Heading East

It's a bit of a crazy time to be traveling, but we made our way East to spend time with family.  Things are just starting to kind of open up, and honestly, it felt like everyday there was something new we had to worry about when going state to state.  Even with all the restrictions we still had a wonderful time seeing both sides of our family.  As we drove up to my sister's house we got takeout in Cleveland and ate by the Kirtland Temple.  It's not open right now, but it was fun to see it. 

The cousins were pretty excited to see each other.  They decided to do a camp-out in the backyard.  They roasted marshmallows and ate Smores.  BB was thoroughly convinced of the virtues of using peanut butter cups. They're a wild bunch together, but they keep themselves completely entertained, so it's great.

 They each had a cousin buddy in their tent.  It started out as a lot of fun, but in the end, only 2 of them lasted the entire night in the tents, because a huge thunderstorm rolled in around 2 in the morning.  Mel and Little Lady somehow remained dry, but everyone else was wet and came inside seeking a dry place to sleep.

E for Effort

We try to have scripture study every morning with the children.  Some days it's lovely, and other days...

 things don't go quite so well.

Thank Goodness for Progress

If you've ever been to the pool with a lot of little children you know the real fear of having someone drown on your watch.  The pool used to just stress me out, because I always had at least 2 children who couldn't independently swim.  This summer we've made real progress, and I only have 1 child who is in danger of drowning, and even he's way better than before.  I'm so grateful our friend has been coming to our neighborhood pool to teach them, because it's made a huge difference.

Little Lady has been working on her dolphin kick and butterfly strokes just like she wanted to do.  Her other strokes have also improved quite a bit. 

Little Man joined her this week in lessons, and Miss Sara has helped him have a more efficient free stroke that will definitely help him whittle down his triathlon time.  

BB is finally independently swimming in the deep end of the pool.  Last summer he wouldn't even get in on that side of the pool, so I'm thrilled that I finally have a full-fledged swimmer.

The biggest surprise and my greatest joy is that Little Guy has started swimming a little on his own, and he really enjoys it.  He obviously still needs someone in the pool with him, but now that he can actually swim a little I don't have to be constantly worried he's going to drown.  He has a bit more self-awareness now.  Last summer he would always take off his life jacket and then flounder in the pool, so my stress levels have gone way down this summer.  Wahoo!!

Thank goodness for progress! 

Triathlon

We're so proud of Little Man.  He worked so hard and participated in his first mini-triathlon on Friday.  He trained for a couple of months at home, and then he had 2 weeks of Triathlon Camp.  He came home every day nice and red even though we slathered him in sunscreen and he reapplied throughout the day.  He actually started eating a lot of food for the first time as well.  Everyday worked on all the legs of the event in varying lengths.  They even went on a 14 mile bike ride one of the days.  We didn't get to come cheer for him on the day of the race, because of crowd restrictions, but we were there in spirit.

 Now that he's got an official time he's anxious to whittle down his time.  He was disappointed with his time, because he had some trouble getting his socks and shoes on after the swim, but I think he did an awesome job.  There aren't many 11 year olds out there participating in triathlons!  He's hoping sports won't be canceled this Fall, so that he can participate in Cross Country.  Running is his favorite leg of the competition. 

Heading Back Firsts

Our library opened back up this week.  My kiddos were so excited!  They've been missing checking out books so much.  We used to go multiple times a week.  We stockpiled books right before the state shut everything down, but they've been done with those for weeks.  We went to the library right before closing time this week and they had the children's section to themselves to look for books.  It was lovely.  There's obviously no staying and playing at the library right now, but the kiddos didn't care.  They were just tickled to get their hands on some new books.

 The kiddos also had their first recital since December.  We split the recital in 2 different times to keep the number of people low and everyone used hand sanitizer before and after touching the piano.  It was a rather short recital, but it was lovely to hear 3 Seniors play before they head off to college.  They are such accomplished pianists.  Little Lady sang for the very first time, and Little Guy sang the words as he played.  Little Man thought it was pretty cool that he got to play on a $200,000 12 foot concert grand piano.  All three did a lovely job.  BB's song wasn't quite ready, so he's working toward the next recital.  He's pretty excited, because he's working on a Star Wars song. 
 

Acceleration

Back in the Fall when Little Man was officially tested for the Gifted program, his 5th grade teacher and Gifted teacher brought up the possibility of considering Little Man for whole grade acceleration.  To be completely honest we didn't take it very seriously, because we've never really been proponents of skipping grades, and Little Man is so small for his age.  I just thought that was a recipe for disaster.  I was surprised when he came to us and said he set a goal to skip 6th grade.  I told him it was kind of a difficult goal to measure but that we would go ahead and have him tested for it in the Spring if he still felt strongly about it.  It takes into account physical size and social abilities as well as the academic aspects, so that reassured me a bit. 

