Eli and I had a ton of fun today making play food out of polymer clay! Well, okay, I guess I had a ton of fun and Eli had fun for about 20 minutes. (He actually had more fun deciding what foods to make and then helping choose the colors of clay in Hobby Lobby last week.) Today he helped condition the clay and mix colors. It was a great experiment to mix two colors, watch them marble together, and finally become a new color! He made a few random sculptures, none of which he wanted to bake and keep. So I ended up molding and sculpting watermelon slices, cucumbers, seeds, cookies, chocolate chips and carrots. We still have a few foods on our list. The possibilities are endless. I had never worked with polymer clay before and, as I said, it was a ton of fun!

We took down Emerson’s crib last weekend. It was a huge milestone that, in the end, didn’t really didn’t feel that huge afterall. I was actually glad to make the change, and Emerson was so excited with “my new woom!” We are currently using the crib mattress on the floor until we get a new twin bed.

In the back of my mind, I was hoping that this “new bed” would entice Emerson to go to sleep in her room AND at a decent hour, like say, before 10pm. The first night, she was very excited to do so. We laid down together, read a few books, I told her a story and snapped off the light. She snuggled in next to me (it’s a VERY small bed) and we lay there in the dark silence for a few minutes. I was practically giddy…could this actually work? She seemed sleepy and content. She was breathing deeply and evenly. So I waited….for about 5 minutes, until she jumped up, bounced over me and declared, “Me. Out.” with a smile and a dance.   Sigh. I guess she is her mother’s daughter.

Wow, summer is in it’s waning weeks. Seems like just last week we were gearing up for swimming lessons and getting ready for a road trip to Kansas. We’ve actually had a really great, balanced summer! Not too scheduled, not too hot. I have really enjoyed having unscheduled, lazy mornings around the house, as well as balmy evenings dining on the patio and playing family games. Our active time has been fun, too:  swimming lessons, road trips, visiting family, camping trips, zoo days, Renaissance Festival, Santa’s Workshop, and other Colorado summer fun.

In early July, we spent a week in Topeka, Kansas with my family. My entire family was able to be together (John’s and Ryan&Staci’s days didn’t overlap, so they missed seeing each other, but other than that, we were all together)! The first three days there were 7 adults, 6 kids (3 of them 2 yr.olds) and 2 dogs…all staying at my parent’s house. It was crazy and chaotic at times, but fun! Eli is now at an age where he really has fun playing with his older cousins, Hayes (7) and Ella (5). Emerson and the twins, Sophie and Bella, (all 2) shared dolls, legos and curious looks. We went to the zoo, rode a train around Gage Park, had picnics in the park, swam at the YMCA, enjoyed a wonderful neighborhood 4th of July parade and celebration, and topped it off with one of the best fireworks displays I have ever seen! Impressive!

The rest of July was spent swimming (both kids took lessons), picnic-ing with friends, visiting cousins at Grammy Barbs, a get-away night in Denver for me and John, a day at Santa’s Workshop, a day at the Renaissance Festival, gardening and enjoying the Colorado weather. Because of my heel injury, I haven’t been doing much hiking or working out, so we haven’t spent as much time in the mountains and on the trails as usual. We have a camping trip planned with Barb and Terry next week, and a day at the Royal Gorge the week after.

We just got a letter in the mail yesterday with the name of Eli’s new teacher and his start date at Buena Vista Montessori:  Sept 1. So the end-of-summer countdown is officially on! I’m really looking forward to the structure, routine and rituals of fall.

But not too much.

j:
• harvesting from the garden: kale, lettuce, spinach, collard greens, carrots, beets, peas, chard, and now, tomatoes!
• reading Condé Nast Traveler magazine
• listening to bluegrass music at Front Range BBQ nearly every Wed. night

t:
• using fresh produce from the garden in inventive ways: beet and orange salad, sauteed kale with mushrooms and red wine, asian cabbage wraps
• family game night on the patio…LOVE LOVE LOVE Colorado evenings!!
• dvd players for road trips (best invention EVER!)
• watermelon
• visits with family
• aztec sipping chocolate at Ricos: rich and spicy
• mojitos: at home with mint from our garden, or on the patio at Shugas or Nosh with girlfriends!

e:
• fireflies
• cousins: Hayes, Ella, Bella, Sophie, Tally and Alexis…we got to spend time with all of them this summer!
• ice cream cones
• herbs at the farmers market…he likes to taste the different leaves
• swimming lessons
• helping dad in the garden, picking basil and mint leaves for me
• cards games: he just learned Uno yesterday…and beat me!

em:
• clementines: she ate 5 one day
• watermelon
• playing ABC games (starfall.com) on the computer…or actually anything on the computer:  she almost purchased a movie from iTunes on my computer last week
• memory match card game: she is shockingly good…she beat Eli legitimately once!
• swimming lessons
• tie dye: it’s 91˚ and she insists on wearing a long sleeve tie dye shirt! “tie dye, mama, tie dye”

…is a phrase I’ve heard from Eli hundreds of times in the past couple of months. It’s his way of telling time.

