Monday Mash-up

I’ve got a billion half-thoughts swirling around in my head. Most of them not quite worth an entire blog post. So here’s a little gumbo for your Monday (lucky you!).

We started a new swim class with the kids on Saturday. It’s meant to get them gradually used to swimming without mom or dad in the water, so each week we’ll (attempt to) get out a few minutes earlier and leave them with the teacher.  First class, we stayed in the whole time, and the kids absolutely loved it. Rebecca bragged for the rest of the day about swimming “all by myself!”  And she did, a little, too!  Here’s to hoping that bodes well.

Saturday evening, we went to a cookout at a friend’s house.  And reminded each other that we seriously need to do this all summer long.  We all have 3-ish-year-olds who know each other well, so the yards are appropriately-equipped and everyone knows each other.  What could be easier than throwing some hot dogs on the grill for the kids and letting them get absolutely filthy?  And then everyone leaves in time for preschooler bedtime! Absolutely brilliant.

It didn’t hurt, of course, that they have an excavator in their yard at the moment.  There are few things more exciting to the 3-year-old set. Though attempting to get seven kids in the same picture was probably quite the entertaining sight for the neighbors.

Operation: Purge is starting slowly but well. Six big bags of clothes were dropped at Goodwill, and more are to follow. Many boxes of books are loaded into my car for donation.  And we’ve done our best to involve the kids. Rebecca got it in her head that the clothes and books are going to “a baby,” and she likes adding more things to the box. She did a great job helping me sort through her old clothes and books and was quite generous in what she elected to give away.

The focus of the purge, at the moment, is the room we usually refer to as “the changing room.” There wasn’t enough space in the kids’ nursery for two cribs plus dressers and things, so they sleep in one room and their clothing lives in another (we have four bedrooms, but none of them are very big).  The plan is to make the changing room into Daniel’s room. But because it was a room in which no one actually lived, a metric butt-load of crap has landed in there.  So we have to get rid of it to make space for Daniel to move in.  Exciting stuff, long way to go.

And to cap off this bucket of random-y randomness, some photos.  The first is from a few days ago. It was rainy and I was taking the dog out into the yard. When I turned around to come back in, this was the sight that greeted me at the front door:

My dear Daniel, love him though I do, may not have a stellar athletic career in his future. Hand-eye coordination is just not his forte. Don’t even get me started on trying to ride his tricycle and the fact that he has absolutely no concept of steering.