Moving Forward: Spring Rain = Green Grass and Happy, Wet Children

Every time it rains (about 1/2 the days since my last post) and Elijah finds out, "Right back. Outside. Rain," and he heads for the door with Shayna close behind. On the last day of school, they didn't even make it outside while we got 1.5" of rain so I brought towels and dry clothes with the plans of puddle searching and splashing in the rain. We got lucky with a huge puddle at the bottom of the school parking lot, away from the child-pick-up car parade, and leading into a long swale in the grass. The kids had a good half-hour of wet, splashing fun before we had to head home for naps. We were joined briefly by one of Shayna's classmates and another got a very wet good-bye hug from Shayna. (See pictures and video below.)

We did have a brief heat wave in between days of rain when I got out our new, huge pool. Elijah mainly loves filling his watering can and buckets to water the grass, garden and chalk pictures on the driveway. While Shayna loves doing that as well, she also spent much time splashing and playing in the water. On the first day with the big pool, we even had her friend Peyton over who enjoyed it just as much.

We've had some park picnic's with friends after school. We've done three with friends and at least two on our own in the last month around one of the two duck ponds in town. There's a small pond on the way to the kids' school that's fairly flat so I bring the kids' bikes. Shayna's biking skills have improved tremendously. She's up to going faster (she started at, and would freak out if she went faster than, Elijah's walking pace) so she can make it up the slight inclines and over the tree-root bumps in the path. She can get up steeper hills too as her legs seem to be getting a lot stronger. Her breaking has also greatly improved, which was my biggest safely concern. Instead of freaking out, screaming, then falling, she puts on her breaks. The bigger hills are still and issue from which she had to be rescued once as she careened straight (luckily) back down a hill she'd just heroically gotten most of the way up. My fast moving friend Sarah (she's been trained by her 4 boys) caught Shayna before anything bad happened. (Sarah followed this rescue 10 minutes later when she fished Elijah out of the creek he tipped into while I had a slow-moving, I'm-pregnant-and-in-pain, and sore-from-too-much-exercise day.) Elijah has a tricycle with an adult push-handle on the back and just recently graduated from feet being on the stationary pegs to legs-long-enough to put his feet on the peddles. He still doesn't get the peddling himself concept but loves being pushed along any trail.

Nahum was in Germany for a conference last week so we kept sane as best as possible. We're training a new mother's helper for the summer so she was a big asset as I took myself to dinner twice and had some down time while someone else chased the kids. We also enjoyed a breakfast out where the kids were marvelously well behaved. I did cheat a little with Elijah and let him play games on my phone while we waited for our food and for Shayna and I to finish our breakfasts after he inhaled his. Shayna knew the morning plan but Elijah wasn't sure what was going on so showed some concern. All he knew what he had only eaten 1/2 an apple so was leaving the house like it was time for school on a near empty stomach. He was quite happy that we ended up driving in another direction and quickly settled in for the new adventure trusting, I'm sure, that I would feed him soon. I got even braver and busted out the multi-color water colors that afternoon. Shayna had some practice at school but Elijah had never seen such a remarkable thing. He fell quickly in step with rinsing his brush before getting more paint. The concentration on his face was priceless so I videoed about 10 minutes of painting. Don't worry; it's not all included here but can be made available to Grandpa Michael on request.

Speaking of Grandpa Michael, Elijah's still in love with him and can't wait for his October return. I took the kids to the neighborhood creek about a week after Michael had left from his May visit and Nahum came home from work while we out.

Me: Elijah, let's go home to see Aba. Do you want to go see Aba?
Elijah: No. (said quickly, short and to the point)
Me: What do you want to do?
Elijah: uhhhhh...GranpaMichael. (it's one word to him)

Since Michael left, seeing him again has been a normal request by Elijah.

Enjoy the pictures because I'm done writing for today.