WATER FIGHT!

 A week ago, it was hot, not unlike every other day since we returned from our trip to the west.  But, as I had purchased water balloons at a recent outing to The Dollar Tree (I love that store!), I elected to pad my lead in the #1 Mom contest by filling water balloons.  I stopped at a little over half of the container and let the kids at them.  This lasted about 5 minutes...and that is a long estimate.  However, their giggles and cries of delight made me actually want to spend another 20 minutes filling the remaining half.  As I filled them, I thought to myself that each Thursday evening Eric and I should spend a little time filling water balloons for a weekly fight on Friday.

 What I neglected to take into account is that once I hit the couch on any given evening, my next move is generally in the direction of the bedroom...not back out to the kitchen where the balloon filling takes place.  Thus, this past week Eric and I did not have a date night filling water balloons, but I had a Friday morning of doing this on my own (with a very brief attempt at help from one of the neighbor boys...this turned into more work for me, so I asked him politely to go out and join in the water gun fight until the balloons were ready)

 I did venture out and take a few pictures of the proceeding.  Molly immediately took aim.

 The boys know better.

And that stream of water quickly swerved to become a direct hit on my pants, which meant I changed my clothes for the second time within 15 minutes (the first pair had been a casualty of a bad water balloon).

The kids had a great time.  And one of the neighbor's actually filled an additional 30 water balloons, which I welcomed.  We'll see if this actually becomes a weekly event.  Though, I do have another 100 water balloons waiting to be filled in my kitchen cabinet.

Throwback Thursday

Will's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and he has been asking to hear stories about when he was in my tummy.  This has led to me telling them about various things that I did while waiting for each of my children to be born.  With Dom the biggest event was flying to Alaska for Eve's wedding:

I thought that being in a wedding pregnant was a once in a lifetime possibility...until I learned I was pregnant with Will shortly after being asked to be in Ann's wedding:

By this point, I sort of enjoyed the tradition of taking part in friends' weddings with a mini-attendant.  And if a third friend's wedding date hadn't been changed, I would have been pregnant with a very new Molly while performing attendant duties a third time.  But, as it was, we have to settle for a picture of Molly as the behind-the-scenes flower girl at her God-father's wedding:

And here are all three attendants as they look today:

Since we've been home

 As we drove back from Oklahoma from our family vacation, the thought occurred to me that it was pretty remarkable that we were coming home to the beach.  We've really enjoyed our first Florida summer.   

While in Lawrence, we got caught outside in a rainstorm, where we learned Molly loved being in the rain. 

One Sunday, it poured all day.  As the rest of us played some highly competitive foosball, Uno, and Monopoly (ok, the Monopoly was not so competitive, we dealt out the property and Eric got Boardwalk and Park Place where he promptly built hotels and the rest of us promptly landed), Molly headed straight outside as soon as the door was open.  She had a ball.  And we located our galoshes.  Molly likes to attempt to put mine on, but since they are longer than her legs, she fails.  She has since contented herself with Will's old ones, Will is in Dom's, and I guess we'll replace Dom's at some point.

 I hosted another tea party a week ago.  Nutella and graham cracker sandwiches and a fruit salad were on the menu.  Debussy played quietly in the background.  Get this, Will "the baconeater" Buschelman was the only one of my children to eat the fruit.  With a pained expression he let me know that it was "Delicious".  I wore my old prom dress which shocked Dom who expected me to wear what I had worn the first time. 

 We attended Eric's work party where Eric won the 80's look contest.  Most of you have seen this on the Facebook.  The kids got to play on a giant blow-up water slide, the beach, and participated in a water balloon game.

 Dom and Will lost, but had fun doing it.

 We've eaten a lot of ice cream.  A lot of ice cream.  And I introduced the kids to fudge pops.  Molly hears that ice cream is being considered and heads straight to the deep freezer.  Incidentally, she does the same thing with popcorn.  If a brother requests it, she will show up wherever we are with a bag of un-popped kernels. 

And here's a senior mom's tip if you get tired of the requests for some overpriced frozen dairy product from the vehicle with annoying music.  Stock your freezer with a selection and give each of the kids a quarter to "buy" some ice cream.  I like to sing a little ditty as we march out to the deep freeze and the kids seem to get a kick out of it.  You are welcome.

