Great Day, prelude to Mother's Day

Today was a pretty great day. I slept in a bit on the couch after I struggled downstairs and turned a movie on for C at dark thirty, I mean 6:38 a.m. (I would just like to note here that on school days he struggles to wake up at 650, but on Saturdays he BOUNCES out of bed at 6:30 am ready to start the day).
The boys left to run errands at 8:30 and I leisurely ate breakfast and watched a DVR show. They got home and we worked out in the yard where C even helped me sweep the driveway. Even though the house is sold, there was much weeding, mowing (done by hubby), sweeping, and some other stuff that still needs to be done. I had to caulk the front porch to get ready for another coat of paint.
C decided he wanted to go to a Bike Ride today and I thought that sounded super cool despite my hyperventilating (not really, but pretty darn near) on our last ride. I need some more practice and build up my endurance. So we pumped up the tires on the tandem bike and headed to Turtle Fest at Bass Lake on bike. I struggled up the first hill, but then it was pretty smooth sailing down to the Lake. Turtle Fest was pretty cool, C got his face painted, won a few turtle toys, made some crafts and petted a ton of turtles. I even fed him an oh so unhealthy snack there of brownie, chips, and lemonade. We then headed home and I was dreading the ride back up toward home. I realized my seat was sitting too low and raised it and it made a huge difference. I managed the whole way except for the very large hill that we walked the bike on. I still will say I barely made it home on the bike and had the last section not been a little downhill, there was no way. I really need to get in better shape. There was one little section where I did have to tell C pedal faster, help mommy. C said it was nice talking on our bike ride and how he was going to do something special for Mother’s Day. I got to tell him that without him, there is no Mother’s Day and he already made it so special. It was so nice just hanging with him talking and riding the bike.
After the bike ride, we went to the pool at the gym. They had the outdoor pool open already, who would have thought that on May 9th we’d be swimming outside in the pool, but it has been hot. I even went down the slide and got all wet. Chris joined us after his workout and we all three hung out in the pool. C splashed us, shot us with water guns and we got to throw him a lot!
And, since there is no way I am posting a pic of me on the tandem bike, I will post an old one of C and hubby on the one we rented in Hilton Head. They are super fun.

Exploratorium

I went to the Exploratorium several times as a kid and have fond memories of driving down to San Fran, walking around Fisherman’s Wharf and going to the Exploratorium. So, for this trip to California, I had to take Christopher to experience some little bits from my childhood and it was so fun seeing it again through his eyes.
He LOVED the Exploratorium. He RAN from exhibit to exhibit touching and playing (the museum is interactive) with everything. I loved seeing how excited he got making a tornado, listening with bat-like ears, trying to walk across the pebbles when the decibel meter was seeing how quiet he could be, looking at the developing chickens and going in the weird shaped house that I remember from my trips.
Not sure that he learned a lot, I tried to read to him what the exhibits were about, but he was more interested in seeing how they worked and doing things and then running full speed to the next exhibit.
Here he is enjoying the Exploratorium of San Francisco.

Diverting Water (This was one of the biggest hits, isn't water usually though?):

Playing with Black Sand and a Magnet, I loved this as a kid:

C and Brian listening with Bat Ears:

The funky shaped room, they loved looking tall:

Uncle Ronnie, Brian and C, I think making fog:

Oh, and did I mention the Exploratorium is right down the street from the Golden Gate bridge? Pictures to follow later.

Girls

Can we say girl crazy? Just a tad bit. C had a sitter tonight, a 14 year old from around the corner. Real sweet, cute girl. So when we get home she tells me he told her how pretty she was and told her she was very cute and asked her to spend the night. Asked her if he was going to get to see her tomorrow. He is such a flirt and so girl crazy at 5, wonder what it will be like at 10, 15? Very scary just to think about. He had been asking for us to have her babysit ever since we got her number a few weeks ago. Pretty sad when your kid is so enthralled with the babysitter he couldn't even say goodbye or give us a hug and kiss.
This week he also got all googly eyed over the cover of the Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated while we were checking out at Barnes and Noble. Just plain girl crazy.

Crafting Away...

