OK - Should I just start posting stuff without pictures/videos, or should I wait until I should get all forms of media coordinated? Because that might take a while.
Anyway, I had no idea it would be *this* easy to help Zach learn to ride a bike with no training wheels. I figured there'd be tears, protests, and frustration. But I asked our babysitter Lauren to help him with it one day after school while I was working. That afternoon, while I was sitting in my office, she texted me a video of Zach...riding around the backyard nonchalantly as if he'd done it his whole life. Well, OK then. That was easy. Now the boys just hang out and ride bikes. [Insert adorable bike-riding video here]
Luke most definitely did not like his baseball team, with many younger kids on it this year. But he did spend a lot of time on skill-building and he did have the opportunity to be a hero on more than one occasion. Dave and I were not able to stick around at Luke's team party after the last game, so we didn't get to hear what the coach had to say about him at the trophy presentation until Luke gave us the full report in the morning.
Dave: "So what did the coach say about you?"
Luke: "He said I started the season with a grand slam, and I ended it with a triple..."
Dave: "And then what else did he say?"
Luke, grinning: "You couldn't really hear because everyone started shouting, 'L-F! L-F! L-F!' and his words kind of got drowned out."
[Insert video of triple here]
I've been working with Zach on his big sea life report over the past three weeks. For some reason I thought his presentation was on Wednesday. But it turned out it was on Monday, and what unfolded was an extreme comedy of errors.
Dave had dropped us all off at school on Monday; I walked the kids to class and then the plan was for me to go for a long walk - which is why I didn't have my car or my phone with me. When I found out that the presentation was supposed to be that morning, I ran the one mile home (!), frantically slapped a few more pictures and words onto the posterboard, and grabbed the electric car to zip back to school by his 8:30 presentation time.
Meanwhile, Dave, emerging from the shower, somehow heard none of this... and came downstairs to find the front room looking nearly ransacked and the electric car gone. He figured there was no way I could have come home by then and taken the car... So, fearing the worst, he called the police to report the electric car stolen.
Meanwhile, as I was filming Zach's presentation, I got a series of frantic texts from Dave. "Do you have the car?" "I need to know ASAP to call off the police." Finally I stopped filming long enough to reply:
"Filming presentation. I have cat."
"*Car."
Dave says he had to give the police a physical description of me because if they had seen me in the "stolen" car they would have stopped me at gunpoint. Sheesh. Talk about starting your morning with a little adrenaline. And people wonder why I don't need coffee.
The highlight of Zach's presentation for me was when the teacher said, "So tell me a little bit about some of these pictures on your board." And Zach replied, "Well, my mom went out and bought some gray felt. And I traced the shape of the shark and cut it out and then glued it on the board. And the felt was only 39 cents."
[Insert video of Zach's presentation here]
What's that - you wanted pictures? OK, so, everyone gives me a hard time about playing Freecell. It's just a little mindless release I have. But I don't play it to win - (boring, because I know I can always win) - I play it to challenge myself to see how few moves I can make. I am proud to report that a few days ago I set a personal record, 65 moves to win, which put me on the international leaderboard as 8th best of all time in terms of fewest moves to complete a game. You can call me Queen of the Time-Killers.
