I know it’s only been 3 weeks but I am just so proud of the kids I can’t wait longer for a post. Today I bring you the cliche, children are like a garden that you have to tend so they can flourish. As stupid as that sounds sometimes, it’s so true. (Warning: this is the part where I talk about how great I am). Pip and I have been in the dirt of modeling kindness and regular tooth brushing, adding the manure of emotional regulation and weeding out entitlement until I get overwhelmed then set up the auto watering system so I can ignore them and get a break, then it’s back out there with my watering can that teaches responsibility. And now I see my little flowers just flourishing. As Willy Wonka coined, they’re scrumbdidlyumptious!!!
For years we’ve struggled with purging old stuff. I know it’s hard for everyone, but Moriarty has a bigger emotional reaction than some kids so he’s having a harder time. After many rounds of fights with the kids about purging I had a brilliant idea. I incentivized them to purge by offering money at the arcade in exchange for volumes of stuff. You could say I used a carrot rather than a stick, to continue my gardening metaphor. :-) It worked GREAT. They both purged several large storage bins and had ~$30 each at the arcade. My favorite game was all 4 of us playing hungry hippos where we sat on big plastic hippos and used the grabber bar with our hands to collect the balls. Lorelei beat me at both ski ball and bowling. Moriarty had tremendous luck at 2 of the strength games where you have to dial in the right amount of pushing/whacking to get the big prize. He got it on both. OMG. He had enough tickets to get an Icee maker, kinda like an ice cream maker where you freeze the outer cup and then the drink inside freezes against the interface. Now Icees are a thing in my house and all the neighborhood kids are thrilled.
The other huge parenting win for me is around chores. The kids have always been expected to help with house chores, at their capability level. Lorelei collects trashes on trash day, Moriarty does his own laundry and cleans bathrooms, and they both help with general decluttering. But since it’s summer they needed more chores. I added doing the dishes for Moriarty and he didn’t complain. At all. He just jumped in and started learning. The first night he thought he was done then looked at the table and realized there were more there. Oops. He was annoyed but it was more a learning moment and he did better the next day. There are certainly days when they whine about chores, but I’m really happy with where we are and how things are building up. The more they do, the more other weird random cleaning I can do and the happier I am.
It’s summer now and school is out. That means a lot of days with kids around or my kids missing for hours. Things are more relaxed, like some days I come out and they’ve painted their faces, or each other’s faces, usually with sharpies. There were many moans about boredom but we basically tell them to figure it out. Moriarty is digging through old art kids and made an incredible origami bug. Lorelei put on an acrobatics show and made us all tickets. Moriarty is getting into fire and is enamored with lighters. For those of you who don’t know, I may or may not have burned my room down when I was 10 so we do keep an eye on him.
Moriarty started his orthodontic journey. His upper teeth are much narrow than his lower teeth so he has a palate expander now that we turn once a day. It doesn’t hurt but makes him lisp a little bit and is annoying with certain foods. But, he’s not complaining. Lorelei lost one of her front teeth and the other is wiggly. It’s a big month for teeth. But not fingernails. Lorelei got her pinkie nail crushed a couple months ago and it fell off recently. We’re curious if it’ll grow back. All in all, life is incredible here in Lake Forest Park.
Recent Pics Here, password “mal”
Cute Stuff, Quotes, and Videos
At dinner we usually talk about our days and I ask the kids what the best and worst parts were. The last week of school Lorelei said that he worst thing that day was not getting to play with Moriarty at 2nd recess that day (he was out for a med thing). I had no idea they played at recess together. It made my heart melt.
They had STEAM night at their school. It’s STEM + art so the school had different rooms with exhibitions and interactive stuff. Lorelei misheard me when I said STEAM, she thought I said stamina.
(L) stamina?
(M) not stamina that's how far you can run
(L) so is stamina night when you get to run into all the classrooms?
I must use the word “literally” a lot because she’s saying it…a lot, literally.
(L) I literally fell over... literally
Moriarty getting lip kisses from Amber
Moriarty and I doing axe throwing at the Fremont Solstice Festival