Moision Madness

On the long-awaited last day before school started, we took a hike in the Arroyo to play in the creek with a few friends from Aveson. It’s a kid’s paradise. They caught frogs.

And put them in water bottles.

Then showed them off to the parents, who took pictures, of course.

They eventually let the frogs go and moved on to swimming and playing in the water. Finn found a stick.

Ezra found a bigger stick.

And fun was had.

Later, I took the boys to Slaw Dogs for lunch while Bruce worked.

Even though it’s his favorite place, a napless Finn still looked grumpy.

Even later, we let Ezra pick a place for dinner to celebrate First Grade. Growing up too fast.

The new gardeners have been doing a fantastic job cleaning up the yard and Ezra — the boy who has loved to dig since he was a baby — is very pleased with the loosened soil in the planter beds. I didn’t really want him digging up the front yard but a boy’s gotta dig, so we needed a compromise. I decided to offer the backyard. The sheer delight in his eyes when I answered “Yes” to his question: “Can we make mud?” was priceless.

So, I gave them some parameters (let’s keep to one spot, please) and went back inside to continue working on the Apple Sale stuff. Pretty soon I heard, “Mommy, can we take our clothes off?” “Yes, just keep your underwear on.” More delight.

When I came down to check on them about ten minutes later, this is what I found.

And as if they weren’t covered enough, they started re-covering themselves just to be certain.

And then they wanted to do a video about how to take a mud bath.

I decided to let them have at it (while taking periodic peeks out the bedroom window) and after a while they’d used the hose to [almost] clean themselves up. They still needed a bath but this was probably the easiest mud-play cleanup we’ve ever had.

Silly Papa.

Silly Ezra.

Finn, on the other hand, had a much more conventional use for his after-dinner lollipop.

It was hot — and I mean HOT — here this weekend. Today’s 95 degree temp was actually a respite from the 107 we’ve had for the last few days. The boys were undaunted by the heat and rode their bikes for a couple of hours this afternoon. I took some pictures with my new favorite iPhone app, Instagram.

Ezra’s also sporting some boo-boos from running and falling yesterday, but he’s OK.

Well, I’ll clarify that — last day of our first session of swimming lessons. We’re signed up for another four-week session starting next week, but this time we’ll go two days a week instead of five. So, Friday was the last day of this session and I have to say it was a rousing success. From not swimming to swimming in two weeks! Bruce had the day off so he got to come along this time and see the madness that is our boys swimming without swim vests or floaties of any kind.

Being the last day, the teachers pulled out the big floating animals and gave the kids a ride. Finn and his class had a lot of fun with this.

Ezra did, too, for a minute.

But really he just wanted to swim so he hopped off and went under.

After class we took a drive to look at a few of the gardens one of our landscaper candidates did. Fun for us, but not so much for the kids, so we bribed them with frozen yogurt. Finn thoroughly enjoyed his … every last drop.

Then, while we drove to see one last garden, he fell asleep. It was 5:15. Luckily, he slept all night. His 5:30 wake up call, while painful, was much better than the middle of the night one I had envisioned.

I realize that these swimming pictures and videos may be very hard to follow for anyone except me since I was actually there to see it in person. But whatever, I’m posting them anyway!

Yesterday, Ezra swam all the way to the barrier again and got a high five from his teacher. (He really likes this teacher.)

Then he headed back. He had to stop half way — I imagine he was pretty tired — but he made it all the way.

As for Finn, well he’s swimming his little heart out, too.

Just as the boys and I were sitting down to dinner tonight, Finn noticed another gross bunch of ants on the floor. So, for the third time today, I grabbed my trusty 409 and sprayed the heck out of them. As I was wiping up the mess, I said, “Sorry, it’s kind of smelly, guys. Well, at least it’s only 409 and not …”

And then I paused, trying to come up with the phrase “ant spray” when Finn finished my sentence for me with, “406.” I couldn’t stop laughing. I have no idea where he came up with 406.

Later, after they’d finished dinner, I cut up the rest of the delicious organic watermelon we got in our biweekly organic produce box and was grabbing a bowl to have some when the bowl slipped from my hand and broke all over the counter, shards of glass going everywhere. (Isn’t Pyrex supposed to be unbreakable?) So that meant a) big cleanup job and b) I had to throw away the watermelon I’d just cut up. So I was not very happy.

Ezra went into the other room and implored me not to come in there. About 20 minutes later, he presented me with this to cheer me up.

Iron Man, complete with a butt. Ezra explained, “I’m really good at drawing butts.”

He’s also good at learning to swim — check this out from today’s lesson. Hint: he starts in the upper part of the screen, because he’d swum all the way to the barrier by himself!

Yesterday we headed to the Natural History Museum to check out the new Dinosaur Hall with the Bannings. First stop, picture in front of the big dinosaur.

Once in the new hall, we checked out some bones.

And several hands-on exhibits.

And in general were in awe of the bones.

Later, we had swim lessons again and more progress was made. Finn swam back and forth to his teacher.

Ezra had a new teacher who was able to break down some of the steps for him. Here they do their “bobs.”

I think Ezra is happy with the new teacher. I saw several smiles during the lesson and afterwards he said, “I think this teacher is … nicer.”

I was having, as Alexander would say, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day on Friday. It started to look up when a friend met us at the park for a play date and brought a picnic lunch for everyone, complete with caffeinated beverages. It felt so nice for someone else to decide what we were all going to eat, and the caffeine went to work on my headache immediately. Thanks, Erin!

Later in the day, the boys requested a play date — they are bored to tears of playing with each other, apparently — so I called my friend Cari, who luckily was available. They came over and fun ensued. The kids dove head first into the costume box and the various iterations of their characters were pretty great. Finally, they were all dressed up at the same time, and I asked them if I could take their picture.

The first one was pretty good — everyone was actually looking at the camera.

But the second really captures their personalities better.

Finn’s chatting up Ruby, and Ezra and Chapin are just about ready to jump up and run away. Only Ruby is able to sit still for more than a second. I also love that this one shows that what’s on Chapin’s head is a Santa hat. Classic.

Bath time Saturday night gave me a glimmer of hope that my boys will actually one day swim — for real. Much to my surprise, they were eagerly dunking their faces, in fact, their whole heads in the bath water! They’d seen Finn’s friend Amelia do this in her kiddy pool earlier in the day; apparently they were inspired. And so was I; I high-tailed it onto the interwebs to see where I could enroll them in swim lessons. Luckily the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center had a two-week session starting Monday and the boys agreed to give it a go.

The first day was great! Faces went in the water!

Here’s Finn doing it even though is classmates won’t.

There was floating!

And paddling!

And swimming!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some reluctance still and the whole coordinating blowing bubbles, taking breaths and kicking is a challenge. But he’s doing it!

Finn’s class is younger, so they’re getting more help from the teacher. Here he is practicing the “scoops” he learned first from Erin in Belize.