Last year we missed maple syrup season so we weren’t going to let it happen this year. One drawback: we didn’t actually get to eat pancakes at the Sugar Shack because of a 90 min wait and it was already noon! Rookie mistake. We binged on donut samples and brought syrup to take home. The samples fresh from the tree were too watery!
Natalie had the most amazing parent-teacher conference. Seriously, it must only be downhill from here. She is blessed with an amazingly caring and conscientious teacher Mrs. Brydges. Here’s the hug from the conference:
Mrs. Brydges and Natalie walked us through her school portfolio, which showed how her pictures, letters, numbers, writing, etc. improved since the beginning of the school year! She said Natalie obviously shows a talent and interest in writing, but has done so good with numbers. Earlier in the year, she would get stuck on the teens and now she can write and count up to 100! She was one of the few students to know all word wall words (there’s about a new one every week). She also is a good listener and is branching out to make new friends. She is kind about letting others join in on her play. We are so proud of her!
At Elliott’s school, they do an around-the-world birthday walk. Each of those wooden sticks is a month. For each year, Elliott walks around the sun and the teacher reads notes about that year of his life. (We provided the notes at the beginning of the year.) Elliott is so proud! As are Mom and Dad (see background).
Cutest Leprechauns in Massachusetts
Happy belated St. Patrick’s day! The kids were excited to learn that they are Irish… even though Elliott walked into a neighbor’s house on St. Pat’s day (where corned beef and cabbage were cooking), plugged his nose immediately and said “What’s that smell?”
Holyoke has deep Irish roots so the crowds come out for St. Patrick’s Day. This was our family’s 2nd year running in the St. Patty’s day race. Luckily, the crews did an excellent job clearing the streets from Tuesday’s snowstorm!
The kids race is probably the length of a short street. The kids are awarded with a t-shirt and cookie at the end – the cookie being the primary motivation for this crew!
I was lucky to run with Elliott. Last year, he wanted to hold my hand the whole way. This year, he didn’t want to – as he needed his hands free (underneath his gloves) to have all fingers pressed together. That’s alison’s classic fast-running-superhero pose, so Elliott has adopted it as the Flash pose. He was running so hard….
Three seconds after this photo, he started walking. We were like 30 feet shy of the finish line. I was trying to explain but he just said his heart was pounding so fast. But then, he caught sight of the finish line… and shouted, “I so close!” and took off again.
There were many other festivities as well, including tons of free samples (hot chocolate and french toast flavored kettle corn!). But, the men in blue were Elliott’s fav – and I’m pretty sure he added a bit of Irish delight to their day as well.
Jordan and I surprisingly (or at least surprisingly in my case, since I trained less and didn’t want to hurt as much during and after the race as I did last year) beat our times… he ran about 44:30 and I ran around 46:30 (which is 7:30 per mile). Not bad for 35!
And a huge thanks to Alison who watched the kids at the Holyoke children’s museum while we raced… despite having had her own St. Patty’s celebration the night before. Thanks Lala!
A hand-me-down Batman t-shirt from a neighbor, fueled by our nanny Alison’s deep interest and extensive knowledge about super heros, has resulted in 4 months of full-on Super Hero love. So, what better way to celebrate 4 years of Elliott than with a Super Hero birthday party!?! (Which was a week early, partially because he has been waiting for his birthday every since Christmas…)
Elliott and Natalie both love to bake (and taste), so we made a homemade cake. Can you see the Batman and Flash signals? They are obscured by the sprinkles. Natalie was a big helper (of course) with all the birthday celebration and is so sweet to get so excited for him.
We also had many tests of super-ness:
Look at those muscles pull the cord on the pinata! (The safer 2017 version of a pinata – no wooden bat)
And, as superheros have amazing powers, they seemed to multiple in our house. Both through our guests – I had never met a Thor before! And in toys.
Elliott’s favorite superhero is Wonder Woman because she has super strength, a golden lasso, handcuffs, can fly, etc. He is definitely more of a Justice League kinda guy, as opposed to an Xman guy (that meant nothing to me a couple months ago – don’t worry if it doesn’t to you). Other favorites include: Flash (due to super speed) and Super Man.
Here’s a recent convo:
Elliott: “I gonna be Super Man when I grow up”
Mom: “That’s awesome. Why Super Man?”
Elliott: “Because of his super strength. And he can fly. And he has heat vision and super hearing.”
Mom: “Those are all awesome. But I thought Wonder Woman was your favorite Superhero and she can do all those things and more, I think?”
Elliott (somewhat incredulously with a tone of ‘well duh Mom’): “Well, Mom… I a boy. And Wonder Woman is a girl.”
Mom: “Oh I understand” (as if gender is the only thing holding him back from realizing that dream!)
He still loves his original Batman (and his Lala)…
I am the luckiest Super Mom of this Super Family! (He did 3 wardrobe changes during this party)
One of the biggest compliments I can give to Elliott is… “I’ve learned so much about Superheros from you.” (Huge grin.) It is amazing, fun and funny to get a glimpse into his world of imagination. Not a day goes by, without some awesome crime-fighting and superhero poses by this little boy.
Owning 4 years old…
Snow birds Poppy and Nana got back to their Hoosier roots with some fun snow play.
In the 80’s, he made forts. Nowadays, it’s a Batcave. See Robin on his motorcycle too…
Elliott depends on me for too much and can be a bit whiny about it, but he can be a sweet talker…
“Mommy, you are so cute” (the day after my dramatically shorter hair cut)
“You have my heart” (and does a heart shape with his hands)
“I only want to be with you” (okay, admittedly nearing obsessive here)
And more along the likes of typical 4 year olds:
“Riddle me this: What is green and pink and sticky all over?”
(Green Lantern in cotton candy)
Up to a foot of snow is supposed to fall between 6am and 6pm today. We were among the first ones out in the neighborhood!