How many Diegos until Miri gets here?

How many Diegos until we get to swimming?

How many Diegos until we get to Nana and Papa’s? (it was a TWELVE hour trip and he asked A LOT!)

Go Diego Go, his favorite tv show, is 30-minutes long. So he’s devised a way to comprehend time within a frame of reference he can relate to: one episode of Go Diego Go. When my answer is “one and a half Diegos”, he will ask: “to the part where Click takes the picture, or the part where they rescue the animal, or the part where they put the picture in the rescue journal?” Which is really his way of asking: “is that 30 minutes plus 10 minutes, or 30 plus 20, or almost an hour?”

Of course, now you must be thinking, “holy cow, how much tv does that kid watch?” And the answer is definitely some. But mostly he just really loves Diego, the animal rescuer, who has taught him some words and phrases in Spanish and now, apparently, a way to tell time.

This is how Emerson says ‘thank you’. I’m not sure where it came from, but she’s been saying it for many months now.

To the checker in the grocery store who gives her a sticker: “muah”

To Dad when he hands over her water bottle: “muah”

To me when I give her a cookie: “muah”

To anyone for anything that requires a thanks: “muah”

Maybe it’s a combination of the sign language version of ‘thank you’ and blowing a kiss. Maybe her inner French ingénue is making it’s debut. Who knows. All I know is that no one knows what she’s saying. But she doesn’t care. Hmm, must be the French influence after all.

We recently returned from camping for two days near Sand Dunes National Park. We left Friday, June 5, in a caravan with Brian and Gabe, and Rob, Darsey and Bryce. The plan was to go over Medano Pass from the east…finding a camping spot somewhere on the backside of the pass. After hearing that Medano was closed because of a wash-out, we backroaded our way from Westcliffe down to Hwy 160 and entered the Sand Dunes main entrance. After the campground, the road turns to a 4-wheel drive road, winding thru soft sand past the dunes and then starting up the narrow, rocky pass. We had about 7 creek crossings (which never got boring!), finally finding a fabulous spot almost at the top of the pass. Because we have had such a wet spring, everything was so GREEN! It was beautiful. 

Saturday we all headed down to the dunes to play. The wind was a bit of a bummer, but we still climbed the dunes and the kids played in the water at the base. John and Eli climbed all the way to the top…Gabe and Rob snowboarded down. We had left the option open to stay a third night, but because of the wind, we all headed back on Sunday. Darsey, Rob and Bryce decided to hike to Medano Lake, while we headed southwest toward the Colorado Gator Farm  in the San Luis Valley. 

 The dunes and gators were very cool. The constant wind, not so much. When we got home, we heard that the entire state of Colorado had been windy…with gusts whistling up from New Mexico and Texas. Denver even had a tornado touch down! We still had a great time camping, despite the wind.

I have some great memories of camping when I was a kid…the huge blue expanse of Fort Peck Lake as we drive over the dam, playing down in the sand caves with Sonya, the smell of campfire smoke in my clothes, scratching mosquito bites, hot dogs and velveeta cheese, and listening to the murmured voices of the adults around the campfire as I drift off to sleep. The thing about good memories is that they always have a wistfulness about them…”ah, the good old days.” It makes me smile when I realize that the good old days are now for Eli and Emerson. How lucky I am to get to do it all again!

What a great day we had yesterday! John and I taught sunday school in the morning, then we came home, packed up and headed up to Denver. John’s cousin had a high school graduation party later in the afternoon, so we decided to visit the Butterfly Pavillion first. The kids, especially Eli, absolutely loved the pavillion. We saw exotic arachnids and insects from all over the world: 6″ long stick bugs, numerous tarantulas, huge roaches, giant water bugs eating grasshoppers, giant centipedes and scorpions. Both of the kids held Rosie, the resident pet tarantula. In the water exhibit we touched sea stars and horseshoe crabs. Finally, the rainforest/butterfly exhibit, which was my favorite. Thousands of butterflies flitting all around, some landing on people’s heads and others swooping in to land right on a leaf or tree in front of you. It was really cool. My favorites were the blue morphos…so gorgeous! They are a blue/aqua that is unbelievably irridescent and bright! They also had an exhibit of hundreds of chrysalises that you could watch as butterflies emerged continuously. Eli was so excited! He loved the whole thing.

