Shields Holding Steady at 35%

On a trip to see ABT at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

The other day I called my junior high geography teacher to ask if my kids could poop at her house and in return she gave us gummy bears. Yeah, there's a little more to the story, but I'm just going to leave it at that.

You'd think I told her to pose like that but no,
it comes naturally.

Seriously. How terrible am I at keeping this thing going? It is not a hard thing to do. All right, let's see what is new since... My covid shot? Wow. Um, okay, here we go. 

We were drowned by walnuts. Most of you know this. We keep getting people stopping by saying or roof needs  replacing because of hail damage. Next time I'm just going to be like, "Nope, it's walnuts. What do you have to say now?" And they will say, "Your roof still needs replacing ma'am." And I will say, "I know!" 

We hauled about 4200 to the yard waste drop off and through accidental experimentation, we know that the squirrels hauled away at least 200 per day that they were on the ground. We'll never have an exact walnut production number, but the technical term would be 'too many.' The walnuts are done now but the leaves all fell today. On one day. I didn't know this was a thing. Looks like I have plans this weekend.

Elena started gymnastics and is crushing it. No one is surprised. She accidentally started on an evaluation day and almost tested out of the beginner level that day, but she stayed there through the summer and moved up to advanced beginner in the beginning of September. I love this new class because there are only four students in it and they all get a lot of attention. 

Last day of preschool.

Elena began kindergarten this year. At kindergarten round up last spring she saw the kindergarten teachers online, then noticed one of them at baseball at the start of the summer. She proclaimed that day that was her kindergarten teacher and that she was going to be in the same class as her two friends from baseball. We spent all summer telling her this was unlikely to happen at a school this big only to end up looking the fool when she did, indeed, get that teacher along with her two friends. She lives a charmed life, doesn't she?

First day of kindergarten.

I was checking in with her the other night to see how school was going and one of the questions I asked was if she asked for help when she needs it. She looked at me like I could not have possibly asked her a more obscene question and said, "I never need help." Her teacher confirmed this but said that she will be challenged more soon. Conferences has now become her favorite school event because she just loves to hear other people talk about how wonderful she is. 

First day of third grade.

Oskar started third grade and doesn't seem to be struggling with anything at school either, which is obviously good. His teacher emphasized that they are really working on responsibility this year and I've started to notice a slight improvement so that's exciting. He also started piano lessons over the summer. He loves playing and he loves his teacher but he hates practicing, but I think that's only because it's called practicing because once he gets going he loves it. And then Elena watches and repeats his lesson so we are getting a 2-for-1 deal from his piano teacher. He had his first recital last weekend, he did really well AND be had fun. So we're on board with the piano thing.

Dude loves to read all the things.

I'm just going to come right our and admit that we've started drugging our child. Oskar had been having trouble falling asleep because he can't stop thinking. No idea where he got that from, stop looking at me like that. Anyway, we've started giving him melatonin and it has made a huge difference. His mood has leveled out and ADD symptoms have decreased significantly. His piano teacher noticed that he was far more attentive after he began taking it as well. And the week he started it, he said it was easier to stay focused at school and he came home with two blue ratings, which I think means he was a really good listener and participant in class. The funny part is that Dan just picked up the adult gummies at Costco because that's all they had and we need to cut it into 4 pieces to get a child size dose. Yes, you read that right, Oskar is given a quarter of what is essentially a fruit snack every night at seven o'clock and it knocks him out in less than 30 minutes.

Most of the time they are friends.

We were invited to a beach by a friend at the beginning of the summer and after seeing how awesome and uncrowded it was, I told myself we should make it a regular thing. We made it back there exactly zero times after that. Oh well, maybe next year.

You know when you're at the beach and forget to
take pictures until you're in the parking lot
on your way home?

We were so excited that we were able to make it to the Renaissance Festival and the state fair this year. We had so much fun at both and apparently we managed to stay safe enough and our family and those around us remain COVID-free. 

I really will try to be better about this now that I'm kind of caught up again, but we'll see what happens. 

This Episode Brought to You by My Second Covid Shot

Elena when I told her that Nebula and Amy Pond were played by the same actress.

We were at Oskar's baseball practice last week and Elena was bored so she was just sprinting back and forth along the field. She eventually decided to do a running somersault and long story short, Elena did a flip on Wednesday.

I was so excited after I got my shot yesterday because nothing happened. I went back to work and everything was fine, then came home and took my normal Friday afternoon nap and all was glorious. Until about 10:00 PM when I became exhausted and EVERYTHING started hurting. It was not at all gradual. It was, 'Ha! This TV show is so funny' and then BAM and 'Holy crap I didn't know my eye sockets could hurt.' So I am spending the last weekend of my 34th year from the couch. I mean, I probably would be on the couch anyway, but this time I can blame the shot and not the fact that I'm really lazy on weekends.

I'm so sorry I've neglected the blog for so long. I would like to say that nothing has happened, but that isn't true. Most of you saw on Facebook that we moved into our house, finally. Make no mistake this does not mean that our house is done, and right now it feels like it never will be. We are slowly unpacking and getting rid of things we don't need, which I love, but it is taking a really, really long time.

So yeah, Oskar and Elena have started "playing" baseball. It's adorable and infuriating, We have one child with oodles of natural athletic ability and one who struggles to stay standing up straight. I try not to hover but for the love of Pete why can't he remember that he is right handed?

When we told Oskar he was going to play baseball he responded by saying that he didn't like moving. To which I said that baseball was the perfect activity for him. He is really interested in the rules and how the game works, but with no drive to excel. Which is fine. All we told him he had to do was have a good attitude about it. And yes, I absolutely bribed him with a videogame. Shut up. I did what needed to be done and you aren't going to make me feel bad about it.

Oskar and Elena occasionally mention things they miss about living in Brandon. These things include the people and the pieces of wood nailed to our tree so Ellie could climb it. But it's also amazing what made an impression on them while we were there. The other day some heavy machinery appeared in front of out house and Oskar looked outside and said, "I think they are going to fix the road."

I asked, "Yeah? Why do you think that?"

"Our road is not very good. But at least it's not as bad as the one in Brandon. I couldn't even ride my scooter on that one. It was just jsssssshhhhhhhhhhh."

Another conversation between us:
O: Did you ever get growing pains?
Me: Yes.
O: That's why my pinky hurts.
Me: No.

That's it. That's the whole post. I'm just going to ease back into this blogging thing and see if it takes. Sorry for the brevity, but my body is saying sleep, so I'm going to listen to it.