Time Marches On

I have discovered that defining a brother/sister relationship is a very difficult task. My brother's recent move has prompted several questions lately from my friends. Were you two close growing up? Are you close now? Do you talk a lot? Are you sad he's moving? These questions have caused me to reminisce and walk down memory lane.


Were we close growing up? Ummm....I'm gonna go with "no" on this one. Unless you count lots of fighting, drawing lines down the middle of the backseat of the car to distinguish "my side" and "your side", and an immeasurable number of "I'm telling on you!"'s as CLOSE. Close to killing each other maybe. But, I do think we were typical. Find me a brother and sister nearly five years apart in age who did not do these things, and I'd like to do a case study on them.

When we weren't plotting each other's demise (ok, we really weren't that bad), there were some fun moments. My favorite memories include building Lego creations together, and racing our bikes down the boat ramp at the lake to see who could flip over the handlebars the farthest. We also thought it was great when we both had bedrooms in the basement, away from mom and dad and what felt like their never-ending list of chores. That backfired a bit, however, when our rooms got so trashed that mom took Polaroid pictures of each room and hung them on the refrigerator. She must have been so proud.

Throughout our adult years, we have had times of living far apart - Phoenix to Kansas is no short jaunt; and times of living close together - separated by a mere flight of stairs. Sometimes we talk a lot, sometimes very little. Sometimes we agree on issues, sometimes we don't. Our life experiences have been extremely different, and oddly enough, I think that has only created an increased understanding of one another.

So, are we close? Yes. Do we talk a lot? Sometimes. Am I sad? Yes. His move means fewer holidays together, no Saturday night free meals from mom and dad, and definitely no more building sandcastles with my kids at the lake for awhile.

However, his move means a new start filled with all kinds of possibilities for him. It also means we have to be way more intentional about communicating, and honestly, that is a good thing.

Most of all, I'm pretty sure he is where he is supposed to be right now. And I'm pretty sure I am where I am supposed to be right now. So for now, that is enough.

Imaginations Running Wild

It's common knowledge to every mother in the world. When your children are playing together nicely for an extended period of time, and you are relishing in the pure joy of having this moment of peace to yourself...BE VERY SUSPICIOUS.


At lunch yesterday my boys decided that it would be great fun to trap a mouse in the house. We have no reason to believe that there is a mouse in our house, but that information would not deter them.


After lunch, I was in the other room doing laundry and sneaking a few moments to read a book. I could overhear them talking about how cool it would be to have string go from here to there, and how the net could trap the mouse, and how....you get the idea. I naively thought this was all for pretend.

Then I walked out and saw this.


That would be a trail of cheese on my kitchen floor. At the beginning of the trail (the top of the picture) there is an air vent. Hanging down that air vent was a piece of string tied around some cheese. According to my children, a mouse should think it is fun to run through the air ducts; therefore, it is a perfect cheese-hanging location.

When the mouse was eating that cheese, the 7 year old would then lift the vent up, and naturally the mouse would come out and continue eating down the line of cheese. Woe to the poor little mouse, who would not know that the last piece of cheese is directly under the bug-catching net. When the mouse reached the end of the line, the 4 year old would yank that string tied to the net, and "WHAM!" the mouse is caught.

The enthusiasm they had for this very believable plan was almost disturbing. After a mouse did not appear in the vent within a few minutes, my youngest son walked to the garage calling, "Here, mousey, mousey!" while my oldest son went to fetch a ladder to see if there were any mice on the roof.

My mother's intuition kicked in at this point, and I nixed the ladder and roof plan. A few minutes later the little guy came inside to report that his brother was indeed trying to get on the roof. I opened the door to find a big trash can upside down on the porch, with a little one stacked on top of it. "You said I couldn't use a ladder....".

I am happy to report that there has been no mouse, no roof-climbing, and no cheese molding in the vent. Only 2 little boys thinking their mother is a dream-killer.

This and That

I'm so busy this week I cannot even come up with an original title for my post. Thanks, Casey, for not disowning me as a friend for stealing yours. Actually, I'm being a bit presumptuous with that comment, since I didn't actually ask permission or know how she might react. So, Casey, if you are going to disown me for that, could you at least send me a nice little note before you unfriend me? I hate to be left hanging in suspense.

