So what now?

Our society has this constant urge to keep each other moving. When you have a baby people can not help but ask you, " so are you having another one soon?". With my fourth child going off to school this year I have been the target of an endless barrage of , "what are you going to do with yourself now that Jake is in school?".
Have I suddenly become useless to society because my child is in school? Have I given up my rights to raise him because he is in school? Silly people!! Silly society!!
Guess what? I choose to stay involved in HIS life just like I have in all of his siblings lives. I don't plan on abandoning his child hood for the sake of my own life. I don't need to go to work or start thinking of myself and what I want to do because I now have free time.

I have learned from raising 3 other kids that I have no free time. I loved being there for Alex to chat about the weird boys at school or being the mom who was willing to french braid 5 cheerleaders hair before a game. I was always available to my boys when they needed me to drop everything and drive half the team to a soccer game. They were never late for practice or missed a game because their mom was "busy" and they couldn't find a ride. I have attended nearly every single gymnastics meet, band concert, baseball game, soccer game, track meet, school play, Open house, basketball game, prep bowl, challenge 24, science fair and spelling bee that has lighted across my path. I have been there...at home...when someones heart was broken by their 'true love" or their staggering disappointment because they were cut from the team. I have whisked them away to a "just you and me" lunch or dinner to commiserate or celebrate the event in their lives. I've stolen them away from school in the middle of the day for a surprise trip to see a movie or go to the zoo because they had straight A's.

I AM THEIR MOM...I am their mom 24/7. I am still Alex's mom, even though she is 21 years old. I am still Jake's mom, even though he is now in Kindergarten. Last night around 11pm Alex, Caleb, Micah and I were playing Boggle on my bed and laughing hysterically over our collective ignorance in spelling words. Yeah, that's right...11pm on a Sunday night MY KIDS wanted me to play Boggle with them. Wonder why that is? Oh yeah, it's because I am their mom and not their care giver who raised them for 5 years and then let the school system handle the rest. :)
I have great kids. I have REALLY great kids. People comment to me on a weekly basis that my kids are so accomplished and wonderful. Guess what? It's because I committed to being their mom and let go of the worldly view that I need "my own life". I don't need it...my job is to turn out 4 new adults who will be cherished by their new families some day.
If you see me soon...and you realize Jake is in school now. Don't you dare ask me what I am going to do with all my free time!! There is no free time when you have 4 kids.

First day of school

Jake started Kindergarten today. I have a picture of each one of my kids standing on the front porch the first day of school. Jake is by far the happiest one. LOL He will go for 3 weeks and then have 3 weeks off before they actual school year starts up. It's a program for Kindergartner's to experience school with none of the older kids around. They will have the entire school to themselves and things won't be as scary.

Jake has been very excited about the whole thing. Last year at this time he would have crawled into his self made shell and refuse to talk...refuse to get out of the car...cry...cry some more...

It's amazing what a whole year can do to the maturity level. He's gone from a scared withdrawn 5 year old to an outgoing fun loving 6 year old. Okay, so he's ALMOST six. Keeping him home last year was a very good decision. That point was driven home as I stood on the playground in a sea of crying, scared kids.

Jake couldn't wait to get to school today. He was anxious for us to hurry up and leave. Alex woke up early and came with us...which made him very happy. As with all the other kids, I got a shot of him standing next to the school sign. He was slightly annoyed that I made him stop and take the time to do that picture. LOL

He walked right up to his teacher and said, "Hi". She introduced herself and then told him that he could go out on the playground until they were ready to start. He didn't have to be told twice...since running and jumping are his favorite things. When we got outside there was another little boy with the same exact "Super Mario Galaxy" backpack. Apparently, this meant they were best friends as far as Jacob was concerned. He instantly started climbing this jungle gym with his "new friend". He's wearing the green shirt, at the top of this yellow climber.

After about 2 minutes had gone by he tossed his back pack at me and said, "Hold this while I play tag with my new friends." LOL He then spent the next 10 minutes running wildly around the playground. I let him do it too...because I figured he needed to release all that pent up energy. I'm sure his teacher would appreciate that thoughtful gesture on my part. :)

We were there pretty early and as he was playing the buses started dropping the kids off and the playground got pretty full. There are 5 kindergarten classrooms at our school. When the classes started to line up he came over to me and said, "who are all those other kids?". I told him that they were in other Kindergarten's and he just looked confused. I snapped a shot of him walking in his line into the classroom. You can get a feel for how the school is set up from this picture. His line is the furthest...you can see Alex standing at the end of the group and Jake is just about to enter the building. It's so nice that they all have their own door directly from the playground.

I walked into the class with him and said, "I'll see you after school" and he said, "OK, bye" with a HUGE smile on his face. It was so easy to leave him there today knowing that he was thrilled to be at school. I can't wait to pick him up and hear all his stories.

YAY me!

Garmin 255W

I used my mom's Garmin twice in June and I loved it...even though I am perfectly capable of printing a map off MapQuest and I rarely get lost. However, the Garmin was quite handy when I missed my exit and it recalculated the next best route.

