By the numbers

Iver is a "Numbers" guy. Ever since he learned that (Roald Dahl's) six-and-a-half-year-old genius Matilda knew her twelve times tables, he's wanted to learn them. While neither Kelvin nor I are traditional "educators" and would never consider home schooling, we're impressed that our little preschooler has become quite the little mathematician. During car rides in town, he wants us to quiz him on "math," including addition and subtraction, which he has pretty much mastered in his head. He can now do many of the multiplication tables, including ones, twos, some threes and fours, fives, tens, elevens, and twelves (which he demonstrates below).

His watch-wearing has made him obsessed with time intervals and punctuality (he'll ask, "in how many minutes will we be leaving?"), which has made our bedtime routine a bit trickier. We've gotten him to (mostly) stay in bed by doing the five-minute check-in routine for him for about the past year, in order to make him feel secure while breaking the habit of lying next to him until he's asleep (however, we have always been a bit loose with the "five minute" increment, stretching it out to ten or more as we got our stuff done around the house). Now, due to his digital time-reading ability, he'll see the clock read 7:52 or something and he'll say, "So I can expect you back at 7:57, right??". (He got an analog watch last year for Christmas, but it seems to have disappeared).
 
We've been letting Iver watch a library Disney classic movie during Niall's early afternoon nap time on weekends (last weekend, it was the old Peter Pan and this week, we borrowed the old Jungle Book). Our conversation:
Iver: How long is The Jungle Book?
Kelvin: 78 minutes.
Iver: How much longer is that than an hour?
K: Why don't you do the math? (he knows how many minutes there are in an hour).
Iver: (too quickly to have actually done the math): 18?
K: How did you do that?!
Iver: Well, last week, you told me that Peter Pan (77 minutes) was seventeen minutes longer than one hour, so I did the math!

Iver also taught Niall what his age is.

Maybe we have two budding numbers guys!

the cutest shopping assistants!

Kelvin is the shopper in our family. I could forever get by with exclusive online ordering and never having to set foot in a grocery store (especially toting kids). While I do the meal planning and cooking, Kelvin does the item-acquisition execution on Saturday mornings (and sometimes to Costco on Sundays).

Niall usually goes with him, and has gotten a bit more sneaky, often escaping out of the cart into store displays.

Where's Niall? ("modelo model")

 (Of note, Kelvin does not ever drink beer and I rarely do).

Kelvin also, one call weekend of mine, visited Target with the two of them.

Brave, I say! But they are indeed cute, for the five seconds they agreed to stay strapped in the cart seat!

Sharing the summewear

Having two active boys has been pretty challenging at times.  I'm surprised no one has ended up with a serious laceration nor a broken bone yet. In fact, when I found out early in my second pregnancy that I was having another boy, I was just a touch disappointed (briefly), because (not to be sexist, but) I wondered if a girl would be lower in energy/less spirited than was our #1, and would complete our balanced family (I did not desire more than two kids ever).  However, I quickly moved on and began to relish the idea of just having another healthy child, and was thrilled I didn't ever have to go girl-clothes-shopping (I am all about the hand-me-downs) or deal with fashion choices/headbows (ugh!). [What I didn't anticipate was how strongly my oldest feels about his clothing, especially having a preference for wearing dresses at home).

Iver has been extremely into his tank tops lately, and he's gotten great wear out of them, us having a great stretch of truly summer-like weather lately.

While toy- and fly-swatter-(a popular item in our house!) sharing is somewhat touchy, Iver is pretty generous with sharing food and clothes with his younger brother.  We realized that while Iver can still fit some 18-24-month outfits, he's more of a 3T size now for most things, and, while Niall (18 months) can still fit some 9-month outfits, he can pull off the bigger shirts.  We did a little shirt swap this weekend, and check out the wearer(s) of the popular orange tank.

Here's hoping these two little goofballs will always be the best of friends (, share always, and also avoid bodily harm). 

School's Out for the Weekend (Ode to all teachers)

Iver is leaving his "first" school, Little Learners, where he's been in childcare since he was just over one, over three and a half years ago (Niall's been in the infant room at the same site for one year).  I read this article by pastor John Pavlovitz with tears in my eyes, as we're so grateful for the wonderful teachers who have loved him as their own-- caring for littles is just about the hardest (while under-appreciated and under-paid) and incredibly important job out there.

 Here he is as a one-year-old starting in the infant room in 2016.

Here he is as a four-and-a-half-year-old, saying goodbye to the "preschool room" and his dear teachers. 

Teacher Maddie

Teacher Gloria, who has been amazing for both of our boys

Teacher Karina

Teacher Cila, the site director, and a wonderful human being.

I scoured my computer and phone but unfortunately couldn't locate a picture of teacher Angela, who is also extremely dear to Iver, any better than this graduation-cropped one from the Facebook group.

Angela was there early on Mondays to greet the kids after the weekend, which can be a hard time for slow-to-transition kids like our oldest. She took Iver to private swim lessons for much of the summer, even doing lesson planning, when he is very particular about who he'd let babysit/care for him. She gave him small prizes for good effort, including a Frozen-themed digital watch which he now keeps on him for every waking moment (and which has helped him learn how to tell time, do math, and be punctual!), his most prized possession at this time. I heard that, when she left for the day early Friday afternoon, it was pretty emotional.

Iver is on to pre-K next week. He's been pretty notably anxious about the transition, requesting that we visit his new classroom in advance of starting on Tuesday (but seems to have a good attitude about it).  We will certainly be back at LLC for Niall's drop-offs and pick-ups (he'll move up to the toddler room next month), and Iver will be able to visit his old stomping grounds and reconnect with his old loves. 

