Blinded by the light

Don't ask where we've been or what we've been doing - I prefer not to discuss the blinding mayhem of the past few weeks other than to say IF we can get the new computer from Hell to work and IF Bill's techy Radiant guys can retrieve all the lost data and pictures (aahhh!!!)  from our old blue-screened computer and IF we can get any pictures from the past month off our camera and into our ever-crashing computer system, THEN I can re-enter the world of the blog. 

I promise that IF A, B, C and all the stars align THEN, and only then, will I be able to relate the wonderfully busy, emotional and memorable happenings of the past few weeks.  The end of Preschool, the end of Junior League, the end of Speech Therapy... lots of finishing moments.  

For now, know that we are all fine and well and immensely enjoying a "Daddy Week."  Bill has taken the week off work to hang out with the boys and me before we disappear for the summer.  

As we put the boys to bed at 9:52 tonight - after spending the night playing guitar and singing fun songs together - I finally feel like summer has arrived.  Oh, and I highly recommend the relaxed pace of a "staycation."  

I will leave you - for only a short while, I hope - with a quick chuckle from tonight.  While eating out on the patio of a Mexican restaurant tonight, we were discussing the enticing setting sun.  Bill tried to use the "teaching moment" and talk to the kids about why they should never look directly into the sun, emphasizing the damage that could happen to their eyes.  

To drive the point home, I added without thinking "Yeah, and you could go blind!"  As soon as it was out of my mouth, I saw Bill's laughter and I realized how stupid a comment it was - it didn't work for masturbation why would it work for setting suns?!  (Yeah, I said it.)  

As usual Brady had an instant response: 

"That's OK, Mommy.  If I were to be blinded by the sun, I could still TALK!"  

Well, Brady, as Uncle Michael once said:  You could talk a dog off a meat wagon!  

Hmmm.  I wonder to whom he was referring... 

Speak to ya'll soon!

When it all adds up

On the way to get Brady from school today, an amazing - and very rare - event occurred... Parker fell asleep.  Sound asleep!  And even more surprising for the child who these days infrequently naps, he didn't fidget when I transferred him to his bed -  that oh-so-snuggly bed which had been changed into fresh sheets by Miss Theresa only three hours prior.  

And having learned from a recent bedding dry-cleaning urgency in Florida (apologies again Grandma!), I did have the forethought to put down a thick triple layer of towels under his bottom.  And we needed them, btw.

So on downstairs for a one-on-one lunch with Brady.  While looking through his backpack I pulled out a flyer for Mathnasium, a math tutoring and learning center (recently opened by a Smyrna mom who I know from school and church.)  Brady took great interest in it.  I told him it was a place kids could go to help them better learn their math skills, and he asked, "Like three plus three equals six?"  

"Exactly," I told him.  He paused, thought for a minute and then with a mouth full of quesadilla declared, "I want to know adding."  

Well, we have a quiet and uninterrupted teaching moment.  So I seized it!  I sent him upstairs to grab his good-ol' Melissa & Doug Abacus, and we sat together for a half hour looking at how you can add beads, subtract beads and even multiply rows of beads. 

After much oral discussion and quizzing I gave him some written "test" questions and walked away to see if he could figure them out all on his own.  While 6+3 was weirdly 10 the first time he figured it, he got all the remaining questions correct!   He even excitedly discovered that you can make "7" in different ways, showing me 3+4 and 5+2 on different rows of the abacus.  

In the end, his face had a HUGE smile and he exclaimed, "Oh.  My.  Gosh!   I Totally Get Math!"   

And watching that "Ah-Ha!" moment appear on his face, I was tickled to infinity.  

My Men and their Tools

My boys love tools!  Tools of CONstruction.  Tools of DEstruction.  Tools used to screw, saw, shape, cut, slice, blow, bind, twist ... and chisel!  

Brady received a fabulous chisel dig site for Christmas from Cousin Jack and still-in-utero baby Annie.  He attacked it wholeheartedly and didn't stop chiseling away until there was nothing more than a pile of stones on the table and a collection of priceless pirate artifacts.  

We have seen these cool adventure digs at other times and have been tempted to purchase them (and perhaps have already stashed one away for his birthday!)  

So we were not surprised when Brady recently went to the King Tut exhibit with Grandy, and Brady convinced Grandy to buy him a Mummy Tome chisel set.  Once again, the boys dove right in - safety glasses and toothbrushes in hand - and chiseled away until the ancient relic was discovered and only dusty stones remained!  

Maybe Brady can be the next Indiana Jones when he grows up!  After viewing the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it is safe to say that Harrison Ford has definitely gotten a little too crotchety for the role, and Brady is way cuter than Shia LaBeouf (at least his mommy thinks so!)

Yeah, Yeah, I know...

I know that Easter was almost a month ago, but I have a bunch of really cute photos from our family trip to Florida, so I want to share some great snap shots of Cousins Jack and Baby Annie, Brady and Parker ... Oh, yeah, and a couple of grown-ups were there, too.  Enjoy!