And we've watched a lot of soccer.  Both the US team and Dom's team.  And we have enjoyed each equally.  I think I may have pulled something from jumping in excitement over a goal Dom scored in last week's game, but it was totally worth it.
I took a picture of the scoreboard from Dom's game a couple of weeks ago.  The scoreboard is much easier to photograph than my 6 year-old running around.

That 3 represents Dom's hat trick.

Nana and L'Opa's 40th Anniversary

A few weeks ago, we loaded up the car and went to Kansas to celebrate Mom and Dad's 40th Anniversary.  The four kids of the middle generation (Fritz, Katie, Mitzi, and myself) threw a party for them where we hijacked their backyard, had Mom make most of the food, and forced Dad to do a lot of yard work...And we all had a really good time.

We had decided to keep things the most simple we would just throw a Maifest much like the Maifests my parents had been hosting for years.  The menu was set and Mom and Dad knew exactly what needed to be done.  The one thing we added was a bouncy house! 

We also wrote a version of The Schnitzelbank that was based on Mom and Dad's life.

I am pretty sure Mom and Dad preferred the private show the morning after their party led by the grandkids.  And the grandkids have been singing it around the house ever since.

Grandma and Grandpa came up for the party and stayed for the after party the next morning.

We also made a trip to Allen Fieldhouse and a local park where Will showed off his climbing skills and Dom hustled everyone on the basketball court with his new peewee Jayhawk basketball.

We are absolutely terrible about taking pictures of everything.  Therefore I don't have a picture of us competing in a trivia night that was held as a fundraiser for the KC seminarians.  We didn't win, but we received the spirit award.  We all wore German Soccer t-shirts and waved Bavarian flags while answers were revealed.  We waved whether we got the answers correct or not to strike fear into the competition...

We also don't have pictures of the actual party...but it was lovely.  Mitzi and Katie took the lead on just about all of the details so it was much more impressive than if I had done it.  It was really wonderful to see so many friends of my parents, too. 

And last, Eric, Robert, Katie, Mitzi and I went to a pro-soccer game on Sunday and had a great time.  Katie and Mitzi and perhaps even Robert took pictures at the time and posted on facebook.  As I don't have a phone that is capable of this (or capable of ever being on my person for that matter),  I relied on them to document the event. 

All in all, the great times way outweighed any stressful times and I think we'd all like to do something similar again in the future.  Especially if Mom volunteers to make all of the food :)!

How Mario Party improved my life

When I was a math major, a professor came into class one day and started his lecture by explaining why his math proofs worked out so well and looked easy:  He got to choose the proofs.

It is much the same with my blog posts.  Our children may come across as perfect and humorous because I get to choose which stories I tell.  As with most people, I'm not super keen on airing my parenting failures or when my children do not act in a way that I'm particularly proud of.  We, just like everyone else who has ever been responsible for a child, have struggled with discipline tactics ever since we realized we needed to start using them.  We have had varying degrees of success.  It doesn't help that every child is unique and reacts differently in every situation.  Things that worked on Dom failed miserably with Will.  And I have no solution, yet, for Molly.  I'm just going to survive this year (hopefully without too much backward progression), and hope for a better third year.

But, I do want to share what has been working lately for William.  It had been slowly dawning on us that Will was becoming more and more defiant in his refusal to obey us.  The biggest test was at the dinner table, but he was also giving us more back talk when we asked him to do things, as well as completely ignoring us when we would tell him it was time to leave.  This last one is what finally broke the proverbial camel's back.  With three kids, it is hard enough getting out of the house.  It is even harder knowing you will have a fight every time you want to leave to go home.  In order to maintain my sanity, I knew I needed to have at least 2 kids obeying me, so that I could just pick up the third (Molly) when it was time to leave an activity.  There was one morning at the gym where I couldn't get any of them to leave...and I lost it.  I yelled,  I threatened, and I knew that things had to change.

When I finally got them home, I looked at Will and told him I was writing his name on a piece of paper (Dom has learned to recognize when it is imperative to obey me, thus had avoided the dread name on paper punishment).  This oddly got his attention and I saw a look of fear in his eyes.  He wanted to know what was going to happen when his name was written.  I said that every time he disobeyed or talked back, I was going to give him a check mark.  If he got 5 check marks, he would lose a toy.   This punishment is a little tricky as all of the toys in the house are communal, meaning that Dom might get punished as much as Will, but that is where we left it that afternoon.

