Finally, a rider

Jack has been riding a bike since he was little. We got him a bike for Christmas several years ago, which I spent Christmas Eve putting together, training wheels and all. Last year he rode his bike with training wheels to school all the time. Lots of kindergarteners still use training wheels. When he started first grade, I told him he could ride his bike to school when he could ride it without training wheels. Cautious, cautious Jack tried a couple of times and got frustrated at how much more difficult it was than he thought it would be.

Every once in a while he would go out and give it a try and come back in after about a minute. I got him a bigger bike around his birthday and gave him a few tips on starting, had cousins over to ride, and he looked like he was going to have a breakthrough, but not quite. Then we started talking about visiting his cousin over the summer and watched a video of said cousin riding his bike up and off a ramp.

After a super-rainy-cooped-up-in-the-house Memorial Day weekend, we let the kids go out and play Sunday after church. Jack came in after a little while and said, "Mom, come out and see what I can do. I'm awesome!" I go out and he RIDES HIS BIKE around the yard. I was appropriately excited for him and he was beaming.


















Monday morning he was up at 6:30 and dressed, something that has not happened since he was five years old, two years ago. I asked him not to wake any one else up. He said, "I'm not. I just want to go in the back and ride my bike." I say okay, but please put on some shoes. Inside I'm saying YES!! FINALLY!! This from the boy who thought it was a punishment every time I took him out to practice riding. He finally got it, just in time to ride his bike to school every day for the last week of school.

Playing house, ninja-style

My kids like to play house. They call it "playing Mommies and Daddies" or "Mommies and babies." Their version also involves the baby crying all. the. time. Recently Elijah and Rose were playing on their own. Rose told Elijah it was his turn to be the Mommy, and that she would be the baby. It was pretty hilarious to watch and hear him spend the whole time running around, fighting imaginary "bad guys," and have him run in and tell me he had to "get the bad guys away from the baby." Ha ha. He still insisted that he was the "Mommy," but he definitely had a different handle on how to get the job done.

Piano teacher

I have always wanted my children to love music and learn to play an instrument. Piano makes the most sense, since I can teach them myself. In the past couple of years we have begun our journey of piano lessons. My mom taught beginning piano lessons for many years. When I was going through her music to find lesson books for Ellen and Jack, I found a notebook she kept with recital programs and a picture of her students and herself at the recital. What most amazed me was that every single youth in my ward who has some musical knowledge appears at some point in a picture at a piano recital with my mother. They were eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds in the pictures, and they are now college students or finishing up high school.

Mom taught piano right up until she was too sick to do it anymore. Almost as soon as we moved here, friends were asking me if I was planning to teach piano. When I didn't have a piano of my own, I went to my students' houses. My kids played in the back yard with siblings while I taught. Two of those families have since moved away, and we miss them! Now that I have my own piano, teaching Ellen and Jack (and soon, Rose and Elijah) is my number one priority, but I have several other students as well.

I held a recital at the end of May, a first-time experience for all but one of my students. It was short and sweet, and I am really proud of how much these kids have worked and learned. I took a picture and kept a recital program to slide into the next empty page protector in my mom's notebook.

I love everything about this picture. The extreme concentration, the long, skinny fingers, the fact that Jack is walking music. If you sing it to him, he'll remember it... I just had a little epiphany. I may be singing a lot more as the summer goes on. Jack despises practicing and is a little resentful of the fact that I am requiring him to develop his musical talent. But he has lots of good role models and understands that there are things we excel at because we like to do them, and there are things we excel at because we work hard at them. He is a natural, and I am stubborn, so we will keep at it. Even Jack gets excited about being able to actually play a song after he has put in the hard work practicing.

Library Legos Lab

Because we don't have enough Lego bricks at home (hah!) Jack begged me to sign him up for the Saturday afternoon Lego lab at the library. You reserve a spot on the sign up list, arrive that afternoon to bins of loose Lego bricks, pick up a name tag and mat, and then build away. Rose wanted to go, too, so the three of us went to see what it was all about. For some reason Rose wanted me to help her make something, even though she is completely capable of making all kinds of creations at home. They built, had their pictures taken, had a snack, and then we went home. After the second Lego lab I realized that the real motivator was the snack. From the moment we got there, Rose and Jack were talking about what kind of snack would be provided and when.

So...

I think we'll be sticking to playing with Legos at home and leaving the library Legos to the other kids.

Question and answer

1. How old is this young man?
2. Did he think of that question on his own?

Such a sweet, sweet boy. I was not expecting his emotional response, and that made watching the video worth it to me.

Working

Rose took speech classes twice a week at the elementary school this year to get ready for kindergarten. While she was working with tongue depressors, gargling, headphones, and stickers, Elijah and I offered our volunteer skills in the library. We shelved books, checked books in and out, and did whatever else the librarian needed. Elijah's favorite job was to stamp the due date cards and put them in the basket on the circulation desk. He developed quite the possessiveness about that responsibility and took it very seriously.

I had to sneak a picture of him at work because once he spotted my phone out he protested loudly. I'm pretty sure he went from smiling at me to scowling in the next shot. We did love our library time, though!

First Friday Spanish Story time

When we were living in Lubbock and I was adjusting from working and teaching full-time to being a mom full-time, I made friends with the children's librarian at the public library and volunteered to lead a story time in Spanish once a month. It was a lot of fun, good for me, good for the kids, and so I finally decided to work out something similar where we live now.

The children's librarian and I worked out a schedule at the beginning of the year, and First Friday Spanish Story time was born. Our last story time had a cinco de mayo theme since it was at the beginning of May. We are taking a break through the summer and will start up again in September. 

The library has a lot of great resources in Spanish, including a bunch of big books someone donated. I sometimes supplement with my own books and music, and for the cinco de mayo party I brought along my neglected guitar and entertained the preschool set and their moms. Rose and Elijah don't understand much of the Spanish, so they can get a little distracted or more interested in drawing attention to themselves, but for the most part it has been fun.