And now the kids are at the neighbors playing and watching Storks.
And a neighborhood boy is plowing our driveway!!!
Best street ever.
Background: Many times a day, Elliott says “I’m not in a good mood.” Today/tonight was one of those days where he especially wasn’t in a good mood. There are things that Natalie does to provoke him – e.g. getting way too close to his face or kissing on him or “parenting him”. We often try to ask her to give him space. Sometimes she is as sweet as can be, other times totally inflexible.
Tonight: After dinner, we played freeze tag – one person is “it,” another is the “unfreezer,” and another is just regular. Natalie let Elliott go first. He was “it” for a long time – and didn’t get to tag Natalie as many times as he would probably like. Then I was “it” for a short time, before Elliott wanted to be “it” again. Natalie’s unfairness radar went up immediately – she wanted to be “it”. A lot of argument around this – she got a short turn, then Elliott wanted to play superheros, then he got a short turn, then Natalie agreed to play superhero freeze tag. However, she tagged him 3x very close to each other, so he was frustrated and wanted to quit. And that made her frustrated. E has a tantrum. N has a mean face, says he’s acting like a baby, etc. Fast forward to Natalie time out.
In Natalie’s time-out, she is feverishly working on writing him a message on this super cute stationary that she got from a rummage sale in Chicago. Meanwhile, Elliott is picking out a book – Mo Willems’ “I’m invited to a party!” (with Piggie and Gerald the Elephant).
I tell Natalie she can come out of her room whenever she wants – she insists on finishing up the letter to Elliott. She simultaneously tries to convince me not to read to them together – I explain that I have to read to them together, there’s only one grown here; Dad is all the way in Europe! She responds: “What?!? Europe? I thought he was in London!”
She hands the envelope to Elliott. The front mini envelope says: “To Elliott”. The inside says something along the lines of You need to lrn you lesin (“You need to learn your lesson). She gives Elliott the envelope. He is THRILLED! He exclaims: “I’m invite to a party!” This infuriates Natalie… “It’s not a party. It’s a note about learning your lesson (insert mean face).” Elliott is coveting this piece of paper and jumping on the bed. He is excited about the stamps on it, which gets Natalie a little excited and she decides she does want to kindly share the stamps.
Now we’re reading books and Natalie continues to work on her messages. (She is just writing constantly nowadays – I swear she writes through every meal.) She decides to write another message where she does invite Elliott to a party. Although Elliott likes this, he is very bothered by the fact that Natalie got this stationary kit from a rummage sale in Chicago.
E: Where was I when this was happening?
M: Sleeping
E: Why was I sleeping?
M: B/c you were one year old and slept 2x a day
E: What did you pick out for me?
M: A lamp with trains that’s in your room now! (Thinking very much so this answer was a strong one)
E: It’s not trains – its trucks. And lamps aren’t fun!
{back to reading}
E: But I still sad about not having what Natalie has. Its way too long til my birthday! (WAH)
A few minutes later, Natalie starts to talk about having a club…. a home club, where we can have parties. (It’s a snow day tomorrow so we decide that the home club can have a PJ breakfast party.)
<Background – The kids love the idea of clubs. It sounds like there’s a couple clubs going on at Natalie’s school and/or through playdates. Our 5th and 8th grade neighbor also started an outdoor club, which the kids were THRILLED to be invited to. We haven’t had an activity yet.>
Somehow, Elliott knows that clubs have leaders. He wonders if he can be a leader. Natalie decides she has to take a bathroom break and she will consider his request while in the bathroom. He is jumping on the bed, eagerly waiting her “permission” to be a leader. She emerges triumphantly – she has made her decision: “You can be a leader in the home club!” Elliott is ecstatic: “I a leader! I a leader!” He jumps over to give her a kiss and a hug. Now Natalie is ecstatic! “He’s never given me that big of a kiss ever!”
Natalie seems to feel bad for me and offers me a leader spot too. I say that’s so nice but that I’ve been a leader of a lot of things so I am happy to just be a member and follow along with their rules. Natalie agrees with this; Elliott is skeptical. Then I tell him, “Remember you say kids rule, moms drool so kids really should be the leaders.” This sound rationale works for him.
The kids are so excited about being leaders in the home club – Natalie alternates between talking non-stop and quietly working on a membership card for him. By the time the story ends, she has finished a membership card: “You are ficily a ldr.” (You are officially a leader.”) Elliott gazes at the card, starts jumping again, with the coveted messages in hand. Then Natalie finds ANOTHER bigger envelope to put them all in. Elliott thinks this is all great.
At bedtime, Natalie wants to cuddle with Elliott while I sing to him. (He NEVER allows this and did tonight.) She offers to sing him Paw Patrol – or a leader song. He obviously chooses a leader song. It goes something like this:
Elliott’s a leader. We follow our leader. We follow our leader everywhere. He plans stuff for us to do. He’s a leader, leader, leader. We follow our leader everywhere. (x3 – I’m forgetting the rest of the words.)
And then she throws in Paw Patrol for bonus – finishing with a little jazz of leader at the end again.
So much emotion, sibling rivalry and cuteness wrapped up into 90 minutes. I never have time to write a story this long, but I’m lucky that my work has a snow day tomorrow too, so I don’t need to work tonight! I can save that for the snow day – after the pancake breakfast party and likely some science experiments, of course!
Jordan is in England so just one grown up the first night. Clever way for Natalie to get extra time with me without her brother catching on…
And night 2, we were lucky enough to have Daniele and Baby Boy Daveline (who Natalie thinks should be named Daniel and Elliott recommended Farty Face) read to the kids before bed…
And night 3, we played freeze tag and read Lyle the Crocodile. We love and miss our Dad but so far, so good!