...and then Covid 19 hit.  With all the online schooling and craziness I just assumed that would put an end to the issue.  Joel and I decided just to drop the subject completely since Little Man wasn't pushing the issue.  Imagine our surprise when the school psychologist contacted me last week to set up a Zoom meeting to discuss Little Man's acceleration testing.

The meeting consisted of Little Man's 5th grade teacher, his gifted teacher, the school psychologist,  his elementary school principal, the middle school assistant principal, and the middle school gifted teacher.  This school district uses the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) to determine whether the child is a candidate or not.  The scale is out of 80 points.  Once the score is 45 or higher the recommendation is to advance the child a grade.  Anything above a 60 is considered an excellent candidate for whole grade acceleration and it is highly recommended.  Little Man scored a 66.5.

The meeting was very informative.  It was slightly funny, because Joel and I seemed to be the only hesitant ones.  Joel particularly wanted to know the benefits of whole grade acceleration since we can easily see some of the drawbacks.  The most obvious one being that he's already little for his age, and he's sweet and innocent.  It feels a little bit like throwing him to the wolves.  Middle school is known as the Dark Years for a reason.  My biggest fear is gym class - a locker room with bigger and older boys.  Also, I wasn't sure how to give him a chance to become oriented to the new school and schedule since all the other kids would have gone through that when they came in as 6th graders. 

I really appreciated everyone's input.  His 5th grade teacher in particular felt so strongly that he needed to be accelerated.  She said in all of her years of teaching she's never met a child like Little Man.  His drive to learn and soak in information is unparalleled.  The middle school people helped with some of the nitty gritty details for us:

• Since he was already in advanced math this year, they would make sure he stayed with the same kids next year in math, so that he would still have some friends in at least one of his classes.
• He would take Gifted as an elective, so that he stays with a small group of peers who he is most likely to connect with 
• He would attend 6th grade orientation with the other incoming students (it's a separate day before school officially starts)
• He would like to take both Chinese and Spanish, so they would provide me the learning prerequisites from 6th grade Spanish, so that I can get him ready for 7th grade Spanish.  They'll test him in the Fall.
• With wanting to have enough room in his schedule for all of this they would offer him an online gym course he can do on his own.  (This one relieves quite a bit of anxiety on my end)
• They would also schedule a day for him to come to the building to just meet with the assistant principal and gifted teacher

In the end, we left the decision up to Little Man.  He wants it so badly.  I was surprised by how much he wanted it, and even after us talking to him about the drawbacks he was still adamant that this was what he wanted to do.  We're obviously still a little nervous, but we're nervous about middle school in general anyway, so maybe I should be grateful he'll only be in middle school for 2 years instead of 3 now. 

We now officially have a 7th grader!

Monochromatic Blocks

May and June blocks were combined for do.Good Stitches.  Stephanie kept it simple, because we have several quilt circle members who are recovering from surgery and other life complications.  We just needed to make 4 monochromatic 4 patch blocks.  We used 5 inch squares for the blocks.  As I was making them I was thinking that this would be an awesome way to use my scrap pile.  I think I might start cutting more squares, so my next quilt can be 4 patches. 

June Dates

It was Little Lady and Little Man's turn for dates this month.  Little Lady wanted to go to the dinosaur exhibit at PrairieFire Museum and then get ice cream at Betty Rae's.  Both establishments just opened in the last couple of weeks.  They took masks with them but didn't end up needing them.  They went in the afternoon right before the museum closed, so they pretty much had the place to themselves.  

They took their ice cream on the road, so they could get back in time for Little Man and I to grab dessert take out for his date night.  He's been reading Lord of the Rings and dying to watch the movies.  Since he's in the third section of the book we holed up in my room with dessert and watched "Fellowship of the Rings."  He loved it so much he begged to keep going with the second movie.  Alas, it was late, so he had to wait for the second installment until later.  He's now watched that one, and he's desperately trying to finish the book, so he can watch the last movie. 

Lego Overhaul

Anyone's else's home overrun by Lego?!  Joel got so frustrated with Lego being everywhere that he finally had a Lego meltdown.  He made the kiddos separate all of their random pieces by color, so that they could then start building every set they own.  Little Man has by far the most to organize.  He's meticulous about his recent Harry Potter and Star Wars sets.  They are neatly stored in their own bin with threats of pain and death to any sibling who touches them.  The sets from his younger years are a mess.  It took a couple days just to go through all his stuff and separate them out into containers.

Once that was done we decided to tackle a set a day as a family.  Little Man went through a Minecraft Lego phase a couple of years ago, so we decided to put those all together first.  It's a lot of brown and green.  I wish I would have taken a before picture of the brown bucket, because it was all the way up to the top.  Little Guy mostly built random things while BB and Little Lady helped build the sets.  We found it went smoother to do it while Little Man was at camp.

