Sunday, August 21, 2016

May 2016

Annika’s things & whatnot
—Raina’s birthday party (which was very exciting and important but was back in May and I’m writing this in August and I can’t even remember where it was … Parent of the Year!). I gotta write this stuff down. LOL.
—The school Art Show: Annika flat refused to go this year, because, according to her, “It’s really crowded and noisy and I only have two pieces in it and it’ll take forever to find them anyway.” All true, so … OK then.
—Minecraft takes over our lives: For reasons I can’t fathom, Annika got into Minecraft at last, and it swiftly became the Most Important Thing Ever. She plays it for hours at a time if we let her, she has insane emotional breakdowns if something goes wrong (one time, I had to FaceTime Mason to get him to fix whatever it was, RIGHT AWAY — and bless ‘im, he did), Lukas even started “playing” (although his verson, so far, is mostly just “placing fire” everywhere), etc. She watches endless hours of YouTube videos of some Irish or Australian clown called Dan TDM playing Minecraft … it is nuts. NUTS. But ok, whatever.
—Spring talent show: Annika DGAF about this last year, but at pretty much the last possible minute this spring, she decided she wanted to be in it, and recruited Raina for her partner. Entirely without any adult input, she decided they should do a dance to the Cotton-Eyed Joe. The girls made up the dance and practiced it every day at recess, she chose the costumes (an “Annie Oakley” cowgirl dress we found on Amazon), she delegated to Raina the task of finding boots and hats (which she did, admirably), she got R. to edit down the music and send it to the sound organizer — and on the designated night, they charmed the socks off of the whole crowd as a dancing duo. Yee-haaaa!
—Annika stays home alone: A milestone of sorts occurred when, having been kept home sick with a vicious fever from the spring choir concert the night before, Annika stayed at home alone while I took Lukas to school the next morning. She was fine, everything was fine — and of course now she wants to stay home by herself all the time. Heh. I only let her when I know I’ll be back within 20 minutes, and that limit is really only because I fear judgment — she’s perfectly capable of managing herself, and there’s not any crime to worry about, so.

Lukas Life
—A friend at Little Gym: Lukas makes friends wherever he goes, but apparently this girl Payton at Little Gym — whose name he carefully pronounced as “PAY-ton,” with the articulated “t” — was special. He’d just beam when he saw her, wanted to be her partner in all the activities, and would run around with her after class, announcing to all that they were “BEST FRIENDS!”
—The Octopus ribbon: Lukas is now an O-Fish-Al Octopus at swim lessons! He was really excited, of course, and but then the next week, he was like “ … so, how come I didn’t get another ribbon?” Ha!
Family happenings
—Golfland: The kids had been wanting to go to mini golf, so one hot Sunday we tried to get out there ahead of the crowd and the sun … and failed at both. We were right in front of a large and EXTREMELY rude, boundaryless kids’ bday party, constantly rushed, constantly having to tell the kids to wait and to stop hitting balls while we were still on the hole in front of them, etc. Annika & Lukas were hot and didn’t handle it well … and eventually, R. and I were in pretty much the same mood. Note to self: Don’t do it like that again.
—Daddy’s birthday: The focus, as far as the kids were concerned, was the cake we made for R.: the chocolate one with raspberry jam filling and a dark chocolate glaze. They also made cute cards for him, and mostly behaved! Yay!
—“Sleepovers" in each other's rooms: In large part (I think) due to Annika’s fear of being alone in her room, the kids started having “sleepovers” in each other’s rooms. At first, they’d go back and forth, and sometimes use the futon mattress under Lukas’s bed (which is a pain to push back under there!), but eventually it settled into Lukas bringing his blanket, his bunny, and his “ossie” (a minecraft ocelot) and settling down on the floor in Annika’s room. It works pretty well, except when it doesn’t (fighting instead of giggling & talking), so we only let them do it on non-school nights, and R. always puts them back in their own beds, sound asleep, when we go up ourselves.
-The first pool weekend: We had our season opener this month, just before Memorial Day weekend. Fired up the heater, hauled out all the swim stuff, found the pool toys, and got out the bar tools — ready for the summer now! The great thing is, Lukas can really kind of swim now; he doesn’t cling anymore, and you don’t have to worry the whole time that he’s going to sink under. It is SO AWESOME.
—Bowling summer pass: The bowling alley has this awesome deal for the summer again — $26 per kid for up to three games per person, including shoe rental! thought Labor Day weekend — so we bought one for everyone and started going once or twice a week. Annika’s competitive streak surfaced, which was kind of a bummer when she got upset if Lukas got a higher score, but man, do I understand! It’s a lot of fun for us all to go, though, so we’re looking forward to that all summer long. 
Quotable
“This is the ghosties' secret lair - where they work on their bodies to spook people out!"
—Lukas, explaining things
“Mouses are from haunted houses."
(us): “No -- it's ‘mice.’"
"Mices are from haunted houses!” —Lukas, the morning he spotted a dead mouse in the pool, from the upstairs window

“That’s Luke Skywalker’s lair!”
The sand people “are friends with Dark Vader.”
“Look! It’s Luke’s igloo!”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi is Chewbacca.”

—Lukas watching Star Wars