We were walking along one of the paths when we came to a huge butterfly (wing span bigger than the length of my hand) who seemed to be hurt. Eli went into animal rescue mode; gently leaning down to take a look, then backing everyone away, stationing dad to guard, and going off to find a worker. He walked up to one of the butterfly keepers and quickly exclaimed, “We need help! There’s a butterfly that’s hurt!” And then turned and sped off to lead the way. The keeper followed and soon we had a big crowd checking it out. Eli and the keeper leaned down and the keeper gently picked up the butterfly. One of his wings was deteriorating and the man explained to Eli and the crowd that this butterfly was probably in the final stages of his life. An adult butterfly only lives 2-4 weeks after emerging from the chrysalis. They took him over to a tree near some mashed fruit and gently set him down. The keeper thanked Eli for being so diligent and caring about the butterflies and you should have seen the look on Eli’s face! His eyes were shining and his smile was wide…he was SO proud. As were the happy parents. It was one of those moments of motherhood when you feel, with absolute clarity, the meaning of your life. It really is touching and poignant to watch your child grow into a beautiful human being.

And, speaking of growing up, Emerson asked to use the potty three times yesterday while wearing diapers! So far we have only potty trained at home, putting on diapers at night and to leave the house. I figured she would be too busy and excited to remember about using the potty, but in the middle of the bug exhibit, she walked up to me and signed ‘potty’. She also asked once at the graduation party and in the car on the way home. Better get some cotton training pants and a portable potty seat soon! She’s on her way!

I was glad we went to the graduation party. We hadn’t seen John’s aunt, uncle and cousins in three years. They had never seen Emerson. Christopher just graduated from CU and Alexandra graduated high school. High school graduation. A milestone. Jim and Cyndi’s baby, going off to college. The kids did a good job entertaining themselves, even though the graduating seniors were the closest to their age! Eli and Emer were playing with a ring toss game in the backyard and Eli was kicking around a soccer ball. A big football player with basketball shorts and a cap on backwards walked by on the deck. Eli called after him, “Dude!” But he kept walking. He called again, “Dude!” When he turned around, Eli looked up at him from the yard and said “Wanna play?” Eli spent the rest of the party hanging in the backyard playing soccer and ring toss with part of the Mullen High School football team. John and I were chuckling, indeed.

Watching them from the living room window, I was struck by the passage of time. Paraphrasing a wise friend, the days can sometimes seem interminable, but the years pass by in the blink of an eye. Sigh.

e:
• plants, flowers, gardening: he has started naming the perennials we plant
•  bug hunting: he has about 15 bug habitats and containers lined up in his room. our new rule this summer is that he has to let them go within two days of capture.
• his rescue vest and orange rescue pack. he rarely leaves home without one or both. 
• rocks, twigs, plastic animals and gadgets…often seen bulging out the pockets on his rescue vest. Me, upon picking up rescue vest off the floor: “What do you have in this thing, rocks?!” Eli: “yep.”
• reading a compass in the car and telling me which way to turn when we’re driving
• playing soccer with John in the front yard
• Magic Treehouse books 

em:
• sleeping in our bed: remember that post about co-sleep deprivation? scratch that.
• drawing: she draws at the easel about 5 times/day. i put the caps back on all the markers about 10 times/day.
• doing everything by herself
• Hello, Kitty! underpants 
• her baby dolls, Belle and D.(short for Daisy) and her white horse, Happy
• feeding, changing and putting her dolls down for a nap…she has just started taking them to the potty! 

• favorite phrase/question: why? 
• matching things: when Eli and I play GoBugHunting with his deck of bug cards, Em likes to go thur and match up the cards. She also loves the back covers of BabyBug (the little book the kids get in the mail) On the back cover there are 4 squares with parts of illustrations used in the book and Em goes thru the entire book until she finds the matching image…for each of them.

t:
• reading Italian mystery novels
• playing card games with my kids
• dining outside

j:
• gardening: starting all the veggies from seed
• composting