Fall Flowers

In the midst of Clara's Beasts class, the boys left to gather up the week's necessities at Target.  After class, because it was feeling like fall, and because they were caught up in the spirit of it all, Julie and Clara decided to head to the farm stand across the way for some mums for the pots out front.  Clara decided on purple and orange, of which Julie approved.  Then, the Birds headed home and Julie helped Clara plant them.  By the time the Birds were done, the boys were home and Julie took a few pictures of the bambini by the new fall flowers.

Here, Joe is aghast that he was been asked to make like he actually likes his sister (which he does).

The old switcheroo!  A classic tactic!  Now that Joe is in the spirit, Clara can't be bothered.  Um, like, she already smiled?!

Not bad.

Clara: "Dude.  What are we doing?" Joe: "We're 'smelling the flowers.'  Mommy is nuts, but let's just do this thing and get it over with."

Saturday Mornings Are For Learning!

Before swimming, ready to go

 Fans, if you would like to get yourself up and going, what you should do is schedule some swimming lessons for eight bells.  That's what we did, and, well, it's gonna be awesome all fall long.*  When one begins to be interested in swimming lessons for one's tot up here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, one quickly learns that the gold standard is Foss--The Foss Swim School.  Now that we have been to one lesson, we get it.  Hence, the 8am lesson--classes are small and returning families register first, so the more reasonable times of 9am and 9:30am are not readily available to new families.

Foss runs a pretty slick operation.  There's a pool divided into nine sections and multiple, small classes of different levels go on at once.  It seems like it would be distracting, but the teachers in each section seem to move at such a quick clip and do goofy things like get a high five that (naturally) sends them reeling back into the water, that the kids don't really have time to be distracted.

Joe is in the "Littles 1" class with just two other kids.  His teacher's name is Jeanine.  From what Julie and Clara could tell from the observation room, the focus of the first lesson was kicking.  Joe was super into the kicking business.  Splashes abounded.  Teacher Jeanine also floated with each kid around the class's section twice.  Julie could see Joe's leg relax the second time around.

Poolside

The lesson is half an hour so before we knew it, it was over.  Birdie's Beasts class at The Little Gym is at nine, and Joe decided that he wanted to watch Clara like Clara had watched him.  He's like the big man on campus at The Little Gym.  He saw Teacher Kayla on the way in who hadn't realized Clara was his sister, and couldn't believe that he is four.  (Joe was in her class when he was two.)  The boys didn't stay for the whole 50 minute class, and Clara was a little sad when she discovered that they were gone, but she rallied for all the Little Gym fun.

Here are Birdie and Julie getting ready to sing the Beasts welcome song.  If Julie tries to shake the maraca before the song has begun, Clara will turn to her and say, "No!  Not yet!" 

*As Julie was typing this post, here is what she heard from downstairs: "Oh, Clara!  What are you doing?  Did you put Gorilla in the bowl?!  Now he's got flour all over him.  Don't put Gorilla in my batter."  This was met with laughter.

Paul!

Last night, Julie had lain down on the couch to read a few pages of her own book while she waited to read books to Clara who was getting into her pajamas with Ted.  Joe was a little wound up so Ted had banished to the living room to get into his own pajamas without getting distracted by his partner in crime, or get her more riled up.  So there was this little storm of brown fabric and floppy limbs spinning around on the floor as Julie read.  Once Joe emerged from his self-created hurricane of activity that is him donning clothing, he asked Julie what she was reading.  Julie flipped the book closed to show Joe the cover and said, "Winter Journal."  As it happens, the author's name (Paul Auster) is much larger than the title on the cover of this particular book and Joe asked what those words were.  Julie pointed to the letter P and asked Joe what it was.  After Joe identified it correctly, she said they would sound the rest out together and Fans, she'd just finished saying that when Joe said simply, "Paul!"  Like it weren't no thing! He doesn't even know a Paul!  (Save Wyatt and Gavin's dad in Seattle, but he's only seen that Paul twice in his whole life, and not his name spelled out.)  Julie laughed and Joe started spinning around and around and around on his hands and knees on the floor, laughing.  As he said to Ted, he read the whole thing through, all by himself.

Joe Goes to Pre-K

Fans.  Today was Joe's official first day in the pre-K room!  He's spent a few full days in there over the course of the summer, but was then still on the pre-B roster.  Not so anymore.  We are starin' down the barrel at kindergarten with our very own pre-kindergartner.  Can you believe it?  Neither can we.  Not hardly.

Things roll in the pre-K room pretty much the way they did in the pre-school rooms, in that units are still two weeks long with curriculum unified by those two-week themes, but there is more emphasis on the beginnings of reading and writing.  For example, in the pre-B room, Joe used to write his name each day by the door on a sheet.  Initially, his name was spelled out in dots.  From there he progressed to free-handing it and from there, to still free-handing it, but with an uppercase J and a lowercase o and e.  Now, he signs in on a dry erase board, and with his first and last name, as we read after the fact in our welcome packet.  Today, he signed only Joe.  But Fans, here was the bit that was almost to precious to bear: the first thing Joe did was draw a line and it wasn't the cross bar for the J to follow.  No, it was the blank line on which he wrote his name.

Incidentally, today was also Cousin Nick's first day of high school, and he came up on our way to school.  Clara remains in her "twos" room until she turns three, but today was the first day of her room's unit on families.  In anticipation, we reviewed our family members as we drove from home to school, including, of course, Cousin Nick.  Joe informed us that he "has a Nick."  His Cousin Nick "has two names.  Cousin and Nick."  Joe just calls him Nick.    Special to Two Names Cousin Nick: we were thinking of you today, and hope you had a great first day of what will be a great freshman year.

Reading True North

We finished E.B. White's Stuart Little last night, Fans.  Those of you familiar with the tale might recall that at its end, Stuart is motoring along in his little car when he is met by a fork in the road, beside which is resting a telephone repair man.  When Stuart stops to consider the fork, the two strike up a conversation about the relative merits of the four cardinal points.  They agree that a "person who is heading north is not making any mistake."  This put Julie in mind of North Toward Home, which Jane first gave her.  It's Willie Morris' account his coming of age in the forties, fifties and sixties, imagining his future as this country was remaking itself in those decades, and his pilgrimage, as one reviewer puts it, from the Deep South to the North, which Morris comes to call, of course, home.

Julie finds that one of the greatest joys to come from reading, is the rush of affinity one's heart sometimes feels for the author, even as one's mind cautions against ascribing too much intent and purpose to the author's prose.  Last night though, it was hard not to ride the heart's swell, as she read the last lines of Stuart Little, thinking about all the people and places that she labels home, her journey to here and now, and all the accidents and choices that have marked that journey, some--all?--of which brought her to be reading that particular story, on that particular night, to that particular boy, her son, while his dad made dinner in the kitchen and his sister waited up for him in their room.  Intellectually, one knows that there is so much chance in a life (and can even admit that there is some comfort in that notion, especially when one has been dealt a blow), but somehow, this recognition stands side by side with what seems equally certain: that this life, was meant to be.  Of course it was.  It could be no other way.  It is hard to hold both of these truths.  So says the mind.  But the heart knows different, right?  It's easy to hold it all there.  As easy as holding the little boy, and the little girl, who are just starting out on their way--north, south, east, west.

Stuart does head north and the reader is told that "As [Stuart] peered ahead into the great land stretched before him, the way seemed long.  But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction."

We picked up a new chapter book yesterday and don't worry, Fans: it's Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, so it's not likely to send Julie off on some metaphysical musing the way Stuart Little did here.