Day in the Life: February 21st

It was one thing pressing "publish" on Matthew's post that was nearly a year old, most of which was written months and months ago. It was another thing to type up Garrett's interview and pull pictures for his very belated birthday post. But making sense of a random collection of photos taken every hour almost a year ago? This ought to be interesting.

6:30 Up and done with my workout (which, if I'm being honest, never happens anymore because now that Matthew is in school I just do my workout once I get them all dropped off. Perhaps not the best way to maximize my time, but I can't say I miss the early alarm)

7:00 Pretty sure this could have been a photo from today because I definitely still have eggs and toast nearly every morning for breakfast

8:00 Ugh. This. Our dumb legislature was considering a bill that essentially would have allowed people to seek criminal action against librarians if they as parents disapproved of the books their children were checking out (which effectively would have resulted in certain books being banned from libraries to eliminate the risk that "sensitive" books were checked out by minors). I had words to share with my legislators and the committee considering the bill (and while I know the bill did not pass in its original form, I'm pretty sure some pieces of it were passed into law in an effort to hold librarians more accountable, which is just silly because A) all of our libraries have self-checkout machines and B) parents--not librarians--should be the ones monitoring what their children read)  

9:00 Not entirely sure why Connor isn't at school, but I'm guessing he's recovering from an illness. And it looks like we're getting ready to play war

10:00 Costco run with neither Matthew nor Connor in tow, so I'm guessing Darrell was working from home so he could watch them

11:00 Grabbing a bunch of Ramadan books that I put on hold at the library because I embrace the opportunity for my children to learn about people different from them instead of feeling threatened by it (and while Ramadan books were never specifically addressed in conversation about the law that certain lawmakers were trying to pass, I can promise you two things: 1) I have checked out and enjoyed reading with the boys some of the children's LGBTQ+ books that were discussed and 2) Once you start the slippery slope of what kind of content is "offensive" and needs to be limited, it's probably only a matter of time before books celebrating Muslim holidays start making the list)

12:00 If only the groceries would put themselves away...

1:00 Always so many dishes

2:00 Aha! I spy a trash can by the couch. I'm guessing Connor had a stomach bug the day before and is also home this day as a recovery day (and apparently "recovering" means "making lots of messes" because oofta that room is a disaster)

3:00 After school show

4:00 I spy William with a trumpet and a violin, which is why he isn't riding the bus home

5:00 Cleanup time before dinner

6:00 Looks like my mom is babysitting and Garrett has decided that he's going to have her help him get started planting seeds for the spring

7:00 Getting a little work done organizing photos before Book Club (and not sure where Darrell is but obviously he had a commitment hence the need for a sitter)

8:00 Book Club fun (I spy "The Silent Patient"--that was a twisted one!)

9:00 Next time I'm going to hire a sitter who's also a maid so she'll get the kids to bed AND clean my kitchen (just kidding Mom!)

10:00 Not sure what kind of photo project I'm working on, but clearly it's still going strong

11:00 You know bad choices are being made when we're sharing memes instead of getting ready for bed at this point of the night

12:00 Oofta. Definitely bad choices. This is way past my bedtime

Garrett: Ten Years!

 Unlike Matthew's post, this one has been sitting in my draft folder with very little content in it. So I'll do my best to piece a few things into it between pictures and his birthday interview, but I'm also just reminding myself that done is better than perfect. Definitely not how I want to close the book on his birthday updates, but life happens and here we are. And I'd rather close the book with an imperfect tenth birthday update than no update at all. 

