There is no pre-school right now. The kids have been on break since 8/7 and do not start school again until 9/1. So, this has been our first week of being back together 24/7. They are handling it very well! Maybe what I mean is I am handling it very well... and they are enjoying it!
Monday and Tuesday we had real temps of 98* and heat indices of 105+*. You can see how we handled that in the post from the other day. They loved having the wading pool to splash in and Gretchen really enjoyed the sprinkler, Carl got bored quickly. Now, my mother was worried.... you do not need to worry. Water does not flow from anything in NC right now at a cold temperature. That hose water was not cold!
We did try going to their favorite play place on Wednesday, but it wasn't a lot of fun for Gretchen & Mommy as a team. The kids wanted to play and do their own separate things, which is fine except I am only one person and the center has 3 rooms and a playground. Of course, Miss Art Lover's room of choice was 2 rooms away from Mr Train Table's choices. I hate going there and seeing the other mothers all chatting away or texting or talking on their phones and ignoring their kids. So, I must have looked worse! I wasn't even in the room with mine - which kind of breaks the policy, too. I'm a pretty big regular there, though, and the ladies who run the place know I play with my kids when we are there - they are just used to seeing me with Frick or Frack, not both at once. Anyway, since Carl has a tendency to plow over babies, I follow him a lot more closely. That left Gretchen playing independently a lot. She spent a good deal of time playing with the tool bench center thing. Hammers, wrench, screwdriver... I made the mistake of singing "If I Had A Hammer...." to her and then she wanted me to sing the Screwdriver song! And the Wrench song! The other parents must have loved me changing words and singing to her while they tried to have snack with their kids. Or maybe they didn't even notice I was interrupting their texting marathon.
The fun thing was just before we left, they brought out the big parachute. We have never been there for that! All the kids and Moms played and flipped it around. Then the kids got to stand on top of it, then under it, then they put balls on tops and we flipped them all over! And - even after all that - Mary said, "Now, everybody grab a ball and bring it over here for the bag!" and all the kiddos helped clean up! Yeah, even mine! (at home, it has gotten to the point where if we put out an album of them singing our 2 cleaning up songs, it would go platnum... but the toys would remain strewn on the floor.)
We've been having hand-me-down fashion shows in the mornings as we sort thorugh our drawers and closet and weed out things that are too small. Gretchen has been good at putting something on and saying, "This is too small. Let's give it to -----" or... "I want to keep this, Mommy!" Carl is going to be bugged when he realized hte purple polar bear jammies are gone! They were one of those one piece, fuzzy, footie things in size 3T and they barely fit him. But, he has been requesting them lately - so I keep saying they are dirty. Last night he picked something else. I think he has moved onto a new favorite. But, boxes of clothes are leaving the house! That makes me happy! We also have some friends here who are expecting a baby in November. They will take much of our leftover gear! And for that, I am super grateful!!!!!
Today is Thursday, Carl's therapist Ashlie came over today because he is not in school. We all love her and really look forward to having her in the house. Although, I always worry about the floors being clean enough. This summer, so far she has come over twice and both times she has been amazed at how much and how well Carl is talking. He just doesn't talk much at school. In his defense, his friends are a bit exciting, loud and even rowdy... so he doesn't really jump in and talk much. We're trying to figure out how to bridge this gap, though. But, until then, I am just happy that she sees what he is capable of. In September, the twins will graduate to the next classroom which will have more expectations. I am looking forward to seeing how Carl does with more structure. The class they are leaving was very age appropriate, but geared for 2 year olds. I hope the 3 year old room will present both kids with new challenges and lots of opportunity to grow.
So, there's our week so far. I don't have anything planned for tomorrow. That's kind of nice! Saturday, we'll be going swimming again! Carl can't wait!! He walks around the house with a bottle of sunscrenn (we are on our 3rd bottle this summer!) asking for "yotion" because if you have suntan lotion on then you can go to "my swimming"! But, since that last post, both kids have started really swimming! They both will swim across the deep end of the pool alone! I swim along next to them - but if I even attempt to help Gretchen, I hear, "I can do this myself, Mommy." Last Saturday, 2 older kids were there trying to learn how to dive. Carl would stand right there on the side with them - they would dive in (or belly flop in) and then Carl would jump right in after them. He was even trying to lean forward at one point. he wanted so badly to dive! Honestly, I think he would have been as good or better than those 2 were!
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