This week we brought new bedroom furniture home from my brother's house. He is moving soon (more on that later in the week), and the king size bedroom set did not fit very well in his little Saturn. My brother did not bother to ask us before setting his moving date, can you believe it? This is the first week of teacher in-service, the last full week of summer, and the week my husband is in charge of a major go-live software conversion at his place of employment. Needless to say, my entire house looks like the bedroom threw up all over it.

Anyhoo....my parents were gracious and came to help my husband unload all of the furniture while I was at a three hour church meeting last night. I was thoroughly embarrassed that they were going to walk into my extremely trashed house, and secretly hoping that my mother would feel sorry for me and do the dishes. {Sigh}. The good news is that the furniture was all placed nicely in the room by the time I got home. The bad news is that I have no idea where my socks are.

This weekend we are going camping for one final hurrah before school starts. Four adults. Six kids. That kind of parent:child ratio always makes me a bit nervous. What makes me even more nervous is the lake we are going to. Two months ago it had a major algae issue and all the swimming beaches were closed. Last month it tested high for e coli. E COLI. The beach closed and then reopened a few days later. It's been open ever since, but still....we will spend roughly 70% of our days in the water swimming and jet skiing. Ick.

I have been eating nonstop. I cannot figure out what is wrong with me. Nonstop carrots and celery would not be a problem, but the theme seems to be nonstop COOKIES. This may turn into a BIG problem, literally. But, maybe I'll just go jump in the lake for a little e coli. That oughta curb my appetite for awhile.

The Countdown

Today is August 11. School starts in 15 days. Fifteen days!?

I know I shouldn't complain. Some schools around here start next week. Some have already started. But still, where in the world did summer go?

There is so much to do....oh, SO MUCH to do before school starts. Here is my 'back to school' countdown:


15 Teacher Objective Folders to create.

14 Weeks of Spelling activities to plan.

13 Math files to sort and organize.

12 Hours of scrapbook time on Saturday!

11 Grades of Standardized Test scores to graph.

10 Days until my brother moves far, far away :(

9 Days until we go to the lake for one last summer bash.

8 Hours (approximately) of planned time with my brother before 1,726 miles separate us.

7 Stacks on my desk at school to tackle.

6 Folders of writing information to read and process.

5 Days of Teacher In-service meetings to sit through.

4 Pieces of furniture to haul from my brother's apartment to my bedroom.

3 Levels of Phonemic Awareness activities to create.

2 Orthodontic consultations for my 7 year old. $$Cha-ching$$$

1 Child to convince that going back to school is a great thing!

Hiking

Most of the people we saw hiking yesterday had something that looked similar to this.



I'm sure they were packed with the necessary hiking items....water bottles, snacks, sunscreen, first aide kit, rain poncho.....

Our backpack looked like this.

So classy.

Let it be known that I tried to talk the rest of my family into using the fit-for-a-regular-sized-person St. Louis Cardinals backpack.

Because that would have made us look so much closer to a die-hard hiking family.

We did, however, have one family member who was nearly fully equipped.

Hiking stick.

Hiking shoes (that he insisted on wearing).

Not-so-hiking clothes.



Those shoes must have been magic. He endured the 2 1/2 hour trail pretty well.

The boys were pretty proud of the fact that we had been "way up there" and had hiked "way down here".


What they didn't know at that point was that we pretty much had to climb "way up there" again to get to the end of the trail.

So we took a short rest.

This was the beautiful view from "way up there".

Testing out the timer on our camera.

We made it back, having to endure a manageable number of "are we there yet?"'s.

To which we honestly answered, "we think so" every single time.

To which we were wrong the first 10 times the question was asked.

The trail was just a tad longer than we thought.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Watching the Cubs warms up.

He's trying to find Derrek Lee, his favorite Cubs player. Favorite because Lee's name is on the back of his one and only Cubs shirt, and, of course, because they both play the same position - first base.

Derrek Lee up to bat.

One very happy boy after Lee hit a homerun with 2 men on base to tie the game 5-5.

The Cubs lost 5-6, but they still thought it was a great night!