did the mention of princesses help you figure it out?)

getting along swimmingly

every summer the kids take swim lessons. and every subsequent fall, winter, and spring, they apparently forget everything they'd learned. and then every may, on our first trip to the pool, i kick myself for not keeping up the swim lessons year-round, as i watch my tentative daughter refuse to put her face in the water, and my son flounder for a few seconds as he realizes that he is far more confident in his swimming ability than he has a right to be. 

so we spent every morning last week in private swim lessons with one of the lifeguards at our club. by the end of the last day, susanna had made some progress; she's still not a fan of putting her face in the water, but at least she's now jumping off the wall into our arms with a smile on her face.  but liam's progress was really remarkable.  he went from not being able to go from any point A to any point B without assistance, to being able to successfully navigate the deep end from one side to the other on his own. 

and navigate the deep end is all he wants to do these days.  off the diving board he goes ... surfaces ... doggie paddles like mad to the ladder ... and right back to the diving board again.  he's belly-flopped a time or two, but it doesn't seem to bother him in the least.

i'm contacting webster, because if he needs the perfect image to accompany the definition of "elation" in his dictionary, i can't imagine a better picture than the one above.  

and here are a few more:

liam's showboating style, aiming towards chris

swimming as fast as his non-efficient doggie paddle will take him, so he can do it all over again

and when the diving board line gets too long, there's always the slide

by the numbers

you know how someone can point out something to you that you'd not noticed previously, and as soon as they do, that's all you notice?  that happened to me this past weekend. the four of us were driving to the pool and out of the blue, chris turned to me in the car and asked, "how many times do you think you hear the word 'mommy' in one day?"  i looked up at him, confused, not sure where this was coming from.  "take a moment and listen," he said.  "i don't think either of our children can utter a sentence without starting it off with 'mommy'."

as if on cue, our children, who hadn't heard our conversation as they were engrossed in their own discussion of all the cool moves they were going to make at the pool, proved him right.   "mommy, what book comes after beezus and ramona?" liam asked. "mommy, i think we should make cookies tomorrow," susanna said. "mommy! my scab on my knee is almost gone!" liam exclaimed.

i looked back at chris, wide-eyed.  "oh my gosh," i said.  "you're right."

so right then and there, i decided to conduct my own very non-scientific experiment.  the following day, i was going to keep track of the total number of times i heard the word "mommy".  i figured i could count them pretty easily in my head, although i knew that if i really wanted to be accurate, i'd need one of those hand-held clicker things that mall workers sometimes use to count shoppers at stores. 

the following morning, i woke up and trudged downstairs to make my cup of coffee.  liam had finished his daily breakfast with chris, who had just left for work.  before i could even glance at the front page of the paper, i found myself starting my count. "mommy, we are almost out of milk," liam informed me. 

one.

a few seconds later: "mommy, i tried a new cereal this morning.  and mommy, i really liked it!"

two.  and three.

about an hour later, after receiving a crash course in world cup soccer courtesy of my sports-obsessed son, sleeping beauty susanna appeared in the kitchen.  "mommy," she said, rubbing her eyes, "do i have camp today?"

eighteen.

turns out that one of those clicker things would have been helpful.  because at precisely 8:42 -- ten minutes after susanna had made her entrance -- i was already up to 33.  THIRTY-THREE times i had heard the word "mommy", and it wasn't yet 9:00 a.m.

i gave up counting at that point, acknowledging the fact that it would be impossible for me to keep track.  i considered extrapolating that number to determine how many times i might hear the word during my children's waking hours ... but i was afraid my head might explode.

still, as many names i've had over the years -- sara, say-say, DDH [one only my siblings can appreciate], pearl [one only my sorority sisters can appreciate], miss atkins, mrs. mann -- well, there's no doubt that "mommy" is by far the most dear to me.  i waited years and years to be called that.  i love it so.

even if i do hear it 353.6 times a day.  (sorry.  i wound up extrapolating anyway.  would you expect anything less from a math teacher?)

wordless wednesday

my sweet boy cannot give the camera a genuine smile to save his life

a month or so ago, right around mother's day, liam's preschool class hosted "muffins with moms" (the obvious counterpart to the earlier "donuts with dads").  on a tuesday morning in may, all of us moms, instead of dropping off our kids and racing out the door to work, or exercise, or go to run errands, or to tackle whatever we try to squeeze into a short three-hour window, instead received the royal treatment for a short period of time.  not only were there muffins, but also non-alcoholic mimosas, homemade heart necklaces, and the sweetest group serenade.  and to top it all off was being presented with my very own portrait. 

now, liam has never been interested in the least in art of any kind.  i don't know if he's too impatient to see a drawing through its completion, or if he lacks the fine motor skills necessary to do what he wants to do, or if he's too much of a perfectionist, or if he just prefers spending his center time constructing marble runs and towers of blocks ... most likely, it's a combination of all of the above.  but my point is, art just ain't his thing.  so for my non-art-inclined son to complete a somewhat realistic painting of his momma was just the icing on the cake muffin.

and the cherry on top?  seeing just how my five-year old describes me.  that, and knowing that sometime in the distant future, i've got a brand-new set of TOOLS coming my way.

 

ladies' man

susanna's first dance recital was tonight.  there she was in a sea of light blue tulle, smiling sweetly as i dabbed some lip gloss and blush on her porcelain doll face.  i could literally feel her heart beating through her glittery bodice while she adjusted the flower in her hair.

"wow," liam said, as he entered the room.  "you look beautiful!"

we looked up at him, and then, together, chimed, "thank you!"  i expected an immediate correction, for liam to say something along the lines of, "not you, mommy!  i meant susanna!"

but before he could do so, susanna jumped in.  "who were you talking to?"

and without missing a beat, he grinned and replied, "oh, i was talking to both of you, of course."

wow.  moves like these at the tender age of five.  high school might prove to be v-e-r-y interesting.

wordless wednesday

oh beach, how we've missed thee!  here are but a few photos from our first trip of the season. 

for the record, i'm not wild about the name my dad chose for his boat (which, in case you can't see it on the side, is "Die Broke")

liam's received a bit of golf instruction from his Pops, who taught him to position himself over the tee by lining up the ball with his bellybutton.  so for all 18 holes at the putt-putt course, liam would lift up his t-shirt just to make sure he had it right

obviously, susanna has received no instruction whatsoever

where did our four-year old daughter learn how to pose like this?