Bonus Material

The kids say and do lots of things during the day, but they aren't always appropriate for a full blog post. So, if you want to see more of what is going on with them you can either follow me on Twitter (@freedjpc) or you can friend me on Facebook. My Twitter account feeds my Facebook, though there is a delay of a few minutes.

Incidentally, don't expect a lot of interaction with me on Facebook as I rarely get on to Facebook proper. I do read all comments though, so if you read something you want to comment on, go ahead. This is primarily for friends and family anyway.

Also, I rarely post to Twitter. You won't often read about what I had for lunch today, so you won't have to worry about too much noise.

Comfortable in his Skin

I just got back from picking up Lily at the bus. Amanda wanted to go for a run, so I took Noah with me. He used to have a very sour attitude about going to the bus, but now that he knows Maren really wants to see him he seems to have a better attitude. That's fine with us.

He and Maren were playing and then Noah kind of peeled off and walked a bit down the sidewalk. He announced that he "had to go pee-pee." He then proceeded to drop trou right there and pee on a tree. Everyone at the bus stop thought it was rather funny. I apologized for him, but they didn't seem too upset.

This is a boy who is comfortable in his own skin. I take that to be a good thing, but we're going to have to talk about when it is appropriate to pee outside and when it is not. I'm glad that he sees the simple joy of doing it though. And when you've gotta go, you've gotta go. We'll work on it.

New Friend

Noah had a little playdate today. His friend Walker from preschool came over in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it does not look like they are going to be great friends. They got along just fine, but Walker and Noah are interested in different things and go at different speeds. Walker is a bit like how I think I was as a little boy - he's sensitive and not into all the physical play. Meanwhile, Noah wanted to do his regular stuff and when asked if he wanted to play too Walker would just say, "not yet."

The good news is that at bedtime Noah cited "playing with Walker" as one of the things he wanted to thank God for today. I'm sure that they will see each other some more since Walker lives very close by. It's a shame that they likely won't be closer to each other, but not everyone can be your best friend.

Landscaping

We had a big day here at casa de Chamberlain. It was time for the Bradford Pear tree to go. It had survived many ice and wind storms, but it was just not doing well. It had sprigs of mistletoe growing in places. The upper branches were dry and nearly leafless. Overall, it was just not a happy tree.

My friend Rob brought his family and his chainsaw over for breakfast and tree-cutting. We enjoyed some creme brulee french toast and then got to work. Felling the tree was pretty trivial, but of course collecting all the wood was not. Being a miser, I saved it all. I'm looking forward to many campfires with the small logs and sticks we got from the tree. I'm also looking forward to some good fires in the fireplace with what I can split off of the trunk.

The really hard work came from busting up the stump. However, we managed to break it up with axes and mauls. I got some topsoil in the hole and planted some grass seed with Noah's help. We got that done just before the rains came today. It's supposed to be rainy for a good part of the week. I think that will make our grass seed perfectly happy though.

Losing My Marbles

I did my annual chaperone adventure with Lily's class on Thursday. We went to Marbles, which is the local kids museum. Our group was Lily, two girls from her table at school, and a boy who didn't have a group. Lily is not particularly fond of this boy, but I enjoyed his company well enough. I really had a pretty low-key time with it. By the time I arrived with the carpool of moms it was around 10:00. We had a class to attend at 11:00 on good nutrition. We played a little bit more then had lunch at noon. That left us with about 30-40 minutes to play some more.

Overall, I think it was a good time, though I'm not sure how much educational value there really was. I'd say that the lowlight was the wall of marbles. They have walls made out of metal with holes for marbles in them in a grid. You can run your hand up and down the wall and the marbles move under your hand. It is also really loud. I joked with Lily's teacher that every school should have a wall like that and she quickly disagreed.

I was back home by 2:30 and was able to finish up a project for school. I just got materials for a paper tonight and if I put my shoulder to the grindstone I should be able to knock that out in a week or so. That will leave me a single paper to write. But who's counting?

Jump Around

Noah got invited to a birthday party at the Jump Zone this past Tuesday. He went, and this time he actually enjoyed it. I can't be sure, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that his friend Audrey Kate was there. Either way, we're glad that he finally enjoyed himself at one of the jump places. Hopefully he will enjoy the bounce houses at Northwoods Elementary's annual Spring Fling. Last year I bought him an all-you-can-jump bracelet and then he froze.

Nap Time

We had a fairly full day on Sunday. First, we went to Cousin Clark's birthday party from about 11:30 - 2:00. After that we took care of some shopping we had to do. Noah fell asleep in the van on the way home. I stayed with him for a while after we got home, but eventually woke him and brought him into the house. You can see below how successful I was in truly waking him up.

He did that completely on his own. I guess when it's time to sleep it's time to sleep. I wonder where he gets this uncanny ability to nap in just about any situation? And why is he so sleepy in the car?