After a cooling off period and after I explained to Eric "the system", Will and I started to tweak it. (Sorry, Eric)  Will requested that instead of a check mark, he would receive an 'X' every time he disobeyed.  Then I suggested that if he did something over and above expectations of good behavior (picking up before being told, helping with Molly, sharing without being asked...and several other ideas we talked about together), he could get a check mark which would cancel out an X.  However, if he just obeyed me, than the result was neutral.  We talked over scenarios for about an hour.  I would give him hypothetical situations and he would tell me whether he would get an X, a check mark, or nothing.  He went on to explain when he would get double check marks, or when he might get double X's (in his words, this would result in his becoming a dragon and generally happened if he hit Dom or Molly...that would be really, really, really bad).  In this conversation, William took total ownership of his new discipline plan and I firmly believe that is why this plan has been so successful.  We also agreed that if he got a net 10 check marks in a week, he could get a little prize.  The prize bag has several Mario Brothers figurines as well as a few odds and ends one can pick up at the Dollar Tree (I love that store!).  Dom is also participating in the system out of fairness and there are always things to improve upon.  Molly is a wonderful example of what not to do.

The first week, I was so excited about how everything was working.  All I had to say was "X" and Will immediately stopped the bad behavior and replaced it with good behavior.  As I told a friend, when I no longer felt like I had to fight with him to get him to do anything, I started to enjoy being around all of my kids more.  I did more things with them in the afternoon (tea party, board games, painting), rather than put on the tv and attempt to avoid them.  When we went on vacation, we regressed a little bit, but it only took a couple of days (and the loss of a toy) to get back into the routine again.  I have two sheets of paper where they can check on their progress.  And in the last week, I only gave out a few X's total.  And they don't get a lot of checks, but there is always a small smile of pride when they get one.   And everyone is enjoying not dealing with an angry mother.

I can't take credit for the uniqueness of this system.  I've seen similar ones before.  And I realized shortly after we devised it that it is really based on Will's current favorite video game:  Mario Party, where you go around the board collecting Mini Stars or losing them when you get Mini Ztars. I am sure this plays no small part in Will's willing and enthusiastic participation.

An added bonus is that Molly has learned the names of Mario and Luigi.  She doesn't call her brothers by their names, but knows their favorite video game characters.  So we've got that going for us.  Which is nice.

The Week in Review

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...Ok, so I really wanted to parody the opening paragraph of "Tale of Two Cities", but I just don't have the creative juices flowing this morning.  Therefore, I will just tell you about the highs and lows of the past week.

Our week started on a high note when we went to the water park we recently purchased season tickets for.  The first exciting thing was to discover the park was open an hour later than we originally thought.  This was especially exciting since we left our house an hour later than we had planned.  The second exciting thing we discovered is that Molly is able to go down all of the big slides that the boys are able to go down as long as she has a life vest on (which she always has on).  This means that Eric and I no longer have to take turns sitting and watching Molly in the kiddie areas while the other parent goes down slides with the boys.  We get to actually have family time.  It is fantastic.  I love Big Kahunas.  I'm not sure if it is the slides, the fact that all three kids are getting more and more comfortable in the water, the lack of sand, or the awesome mix of 80s and 90s music they have continuously playing.  But all of that adds up to us leaving completely confident in our decision to purchase season passes.  

An added bonus is that in our weekly journey to the park we have come up with a new car game.  At some point in the trip we all give estimates of how long it will take to get to the park (or home).  You might think that sounds lame, but, trust me, it really isn't.  Plus, based on the kids estimates, I think they might be getting a better sense of the passage of time.  #summerschool

Our peaks of Sunday fell to the valleys of Monday.  Granted it was our anniversary and we had a nice evening...until Will came in from picking up toys to say he had lost his tricycle.  We all went out and confirmed that it was, indeed, not in our yard.  It was a really nice Trek Trikester I had bought off Craigslist 4 years ago for Dom and would have easily been ridden by Molly and any other kids who happen to show up.  We looked around the neighborhood and our neighbors commiserated with us, but it was nowhere to be found.  

