My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

It’s good to know you can drive a fire truck and type on a laptop at the same time.  Might come in handy some day. 

I love his intense face – all cheeks and no chin!

The big kids have been taking once-a-week swim lessons for about a month now, and the great instruction coupled with my bribery has resulted in some impressive gains!  The girls have gone from refusing to get their faces wet at all to now voluntarily dunking their whole heads underwater for a few moments at a time.  And I can’t get enough of Jimmy splashing around in the pool like a little wet puppy dog; he’s progressing even faster than his sisters.  They just started using goggles and they’ve helped to increase the kids’ confidence quite a bit, even though they look goofy!

Here’s a video of a recent lesson.  I’m so proud of them!  (You’ll have to excuse the first few blurry seconds of the video where Danny was busy trying to yank the phone out of my hands!). 

Susie knows springtime is planting time, so she’s once again obsessed with having a garden.  Last week, she saved the seeds from her apple and raced outside with her brother to find the perfect place to plant an apple tree.  They even dragged snow shovels with them to dig a hole.  They came back inside, caked with dirt and all atwitter about how wonderful it will be to go out every day and pick an apple to eat.  I filled them in on the realistic timeline for tree growing, but for kids who believe that their birthdays and Christmas are perpetually just around the corner, the prospect of waiting years for a fresh-picked apple didn’t daunt them.

Here they are picking the perfect spot (which turned out to be a rocky slope, which may also push back their timeline for homegrown produce): 

And here are their muddy hands (and Danny’s hands for good measure. He’s looking forward to apples any way he can get them!). 

The last Fancy Nancy book the girls brought home from the library inspired a tea party.  This time, it inspired an explorer’s hike!  As per the book’s suggestion, Susie gathered up a backpack, camera, magnifying glass, gloves, and notebook and set off with her siblings into the wilderness that is our backyard.  It was a beautiful time of day, just before sunset, and I was as entranced as the kids by the exploration. We found that the little stream that runs through the land was swollen with our recent rains and the kids clambered along the edges looking for a place to ford the creek.  Danny tried valiantly to keep up with the others, even though the sticks and branches were more of a hurdle to him than his longer-legged siblings.  Jimmy used his eagle eyes to point out all manner of bugs and plants, and Susie kept clicking away at her camera to document the outing.    

I was later telling my dad that I find myself in the position where I desperately want the kids to be independent and adventurous, especially when it comes to the outdoors, but I’m constantly fighting back worries about broken bones/tick bites/concussions if I give them too much freedom.  But my dad reminded me that the childhood adventures that he now remembers the most fondly were the ones that involved some bodily injury.  I only wish his mom was around so I could ask her how she kept her nerves in check while her youngest son was out jumping off snowdrifts and falling into icy streams!  I’m proud of my little hikers, and while I hope and pray they avoid bashing their heads on one of the hundreds of rocks studding our property, I’m excited to see where their explorations take them.  I just hope they don’t bring home a Fancy Nancy book on cliff jumping!   

Here’s Susie recording her observations (translation: I found a rock.):

Today finally felt like winter was behind us.  We brought out the bubbles, and the girls took off their coats walking home from the bus.  Bring on the sun!