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Cheetah

What is your favorite book? I Survived

What is your favorite song? Firework

What is your favorite sport? Soccer

I know I said it last year, but man Garrett has really taken to soccer. It's so fun to watch him play 

What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Go yarn shopping

Garrett now crochets, and while his pile of started projects is significantly larger than his pile of completed projects, every once in a while he actually manages to finish something

What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Play football

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play on the snow hills

Where is your favorite place to go? The beach

I'm not sure if he has more fun fishing or swimming at the beach, but it's always a week with no shortage of smiles

What is your favorite fruit? Grapes

What is your favorite vegetable? Cauliflower

What is your favorite cereal? Cookie Crisp

What is your favorite treat? Milk Duds

What is your favorite meal? Balsamic Zucchini Ravioli

What makes you happy? Crocheting

What makes you sad? When people are mean to me

Who are your best friends? Pravash, Adric, Jamesia, JC, Merry

He and Adric goofing around during an indoor recess

What do you want to be when you grow up? Carpenter

What was your favorite part about last year? Fishing at the beach

What is one thing you want to do this year? Go to Pierre (spoiler since I'm posting this so late--Pierre didn't happen, but he still got to go walleye fishing for his 10th birthday trip with my parents, which was going to be the whole reason for going to Pierre, and since he still ended up catching lots of walleye he was perfectly happy with the change of plans)

A photo from the trip this past August, which I know technically shouldn't be on this post because if I had actually made this post in a timely manner I wouldn't have had this picture yet, but I can't not include it. Not just because of the fish, but also, look at that hair. He started growing it out shortly after his 10th birthday and it's just glorious. We've had to trim it a few times to keep it tidy (and not mullet-like) but otherwise he's all in on the flowing locks (and he's got the head flick to get the hair out of his eyes pretty well mastered)

I know I'll forget lots of details and miss lots of important things about Garrett at this age, but I will say that I've enjoyed the stroll down memory lane to pull the photos for this post. And let's be honest, no matter when I typed this or how much time I poured into making it perfect, I could still never capture all the details and nuances that make Garrett Garrett in a blog post. These posts are just the tip of the iceberg, and I'm so blessed that I get to experience Garrett in all his depths of character and personality!

Always an adventure out hiking with this crew, and Garrett has started getting big on wanting solo pictures with Mom and Dad, as well as carrying a plastic bag so he can pick up litter (which, sadly, we always find way more of than I expect)

Garrett loves growing stuff, and he has taken over planting stuff in our deck boxes (which honestly I never even bothered with) and he even grew a cantaloupe this year (which was delicious and he saved the seeds so he could grow more next year!)

Still going strong with piano lessons, and we've added another violinist to the house

Garrett the reporter at the Sunday School Christmas Program. He was super nervous about "acting" in front of an audience but did a great job!

Tried waterskiing again this summer (with new water skis) and it went so much better!

Garrett and a classmate wrote Christmas letter books to help kindergarteners work on their letter sounds and they even got to use them to do a little lesson with some kindergarteners 

I swear this isn't child labor--he genuinely LOVES mowing

Garrett tried lacrosse at a summer camp, and like most things he picked it up pretty easily and said he wanted to play it more, but unfortunately there just aren't a lot of lacrosse opportunities around here

The first few times we went to the skating rink Garrett opted for roller skates and while he did fine with them, it was a game changer for him to get roller blades. He was zipping around the rink

He was a little nervous about the heights at first, but once he fell a few times and learned his harness would catch him, he LOVED playing around on these aerial activities.

I can't think of a better cake for this sweet boy than a fish cake. He's followed William's footsteps in a lot of things, but it has been so fun to watch him really start exploring some interests that are just his (like fishing, crocheting, and gardening). He's a maker and a builder and always full of great ideas, and while Mom and Dad sometimes wish he would close the loop on his ideas a little more often, it's always fun to see where his ideas are taking him next

Matthew: Five Years!

Done is better than perfect. Is this the five year post I wanted to put up for Matthew? No. I still want to tweak it/improve it/better capture Matthew at this age. But is it time for this post to be done sitting in my draft folder? One hundred percent. Especially since all of these pictures are circa 2024 and I even confused myself reading through the information I had typed since it dates back almost two years, not this past year. And since the pictures/information are only getting more irrelevant (especially since he's already almost six!), on the interwebs they go. Finally.