Tuesday, Will's life didn't improve too much due to the discovery of all of the kids' equipment at the Y (that I just blogged about) being moved to a different facility.  Poor Will.

Will's week continued to go downhill the next day as he fell and got a bump on his forehead within 10 minutes of playing at a splash park.  He spent the remainder of his time on my lap.  And got to sport a bandaged forehead for a few days.

This marked the lowest point of the week.  From here, everything started to look up.  At this point, I don't remember what we did on Thursday (though I did complete my 5K in under  31 minutes for the first time since starting to run again).  On Friday, summer vacation started for the district, so the boys spent most of the day playing with the next door neighbor.  We introduced him to 'Sorry' last Sunday and he has come over to play every day since.  We also received Dom's assessment scores and he did really well so I won't be put on probation this year for my poor teaching skills. 

On our walk up to the grocery store, I gave the kids magnifying glasses and binoculars and we investigated every anthill and flower on our journey.  Only do this if you have absolutely no time frame to accomplish anything.  The kids loved it.  My favorite part was when we got to a part where there is quite a bit of sand and I could point out the different tracks.  The kids weren't quite as impressed, but those anthills...Wow!

We ended Friday with a quick trip to Big Kahunas where we went to a new kiddie area that we would love if they didn't close the bigger slides by the end of the day.  As it is, there is very little for adults to do except sit in chairs while the kids wear themselves out on a few kid slides and swim in the shallow water...wait, what am I talking about, that place is an oasis!

And now we have come to Saturday where we ended the week on many high notes.  The first was at Dom's soccer game where he scored a hat trick.  One score, in particular, was impressive as he scored off a corner kick...like a pro. I was very proud of the head coach for that set piece, too.

 And Will and Molly did a nice job of letting me watch the game as they played with each other for a time until discovering kids with technological toys to watch.

The good times continued that afternoon as Eric put training wheels on Dom's old bike so that Will could ride it...which he did for an hour.  Dom overcame his fear of a bigger bike and discovered he could ride it no problem.  We celebrated with another trip to Big Kahunas.

Today as it is raining, we will take it easy.  Maybe I'll go take a nap.  It might just be a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Our Anniversary

 

Monday, Eric and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary.  So, I picked out a few pictures from the day before, the day of, and the day after to post here.   

I've picked out the pictures that meant something to me for one reason or another.

 

For example, the above reminded me of how little I knew my in-laws, but that now they have become such an important part of my life.  And I consider myself extremely lucky to have married into such a fun and wonderful family.

Pictures taken in the hour before the wedding. 

Most of you who read this already know, but we had a receiving line at the reception that lasted 2 hours.  The buffet was pretty well picked over by the time we went through.  We didn't realize until we were looking at photographs that there had been a huge bowl of shrimp cocktail.  Now we eat shrimp on our anniversary in honor of the shrimp we did not eat that night.

Several friends happened to be getting married after us that summer.  None of them had a receiving line.

My siblings-in-law.

Nana dressed to match her first grand-daughter, Mary Ann...who has been joined by 13 more grandchildren in the last 8 years.

And then I just liked this picture.  Eric's first activity as an uncle the day after the wedding. Tummy time!

Running

In the coming weeks I will have a post about our trip northwest to visit family, but as I have not uploaded those pictures and I have uploaded these pictures,  I will write about my kids running. 

Several weeks ago, Eric was watching a track meet on television.  I do not know which track meet or who exactly was running, but the American relay team was competing.  After watching several races, the boys went outside with chalk.  When Eric and I moseyed outside, we had found they had made track lanes and were racing each other around the cars. 

 It was not long before Molly joined the action representing the barefoot running crowd.

 After a few laps, they started practicing their relay team skills.

 I love the smiles on their faces.  It's a nice reminder that running can be a joyful activity.   I have started to get back in the habit of running and the kids are not only great inspirations but also great training partners.  Our YMCA has a little area with smaller equipment.  After my run, the kids and I do about 10 minutes of circuit training.  Which is nice because I would never sit down at a weight machine otherwise.  They would do more than 10 minutes, but I'm exhausted and hungry.   And as I tell my children on a regular basis, I'm in charge.  For now, at least, they seem to buy that logic.  Or maybe it is the fruit snacks I bribe them with to leave...