Tire Swings and Picnics June 20, 2008

He saw the tire swing. Life will never be the same.

The highlight of the first week of summer for me revolved around a tire swing at one of our local parks. Wilson and I decided to take a walk to enjoy the gorgeous weather we have been given this past week. We mosied all over the neighborhood and eventually made our way to Green Park. This park was given its name because the jungle gym, swings and other play equipment is all a dark green color (I am pretty sure Wilson is the only kid who calls it Green Park – it does have a real name, I just don’t know what it is.) We don’t often get to visit Green Park as it is a little farther from our house than our regular Choo-Choo Park.

On this particular day, Wilson noticed children playing with a tire swing. They were having a great time and the second the children left the tire swing, my boy decided that he wanted to try it too. I lifted him up on the tire and he decided there and then that he never wanted to get down. The only way to convince him to get off the tire and head home was to promise him that we would come back – that night as soon as Tom got home from work.

Wilson and I decided that we would have a picnic dinner at the park and he could show Tom the tire swing. We headed to the grocery store and bought rotisserie chicken with a few sides and came home and packed our basket (laundry basket that is – we are not fancy at our house). Tom got home and the three of us headed to the park together. We ate dinner on a few huge beach towels and then played on the tire swing for about half an hour. It was so much fun and so special for Wilson. He loved his picnic dinner and now requests every meal to be eaten on a beach towel at Green Park.

Daddy, I wuv you. June 20, 2008

It’s one of the best things ever.

Our three-and-a-half-year-old son likes to have me sit next to him in the back seat of the car, and I’m happy to do it. This weekend, we were headed somewhere and I was riding in the back with him. He asked me if he could hold my hand, so I reached over and he promptly intertwined his fingers with mine. It was not unusual for him for him to do that.

“Daddy, I wuv you.”

That was out of the blue. It made me feel warm and fuzzy, and it was the best moment of my week.

The Loveliest Days June 19, 2008

For those of you who have been out of school or are not lucky enough to be in the field of education, try to think back to the anticipation of summer vacation when you were a child.  

There is nothing like summer vacation.  The feeling of freedom from work / school for two months is incredible.  I love it.  There is so much anticipation that builds at the end of the school year.  I am pretty sure our staff summer vacation countdown began the morning we all returned from spring vacation with weekly email reminders of how many days we had to go since those cold March days.  55 days still meant we had a good 3 months of school left.  When there were 30 days of school left, you could almost let yourself believe that carefree summer days were going to get here.  When there were 19 days of school left, well heck we were in the teens!  At 10 days of school left, was there really any point to going to school anymore?  At 5 days, I had to put together the annual fifth grade picture montage and while it was a little sad to see our 5th grade class get ready to embark on middle school (especially when I could clearly remember this group of children when they came through 6 years earlier for kindergarten round-up), but I could say things like, “This is the last Monday of the school year.  One week from today, I will be wearing my flip flops!”  Then 4, 3, 2, and 1 day until summer vacation.  Then it is here.  Summer vacation finds me every year.  

Since Wilson was born, I have felt the need to make summer vacation especially meaningful and memorable.  This is the only stretch of time when he truly gets my undivided attention.  There is no competition with work deadlines, emails, meetings or lesson planning.  I have to make summer count mostly so I don’t feel so guilty when September rolls around once again.  Last year, I kept a journal of all 80 days of summer vacation. I wrote about one special moment that we shared each day.  Sometimes it was an observation I had made of him or something funny he said.  Other days I would detail a laundry list of everything the two of us did together.  When I read my journal now, I can vividly remember the particular moments I wrote about.  

I love that I had the discipline to keep that journal last summer.  

We have officially been on summer vacation for 6 days as of today.  I have to admit that I have not started a summer journal for 2008 and I am not sure that I will keep one this year.  Maybe this year I will keep a weekly journal and chronicle the ten weeks that will fly by as if they were merely 10 days.  Perhaps I will use our new blog as my online weekly journal for our summertime events.  Hmmm…  You’ll have to check back tomorrow when the official one week of summer has hit and see what week 1’s highlights have been. Perhaps I will even figure out how to post a picture by tomorrow as well.  Probably not, but perhaps.    

 

Home Study – Visit 5 – The LAST One! June 13, 2008

We’re back!  Sorry I have let the blog go for so long, but really life was just not that exciting so you didn’t miss out on too much.  Well, life was not that exciting until this week that is.  This week, Tom had his final and is now finished with school for the next three months, my school was let out for summer on Thursday and we had our LAST home study meeting this morning!  

We had our home study visit this morning and Tom took the rest of the day off so we could have a family day together.  The home study visit was so much easier than I had imagined it would be.  I had this vision that the entire house had to be spotless, including every closet and under every bed.  I spent the last week cleaning and organizing the house.  I hired a maid service to come in yesterday and touch everything up. Our social worker was so relaxed though, she didn’t open our closets or crouch down to inspect under the beds.  I must say though that I am glad I was so obsessive in preparing though because it is really nice to have such a clean house.  

It feels so good to be done with our home study meetings.  At this point, our social worker will write up the home study and send it to DCFS to get approval.  That will take 5-6 weeks to get done.  Once the home study is approved, we will be sending it on the USCIS (US Immigration office) to get approval at a federal level.  I’ll go through that more later though, we need to get through DCFS first.  

Our family day was so nice.  After our social worker left the house, we walked to the Children’s Fair that our city holds every year on the last day of school.  We had a great time together.  Wilson got cotton candy, rode on a few rides and played some games.  Of course the favorite “game” was the Candy Castle – this is a cut-out of a gingerbread house that the kids walk through and find a big kiddie pool filled with candy at the end.  They get to take a dixie cup and fill it with as much candy as they can.  We tried this last year and Wilson didn’t really understand what he was supposed to do, but this year he is a Candy Castle pro.  I’m confident he could be a team captain.  

The Children’s Fair continues through tomorrow so I am sure we will be back there for another giant stick of cotton candy and maybe even a snowcone.  Don’t you just love summer?