all that fun water

Maddie and Martin are taking swimming lessons once a week. Martin does pretty well, his class is pretty dificult, he is in level 3.
Maddie is in level 1. She has a lot of fun. One time she wouldn't swim towards the wall and get out, she just swam away from the group. The assistant teacher had to get her and drag her little life jacket over to the group. Then he had to do it again. Then Maddie wouldn't climb the ladder, so she didn't get to jump into the water. The instructor threatened to make her sit on the side of the pool, so Maddie stayed with the group after that.

After the swimming lesson Maddie said
"It is hard to follow directions when there is all of that fun water"

Summertime

Martin made a list of thing that he wants to do in the summertime. Here it is.
2. go fising in a canoe
2. watch birds
3. play outside
4. go to bowling alley
5. Go to beach
6. read
7. play on computer
8. rollerskating
9. biking
10. hiking
11. Buy board games
12. make a blocking (I have been talking about making a barrier for the end of the driveway so our balls do not roll into the street and also so cars do not turn around in our driveway. This is what Martin means by a 'blocking')
13. chop wood
14. do someting good
15. pretend to go camping
16. go camping
17. get ping pong board and paddles
18. do an experiment
19. get me a pair of rollerblades
20. go to mini golf
21. vacation
22. get wet
23. project
24. play on a soccer game/team
25. frisbee golf

So Martin makes a lot of lists and I like them because they show what how he thinks. Since this list has been written we have purchased Martin some rollerblades ($2 at SVPD) as well as some ping pong paddles. We play ping pong by hitting the balls off of the walls in the basement. It is like low-speed racket ball. It is actually a pretty fun game.

Adventures in Transportation

SO I found a lawnmower in craigslist, $50 and it runs and looks pretty good. I had to drive out about 12 miles to pickit up, and then remove all of the carseats to haul it home. I was thinking, wow, this will all be much easier when we have a van.

Now I think that we REALLY need a van. Our old car is having problems.

Unfortunately our car, a great car in 1998, doesn't work as well as it used to. It doesn't ding when you leave the lights on, so it is easy to leave the lights on, and then run out the battery.
I did this at the local McDonald's a few months ago and the helpful employees came out and push started me. It was quite the thing to see.

But yesterday Ben left the lights on all day long and the battery was too dead to jump, too dead to push start. Our neighbor Doug drove Ben to work, they attempted a jump, then removed the battery, took it to a car place and then put it back in the car. This was like 3 trips and 2 hours of time for our neighbor.

In the mean time, Maddie has a class saturdays at 11am. We had no car, so I transported her there and back. I didn't run all of it, but I ran most of it. Maddie and I got to talk a lot. It was actually pretty fun.

Dentist

Maddie chipped a front tooth when she was 2, and recently that tooth has become gray, so today we went to the dentist. Maddie loves the dentist. She has no cavities!

I think my kids have my teeth, I have never had a cavity. Ben has had a lot of cavities and he has a couple of crowns. We tell our kids that if they do not brush their teeth they will have to get a gold tooth someday. This scares them, so they all bruch their teeth. When Ben's crowns need to be replaced, he will probably get tooth-colored ones. Perhaps by then our kids will have good brushing habits and will not need to be threatened with metal teeth.

Maddie talked to the dentist and the hygenist a lot. She likes to talk. I hope that means that she is self assured.

botanist or warmonger

Martin watched a show on gardening in wisconsin, specifically the green bay botanical gardens. He made a list of plants that he wants to plant in our garden. The list included Moon beam coreopsis, and Eveline.
I only discovered this because he was asking me about what zone wisconsin was in, I told him 4, but the TV said zone 3. So I explained that zone 3 plants would grow in zone 4 and then he was happy.
I thought "Martin is a little botanist"

That night when Martin went to bed, he taped a paper to his ceiling above his bed -he sleeps on the top bunk- and on the paper was the following list;
***********************************************************
Have war! with Caleb
get the following items; rubber bands, rubber band gun.
instructions: rubber band gunin basement in box full of toys. Rubber bands in kitchen on the shelf in the drawer.

(there is an illustration showing that the rubber bands are in the middle drawer)

notice: read all before doing anything.
get armored after getting dressed.
P.S. wake up maddie now!
all other supplies on bed. OK get dressed beware.

signed
Martin
*************************************
On Martin's bed were a bunch of stuffed animals. I guess that they are ammunition in case he runs out of rubber bands. The way their wars usually work out is that Caleb throws stuff at Martin and Maddie while they throw stuff back at him. I try to discourage the wars in general but this morning when Martin was executing his plan, I just encouraged him to not shoot rubber bands directly at Caleb.
I am sure that this shows some sort of lifeskill besides warmongering.

.....Walking in a Dairy wonderland

Today we went to "Cows on the Concourse" an event at the Madison Farmers' Market, where they bring in real cows, and a bunch of stuff to teach kids about dairy products. We saw a real cow stomach and these gross stones that form in cows' stomachs.

Caleb loved the cows. he can say 'cow'. Martin did not like the cows, but he did like playing the games to learn about dairy products. He won a rubber eraser cow, a whistle, and a colorign book. All 3 kids also got free t shirts. We bought everyone ice cream from the wisconsin dairy association. It was a fun outing.

Caleb loves his medicine

Caleb has been on an antibiotic for an ear infection. He loves amoxycillin, so giving him his medicine is pretty easy. One day he was mad, so he poured his medicine on the floor. I was about to give him more medicine, when Caleb flopped onto the floor and licked it all up. He ate all of it. It is an antibiotic, so maybe that counteracted the germs from the kitchen floor. Anyways, the medicine is kept in he fridge. Also in the fridge was half a loaf of bread that I had baked the day before. Caleb got the fridge open, and somehow opened the childproof cap, and poured the medicine all over the loaf of bread. Then he ran into the living room and happily ate his amoxycillin bread. It was the last day for his antibiotic, so I didn't bother getting a refill.

It was really cute.