What I really love is the feature that lets you find points of interest and places to eat around your location. We were able to find a few beach side parks and a cool Japanese restaurant in Shaker Square up in Cleveland. We travel a lot with Micah's soccer stuff , so it was nice to have that option to show us where to go and what we could do in the big breaks between games.

Tilden drove to the last tournament and followed the Garmin's directions. It only took one time and he was completely hooked! LOL He did feel that it made him "directionally challenged" though, as he no longer paid attention to actual road signs and just blindly followed the Garmin's voice directions. We decided this week to go and buy one ourselves because there was a very good sale at Best Buy. We rarely buy ourselves anything in the "luxury" category like this, so I am pretty ...lamely...excited.

The one thing that irritated me when I borrowed my mom's was the fact that my vehicle on the display was a blue car and I just felt that was so boring. When I registered my Garmin today I noticed a little link for the "garage" and when I clicked on it there were all these FREE downloadable vehicles. It took me a full 45 minutes to figure out how to get them onto my Garmin , but I finally did it and here are some of my choices, just to give myself some variety on my trips. (Plus, it will keep Jake entertained when the vehicle is "cool")

Yes, that is a Christmas bulb and it blinks too. There is even a turkey for Thanksgiving and a ton of Christmas and Halloween choices. Fun fun!

ODP

This is Micah his first year of playing soccer...at age 5.

Mostly I am writing this for my sister...Allison. I think she is the only one who actually KNOWS what "ODP" is all about. LOL Since I can't call her right now, this was my next best idea.

Micah has been doing a very long drawn out series of try-outs to get on the Olympic Development Soccer Team (ODP). He started in November and has made it through cut after cut, keeping himself alive with his tremendous determination and raw talent. It's VERY hard to make this team. It's the top 16 kids in the entire state of Ohio who were born in 1995. They divide the teams up by birth year. Micah is a little unlucky in that aspect as he is born in December and so most of the kids are bigger than he is and a grade older as well. I've been driving him up past Cleveland every Tuesday for the 2 hour try out sessions. He is one of the smallest boys out there.

They started with hundreds of boys and have been slowly making cuts, eliminating 1/4 of the boys each time. I got an email this morning and Micah MADE THE TEAM!!! He isn't an alternate either...he is ON the main team!! When I told him, his eyes got soooo big and he just said, "wow". LOL He will be leaving us for a week pretty soon to go to the Regional Camp in Indianapolis. At Regional Camp they will be looking at the top 16 boys from 5 states and taking 20 of them to represent our region in the National Tournament. Honestly, none of us expect Micah to make the regional cut. Maybe in another year...when he can catch up in size...who knows. We are all pretty excited for him and proud of him for this HUGE accomplishment. I just wanted to share :)

They sent me some paperwork to fill out and they wanted to know how many years he's made the "state pool" and the "regional pool"...and how long he's played on an International team. Ummmm...he's never done ANY of that stuff. LOL The other parents in the crowd were shocked that he hasn't had any "real" training. I guess he showed them, didn't he? Sheer talent and hard work can get you pretty far.

Washington DC

Last week Jake, Pam and I made a spontaneous trip to Washington DC for our last chance to see Allie before she headed to Spain.

We got up at 5am so that we could get on the road and not waste precious daylight hours. It was a peaceful drive and I only "almost" hit 3 deer on the Pennsylvania turnpike. LOL I was really getting paranoid as they kept dashing out into the road. Perhaps my van is some type of deer Nirvana?

Pam had been to DC recently and knew all the shortcuts and tricks to getting around town. We parked at a Metro station 15 miles outside of DC and rode that all the way into town. Jake could hardly hold back his enthusiasm as he waited patiently for the train to show up on these tracks.

Once we got on the train ...he never stopped smiling. He carefully counted down the 9 stops that we needed to make before it was our turn to get off and look for Noah. He easily overlooked the fact that the train smelled like mildew and was last decorated in the 1970's....something that did not allude his mother, LOL.

Allison told us to go to the museums and not worry about meeting her as she was stuck in a long line at the Federal Passport building. Pam figured out which metro stop would take us closest to that building and we got off and walked 3 blocks in search of the Passport office. It was crowded and busy and people bustled past us on their way to lunch during their work day. We were looking at our map and searching for the address when I looked up and saw a very familiar little boy and I said, "Isn't that Noah over there?". Pam quickly shouted out "ALLLLIEEE" and we all gave each other big hugs. It was very good timing as she had just stepped out of the office to get some air and let Noah run for a second.

We got Noah from her and took him to lunch with Jake. There were not a lot of kid friendly options in that local, so we ended up at Chipotle a few blocks away. The boys ate some cheese only taco's and then ran around a statue for 20 minutes...completely oblivious to the fact that this restaurant was jam packed with people and standing room only.

