OK, so summertime has pretty much come to a close. J officially started back to school yesterday, Sotch is in preschool today, so it’s me & the Matterkat. I feel like I can finally exhale……at least until Matty starts crawling. Then we start aaaaaaaaaall over again. And that’s soon. He turned 6mos a couple days ago. Already rockin’ on all fours; it’s only a matter of time before he figures out, “Ooooooh, I put the one arm in frontof the other, then………” Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww. Float like a Cadillac, sting like a Beemer.
So, closing arguments; I chose that title because the last couple weeks there’s been much disputing goin’ on round here. Yeah, that last couple weeks all us parents dread. Bicker bicker bicker. Jake’ll do one little thing, then *poof* Soph’s short fuse is blown. For most of the summer J was pretty cool about hangin’ & playin’ w/ Soph……but these last couple weeks- he’d actually initiate trouble. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Why? Just Why?
Daddy School went well- at first. Soph learned to write her letters, read some of them, and work on sounding out reading & spelling phonics. Which, I gotta say for a four year old is awesome. J worked on cursive writing, which I heard they’re is talk of getting rid of in some classes. We also worked on a history timeline, which I thought was alot of fun, but the kids didn’t seem to agree w/ me. “History is sooooooooooo boring,” would be the comment I’d get from J. Even after I told him about how his great Grandpa Tom was MIA-POW in WWII, and his “Papa Berry” was in ‘Nam. So, to liven it up a bit, I added trivial tidbits like when Lego, the TV, and the first video game were born- ya know, the “important” stuff.
One day for Daddy School we took a field trip to Fred Meyer- yes, to the grocery store. What. I’m serious. This is real life stuff we’re learning here! Quality schooling at its finest! We did fun stuff like way out produce, calculate how much money we put in the cart (which btw is an AWESOME way to help save money- keeps down the impulse buys & avoid sticker shock). We learned about generic vs name brand, which is another money saver.
We also worked on a “movie set” for a Star Wars stop motion short video. We finished the movie set, but filming got cut short due to budget cutbacks, the star of the show refused to go on if we couldn’t come up w/ 5,000 brown m&m’s, and their had to be 10 little circle cheese crackers, 15 oz of pirates booty, and 15 oz of cheese crunchies in a square bowl- naaaaaaaw, not really. Actually, I ran out of steam. Instead, we switched gears to working on our xmas packages, and getting ready for our trip to Portland (which I’ll save for another post).
So, there you have it. Summertime’s come to an end. Fall & the craziness of the holiday season that follows is rapidly descending upon us. Gone will be the sun & warmth, and we’ll slowly retreat to burrow under the dreariness of cloud cover, clutching our espresso and cursing the driver that is driving to slow in front of us & the ass-jockey behind us, into the cave that is……Seattle. I leave you w/ a line from my mom that I still ponder to this day. “If you wanna be a turd, go lay in the yard!”