 It took a week, but we built all of his Minecraft Lego sets.  A few were missing pieces, so I went on the LEGO website and purchased individual bricks for a whopping $3. 

This process made the Littles realize they love the Minecraft sets, and Little Man just wants all things Harry Potter and Star Wars, so he's been selling his Minecraft sets to his siblings for cheap.  Everyone has been thrilled with the situation.  Joel is just thrilled we've made some progress with organizing the chaos. 

Next on the list is to tackle Little Man's oldest Creator Lego sets.  I have a feeling those are going to be missing a lot of pieces.  The vacuum took them to another realm a long time ago.  

You would think this would dampen their love for Lego, but honestly, all they talk about are the new sets they want for Christmas.  Maybe they'll change their mind by the time we're done organizing ALL of the sets.  Maybe not.  One can only hope. 

Pre-teen Problems

He comes by the sweaty genes honestly...from both sides of the family tree.

It's time to introduce the joys of deodorant.  He's not much of a fan.  He says it feels funny, but it'll be good for him and those around him.

Last of School

We picked up all the kiddos' school possessions curbside a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just barely sitting down to do through all of their things.  In true Little Man style he had already gone through and thrown everything away that wasn't of interest to him, so all that was left was one of his workbooks and his report on Stephen Hawking.

Little Lady had such a great year.  She says she wishes Miss Harmeyer could be her teacher every year. 

 In true BB form, he painted a cyclops and then added pretty flowers all along the bottom. 

 If only I could have half the energy this kid has...

Summer Is Here!

Yesterday was the first day summer camps began.  We were so relieved, because Little Man has been running and biking everyday in anticipation of his Triathlon Camp.  We haven't had access to a pool, because of Covid, so he was nervous about the swimming.  Started the day off right away swimming 50 meters.  He said it was tough, but he got through it.  They went for a 2 mile run right after swimming.

He's not used to being out in the sun so much, so even after multiple applications of sunscreen he came home a shade of rosy red.  He was tired, but after resting alone in his room for a little while he came out and declared that he enjoyed his camp (even if they had to play kickball against another camp group).  He informed me he didn't sign up for a triathlon camp to play kickball.  Tee hee. 

While he was training away the rest of the kiddos got to start swim lessons!  Our neighborhood pool opened yesterday and we were the very first people in it for the season.  The boys thought that was pretty cool.  We have a friend who teaches swimming at Blue Valley Rec.  She's coming to our pool to give the kiddos private swim lessons.  Little Lady was in heaven, because she can finally work on a goal she set a while ago: she wants to learn to do the Butterfly really well.  BB and Little Guy both cooperated and I am feeling optimistic that their swimming abilities are going to improve this summer.  It's a bit of relief, because initially all of the places they typically go to for swimming lessons are closed for the summer.  I'm glad Sara is willing to come teach them.

Trying New Things

Typically when Little Man wants something in particular to eat he talks his sister into baking it for him.  Since she loves to cook it seems to mostly work out for the two of them.  I've tried many times to tell Little Man he should probably learn how to make things without his sister, but he usually throws out some witty phrase about how he's not a chef.  He's wanted Chocolate Zucchini cake for over a week now.  Little Lady hasn't been interested in making it for him.  Little Man was starting to get really frustrated and I finally just said, "If you want it, you need to make it.  Let me know when you want some help."  To my surprise he actually asked me to help him make it.  His fears of being terrible at it were unfounded.  We had one overly smashed egg, but there wasn't any real collateral damage.

He was so excited and proud of himself that it turned out well.  I'm hoping this will open the door to him being willing to try more in the kitchen.  He may actually be able to survive outside of this house one day...maybe.

Functional Again!

We finally got new carpet in our basement today!  Wahoo!  There are some minor repairs that still need to be completed from the flood, but it's fully functional again.  It feels so good to have that done.

Venturing Out

Joel's work banned travel for a couple of months, but they are also refusing to let vacation days be rolled over, so he decided to take some days off just to hang out at home with us.  We decided to try our very first trip out into public as a family.  Right now you can schedule an entrance time to go to the zoo.  Only outdoor exhibits are open, but I thought this would be a great way to ease the kiddos back into being around other people.  We gave the whole  "don't-touch-anything" and "keep 6 feet away from people outside our family" speeches and then headed out.  To be honest, Little Guy didn't have much of a chance of touching anything because he has a germ-a-phobe for an older brother who is hyper vigilant.

 We explored the Australian continent and several other islands. 

Even though it was really hot and we walked a lot, everyone did really well.  We had a good morning.