Our first official week of the season went wonderfully well, in spite of the inevitable bouts of crying and/or fighting. The kids and I established a few good routines that will, hopefully, stick for a few more months.
Unlike many other kids, Anna can't really afford to go through the "summer slide" when it comes to academics. So, at the very least, I'd like her to maintain all of the incredible gains she made during third grade, if not continue to make progress. And it wouldn't hurt Kate to keep up with some of her skills, too, although it's not nearly as important for her.
This summer we instituted "school time" each weekday. The girls have a long list of options of activities they can do during this time (reading non-fiction, writing options, math options, etc.), but the expectation is that they do an hour of school time each day, unless they are taking a summer school class that particular week :) Thus far, the girls are in a routine of reading in bed for a long time right when they wake up, then having something to eat before doing their school time first thing in the morning. Ethan has been sleeping in so by the time he's up and done with his breakfast, the girls are wrapping up their school time.
This week it worked great. Although, as I told a friend on Friday, just because it worked this week is no indication that it will work next week :)
It's nice having this bit of structure to the mornings. Once school time was over, there was lots of good, creative playing going on in our house. Sometime during the afternoon, the kids and I would often play a game together before playing in the pool for a good, long time. Goofing off outside after dinner was a nice way to wrap up the day.
In addition to these daily routines, we managed a few other activities throughout the week. I learned on Monday that the strawberries were ripe for the picking starting this week! So the kids and I went Tuesday morning to pick three flats of berries together.
Anna was an awesome helper again this year, whereas the other two were motivated at the beginning, but then they kind of tapered off towards the end.
They had a good enough time that the girls wanted to go again on Friday. Really?! You don't have to tell me twice.
Friday didn't work quite as smoothly as Tuesday (a.k.a. more tears and less berries), but at least we got more berries in the freezer.
Wednesday we needed to go to Woodman's to get groceries. We made this trip work once or twice last summer with me taking all three kids, so I knew we could do it again. However, the list was long, so the trip was long and parts of it were difficult (picture me with a screaming Ethan and a crying Anna in the magazine aisle ... sigh), but now we don't have to do it again for awhile.
Thursday afternoon we took Ethan to the children's museum. The cars and trucks set-up there is by far his favorite place to play so we thought we'd let him choose our activity on the cool afternoon. Boy, it's a lot more work to take all three kids there than it was to take only Ethan this spring. Whew! Even though I brought the camera, there was no chance I was going to get a picture of anyone.
Anna, however, made a few new friends with a couple of the afternoon workers. One guy, Ben, is actually the boy (now grown up) in a book I read a year and a half ago (Making Lemonade with Ben). When he spotted Anna, he came over right away because he sensed a kindred spirit. We chatted with him for awhile and will hopefully see him again at the museum.
And then there was that girl in the craft area stood in front of Anna to ask, "What happened to her?!" ... twice ... before I realized nobody else was going to answer her question, so I gave her a decent, age-appropriate explanation about how Anna was really sick a few years ago and she has to work to get all of her muscles strong again. Such is our life. At least Anna and I were able to laugh about it when we got in the elevator.
Friday we had a host of errands planned in the afternoon, so I thought we could have a picnic lunch with Matt in addition to the rest. We typically sit under a tree at GE and the kids can run up and down the hill, or school and crawl. It was a fun addition to our day.
Perhaps the week tired this boy out more than he is used to, though. He ended up falling asleep in the car on Friday afternoon as we were picking up some pizza for dinner. I suppose our pace is a bit different now with the girls home all the time.
One of the events on Friday afternoon was a program at the library called Soda Pups. The kids had fun watching these little dogs do all of their tricks :)
Ethan's favorite part came at the end when one of the dogs had a ride in a radio controlled truck.
The kids had so much fun telling Matt all about it during dinner.
And ... at one point on Friday our van finally turned over to 100,000 miles. Whoa. (Please excuse all of the dust in this picture. Seriously, though, when would anyone in our family choose to spend their time dusting the inside of the van?!)
Somehow in the midst of this life, I was able to get the garden back under control after being gone a week. Things are going okay out there at this time, after we were able to get on top of that pesky bunny problem. Those little critters usually don't bother us too much, but this year they ate back one too many plants for my liking!
Whew! By the end of each day, I'm exhausted. But happy. I love summer.
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