1. It's May, so that means every household with school-age children across America is crazed. It is truly difficult to remember that just a few weeks ago we had literally no activities on the calendar, and now we are celebrating when we get one free night to eat dinner before nine. But these are not complaints. May is busy but perhaps the best month of the school year. Best weather, field trips, the end of testing, baseball, track, orchestra concert, birthdays, and a four day weekend.
2. It's May, so I've ordered summer math books for the kiddos. This is maybe the fifth summer we'll be using these, and I swear by them. They cover all the things they learned during the year in no more than 12-13 problems, ten minutes tops a few times a week and they are done. The books are called Summer Math Skills Sharpeners and that is exactly what they do. Highly recommend.
3. Speaking of summer, pretty soon I'm going to have to sit down and make summer reading lists for the kids! One of my favorite activities, and the kids look forward to receiving their lists. They are perfectly capable of choosing their own reading, of course, but summer is a great time to challenge and introduce them to books outside of their comfort zones and favorite genres.
4. Since summer is so very close, my days alone shall soon go on hiatus. Now I start thinking, what else do I really want to do before summer starts? Shops I want to visit, paths I want to run on, hours I want to spend editing. Seems that before the Summer List is made, I should quickly make a Spring List, just for me, and start checking things off.
5. Track season is here, and baseball season is here. Often times I am picking up the track girl with the baseball boy already in uniform and heading straight to the field. Tonight, though, just track, so we let the kids play outside so much longer than normal dinner time. It was just so lovely, and they had all the little(r) kids in tow, all playing tag and laughing and I could see summer, how it will be here soon and they will all wake up [and do math and chores] and rush out there to greet the day and each other, and no matter the "things" we do to fill our days, they will probably remember the running around so much more.
6. Except. They cannot stop talking about going back to Fawn-doe-Rosa, a summer favorite, and earlier this year since we changed when we normally do swim lessons to coincide with orchestra lessons. Anyway. A friend reported seeing baby goats and a baby hedgehog, and that was it for them. They can't wait.
7. I am in the midst of Catherine Newman's lovely book, which is just so true and dear being in the middle season of parenting myself but not so far away that I can't remember two and five and in between. Trust me, if you are a parent, you will love it.
8. Looking to the week ahead, I am immensely excited for Fisher's baseball game tomorrow and Alla's track meet on Thursday. I love seeing them do these things they are good at and love.
9. Looking to the weekend ahead, Ron is turning 39 and we are going to a Twins game to hear Alla and the rest of the performing arts crew sing the National Anthem and the Canadian National Anthem since we're playing the Blue Jays. Both of these things happen on Sunday.
10. My two-cent parenting advice for the day: when you get to bedtime prayers, sing them! My grandmother Nanny always said singing is praying twice, so even though my sung prayer tonight was much closer to Beavis and Butthead than Amazing Grace, it did the job. Amen.
