Go Longhorns!

In other news, Joe began an eight-week session of soccer this week.  It's offered through the park district, is a co-ed league, and is for kids who are between five (as of September 1) and six.  Despite all of these facts, and the fact that many a kid (including one Joseph T. Ekkers) did not understand that when playing soccer, one does not touch the ball with one's hands, most of the kids showed up in shin guards and cleats.  Turns out, the shin guards are required (the letter from the park district containing this detail hadn't yet reached us), so we've procured shin guards but are holding off on the cleats unless it seems like we've got a Becks on our hands.

Joe is on the Longhorns team which sports dark green jerseys.  Darby is also on his team and her dad, Mr. John, bravely volunteered to coach.  This first session was practice only.  In all of the following weeks, a 30 minute game will follow a 20 minute practice.  (In other words, we will watch and cheer on 50 minutes of moderate chaos.)

Getting out of the car, Joe showed the first sign of hesitation and said to Julie, "Mommy, what will soccer be like?"  Julie said, "It will be fun!"  Thankfully, it was, and at almost five, that's all we were hoping for.  Joe clutched Julie's hand and leaned into her leg as he took his first steps on to the field, but he got his bearings pretty quickly.  Then, he saw Mr. John and Darby and was off, running about and doing, one assumes, what he assumed were soccer-like things.

After this first practice, we can say that Our Hero might be catching on to the whole idea of sharing the ball, also known, of course, as passing the ball.  But it took a bit of coaching!  The Longhorns played "sharks and minnows" twice in which sharks tried to take the ball from minnows, who then became sharks.  The first go around, Joe, clearly thinking, "I'm on to this," simply picked up the ball he had and held it.  Some other kid came over and (rather politely) asked if he could have it.  Joe said (rather simply) no. But the second go around, he was all shark then minnow, minnow then shark.

Still, we're thinking the cleats won't be necessary this season.

The Longhorns take some direction from Coach

Teammates (Darby with Our Hero)

Pre-K Graduate

As you know, Fans, Joe will be going to kindergarten this fall.  You may also recall that it was picture day at the KinderCare a few weeks ago.  It was the week everyone in the family save Julie and Ted was barfing (and that we bought our new house!).  As it happened, Clara was sick on what would have been her picture day, while Joe was not.  That's how we ended up with this gem.

Mom.  Dad.  I made it.  I'm a pre-K graduate!!!!!

Of Wooing, and Digging (Like A Dog)

Tonight, at dinner, Joe was asked what he played outside today and he said, "Chase the Girls."  Chase the Girls is all the rage in Pre-K, by the way, Fans.  Julie asked if he caught any girls, and Joe said yes: Emme and Darby.  Julie asked what he did then, and Joe said, "I went inside like I always do."  (Like, duh, Mom.)

Julie wondered allowed if he was wooing them and then remarked that Ted used to woo her, but that she feels he now has her well and wooed.  All of that was what we might call dicta.

Naturally, Joe asked what wooing was.  (You never really know what he'll glom on to and when he does glom on to something, the reason why is usually elusive.)  Ted allowed that wooing was when you tried to get someone to like you and added that it was being "a super bucket filler."

Julie--pretty much always over thinking it--added that one usually wooed people that one wanted to kiss.  Here's how the conversation would up:

Ted (to Julie): "You keep diggin'."
Joe: "Diggin' like a dog!"

Well, after that it was pretty much all over.  Joe was enchanted with the fact that he'd made a funny, shall we say, and sallied forth with "Diggin' like a cat!"

You gotta quit while you're ahead.

Clara tried, "Diggin' like an elephant!"

See above.  Ibid.

A View From the Shore

Fans, as you know, when we were in California, we went to the beach.  It was in Corona del Mar, a town in Newport Beach--CdM as the local apparently call it.  (A brochure we collected from the front desk of our hotel informed us that the locals referred to it this way, but Julie at least didn't believe it until Carrie, who was local to Orange County for many years, called it that.)  CdM's beach has little waves, because the are broken by The Wedge (again, so sayeth the locals).  One certainly couldn't surf at CdM's beach, but the waves were plenty big for the bambini.

It was interesting to see how each of them met the beach just how they meet the rest of the world: Joe, cautious at first, but open always, and easy once he knew the lay of the land; Clara, plunging right in, laughing and delighting in the whole whirl.  As they gauged and got acclimated to the strength of the waves, Joe would stand until they just reached him and then scamper away; Clara had to be held back with interlaced hands so she wasn't pulled forward and out.  But after a while, it was Joe who hung out along the shore with Julie, meeting the waves, and Clara who pattered around away from it, entranced with everything else there was to see besides the waves. To be fair, maybe they way they were was to do with their ages, but at the same time, they were just so just the way they are.

California Love

California. . .knows how to party. . .We keep it rockin'. . .

Fans, we are back from California.  While we were gone, Raleigh House sold!  It was bought by a contractor who--grab this!--went to Northwestern!  He played football for the Wildkitties; class of '02.  Go Cats!  In case things fall apart (not that a former Wildcat would know anything about that), Fierce Realtor Cindy has also secured a back-up offer from, as it happens, another realtor.  We close on Raleigh House about two weeks after we close on the New House, on July 16, but Fans, already it feels a little funny here.  Wildcat Contractor has brought in an architect so it seems Raleigh House will not remain as she does today.  Maybe that is for the best--like, maybe if it's a different house, somehow it will feel better that it's not our house anymore?  Of course, it helps to have New House to which to look forward, too!

Now that we are back, it is fair to say that the bambini are off their feed.  Really, all of us are off our feed between the mad dash to make ready Raleigh House for sale, packing for California, living out of suitcases for a little over a week, eating fast food that same amount of time, and being two hours ahead and then two hours back in the span of a week.  As this report is filed, Clara is wailing because she was covered with her blanket when apparently, she wanted to cover herself up with her blanket, but not enough to actually do it once she'd pitched it on the floor.  By then, she wanted Julie to do it and if you can't keep. up. with that, well, maybe you should go get under a blanket and call it a week.  Frankly, that doesn't sound half bad, and we'd welcome someone tucking us in thank you very much.  We'd be back to our regularly scheduled programming in no time if we could spend a week under a blanket.

The last time we went on vacation, to Arizona, we brought you a compendium of conversational tidbits.  We intended to do the same this time, we really did.  But Ted was running zone defense for a lot of the trip and we spent an awful lot of time in the pool which does not mix with the iPhone where one keeps such a compendium.  But, we captured the following and Fans, we think you will agree: good stuff.

First day, in the car driving to the hotel:
Joe, to Clara: Stop making that noise.  It's disgusting.
Clara: It's not disgusting.  It's annoying.

Second to last day, in the car, driving back to the hotel to go to the pool:
Joe: I'm going to ask Santa for an ax, a heavy ax so I can knock things down!  Clara, do you want an ax?
[Clara made no reply, but perhaps her silence said, "Boys are weird sometimes."]

It is also perhaps worth noting that one of Joe's new pet phrases in his ongoing effort to mimic disciplining Clara, is to tell her she is "disrupting the narrative flow," which is what Julie tells the bambini when they want her to read every sentence in every thought bubble and every word on every sign or label or what have you when reading a book.  Try it sometime, Fans.  Doing that totally disrupts the narrative flow.  Memo to the Berenstains of this decade: fewer thought bubbles, fewer signs and such.  But, Fans, you can also try dropping a "you're disrupting the narrative flow" on someone the next time they are being disgusting (or annoying) and seeing how things flow then.