Age: 5

Height: 3 ft 6 in

Weight: 38lb, 6.5oz

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Cheetah or Tiger

What is your favorite book? My Lucky Day

What is your favorite song? Go Tell it on the Mountain

What is your favorite sport? Soccer and Football

What is your favorite thing to do with Mom? Color

What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Get tickled

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Soccer

Where is your favorite place to go? Lucy's gym

Lucy's gym has rings, and once he got the hang of them there was no looking back

What is your favorite fruit? Apple

What is your favorite vegetable? Carrot and Sweet Potato

What is your favorite cereal? Marshmallow Treasures

What is your favorite treat? Smarties

What is your favorite meal? Spaghetti and Italian Spaghetti

What makes you happy? Doing my marble track and stickers

What makes you sad? When someone hits me

Who are your best friends? Lucy and Rose and all the Griggs family

What do you want to be when you grow up? Artist

What was your favorite part of last year? Playing games on the couch downstairs

What is one thing you want to do this year? Play with my remote control car

At four, the heights of all the boys were within an inch of one another. By five, Connor had started to shoot up and break away from the pack. As of right now, it appears Matthew is going to follow Connor's track and establish himself as one of the "taller" brothers; he is dead even with Connor at five, which is an inch and a half taller than William or Garrett were. 

In another instance of William and Garrett vs Connor and Matthew, both of the older two were full-on reading by five, but Connor--and now Matthew--were not. Matthew is slowly starting to show interest in letters and sounds and figuring out how they go together (and he can write his name and the majority of the alphabet pretty easily), and he can recognize where the words are on a page, but that's about it for him. I have noticed that he still has a tendency to go right to left when we are talking about beginning sounds in words (or when he is reading numbers: 14 becomes 41), so that's definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on as he starts kindergarten. However, also like Connor at five, his math skills are unreal. He can do +1 and -1 of just about any number (probably up to thirty or so), and he can do sums/differences of four or more up to about 20. He is really good at dividing (although with him we just talk about it as "splitting things equally"), and can often figure it out in his head how many muffins each of them should get if we have 12 to split. Even when we play Chutes and Ladders I've noticed that he doesn't always "count" his spaces; he'll just pick up his piece and move it to the next spot (with probably about ninety percent accuracy). 

He continues to play independently really well, and has (finally!) started to get into puzzles (and after like a week of doing the 24 piece wooden puzzles he decided to jump straight to the 100 piece puzzles, so rationally I know it's time to get rid of our "baby" puzzles, but I just can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that yet!). He'll still take naps during the week pretty consistently (mostly because I'm not ready to lose my alone time in the afternoon!), but usually skips them on the weekend and is just fine. Darrell keeps reminding me that we need to get him used to not taking naps before kindergarten, but that's what summer break is for, right? 

Speaking of summer, we tried multiple times over the summer to get him to practice riding his pedal bike (as opposed to his Strider bike that doesn't have pedals). He'd either flat out refuse to pull it out, or get on it, pedal it once or twice, and declare it "too hard". Then randomly in the beginning of September he asked to get out his pedal bike, and later that evening he was zipping up and down the block by himself. This is his personality in a nutshell: when he's in the mood to do something there is no stopping him (literally--when he is in a mood to play games, you'd better carve out your entire morning for endless rounds of UNO, Chutes and Ladders, Guess Who, etc), but there is absolutely zero forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do. 

A few other random Matthew memories: he loves (LOVES) hide and seek and fully grasps the whole being quiet and hiding thing. Sometimes to a fault because we don't always realize he's playing and there have definitely been a few moments of panic when he hasn't answered us when we've called for him. He calls his big toe his "thumb toe", which I love, and after ten weeks in the spring of doing daycare for my niece (who is Matthew's age), he FINALLY started picking up on when to use he vs she. Poor Lucy didn't care for being referred to as a "he" or "him" but she tolerated it well.

First time roller skating!

Mom's little hiking buddy

See rocks, will climb. Always

Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous that I never thought to create a canopy/fort on the bottom bunk when my sister and I shared a bunk bed

First summer as a Little Vikes camper at Leif Ericson Day Camp!

He loves Lucy's gym so much it was his request for his birthday outing this year!