Kicking it

The current sport of the season is soccer. It's about as popular as baseball with Hayden, which is saying something. He's fairly motivated...when he remembers to go after the ball. Sometimes he gets so caught up in the excitement of everything that he forgets to actually play. Here he is playing defense, jumping up and down while he watches the game.


During the most recent game, he was occasionally somewhat aggressive. Perhaps aggressive is not the right word. Maybe competitive? Some of the kids on the other team were a little scarily aggressive. One kid stood in the opposing goal waiting for the ball to come near him so he could score. He did this even when his own team was on the other side of the field. Ah, U6 soccer.
At this point, Hayden is claiming that he would rather play indoor soccer this winter than hockey. Considering he spent at least half of hockey sprawled on the ice, this may be a good thing.

Back to School

This week, Hayden joined the ranks of school-kids. Although he's been in plenty of preschool, it's a whole different experience to get on a bus every morning and go to school without Mom or Dad around.

He's been excited for Kindergarten all summer. Picked out his backpack, got his school supplies, memorized his cafeteria PIN. When I woke him up for the first day of school (and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not thankful for being in a "late start" school), he jumped out of bed saying, "It's school today! My first day of school!" I got him fed and ID'ed with his little laminated tag, and we headed out to the bus stop.


All was well until the bus got there. He's ridden a bus before, but I think he was freaked out by it all the same. He just kind of stood there until I prodded him to climb aboard! Then he just stood by the driver until the driver got him to find a seat.


After school reports were mostly positive. He had a new best friend with whom he shared Knock Knock jokes. He liked his teacher. He colored in rectangles and a picture of himself. He heard a book and sang a song. Lunch, however, was a downer--he misunderstood that he was supposed to get "school lunch" and so only had his snack to eat at lunch. Needless to say he was grouchy until I got some food in him. The rest of the week has gone smoothly. According to Hayden, the only "low" since the lunch debacle was that he dropped and broke a crayon, and in the act of picking up the crayon, ripped his little ID/bus tag.

He's a little tired--it's a big change to be gone all day, every day. But overall he seems to be enjoying it, and he has a lot of stories (and bad jokes) that I love to hear. I have volunteered to help out in the classroom here and there, so I can't wait to see for myself what it's like. Marlo sure misses her brother though! She's been cranky during the day until he gets home!

At the Cape

We just got back from a week of vacation on Cape Cod. We rented a house a short walk from the beach in a quiet neighborhood. The beach was kid heaven. Hermit crabs at low tide, calm water to splash in, a swimming platform, shells. Hayden was especially fascinated by the crabs. They were easy to pluck out of the clear water, and we even found a few that were almost too tiny to be believed. Marlo was most interested in the sand. I've never seen anything hold her attention for so long. She'd dig and pour, and dig some more. She picked up and dropped shells. She dumped sand in boats and buckets. She was so absorbed that all I did was sit and watch.

The house itself was a great find. We had a little backyard, and the kids could burn off steam or enjoy one of the many projects organized by their cool aunt Rachel. There was a fair amount of chaos of course--a 5 year old, 3 year old, and toddler will do that--but it was a manageable level of chaos, and well worth the fun everyone had.

For the grown-ups, there was seafood and a lot of it. It's possible we ate seafood every day. The fried clams...I could have eaten those daily for sure, and same goes for the rich New England clam chowder. We went out fishing one afternoon and brought back more fish than we could eat. Even Hayden had some of that fish; apparently it's more appealing to him if someone he knows catches it.

It was a restful, wonderful week. Both Ben and I agreed that we could live there. Now all we need is a couple of million dollars.