We all of have extremely busy lives, for better or worse. So it got me thinking. What is your favorite moment during the day? Maybe it is an early morning run or a mid-day coffee break by yourself. For me, it’s the moments just before I tuck myself into bed. I check in on my boys before I head to my room. Pull up covers, take off glasses, place books on the floor, and turn out the lights. I sneak a peck on the cheek and run my fingers through their hair. And then I just look at them.
In those moments I can see all that is good in them. There is no frustration or angst. No homework to be done, no arguments about screen time, no practice to rush off to, no battle to wage. My worries, that seem to live just beneath the surface, settle. I got them through another day and they are safely sleeping. They are wonderfully perfect. I smile.
Do you feel the same about watching your kids sleep?
I really would love to know….. What is your favorite time of the day?
Little Man adores graphic novels. His first love is Lunch Lady. He has read all 10 and we are patiently waiting for a new book in the series! Hoping to find a new series for him to devour, I recently purchased Squish #1, Super Amoeba. To my delight, he took it to school and finished it-cover to cover- in one day! It’s simple with most young boys- get them laughing and you get them reading!
This brother-sister {illustrator/writer} team combine simple a simple color palette and a reader friendly-lay out with story lines focused on navigating school, life and bullies! That is a one, two punch. Books that kids want read and parents are happy to buy!
Give Squish a try! There are 6 titles in this series and counting.
For more great resources on how to get your guy to read, pop on over to Guys Read. It is a web-based literacy program for boys, founded by author and First National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature -Jon Scieszka, with a mission to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers. Good stuff!!
While this shot is lovely, don’t be fooled. My life does not always look like this. Yesterday morning our selfie would have been one, very unflattering snapshot.
Little Man decided to take a quick spin down the driveway and around the cul de sac on his scooter-just before I drove him to school. I was inside grabbing my cup of coffee and keys. He came in whimpering and moaning. His left knee had a huge abrasion and was oozing blood. After a quick patch job with the materials I had on hand, I decided it would be best if we stopped by the nurse’s office before sending him to class. And this is where the morning took a sharp and embarrassing turn for mom. {My dear friend jokes with me that my stories would make great sitcom episodes. Yesterday that was TOTALLY true!}
As I was holding his hand and walking into the school, I took a quick assessment of my appearance. I had not changed my clothes and was wearing the clothes in which I had slept. A pair of cropped sweats smeared with blood, a white ribbed tank top, a ratty sweatshirt that should not be allowed out of my house, and NO BRA. Ok, let me stop for a moment. I was not wearing a bra. I am a girl that should never go braless. Never. Top that off with a pair of black Crocs, no makeup and morning breath and I was quite a sight!
To make it even more fantastic, Little Man asked if I could please walk with him to his class since he was so late. I didn’t have the heart to say no. There was no avoiding how horrible I looked, so I decided to just go with it. I helped him get settled, greeted his teacher, and chatted with a few friends.
While telling the story last night at dinner, Aaron and I joked about looking my worst in public. Little Man chimed in with an astute observation that I could look worse. “Mom, you could have had messy hair, no clothes on, and been sick.”
Yep. After a great kick off last week, birthday celebrations x 2, and one major dental procedure under general anesthesia- we are all in! Summer, be warned because this crew is ready for anything and everything. After too much time off, I am picking up my camera, brainstorming like crazy and eager to get back to being creative.
Have a great weekend! What are you up to? We are busy packing and will be dropping off both of our little guys at sleep-away camp. BIG! Huge, actually. Is Little Man up for the challenge?
Little Man is officially toothless. The second top baby tooth, which was hanging sideways, finally popped out at school this week. I feel I can make some astute observations now that my youngest is loosing his baby teeth:
1. Teething was cruel and unusual punishment.
It is has been a long time since I have had a teething baby, but it was pretty miserable. Just when I thought I had this mothering thing down and I was getting more than 2 hours of sleep at at time, my little one started breaking teeth and my world was turned upside down. Both of my boys were extreme droolers. A shirt would be soaked in a matter of minutes. Everything went in their mouth. Everything! However the worst was at night. They would wake up screaming and were often hard to settle down. A preemptive strike with Tylenol would sometimes help and I called those natural teething tablets my ultimate savior. {What the heck are those made of?} It was exhausting for all involved. Funny how excited they are about loosing their teeth. If only they knew how hard it was for them to “get” them.
2. The lisp is outrageously adorable.
Little Man is now talking with a bit of a lisp. Without out those two front teeth it is impossible to enunciate correctly. When ever he is telling me something serious or trying to get his point across, I am secretly giggling inside. Hard to take a man with an adorable, toothless lisp seriously.
3. The tooth fairy is actually kind of freaky.
Little Man will not leave his teeth under his pillow. I thought for sure he would be super stoked to get some cold hard cash for his teeth. Even a little extra money is not worth it to him. The thought of some fairy sneaking into his room and reaching under is pillow is enough to put him over the edge. He is a boy that thinks very literal. Things are black or white in his world. He is not interested in a stranger coming into his room – even if it is a fairy leaving money.
What are your “teeth” stories? I know you’ve got them!
Have you seen the video below? It is so, so good! Just hit play.
Oh my goodness, the comments! How can you not smile?
A little intense. That’s crazy. A sick twisted joke. Almost cruel. No, that’s inhumane. Insane. No, nobody would do that for free.
