Bringin' Home the Clothes Pin

Fans.  No doubt you have been waiting with bated breath.  Exhale, because it's happened: Our Hero has brought home the clothes pin.  That's right, Joe Nation!  We arrived at KinderCare today and found a new number 6 clothes pin on the rainbow discipline chart.  It is colored red to denote, we assume, that  Joe already has filled one with five stickers.  There was only one small hiccup in our departure: we could not find Joe's clothes pin to take home with us.  We tossed the cubby: nothing.  Joe suggested looking in the kitchen to which a distracted Julie acquiesced before the less distracted Ted wondered aloud in a rhetorical way if the clothes pin would really be in the kitchen, and stopped that train in its tracks.  We decided to ask Ms. Jolene who said that they'd just been looking at it moments ago and wondered where it could have gone.  She asked Joe if he'd taken it with him to Pre-K, which is when Julie (her head now in the game) asked if Joe had put it in his pocket, to which Our Hero replied, "Oh! Yeah."  Then he drew it forth and there it was, in all its glory.

To celebrate, we made like a commercial from the eighties, and took him to dinner at McDonald's.  As a bonus, the McDonald's we went to was under construction.  Construction equipment in the parking lot!  We sat at folding tables on a slightly nicer version of folding chairs, in the middle of the torn up McDonald's, and Our Hero couldn't have been more pleased.  Neither could we.

In the Pink

We have been meaning to report about the new discipline plan instituted in Joe's room at school a few weeks ago.  For probably a number of reasons, the denizens of Preschool B were getting the better of Mr. Jonathan and Ms. Vanessa on a pretty regular basis.  So Mr. Jonathan and Ms. Vanessa took a stand!  They assigned every child a number, which they then wrote on a clothespin.  That clothespin moves up or down a rainbow ladder on which each color is associated with a behavior or consequence.  Everyone starts on green ("Ready to Learn"), and the goal is to get to pink ("I Did My Best Today!") and avoid the red ("Contact Home"), and really, also, the orange ("Consequences"--the vagueness of which just sounds ominous).  Upon reaching pink, one gets a sticker on one's clothespin.  After garnering five stickers, one gets to take his clothespin home and begin again.

Though we've not yet had a clothespin brought home, we are pleased to report to you, Joe Nation, that Our Hero has been on the south side of green but once maybe?  And that he has four stickers!  That's right: he is one sticker away from bringing home the clothespin.

It's awesome, Fans, but you know, sometimes, you do have these moments, as a parent, where you step back and think, "Am I really thinking 'Yes!  The clothespin!  Comin' home!'?!" And you realize that, yes, you are.  You are.

But here's to being in the pink, doing your best every day, and going for the clothespin.  Whether you are four, or forty-four, or ninety-four, what's it's all about remains about the same.

A Birthday Party

This afternoon found us at Joe's buddy Jonathan's birthday party which lived up to its "backyard water fun" billing with its inflatable water slide pool contraption centerpiece.  When we arrived, the water fun was in full swing and both bambini were a little daunted.  Birdie perched on Julie's lap, and Joe watched from Ted's side, before the bambini banded together for a bit in the sandbox.  But eventually, Joe made his move.  He plunged into the line for the slide, made it up the top (the first two times with the assistance of someone else's older brother), and slide down, landing in a bewildered but quickly triumphantly gleeful heap at the bottom.  Clara saw no reason she couldn't do this, too, and she did--a few times!--despite the speed with which she would shoot down the slide, and being more stunned than anything upon reaching the bottom.

Fans, it's such a kick to see them wade into life at their own pace, with their own style and brand of confidence.

Puddle Hunt

There was a gentle summer thunderstorm this morning which was wonderful in that sleep-in-and-listen-to-the-rain-on-the-roof kind of way, but not so wonderful in that meet-up-at-the-park kind of way.  Of course, the latter is what Joe and Clara had plans to do with Graham and Connor this morning.  Instead, they came over to Raleigh House.  By the time they arrived, it had stopped raining, and the world was puddle-wonderful.*  And you know what that means, Fans: we're goin' on a puddle hunt.  We're gonna  find some big ones.  And we did.  Especially on Graham and Connor's old block on which they have been reinstalling drain grates, and where they had not yet resurfaced the street, and where we thus found great big "orange puddles," otherwise known as standing water.  The gang charmed many a passerby in his or her car.

The hunt begins.

Great big orange puddle. (It's true.  Joe and Graham have the same shorts and shoes on.  Their mothers have great minds that think alike.)

Motley crew.

It must be noted that it was Birdie who showed the boys how to tame the puddles hunted.  Our Bold Girl was (naturally) the first to step into the big orange puddle and splash all around.  (She also mucked around in plenty of muck.)

She's in!

Eventually, one of the four found some stray piece of concrete from the newly poured curbs and curb cutouts, but there were plenty more from where it had come.  Big splashes and lofty lessons about gravity, as well as more prosaic lessons about not throwing rocks while our friends are in front of us, followed.

Whoa.

So, too, did a hose down in underwear back at the ranch.

Hose down.

Just think, Fans: it was only a year ago that Joe and Graham were hunting down fire hydrants while Clara and Connor were napping, or were pushed along in their sporty (or macho) red roadsters.  Oh Fans.  It went by fast.  As  fast the 15 years that have passed since their mothers' friendship began.

*e.e. cummings.  Good stuff.

Dance Party

After the bambini ate tonight, we had a dance party.  We were spinning a song list comprised entirely of hits by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  Now in this first picture here, you see Joe dancing to You  Are Not Alone.  Now Fans, as you may know, this is a slow dance song.  It takes you right to your eighth grade dance in the gymnasium where though you may think that the truly brave are dancing to the slow stuff, really, it's the truly brave that are dancing to the fast stuff.  After all, no one is dancing to the slow stuff.  Instead, really, they are standing, and swaying.

We tried turning in a circle, holding hands, but Our Hero was really having none of it, and Clara was tooting on a kazoo.  (It's really too bad that MJ couldn't have consulted with these two on production and video.  It's clear their contributions would have been taken the song to a whole other level.)  Luckily, You Are Not Alone was followed by Beat It and I'm Bad, and it must be said, the dancing: bad.  Fans, we leave it up to you to decide if we are using that word in its slang sense, or its true sense.  But, we were in it together--which is to say not alone--and that is what dancing, and family, are all about.