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.