We walked back to the passport office to discover that Allison was getting closer to her turn, but was still going to be waiting awhile. We decided to take the boys to the Smithsonian site and let them run around and then Allison could meet up with us over there. Pam gave her a quick lesson and a map of the Metro. " Just walk up 3 blocks and you will see the Metro station. Take the escalator down into the station and buy an all day pass...get on the red line to the Smithsonian".

We got into the station and Pam bought Noah his pass. The boys were so thrilled with the whole process and very quickly learned how to put their ticket in, pass through the turnstile and take their ticket back out. They simply could not get enough of the cool tunnel and train tracks.

We got off the metro at the Smithsonian Castle. No sooner had we disembarked and I got a call from Allison that she was done and walking up the street looking for the metro station, but that her phone battery was dying. Wouldn't you know that MY phone battery was dying too? LOL sheesh!! I told her that we would meet her at the castle. As soon as I got off the phone Pam said, "I should have stayed with her and rode back here with her. I am going to get back on the metro and go meet up with her, keep calling her until you get a hold of her and let her know that I am coming".

From that point on it was like a really bad sitcom. Allie had gone underground and her phone didn't work...I couldn't get a hold of Pam either...as she was also underground. I left both of them voicemail and hoped for the best. I drug Noah and Micah into the castle where they quickly made fast work of turning it into a playground...running , jumping, screaming...all the boy things.

I took them out of the castle for fear that we were going to be thrown out. LOL As I was leaving I got a call from Allie and she said, "where is the castle, I don't see it". I asked if she could see the Washington monument or the capital building...she said that she couldn't. Then both of our phones started beeping to let us know the batteries were dying. So I quickly said, "just find the castle Alli...ask someone where it is. I will meet you out in front". I literally stepped out the door and there she was, just hanging up her phone, LOL. She said, "this is a castle? I thought it was a church". I made her turn around and said, "hellooo...there is the Washington monument"...hahahahaa...Poor Allison, she was just to fried and frazzled to even notice it. I made her stand there with Noah and I took this picture.

Now all we had to do was find Pam.....LOL

We headed to a shady spot out there on the Smithsonian lawn and Allie got a bite to eat and then fed little Brennan while Jake and Noah endlessly chased pigeons. I kept an eye out for Pam the whole time and finally saw her walking across the lawn. Allison stood up and did her big man whistle and we were all quickly united.

I will write the rest later...as this seems like plenty to absorb for now. :)

Jake's butterfly

We went on a walk on a nature trail the other day..just looking for bugs to catch. We stumbled upon a butterfly that was still coming out of it's cocoon! It was almost completely out and was still drying in the sun so it was very easy to catch. I put it inside of Jake's bug bucket and then we walked back to the van.

He showed that butterfly to everyone in the park who was willing to have a look into his bucket. He decided that it was a Peacock butterfly, based on one of the butterflies in the Animal Crossing game. I have no idea if it was or not, but I just went along with his assumption. LOL

He talked to it all the way home and studied every single dot on it's wings. When we got home he let it go and I took a video of that whole extravaganza. It's uploaded on YouTube, so refresh this page and have a look. Jake and the butterfly.

Bugs...

Jake with his bug net. Forget those ducks behind him, he was looking for dragonflies.

Jacob has a new fascination with bugs and fish because of the Nintendo game, Animal Crossing. In that game you can catch fish and bugs that have real world counterparts. He knows a lot about fish based on his experience in that game.

He begs and begs for me to take him fishing to catch a REAL fish. At first I bought him a toy fishing rod that satisfied his urge to fish for maybe a week. We quickly moved up to a real fishing rod, but I won't buy him a hook to put on the end of it. It currently has a fish shaped counter weight on the end that works fine and allows him to cast the line out pretty far.

He LOVED this fishing rod and it was his favorite thing for nearly a month, but now he has decided that he needs a hook. Every single body of water strikes up his curiosity and he looks at me and says, "do you think that there are fish in there?". Even the large puddle at the end of my driveway will house fish in his five year old mind. LOL

I thought I would try to steer him from the whole fish theme by purchasing him a bug net. He runs around the yard all day long and catches bugs for me. However, when he does actually manage to catch a bug in that net he will start to scream for me to come set it free. Every single bug that he sees triggers the same question for me to answer, "what does that bug do to you?". If it will bite or sting...he wants no part of it. heehee. I took him to the park and he actually caught a dragonfly and a toad in his bug net. It was a lot of work and he was terrified when they were actually in his net. It's so funny because he wants to catch them and as soon as he does ...it's a scream fest!

However, his discussion about catching those bugs afterwards would rival the story about the Little Tailor. Remember that Mickey Mouse cartoon? He killed 5 flies, but somehow it was turned into 5 giants in one swat. Jacob is like the "dragon slayer" of bugs. ....the Steve Irwin of the preschool set.

Here are a few pictures of Jake with his fishing pole in the back yard.

There is a video clip of him on YouTube...smashing ants. It just struck me as very funny that day. I also plan on uploading one of him fishing in the backyard. Maggie was playing with him that day, chasing the fishing line.