We celebrated the end of the school year with a puff of colored chalk today with our neighbors.
With a world in turmoil in so many different ways, I am more and more aware of how fortunate we are to live in this little corner of heaven. A neighbor invited all the neighborhood kids over for ice cream, popsicles, and chalk. After everyone got their frozen treat, the kids lined up for two cups of colored fun.
Natalie chose to go all pink!
And one... two... three... hooray!!
In the video you might notice some kids rolling around on the asphalt after the fact, trying to get more chalk on themselves. Daniel saw that and thought he'd follow suit.
He was our messiest kid. It was pure heaven for our little expressive Daniel.
He was dancing and twirling and enjoying the bliss of the moment. Group photo
Sophi and Lily stayed pretty clear of the chalk. Abi and Natalie got in the mess a little bit
The party ended, people started leaving. Most of my kids had left, except for Daniel. When I told him he had to come home now, he refused. I told him he needed to obey. He said No, I don't want to. I didn't want to throw him over my shoulder, cause he was covered in chalk and I didn't want to get my clothes messy. So I tried to pull him home by the hand. I hoped that he would be like my other kids, and would choose to reluctantly walk rather than be dragged. But nope. He went limp and I was dealing with a dead weight. And he was also screaming bloody murder. I could see Sophi ahead and told her to go get the wagon. I got a good workout as I tried to keep him lifted above the street and keep him at arms length. Then I dragged him a little on the grass. And after my muscles were burning from that I held him at arms length once again by one foot and hand as I continued to haul him home. Sophi came back with the wagon which saved me on the final stretch. That was easier. She pulled it while I held him over/in it. To the front stairs of the house, deep breath, just one last haul, here we go, umph! In the door... up the stairs, into the tub, and yay, time for a bath. I undressed him as he screamed, and soon he was reluctantly clean.
Phew! He has a scrape on his chin from falling out of a wagon over at a neighbor's house two days ago. He hit his teeth on the ground, but luckily she's a pediatric dentist and she examined him and let me know what to expect. His front tooth has been sensitive the past two days, so he's just had soft foods like pasta and french toast. Today he is doing better and it doesn't seem to be bothering him anymore. It's a good thing that kids heal quickly.
A few other pictures from today -
The kids came up stairs for a snack and joined Peter in his little built in bench in the wall.
It's like the perfect height for him! So cute.
Now that there's no more school, there's not quite the same urgency for kids to go to bed, but Corey does leave by 8, so we'll try to keep an 11:00 bedtime for him. Try. We didn't do well last night, but Corey seemed to be okay with it cause we were having a good impromptu chat with the older kids. It started with Wesley talking Corey's ear off while he brushed his teeth, and then we all kept talking as we stood around in the bathroom. Then we tried to find places to sit on the tub...
We got out our junior year yearbook to show pictures of one of my favorite teachers and then it just went everywhere from there, with us talking about different people in our grade, how they were then and what they're doing now, the different choices people make and how friends can be a big influence on your life's trajectory. And of course the kids were telling us how bad our haircuts were... We promised them we were not lying: "Bowl cuts were cool!" They couldn't wrap their heads around how that could ever have possibly been an acceptable hairstyle. It's fun to talk with the kids, and you can never predict when those moments come. But they usually come at night, when the kids are goofy. Here's Wes representing the goofiness that usually causes kids to stay up late.
We had a goofy stay up late last Saturday night that didn't involve deep discussion, just silliness. Mel started it by making this pose with Owen's Sith trooper... Looking like a strawberry shortcake smooth criminal with that hat
Hyrum with his own little lego creation.
Then their sculptures started getting more elaborate....
Wow.
Hmm, what else can we do with these two action figures....
Mel couldn't get it balanced... "Here, Mel, let me show you how it's done..."
Hyrum did it! ...just adding a cherry little dinosaur on top
Ok Batman, pretty good. What else you got?
Ooh, adding two pencils and wearing a strawberry shortcake hat. As they worked on their final act for the evening, Wesley came and joined us.
So this late night wasn't so much a late night talk, just a late night goof off session.
1 AM and we were laughing. Ok guys, we really need to go to bed now. I'm glad that we survived the school year. The kids are all glad that distance learning is over and hope that they'll be able to hang out with friends soon. A cool thing about quarantine, is that it's helped us warm up for summer. Like usually, I'm just barely getting into the groove of things by the end of summer when we have to switch gears again and go back to school. But this year, quarantine has been our warm up and now we've already found our rhythm, so I think this summer is going to be great! We will try to keep our good current habits established and hopefully will pick up a few more, like a summer reading challenge and maybe a musician challenge too.
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