We are so blessed to have crossed paths with these unbelievable souls and owe so much to Shannon, the owner, and her Little Learners team for caring so well for our spirited, sensitive son (and his younger brother). As Pavlovitz concludes so eloquently, 

"... Within a few miles of wherever you are reading this, a fierce army of sleep-deprived, woefully under supported, horribly underpaid do-gooders is willingly braving the daily bullets, bruises, and battles, so that your children can become the glorious adults they were designed to be. 

To all you ordinary classroom superheroes on the planet, who may not hear it often enough, loud enough, or perhaps at all: Thank you.

Thank you for enduring the countless weird, individual quirks of dozens of kids, for learning how they specifically think and process things, and for seeking to speak their brain’s personal language so that they feel heard and seen and known.

Thank you for the rest that you forfeit, the off-the-clock hours you give up, the money you take from your own pocket, and for the thousands of small sacrifices that no one will ever see from a distance. Thank you for the part of you that you give away to other people’s children.

Thank you for continually fighting through defiance and shyness, through laziness and silliness, through absentee parents and violent home lives, and getting intimately close to the hearts of your kids.

Though we often don’t stop to say it, we know just how much you do and just how fortunate all our children are to have you battling for them every single day.

Thank you most of all, for the very heroic way that without cape or costume, you fly in and you literally save kids—and in doing so, you save the world."

We love all of you teachers!

Those Bananas are Still Good!

While it's a couple of years old, I recently came across this funny Beaverton article and found it particularly amusing in light of my blog title and food-rescuing tendencies.

Woman with freezer full of overripe bananas dies never having made banana bread

June 28, 2017 by Ghazal Baradari-Ghiami

UXBRIDGE, ON – Maureen Gibson, passed away at the age of 87 this Monday surrounded by loved ones and a freezer full of bananas she had been meaning to make into banana bread.
“I’ve lived a beautiful life of love and adventure,” Gibson wrote in a final letter, “If only I had more time to spend with my family, I could have finally made that banana bread I kept promising. Not doing so might be my biggest regret.”
Gibson was an esteemed elementary teacher and active member of her community. She loved friendly tennis matches, embroidered pillows, and bookmarking banana bread recipes she would never come to use.
Gibson had devised an ingenious system wherein she’d buy a bunch of bananas and eat only one or two. A few days later she’d notice that all her bananas had gone black. Instead of panicking at the sight of her rotting produce, Gibson would instead chuck the remaining bunch into her freezer.
She repeated this cycle once a month for the past 63 years.
“It saves you money!” Gibson would often repeat when anyone questioned her about her refusal to simply throw away her bananas, “Why do that when I can and eventually will just make it into banana bread? The sturdiest of the loaves!”
Over her 87 years, Gibson had reportedly devoted most of her savings to the utilities company responsible for powering the electricity to her 24 chest deep freezers.
“This is a burden, I mean gift that I hope to bestow on all my grandchildren. They will become the rightful heirs to my 3,402 over-ripe bananas,” she dedicated in her will. “There might be a few bags of walnuts in the freezer too, now that I think of it.”

Under the Shade of the Sequoias

Eureka has a cute little zoo (Sequoia Zoo), and last weekend, we went with both boys to celebrate Claire's third birthday.

 

Niall wasn't too thrilled with the petting zoo, but Iver went right up to the goats.

The boys admiring the flamingos

Our friend Courtney invited us to join her family at Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park on Saturday, and, while we didn't think it best to stay/camp with our two littles (I am a bit militant about sleep routines, because I know we'll all pay for it dearly, and didn't love the idea of everyone waking one another in a family tent), we hung out there in the afternoon.

Grizzly Creek State Park is another one of our lovely redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) state parks. It's located about an hour southeast from us off Highway 36. Iver and Kelvin actually had stayed (camped) overnight there last year with Courtney's family, and we'd done a little hiking there (with Pepper, in our pre-kid lives) in 2012. I wasn't sure how the kids would do during the car ride (I prefer not to drive anywhere farther than 30 minutes with children), but they survived in the back with some books, minimal bickering, and no vomiting (Iver said at one point, "your music is making me nauseous, Papa!" but I'm pretty sure he was just bored/joking).

It was warm (75-80) and there was a nice, shallow swimming area on the Van Duzen river, where the kids could splash/float around (popular swimming hole Swimmer's Delight is just a few miles up the road).

Evelyn, Courtney's daughter, watched over her little buddy, Iver

Niall on croc

Relaxing on the rocky shore

We packed some food from home, although there was a large group of campers cooking pasta over the campfire before their night at the park. We had to head home in time for a (slightly delayed) bedtime, but Iver insisted on being able to make a s'more before we left.

His first s'more!

(delighted)

 

Our return drive was smooth, and both kids slept until past 6 a.m., which is a rarity in these parts.  It's so nice to live among the redwood forests and to have so many lovely getaway places within a short drive from us. We love our sequoias*!

*as a side note: if you want to read an epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the miraculousness of trees, check out Richard Powers' The Overstory, which I finished a few weeks ago.  http://www.richardpowers.net/the-overstory/

On Two Wheels!

Iver's preschool has occasional "Bike days," where the kids can bring their bikes/helmets and ride around the parking lot. He had a blast last week!

Then, last weekend, we experimented with removing his bike's training wheels and letting him loose in the lane in front of our house. Despite Iver being pretty cautious/resistant to routine changes, here's the result-- he did amazing on this first ride!  It's fun to see him hit these kiddie milestones and get some confidence!