April on FB

I'm taking the older three boys cabin camping for a few days during spring break - do you think it's too late to uninvite them and go by myself??

Conversation with my son the day after he made me do a spur-of-the-moment 15k with him

Me: How do you feel knowing that you broke your mom? I can barely walk

B: I feel fine

Me:

B: Physically, I mean I feel fine physically

Me: So emotionally you're devastated

B: Yeah, sure, sure, if that's what you need to tell yourself

This is real. This makes me question pretty much everything I know about supply and demand, the definition of food, and the meaning of life.

I've decided to describe the decorating style in our living room as "early 21st century pandemic remote kindergarten chic". Too wordy?

I see it as one of my purposes on Facebook to share parenting stories that will hopefully inspire you to look at your own parenting and realize, hey, it could be worse.

Today's story: It was a Disney morning at our house - I managed to start a sentence as Mary Poppins but end it as the Beast.

I live in a state where we don't get stickers for voting or getting our covid-19 vaccine.....I hope they still count!!

I am sure you will all be relieved to hear that no traffic cones were injured while Josh navigated the car around the outdoor clinic to get his vaccine this morning.

When your kids know when and how to reference the Simpsons - priceless.

The lesson it seems I must learn every spring: it is NOT enough just to BUY sunblock, I must put it ON as well.

Michael put off mowing the backyard for a while and then "forgot" to mow under the trampoline and now there's a nest there. So no mowing for a while. Obviously he didn't plan this, but still, nicely played Michael. Nicely played.

First there were three, then there were four, then there were five, then there were none.

Someone please tell me that house finches just like to move their eggs to other nests for fun.

I don't particularly believe in Hell, but I'm beginning to think there's probably a prerequisite course for Heaven called "How Not To Be A Jackass" that some people have to take.

I know NASA is all excited about making oxygen on Mars (and really, nicely done!), but Jason Bourne has already grown potatoes there so they still have a ways to go. Just sayin'

And He Got A Shot

Washington State made the vaccine available to the 16+ crowd on April 15th so we were keeping an active eye open to find a Pfizer clinic. So when Jason called me from upstairs (yes, we are now that couple) to tell me he had to a meeting, but had just sent me an email with a Pfizer clinic I hung up on him and got this kid a spot. And then called a friend to pass on the info. And then sent a few texts to some other friends.

Just trying to spread the good news.

Saturday morning (bright and early) Josh drove to the clinic and injured nary a traffic cone in the process. 

It was a rather well-organized process that didn't involve leaving our car the whole time.

He suffered from a sore arm for a couple of days - his brothers may or may not have contributed to that by punching him in the arm to see which arm he got the shot in - but otherwise is doing just fine. 

Spring Sunday Morning

Mom decided to do her 5k wog (I *think* that is autocorrect for "walk") this morning. Ben had committed to wogging with her and I corralled Michael and Isaac into coming along to cheer/jeer for her.

After the three of us sent them off on the trail, we did a little bit of exploring around the storm water pond by the trailhead. Some of the trees were starting to bloom.

We also found some snakes enjoying the spring sunshine. We watched three of them battling in the leaves.

The boys were quite interested until there were two left and...

...I pointed out that this was less likely a battle situation and more likely a birds-and-the-bees situation. That one sentence took the whole moment from "wow" to "mom, that's gross" in a heartbeat.

After I ruined the morning (and possibly the entire day) with that, Michael wandered back to the van and Isaac moved on to investigating and collecting pinecones. Which led me to wonder if small children play a large role in seed dispersal.

And then I am going to throw the before and after pics from mom's 5k at the end of this post. Don't worry - Ben's face didn't freeze that way.

Virtual Hot Chocolate 15k

We didn't train but Ben was DYING to wear his jacket.  

We went mostly uphill - not a great idea. 

It was chilly and raining a little - actually a great idea.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

We aren't really big into big landscaping projects and after this one I think we may be even less into big landscaping projects, BUT I am super happy with how it turned out. It all started last month with the plan of adding another raised garden bed which then turned into a discussion of how difficult the beds make it to mow that part of the yard.  

That led us into an exploration of alternatives to grass so the boys wouldn't have to negotiate around the beds and that ultimately brought us to the project that was a lot of work for everyone, including the boys. 

They didn't really appreciate that it was all started as we were trying to make their lives easier (well, and increase the chances of the yard looking nicer) because in the short run it meant a day of shoveling mulch.  However, we didn't make them do it alone!

'

You can get free mulch from the local dump here, so we rented a pickup truck (to spare the van) to get the mulch. Jason and the older two boys did two runs to fill up the truck with mulchy goodness. Back at the house, Mom, Doug (not seen here), Jason, and I would unload the mulchy goodness and Ben would spread it all in the back.

A few days later, Isaac helped me put the new raised garden bed together (he is really strong!) and then gave a running commentary on the odor as I filled them with dirt.

A few days after that (clearly not in a rush), I got some plants in the ground thanks to Mom and Alison having some extra starts and planted some seeds as well. So our peas are started and now I have to go figure out how to plant potatoes and then wait for it to get warm enough to plant corn. I think we should have our starches covered this year.