For all you moms out there, thank you for all you do to make this planet a beautiful place. We are all in this together {but sometimes not in the picture}. xoxo
Homework. What is your story? No kid loves homework. I best most don’t like it, but can get it done quickly if they just sit down and crank it out. However, others find homework the most frustrating part of their day. Any child with a learning difficulty sees homework in a very different way. Struggle, anxiety, arguments, defeat. If you are in this space, I am so {SO} sorry. We have been there and I prefer not to go back. Big W was diagnosed with ADHD a little over two years ago. I look forward to writing about our journey with attention disorder when he wants to share it. It is his story, not mine.
I love to share ideas that have helped us. This year {grade 4}, Big W has used the app Dragon Dictation to complete his weekly writing homework. His greatest struggle is getting all of his wonderful ideas from his mind onto paper. His inability to focus late in the day made this process even more frustrating. Dragon Dictation is a very simple dictation app that records your voice and converts it to text. Like any voice recognition software, it isn’t perfect. Big W has found that speaking slowly and enunciating clearly gets him the best results. He can easily correct mistakes with the keyboard and also type additional text.
The quality of his writing has dramatically improved. He is eager to choose great words and descriptive language that he would ordinarily not use if he was physically writing. His voice shines through in his weekly writing assignments. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread as far as we are concerned. To turn in the final copy we can either email his teacher directly from the app or cut and paste from an email to a Word document.
If you have a child that might benefit from this app, I suggest just playing around with it first before using it for homework. Your child might find he doesn’t like it. Also, make sure to speak with your child’s teacher and let him or her know that you would to use this app for homework completion.
Good luck! Shoot me an email {denise@whereisjune.com} if you any questions. I am happy to help if I can!
This is an insanely late post for Valentine’s Day, but I can’t really apologize. If your house is like mine, most things are put off to the bitter end. Decorating Valentine vessels is no different! Little Man is to decorate a gift bag and Big W a traditional box. Both boys are still nuts for Minecraft and wanted themed containers instead of the traditional fare. {NO pink, red, hearts or arrows for them.} We used the forever, awesome Google image search and got creative. For Little Man, I used the heart cut-out frames in PicMonkey to edit his favorite images. They are now large hearts to take up a good portion of the front and back of the bag. Big W asked me for smaller images, so we simply inserted the images into a Word document and re-sized them. I also used the design feature in PicMonkey to create images for their names. Done and done in less than 30 minutes. Not perfect, but they certainly are unique. {And very blue!}
Big W also used Cool Blue Camo stickers from Pear Tree Greetings to jazz up his box. He has informed me that it isn’t done yet. The project that keeps on giving.
Do you have someone who still needs to decorate a box? There may be some of you out there needing to knock this project off the list. Maybe I can help? Instead of doing a tutorial on how to make these printables, I just decided to include them. It saves me time, but more importantly, it saves YOU time. It is crunch time. Now you just have to print, cut and paste! Your printer just became your best friend! They are yours if you want them!
Not sure if you heard, but the Seattle Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII. Yep, it’s a pretty big deal around here. Our city has been riding high for weeks. First the anticipation leading up to the big game, then the absolute domination and victory, and finally the victory celebration! Big W and I had been planning to attend the Victory Parade even before the Hawks had won. Once Little Man heard it was during school hours, he was in too! I am going to give it to you straight. It was amazing to be there, but it wasn’t pretty. I did my best to set us up for success. I made a reservation for breakfast, we drove down early {8:15am), and got a great parking spot in a central garage. Good so far. With the parade scheduled to start at 11am- we headed out around 10 o’clock to find a spot to view the action. This is where things to a turn for the worse. My littlest guy was miserable. He had a headache and his nose was running like a faucet. It might also be good to add that he is a natural pessimist and is not a joiner. I was in trouble.
The odds quickly turned against us: 700,000+ people, the temp well-below freezing, a mom who is 60″ tall {in heels}, a parade that started 1 hour late, and a grumpy, sick kid.
This was our viewpoint. Not good.
The parade didn’t get to us until just before 1pm. The quote of the day came from Little Man. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mom, I think I might actually die.” We did get a glimpse of Marshawn Lynch throwing Skittles, Coach Carroll, and Russell Wilson holding the Lombardi Trophy. Here is a quick glimpse of our day:
My big guy was disappointed, to say the least, and we were frozen to the bone. Lucky for me, a few friends shared their awesome shots from the day. It’s almost like I was there.
Was it worth it? Yes! We were part of Seattle history. Was it fun? Meh. I am counting on a repeat Super Bowl win by our Seattle Seahawks. Next year, I will hunt down a friend who has access to a sweet balcony or great roof top view. Like anything in parenting, the first time you are just working out the kinks!
When was Little Man the happiest? Picking out candy after the parade and taking a selfie in the car. {Only a mother could love that face!}
Kids everywhere will soon be slipping small little envelopes into decorated boxes. Valentine’s Day. I love it! When Big W was in PreK he decided to get two sets of Valentine cards {one for the girls and one for the boys} and has done the same ever since. His theory: girls don’t like the same thing boys do. Wise beyond his years that one. In the past it was princesses and superheros. What else would it be? Now that they are older, and quite mature, it isn’t so cut and dry. He has out grown of most of the character Valentine cards, so this year we tried something a little different. We found Valentine’s Day Cards for kids, at Pear Tree Greetings, that we could personalize for the card exchange with his classmates. {Little Man jumped on board too!}
The boys each chose two different styles. One set for the girls. One set for the boys. I also ordered a darling photo strip Valentine to slip into the cards we send to our family. They were thrilled when they arrived at the doorstep. Next step? Figuring out what little item, treasure, or piece of candy to hand out with them. Oh, the pressure!
The envelopes are too small to send by US Mail, but you could easily slip the smaller envelope into a larger one and send these awesome greetings to anyone!
Our Valentine’s Day Cards c/o Pear Tree Greetings:
