Category: Shep
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Family walk
The weather turned, and then the sun came out. And with it, I’m feeling that itch to be outside.
After dinner, I decided to take a walk. The Oldest wanted to come with me. And then the Youngest. And then suddenly we were on a family walk.
When I take these walks with my kids, it reminds me why I love living here. We found little holes in the grass where mice made their winter homes. The tracks of deer. The kids delighted in milkweed pods that burst open with silky seeds.
They found the intact wing of a bird, which may sound repulsive to some. But my junior naturalists aren’t squeamish. They were fascinated by the delicate array of feathers, and insisted on bringing it home to take to science tomorrow.
They threw dozens of rocks in the pond. But the highlight? Cattails. I never lived near a pond growing up, so I experienced my first cattail as an adult. It starts as this innocuous looking, compact plant. But with a few swift moves, it explodes into this huge cloud of fluff. It beats most anything in the fireworks aisle. The kids could do that for hours.
I can’t wait until the days stretch longer, and we can fit these sorts of outings into our evening routine more often.
On a side note, these photos were taken with Tom’s phone. Hooray for pocket technology!
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Pac Man gets gold
While the rest of us were busy watching the Super Bowl, Shep was over by the Lego.
He was there for quite a long time.
When I walked by to get a drink, I realized he had been hard at work. He had carefully been constructing letters out of Lego. It spells “Pac Man gets gold.” Below the sentence is Pac Man, with several gold bricks on his head.
I love this kid.
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We are clearly hibernating
I can’t get the kids to leave the house. All they want to do is stay in their pajamas and hang out at home. I suppose this is what happens now that they’re all in school for at least part of the week—they value their time at home. Although their pajamas are getting a bit stinky (we try to change them at least every 24 hours), I’m thrilled they want to be here. I can’t imagine having children who want to be anywhere but home.
Yesterday they built this massive fort in the basement. (Which I really need to document.) Today I set up a whole table of pouring and transferring activities, splooshing water from one container to another. With all that water out, suddenly Neko had the critter container where Leaper the toad spent a good deal of time this summer. With spring on the horizon, she decided she need to clean to cage.
Soon she and Ellery were scrubbing and cleaning. (As promised, they washed and dried all the dishes they used to accomplish this, which was, um, a lot.) Then Neko turned the whole thing into a jellyfish aquarium, drawing on Ziploc bags with Sharpies and filling them full of water. It was eerily lifelike, bobbing around.
By afternoon, Mary Beth and Nancy came to visit, bearing cake pops, which lasted about 4.6 minutes after they walked in the door. (Delicious.)
And that’s not even half of what went down. Someday I’m going to take one day and record every weird thing we do from dawn to dusk. And you will all die from either boredom or exhaustion. But I feel compelled to do it just so my children know why I yawned my way through their childhood.
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And so it begins
Shep is now able to follow the directions in the Lego manuals. Moments after he assembled this creation, he tore it apart to begin on the airplane.
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Mandatory outside time
The kids have not left the property since Friday. In fact, they really haven’t left the house since then.
I had an all-day training session yesterday, so they had friends come over. Today, Tom had a meeting. I tried to convince the kids to go somewhere, but I couldn’t get anyone moving.
Around 2pm I ordered everyone to put their coats and hats over their pajamas—we were going outside.
For a long time we ended up in the pole barn, leaping over the wide gap between hay bales. Climbing on the tractor. Vitamin D quota for the day—check.
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Cooking
Shep has been begging me to make peppermint ice cream. I think I might be raising a food snob—he had a taste of the store-bought kind, and declared it wasn’t good enough.
Of course, one of the best parts of making peppermint ice cream is whacking the heck out of the candy. Shep and Ellery happily obliged, hammer in hand.
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Fairy house
During this glorious break from winter, I pushed the kids outside. They wandered out with squinty eyes and declared, “Hey, it’s nice out here!”
Today I cleaned out my car. During these cold months, the clutter has piled up in the corners until it was tough to squeeze in a passenger. Groceries were a challenge to fit in the back on account of the tools and half-finished projects.
Ellery joined in. Long after I’d decluttered and vacuumed, she scrubbed the baseboards with gusto. I swear she was in there for an hour. I left her to her work and mucked out the coop.
Shep was running circles around the yard. And Neko? She was hard at work on this fairy house.
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The day after
The day after Christmas started well enough. Our family present was a big bunch of Lego. When everyone seemed restless, we cracked it out and began building. Neko and I worked on a house, Tom worked on some wheelie contraption, and Ellery made a grocery store. Shep worked on a bedroom with a secret door in the roof, but it got taken apart before I got out the camera. I love that they’re finally at the age where they make THINGS.
By afternoon, we were off to Barb and Ev’s house to celebrate with Tom’s side of the family, which was somewhat incomplete due to our nephew’s unfortunate ear infection. I swear, the moment we pulled into their driveway, the inevitable post-holiday letdown hit. Suddenly our under-slept, over-excited children became raving maniacs. It was great to see Tom’s family, but, ohmygoodness, those kids were crazy.
An early departure was followed by an even earlier bedtime. We’re looking for a few quiet(er) days ahead.