I decided to get crafty today. I made a tutu from a tutorial here. I will give it to Gabby, Elysia’s little cutie pie. After making the tutu, I decided to make something for C. I had this cool red shiny costume fabric from an old uncompleted project and decided to make capes. I made one for C and one for Gabby’s brother Derrick. I made the necks too big and that fabric was really hard to sew, but they will be alright.
Here is the tutu and C modeling the cape.

C funny of the day (well not that funny, but he was trying to be funny): He decided that he wanted to make-up a joke. So he said, “Why did the boy sleep with his legos?” I said I don’t know. He said, “So he could play with them when he woke up silly.”
Here he is with Eamon showing off the ships they built.

On the Savannah

C went to the doctor this week for his 5 year physical. Yes, we are late since he is almost 5 ½. He was late on the last one, too. He had his 4 year old one last May so he could get his shots to go to summer camp and then school. We hadn’t really seen the need to follow-up in October with another well visit. He did great at the docs, but was very worried that he was going to get a shot and he didn’t, so that made him super happy. He did get a finger stick which totally stressed him out, but that ended up not hurting at all.
His eye exam went well, they said he has 20/25 vision and his hearing is good. He has grown a bit from the last measurements. I think he was 45 inches and 38 pounds. He is now 46 ½ inches tall and broke the 40 pound mark at 40.6 pounds. So he is 50th percentile for weight and 80th percentile for height and staying on his growth curve which is awesome. The doctor was really funny and loved him and gave him lots of high fives and talked with him a lot to check his development. She LOVED it when she asked where do lions live and he said without a moment of hesitation, “on the Savannah”. She said she normally gets zoo, jungle, forest. So she was pretty impressed. She asked him what do lions, bears, giraffes, tigers and elephants have in common that we don’t have. (She stumped me on that one; I was going to say fur until she got to elephant). He said without hesitation “Tails”. Love it!

Been a while....

I am guessing that my thoughts of keeping the blog updated are really not working very well this year. Hopefully these posts about catching up will become something of the past, but looking at my track record, I rather doubt it.
Here are the latest updates:
We put the house on the market. It took a few months of procrastination on my part and packing on Hubby’s part, but we have it on the market. There have been quite a few showing so far, but no bites yet. We hope to move just one or two towns away, easing my commute a bit to/from work. It will also hopefully put us closer to C’s school. We have been busy trying to do some projects/painting the last two weeks it has been on the market and slowly looking at new houses.
We are ONE step away from being licensed to foster parent. We are pretty excited about this and wonder what this journey will bring us. We are hoping to eventually adopt a foster child and hope this will happen in the next year or two. I wonder if/when we will get a call. I joked today that we might get a call while hubby is home alone and C and I are out in California, I can totally see him playing Mr. Mom for the week.
Hubby got laid off and started a new job. It was very stressful and the layoff was a complete surprise. But, he/we were very lucky and he found a new position right away. He is now testing electronic data capture software for clinical trials. So we both work in clinical trials. He is lucky and gets to work from home, which I secretly (well, now not so secretly) am hating on him for. At least he does laundry while working ;-)
C is doing really well in school. He is starting to read a lot more. He wowed me last night by reading the word “together” without any prompting. His teacher works really hard with the kids on reading and I think our nightly readings help, too. He is counting past 100 now. Still skipping a number here and there sometimes, but doing well. He got his first report card and got all 3’s except in fine motor skills where he got a 2. I think that is very, very good. He has still kept his green streak for behavior. (They get a stamp report on how they are doing every day on their folder, green (good), yellow (a few warnings), red (disruptive behavior), and blue (principal office)). C has only ever gotten green.

All the ways....

All the ways….that I can say I love you! C is such a loving dude and he loves to tell us how much he loves us and comes up with totally creative ways to say it.
One of my faves now is “Mom, I love you as many numbers as there is in the number line.”
Here are some other cool ones:
I love you to the moon and back.
I love you all the way to the sun.
I love you to California, Hawaii and back to North Carolina.
I love you to Hilton Head.
I love you four hundred billion miles. (This is a lot!)
I love you as hot as the sun.
I love you the most in the whole wide world.
I love you all over the United States of America.
Occasionally I will get an “I love you more than”…usually followed by…my toys….my legos…my Nintendo DS (Big one!)

He asked me the other day why I loved him. He just wants a short answer and I tell him how cool and loving and sweet he is or something like that. He is all that and more. I love that he is oh so loving and is always ready with a kiss or a hug or some sweet words.