Update: Owen's Summer List

Play in the creek with friends

Needle/Haystack

I'm helping Owen reassemble his LEGO fire station this morning.

I just spent 10 minutes looking for this...

in the middle of all of this.

And when I looked back at the instruction booklet, there they were taunting me:

two little symbols next to the image of the pieces I'd just valiantly hunted.

x2

Pickin' and Grinnin'

We took a gaggle of kids down to Morgan Creek Vineyards yesterday to pick blueberries.  Good times.  Thanks friends!

Rainy Days

The weather has been yucky here for the past two days, so Owen and I have spent lots of time at the dining table.  He's practicing his letters, and I'm doing a paint by number.  Does it surprise you that I looked everywhere for directions when I first opened the kit?  As if they could get more explicit than the hundreds of tiny numbers and corresponding numbered paints...

Update: Owen's Summer List

Swim

This isn't one of those one-and-done items; we'll be going to the pool at least a couple of times a week all summer.  But I figured I would go ahead and mark it off the list.

Owen's never had official swim lessons.  I told myself if I couldn't help him learn by midway through this summer I'd sign him up for classes.  Right now he's somewhere between actually swimming and having what looks like an underwater seizure.  But even when he's seizing he makes forward progress, so I have hope that he'll figure things out on his own.  And he's having a blast, so that's what matters anyways!

Outdoor happenings

Owen made a friend while we were out walking in our woods today.  That first photo disturbs me a bit because Owen's holding the little guy like a cheeseburger he's about to devour.  I think the turtle was wandering and out of sorts from the big storm we had yesterday.  The storm had us out of sorts for a bit too.

Luckily this pin oak only dealt a glancing blow to our house.  It was wild sitting in the living room and watching that thing come down out side the window.  The insurance company will be out tomorrow to check out where it damaged our covered porch, roof and gutters.  Fingers crossed that they will cover most of it!

It's like riding a bike

Guess what?  Balance bikes aren't just hipster kid nonsense.  They really work!

Eight days ago, Owen got his new bike.  Right away he could balance and pedal if we got him started.

Two days ago, he figured out how to start off and coast until he could find the pedals with his feet and then take off on his own.

Yesterday he figured out how to use the brakes to stop.

Today he's spent the whole morning riding up and down the street, and he looks like he's been on a bike forever.

Now there were definitely some McEnroe-worthy fits early on.  He couldn't stand not being perfect at it right away (wherever would he have gotten that trait?), but he was never that scared of falling.  And I think that's because the balance bike had taught him the feel of riding.  It's so much fun watching him learn new things.

And hopefully he's figuring out that you have to be willing to be bad at stuff before you can get good at it.  And that's perfectly okay.