Jason is an imp - Vacation edition

Jason has gotten really good at sneaking into pictures.

First at Munising Falls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

On the street in St. Ignace.

And at Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The boys got skills.

New School Year, Day 1

Sarah's first day of 1st grade

Here we go. The life of the carpool mom during the school year. Such is life when your school has no busses and/or your kids go to private school.

The thing I like least about it all? Is the putzing time, for sure. When there's not enough time to go home in between, but there's not enough time to get anything done either. Or, you just really don't have anything you need to do outside of the house.

8:30 Drop off Sarah

11:30 Pick up one extra boy for carpool

12:00 Drop off boys for orientation

1:45 Pick up boys from Trinity
Pick up extra 10th graders for Putt-Putt
Drop off 10th graders at Putt-Putt
Drop off extra kid from car pool
Drop off Jason at home

3:00 Pick up Sarah
Putz a while until 4pm (maybe get some groceries for lunches?)

4:00 Pick up Evan from Putt-Putt

And so it begins .....

Loves

Have you ever looked around and realized "there is absolutely nothing I can do to show these people what they mean to me?"

Ok. I might be feeling a little overly emotional tonight. Or this might just be who I am.

Stop and look around.

Those people. Think for a minute about what they really mean to you.

Now go and find a way to show them.

Loves.

Today

Hums school lockdown

So this morning my garage door was broken, which meant I couldn't do the morning carpool because my van was very stuck in the garage. The other family did the morning run and I took the afternoon run, after the repair guy came to fix my garage door.

Since I was lucky enough to be at the school at the end of the day, I was witness to the drama that unfolded as our school was placed on lockdown. All of us parents were there for 3pm pick up and no kids were coming out. The security person who normally just helps direct traffic to make sure that everyone gets out of the lot safely informed us that there may have been shots fired in an area behind the school.

Honestly, I was feeling a little exposed sitting in my car in front of the school.

A few minutes later, two police cars pulled into the lot and the officers went inside the building. I was glad to see them there.

Soon, the police came back out and shortly thereafter, the principal and students started coming out. One officer stayed at each door until the parking lot cleared.

This entire situation lasted less than half an hour. While we were waiting for the kids I didn't feel all that worried or concerned. However, as I drove away from the building and listened to my son and his two friends telling their story, I felt huge relief. What a difficult situation.

I'm so thankful for the teachers and administrators whose choices kept everyone safe. I'm thankful for the police officers who showed up to rush into a potentially dangerous situation. I'm concerned that there may actually still be a dangerous situation somewhere in our city, just averted where we were for now.

As the school year winds down there seems to be quite a bit of concerning behavior happening at schools in our region. I hope today is the last of it.

At Concord Junior High School in Elkhart

Marian High School in Mishawaka

Family night craftiness

We had paper crafting night on Friday. What? That's not what you do on Friday night? Hmpf. Maybe you should.

Sarah started out like this. All nice and neat, clean and fully dressed.

And ended up like this. I bought smelly markers. It was inevitable.

Who wants to guess at what age she will get her first tattoo?

Jason meticulously covered almost the entire front of his notebook. Then promptly ripped off the cover and threw it away.

Artists. Whaddaya gonna do?

Evan took a little more time because he likes to tell us all about what he's doing and how he's going to do it. And he chose to let the cover remain on his book to be crafted another day.

They all love using mom's special papers and tools. Sarah got a great big kick out of the wave cutter and the boys really, really, really, really love the adhesive tools. Those boys are expensive even on craft night.

Jon helped keep the tattooed lady busy and relatively clean. He also helped with clean up. Isn't he great? I dream up and help create the mess and he helps clean it up.

And here's my craftiness for the evening. It's the cover of my "one notebook to rule them all." I'm going to try out a new way to keep track of some things.

With crafty inspiration from Sara Mincy.

That was our last family night. What does your family do for fun on a Friday night?

You just got pwned!

Ok, so, my boys love to play online games. Their current most favorite is World of Warcraft.

Jon and I created a single account to share so that we could play with them and better understand what in the world they were talking about when we called them to dinner and they said "But Mom! I'm in a dungeon!"

Honestly, our account is currently inactive because since I started my business I don't have time to play. The nice thing is that our characters live on and when we want to re-activate our account (resume paying the monthly subscription fee) we can pick up right where we left off.

I've been listening and learning quite a bit this week about author Jane McGonigal. Her new book is called Reality is Broken and I currently have it on hold at Barnes and Noble to pick up tonight so you'll have to hang tight for a review.

She has some crazy ideas (and we all know how much I love those, right?) about how gaming is good for us and that through gaming we can actually work together to solve some really huge problems. Her TED talk is here. I watched it last night and it really made me think differently about the time my kids spend online.

All that having been said, what if we could create a real life game for every day living? An iPhone app created by a group McGonigal works with is called EpicWin.


"EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. (from the developers website here)"


I downloaded this app today to start "playing" so I'll let you know how that goes. But more importantly, I want to start thinking about a way to create a game in real life. One where the boys will earn points for things like brushing their teeth, one where they'll earn experience points for doing their homework, and for completing chores. 


I guess there should be ways to lose experience points, too; such as arguing with a parent, hitting each other, or failing to complete an agreed upon task. Of course, some activities are neutral as well. 


Ok, I'm kind of geek so this is starting to sound like fun to me. Now I just have to figure out how to make it work. What do you think? What would your kids call their game? How should I dole out experience points or remove them?


Now to sell it to the boys. Wish me luck!

