Ordinary - July 7 - Bath

Here's one area that I have no shame.   Someone posted recently on Facebook asking folks to comment on the frequency with which they bathed their kids.  She said, "Be honest."  Everyone who responded by the time I read the post answered with an every other day pattern.  Some with more frequency.  I was the only one up to that point who answered "once a week."  That is it folks. 

Baths once a week, usually on Sunday nights before the new week. 

This is our pattern and I am sticking to it. 

Ordinary - July 6 - Splash

It's summer and we've been swimming.

This is a splash Anders made today when he jumped in. 

Sort of looks like a bowl. 

A beautiful bowl of splashing drips and drops of water, with my lovely 8 year old sinking below.
Just like a cannon ball.



 

Ordinary - July 5 - Flip

Anders be nimble.

Anders be cool.
 Anders flip into the swimming pool. 
 

Ordinary - July 4 - Fireworks

Each summer we see the fireworks on the fourth of July. 

Some kids when they are little are afraid of the loud booming.  My boys aren't. 

Some kids when they are little cannot stay up that late.  My boys can. 

Some kids cannot stand the bugs.  My boys don't mind. 

I like that the thrill of the crackle and pop is worth it to them - late, loud, and buggy. 

Ordinary - July 3 - Turtles

Mistake.  And yes, we made it. 

Last summer in June while on vacation, the boys caught a couple of small, cute turtles and wanted to keep them.  We made them put them back after allowing them to play with them for a day or two.

Then this year we saw an add for free turtles...with tank, filter, pump, etc. and we decided to take them.  We didn't think to ask questions first, just jumped in with a YES, thinking they would be two ordinary and small turtles.  And then.  And then we went to pick them up.  There were two very large red ear sliders with four inch nails waiting for us.  They were massive and scary.  We had no idea what we were getting into.  The species lives for about 70 years.  The turtles are not native to Vermont, so can't be released into the wild here.  And they generate a lot of waste.  Which means the fifty gallon tank has to be cleaned out regularly.  This is complicated to say the least.  They are not particularly warm or fuzzy and the kids don't really care too much about them., but we are doing our very best to connect and keep them alive.  It's been four months now. 

But who's counting?

 

Ordinary - July 2 - Bed

The boys have a bunk bed in their room. 

Anders has the top bunk, Kuba has the bottom.

Anders hardly ever sleeps in the top bunk, instead prefers to sleep with Kuba in the lower bed.

I keep trying to talk Anna into switching them to a full size bed so they can actually fit well,
 but this is something that is low on the totem pole of priorities,

and so for the time being they share the lower bunk. 

 Someday when they get bigger we will have to figure out a solution

to the tiny bed sharing syndrome.  I seem to be the only one with the issue right now. 

Ordinary - July 1 - Shoes

In our entrance hallway/mudroom we have four baskets for shoes. 

Each one of us has our own basket, but when we get busy, the baskets get jumbled. 

Once when I was cleaning out the mudroom, I emptied all the baskets and found a dead flattened mouse in Kuba's basket.   I think he (or one of us) may have stepped on it in the backyard and carried it in on the bottom of their shoe.  Sometimes our cat, Tiger, leaves gifts of dead mice and dead birds laying in the yard.   I can't think of any other way the flattened mouse could have gotten there.