My Kids are Predictable

Jon: "You guys wanna help with this?"

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Jon starts building.

Shortly, one or both boys will come and join in the building.

My kids are predictable.

Where were you?

The boys (Evan/3 and Jason/1) and I were watching Clifford the Big Red Dog on PBS in the basement of our home on State Street in Mishawaka. Jason started pushing buttons on the TV, cause that's what one year olds do.

As I approached the TV to fix the station I was confused by what I saw on the morning news show. I don't remember which station it was, or what point in the unfolding tragedy we started watching, but we didn't watch Clifford any more right then.

Throughout the morning and the day I remember talking to Jon on the phone, finally deciding that we were comfortable with him staying at work that day. The boys asked if the bad guys would crash a plane at Notre Dame (where Daddy was working). I told them I didn't think so. We prayed for everyone at Daddy's work just the same.

That's really all I remember from that day. I think everything else I "remember" is more a conglomeration of that day and all of the years since then. 

How about you? Where were you? Who were you with? 

Flag photo courtesy of Cyndi Wetmiller. Thanks!

Wordless Wednesday - J'man 2003

Happy Birthday Month to Jason

Hello Friends. It's been August for just about an hour now and I happen to be awake so this seems like a fantastic time to update the blog header for the month.

This month is Jason's birthday. He'll be ten years old. Nothing like hitting double digits to make a guy feel all grown up.

Jason is the kid who is generous and kind. He has always noticed when someone was sad or hurting. When he was a little younger there was a day that I was especially upset and he asked, "Mom, can I sit on your lap?" He was so cute I couldn't say no. So he sat on my lap clutching his blankie and sucking his thumb. You can believe I felt better after those few moments.

Jason helps me remember that it's good just to be there with someone. It's usually not necessary to use lots of words. People don't always need to know what you know or what you think. Sometimes they just need to know that you are there.

I'm so proud of Jason because he goes his own way. He doesn't just follow the crowd. He knows who he is and he sticks with it. There are many things he has told us about his future grown up life that I'm very curious to see how they turn out. And no matter what he thinks right now, his freckles are awesome.

Jason, we love you and you're an awesome kid. Every day with you is an adventure.

Jon and Jason cruising the Caribbean

Jason's "New" Bedroom

I've mentioned before that Jason's bedroom was newly decorated.  I did seek his input before beginning the project and he had asked me to paint the walls black.  I really didn't want to and after consulting with my decorator friend Tricia, we decided to give him two gray walls and two white walls.  Thankfully, Jason was agreeable to this idea, especially when he realized he was going to get black and red accents.  Red is Jason's very favorite color.  

The drawing above was done for the boys Christmas 2008 and just happens to fit wonderfully in the new room.  I just love this little corner right inside the doorway.

We put up a row of cork squares in the corner so Jason could hang his artwork and other cool things.  The quilt he is currently using doesn't really "go" with the design so we thought we would just highlight the new red sheets he is thrilled to have.

The ceiling fan is a big deal in this room, so Jon was a good sport and helped out by painting the blades red.  Mama's punch list of items for completion still include a new quilt and a manga cross stitch design but overall Jason is quite pleased with his newly improved bedroom.

Jason's poem for today

Streaming stripes and stars,

Showing freedom of America,

Streaming red, white, and blue.

I'm channeling Peter Walsh today

Today I asked the boys to make a list of the things they ABSOLUTELY must have in their lives to be happy. Just to be clear at the outset, we're not talking about people, or faith, or anything like that. Today's mission encompasses the stuff of young men's lives. Here are the lists they came up with.

Evan

1. Computer

2. Game Boy & Games

3. Harry Potter Series

4. Wii

5. Zelda Series

6. Board Games

7. Nintendo DS & Games

8. Stuffed Guys

9. Nerf Stuff

10. Pokemon

Jason

1. Computer

2. Nintendo DS

3. Ipod

4. Wii

5. Eragon Series

6. Naruto Series/Shonen Jump

7. Zelda Series

8. YuGiOh Cards

9. Stuffed Guys

10. Bouncy Balls

11. Tornado Toy

Some interesting stuff on those lists I must say. A few things I was surprised by but overall pretty accurate given what I see them doing on a daily basis. So, we went about purging the bedrooms of all things not on the list. And the rule was, for example, the board games must fit in the allotted board game space. If there were too many, then some had to go. Same with stuffed guys, nerf stuff, etc. There was some fussing when we came across stuff not on the list, but they got over it quickly when we referred back to the list.

Sometimes it helps to have focus. They focused on those things they appreciate the most, and the others are going away. Now they will be able to keep their rooms straight and clean. When relatives ask what they want for their birthdays, they can answer with the list in mind. I'm sure the list is going to change over time, people keep telling me they will grow out of Pokemon. Still waiting for that day.

Now, as for the dining room table. Hm. Think it's time to call Goodwill and arrange a pickup.

Planning

Friday - Amish Acres Art Fair

Saturday - Family picnic with friends from high school

J'man has friend's birthday party

Sunday - Harry Potter Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago!

Hm. All of a sudden I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. But this is what summer is. At least, this summer, and for us. We have been on the go since July 2nd, it seems, when we left for South Dakota. Soon the schedule will settle into a routine again, the air will turn crisp, and we'll all begin to wonder aloud when the first snow flakes will fly. Actually, our neighbor already predicted September for that little bit of fun. Isn't she great? Until then, I'll continue harvesting yummy purple and green beans, tomatoes we've finally convinced to turn red, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, cauliflower.